SUSTAIN-ABILITY

I think my efforts to be a more responsible user of the earth's resources and making our family's carbon footprint smaller has rubbed off onto my children. Yesterday as I turned on the ever-so-stylish eyeball lights in our living room Logue (age 13) told me "Mom, you should turn on the light in the middle of the room it uses less energy." Right, I knew that. Bean (age 8) decided her next project at school would be to go through all their recycling, make "stuff" out of her findings, sell the "stuff" and donate the money to our local children's hospital. Sigh.

I've been kind of slacking with no particular good excuse except that the economy is threatening to take my current humble, living situation away and that makes me a little depressed. But, I believe things always happen for a reason. Yesterday I received an email from Social Media Today. Of course I always skim carefully read their emails word for word because it's only one the 512 emails I get per day, like the one from Logue's PE teacher saying he wasn't bringing his PE clothes to school to which I wanted to say Dude, you're lucky he's not hiding in the locker room, the kid likes PE about as much as showering which we have to pay him $100 to do each time and I'm looking forward to your efforts to get him in shorts 'cause it ain't gonna happen. But seriously, this email was different. It made me pause and think more about my part in sustainability. How do I fit into this enormous picture? How can I even make a dent? Or NOT make a dent as it should be. Social Media Today has created The Energy Collective, an electronic conversation about energy, policy and climate who in turn created the Sustainable Cities Collective where urban policy makers, entrepreneurs and technologists could build solutions and share ideas. The video is not an award winning, jaw dropping piece. But it does make the responsibility to take part in sustainability efforts personal.