Just a quick conclusion for you, I’ve very much enjoyed writing this, and taken it far more seriously than I though I would right at the start. This is a great method of keeping my thoughts in one place. So much so that I’m starting my own blog, that I hope to continue and enjoy just as much as this one. My goal is to ideally write after every class I have, with a focus on sustainable design, as a way to keep all my thought together and to be a valuable resource for both myself over my academic career, as well as anyone who likes it.
I’m hoping it’ll help me to really find out what it is that I want to do when I “grow up”, by really pushing myself to engage in the material I’m studying.
Check me out if you want, but at the moment it’s a bit blank:
I think the grand idea behind sustainability, environmental design, urban sustainability and all that stuff comes back to the definition by the UN’s Brundtland Commission:
“meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
This to me basically means helping. It’s looking at the bigger picture; how any efforts you can make today will not just have an impact on tomorrow, but will have a snowballing impact on the tomorrow’s to come. Each small difference you make everyday is a big difference for your children and future generations.
This can be a little change, like recycling a little each day and they can also be those emotional, cognitive and behavioural changes where recycling your coffee cup each day, then leads to further changes in your life. It might be encouraging everyone in the office to recycle their coffee cup each day, it could be recycling within your home or teaching your family and friends about not just how easy it can be to recycle, but how important it is too.
This is obviously not just confined to the act of recycling, but I think it’s an easy example that everyone can adapt in their own day to day lives. I encourage you to watch the video below as not an example of recycling or even of urban sustainability, but as a video showing the mammoth implications these tiny day to day behaviours have on the world, and on us. Consider how easy it can be to implement small tasks as you’re walking to work, or having lunch, and how your impact can change the world (please excuse the poor quality):
I believe this video is a perfect example of how helping can help and is a principle that is necessary in the attainment of sustainability to the definition mentioned earlier. This process requires a start with small changes in everyone’s day. It is important that these behaviours become natural, and that these small actions are ubiquitous as the culture of sustainability is of crucial importance. These smaller changes lead to bigger changes, and urban sustainability becomes achievable as the mindset towards these tasks changes, and the goal becomes more attainable and widely accepted.
Arguably we’re beyond the need for small changes and require far more drastic and widespread solutions to an incredibly complex social, economical and cultural issue but I believe that change can start anywhere – so why not with you?
It’s important to collectively have a goal in our minds, of how each of these small changes will ultimately impact the world, and its future or its demise. Do we really want to be to blame because we couldn’t make even the smallest of changes?
EDIT: I think this ties in quite nicely with what we discussed in this weeks lecture; there are so many small ways we can all make a difference to help he fight for sustainability. This is ideal for those of us who understand the importance of making these changes as soon as possible, and who maybe don’t have the skills or resources to make or develop the more technologically advanced changes that become equally as important as the smaller daily changes. Please consider reading this article here about changes the lazy man can make. Many of these are so easy to do you can even trick others into doing these things and showing them how easy it can be, creating a wider culture of sustainability.
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