The final in a series of writings done by first year students at IUSB. They were in Marcia Holland’s intro writings course, W130, where their writing prompts were on sustainability topics.
By Courtney Harris
Throughout history, we’ve looked at earth as though it were so bountiful that there would never be a time when it would run out. However, it seems that we have reached that point, and cradle to grave outlets are becoming more costly to our future. This is where we must balance our needs, verses our wants. Duane Elgin explains in his piece “Simplicity and Consumption,” that our need to consume is balanced by need verses want. Our need to fulfill our basic needs is obvious, however our want supplies something completely different: our identity. Although society has always accepted the ability to consume rather than ration as an identity factor, we are coming to an age that using renewable energy, and efficiently using conservation methods are what not only enables a class system, but whom will survive the inevitable circle of life….
As a whole, our way of life is not without flaws, but it is also not without its potential to become more. It is proven again and again in society the reality of change, and what such change can produce. Over the last several decades when it comes to food, it seems to be how much we’ve learned about the way such life sustains itself. The greater lesson, however, may become how we are most capable of sustaining our kind. The goal has always been to retrieve more from less, but perhaps this goal will evolve to seeing that not everything can be manipulated to give more than it’s meant to. Time is of the essence, and we can either learn from our past, or repeat the same mistakes in more innovative ways.
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