Rethinking Lifestyle

Our Planet Earth is sending us signals – natural systems are being unbalanced. We have desecrated our beautiful planet Earth, and need to stabilize and renew it. We need to do this for ourselves, for our families, for our descendants, and for our neighbours nearby and around the world. We can learn from Indigenous people who think in terms of seven future generations.

We must change our lifestyles in order to live more sustainably. Katherine Hayhoe in her book, Saving Us, states that “If everyone in the world lived like the average North American, we would need five planet Earths to support them”. This is based on calculations of our ecological footprint, which defines the resources needed to support us.

Therefore, to live responsibly, we need to reduce our consumption to 1/5, or 20% of present consumption. Even allowing for a cold climate, we need to reduce consumption drastically.

At the same time, our decades of living free and easy have resulted in GHG emissions that are drastically changing our global climate. We must bring net GHG emissions to zero within a decade or two to reduce the adversity, destruction, dislocation, and loss of lives that climate change is bringing. Fortunately, reducing consumption will also reduce our emissions and help solve other environmental problems.

Thinking about this could bring fear and paralysis. It would be better to feel the urgency and to be encouraged to act, individually and together, to improve our future.

• We all need shelter.
• We all need to travel.
• We all must eat.
• We all need recreation and renewal.

Numerous options exist in all the above categories. We can all consume less, whether in terms of our energy use in homes, vehicles, lawn mowers, and so on. We can also choose to use renewable energy instead of carbon-based energy.

I grew up on a small mixed/dairy farm, demanding much manual labour, with limited conveniences. Since then, we all have enjoyed many labour-saving devices, cheap energy, ever-increasing availability of goods and services including computer and communication devices, and growing affluence. It was easy to participate in these changes over many decades.

Unfortunately, our current lifestyle is not sustainable, and we must cut back, reduce consumption, and learn to live differently. This will probably require more self-reliance, less lavish homes, home-grown food, reduced vacation travel and more. These will bring us satisfaction different than before.

Who will lead us? Community groups, corporations, politicians, builders, car manufacturers, city planners and others can lead, but they can lead only according to wishes (or the perceived future wishes) of the public. We the public have the most important decisions to make.

What can we do? In addition to making changes to our own levels of consumption and to using renewable fuels, we can have a positive influence in several ways.

We can vote for candidates who are serious about moving to sustainable living, in municipal, provincial, and federal elections.

We can provide information and opinion in improving programs, projects, and legislation. Last week I sent my response regarding adoption of a modified Manitoba Building Code for residential and commercial buildings. The proposed building code would have 4 tiers, with increasing levels of energy efficiency.

My response was based on our family’s experience in building a house with energy-conserving features as well a solar PV system to generate renewable energy. This was a result of an open invitation from Sustainable Building Manitoba, who send our responses to the Premier, our MLA, eight Provincial Ministers, members of the Official Opposition and the leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party. I have received several acknowledgements and replies within a few days. Your input can be provided without becoming a member, at the Sustainable Building Manitoba website.

We can also plan creatively for the future. I will be ready for a seniors’ place in a few years. For all real estate developers out there, I would like you to know that I want to move to a net zero energy and net zero GHG emissions facility. I expect that I will have a lot of company with the same desire.