A year ago, when I started this blog, I remember having to look for material to write about. Now, I am inundated with all kinds of good stories. I could write nonstop if I wanted. I am having to make choices and some great pieces of news get left behind. Guest posts are being put on hold. This is not just me. The environment is a hot, hot topic. According to Nielsen Buzz Metrics, blog conversations about sustainability have grown more than 100% in the last 16 months.
That’s a lot of talking about becoming green. Contrast with the apparent status quo on the freeways and in the malls, and you’ve got an interesting contradiction.
La Marguerite 
It’s common to have a lot of discussion before doing anything.
But the first step to dealing with any problem is acknowledging that there actually is a problem. That this is happening is a great advance, believe me.
I concur with Kiashu.
Aside, I really like your attention to statistics.
I believe that in the years before us, we have been witnessing ever increasing divides in knowledge and mindset, and this divide will grow larger for some time in the future. That nowadays most people are online doesn’t mean the digital divide is over. People are using the internet in vastly different ways. I think we’re seeing a same kind of divide growing on thinking about sustainability.
The nice thing about watching blogs (and other social media) is that you are watching the leading demography. Averages don’t mean much if values are shifting rapidly.
I think that before you can start thinking about sustainability, you have to start thinking in general, and I think lots of people in the western world haven’t got so far yet.
Watching television or playing video games is so much easier…
Agree with both of you.
What is needed is a critical mass of influencers and leaders to steer the crowds in the right direction. Right now many of the discussions around sustainability are taking place in blogs. It is my hope that those discussions soon expand into more of the mainstream. This is why I am following Al Gore’s “we” campaign with great interest.
Dear Friends,
We need to do something, both individually and collectively, that is different from the way we are doing things now.
Time is short, it appears. Something calamitous could happen soon, much sooner than most people are imagining.
Recently the great man, James Lovelock, reported that he is hoping for 20 more years before “it hits the fan.” By ‘giving’ us twenty years, I suppose he will not disturb the reigning, self-proclaimed masters of the universe among us from my not-so-great generation of elders who have set their sights on rampantly growing the global economy until its unbridled increase becomes unsustainable and produces some kind of colossal ecological wreckage, the likes of which only Ozymandias has seen….come what may for our children, coming generations and for life as we know it on Earth.
Such adamantine willfulness, unvarnished selfishness, unmitigated arrogance, and unfathomable potential for the precipitation of mass destruction are unparalleled in human history, I believe.
Sincerely,
Steve
Yeap!
Dear La Marguerite and blogging colleagues,
Kindly pardon the redundancy if you’ve already covered this in an earlier strand = Michael Pollan’s first few paragraphs in his 12.16.07 nyt magazine piece seem quite relevant here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/magazine/16wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&oref=login
As a species, do we humans even know what we’re talking about when we utter the word “sustainable”? Seriously, what do we actually understand about “sustainability” and what it means?
At the risk of distracting from this topic’s theme, what do we (U. S. Citizens) actually understand about “Life”, “Liberty” and “Happiness”? I raise this question to indicate a general kind of challenge = we’ve still got a lot to learn! Learning about “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as well as learning about “sustainability” can and ought to be exhilarating, fun challenges (as your 4.16.08 strand on “crowdsourcing” strand proposes).
As your headline “Lots of Talk About Sustainability, Little Action” suggests, we’re looking at an enormous societal disconnect and to paraphrase Mr. Gore ‘we’ve got a lot of work to do’! How can such work be fun? I don’t know and I’d like to learn!
Some of this “work”, I trust, includes efforts to ensure that more and more people have access to learning resources (such as this blog) that enable them/us to improve our understanding of what we’re talking about when sustainability-related subjects emerge.
A major portion of our societal disconnect involves time-lags between now and whenever the various unsustainable human activity systems (i. e., “the apparent status quo on the freeways and in the malls”) we’re currently using get replaced by human activity systems designed to be enormously more sustainable. Healing this disconnect, I believe, requires an increase in appreciation (consciousness) of ecosystems = perceiving their structures and understanding how they function. Gratitude for the good work of previous generations and compassion for the lives of future generations will also help immeasurably with this healing transition-process.
Let’s assume we’re all designers of more sustainable human activity systems (or at least that we may meet such a designer and have a life-affirming influence on her/his design work) and that we’re willing to perform the due diligence involved in learning more about the actual meaning of the word “sustainability” so that we at least know what we’re talking about whenever we choose to use the word.
Mr. Pollan’s piece encourages me to work harder and smarter to ensure that my use of the word “sustainable” helps to ensure its meaning remains substantive (has strong enough jaws and teeth that it can chew through some of our collective confusion) and it seems to me that that’s the least I can do.
Kindly keep up the good work and let’s keep having fun in the process (although “fun” may seem like the most absurd notion when considering the extraordinarily complex and serious nature of our imminent sustainability challenges, let’s not underestimate its capacity to keep hope alive).
Ciao for now,
paul
Thanks Paul. For the encouragements. Absolutely it is work, but passion can carry one through lots!
[…] more changes yet in my still very carbon polluting lifestyle. The impatience I shared in ‘Lots of Talk About Sustainability, Little Action‘ was as much about my own behavior as about the persistent apathy in my fellow Americans. […]