Earth’s life-forms have been swimming, eating, budding, flying, digging, and floating around for billions of years. And they haven’t been doing it alone of course — so, they’ve also been raising each other, and exchanging chemicals, and fighting, and dancing for each other. Finally, a creature developed that was able to think, ‘What is all this? What’s going on here?’ That creature is the homo sapien sapien — us! Over the thousands of years since we’ve been around (a mere blink of an eye in terms of the history of life on this planet), we have tried to answer these questions in a myriad of ways. Different cultural practices, religions, and philosophies have helped us in our attempts at making sense of this complex world, and the most recent attempt has been our use of the scientific method. Through observation, experimentation, data collection and evaluation, identification of patterns, and critical thinking we have been able to better understand ourselves and our fellow organisms (31). We now know that everything here is made of matter and that matter can be broken down into elements (34). In living beings, these tiny and unique substances (elements) combine to form one or more cells (life!) (38). A fact that truly boggles my mind is that there are 118 elements in the periodic table, but only six of them account for 97 percent of human body mass (sciencing.com)! These elements are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. Elements manifest in different ways. Some can exist on their own, some have to form compounds with themselves, and some have to form compounds with other elements to be stable (39). The matter they create comes in three physical states: solid, liquid, and gas (34). These states, like everything, are subject to change. One of the most important ways in which matter changes, is through the transfer of energy.

Energy is the force that allows for actions and processes to happen; it is often defined as “the ability to do work” (39). There are two main forms of energy. One form is potential energy, which is stored energy in non-moving matter (40). Once matter is set in motion, the potential energy becomes the other main form, kinetic energy (39). We use energy to walk, to pick up a leaf, and to high-five our friends. We also use it, in much larger quantities, to power our homes with electricity and to make our cars and buses run. Scientists divide the energy we get from natural resources into two major categories: non-renewable energy and renewable energy. Non-renewable energy is from resources that “can be depleted and are not replenished by natural processes within a human time scale” (41). An example of this kind of energy is fossil fuels like natural gas, oil, and coal. The overwhelmingly large majority of the world’s energy comes from these sources, much to my disdain since learning about their driving of climate change and since becoming a climate activist a few years ago. These energy sources are able to be used through intense extraction from the earth in the form of fracking, blowing up mountains, and digging deep into the ground while destroying everything above it. Furthermore, when these sources are burned they release carbon dioxide, which is present in such large amounts in the atmosphere that it is causing the planet to warm extremely rapidly due to the greenhouse gas effect. This is disrupting ecosystems everywhere as they provide feedback loops and try to adapt, but all too slowly because they cannot keep up with the pace of our intense consumption of these sources (43). Renewable energy is energy that can be replenished naturally within a human time-span, such as wind power and solar power. While these sources still require a lot of extraction from the earth (for example, of metals), they do not contribute to the greenhouse gas effect nearly as much as burning fossil fuels does and hopefully within the next 10 years we will mostly power our societies using this form of energy. My favorite form of renewable energy that I hope really takes a big hold soon is energy from gravity. To my knowledge, it is one of the least environmentally-destructive options. How it works is that a really heavy weight of some substance, for example a large tub of sand, gets sent up and down an abandoned mine shaft to create kinetic and stored energy (gravitricity.com). I think that while we must make the transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as we can, another important step we need to take right now is decreasing our energy consumption in general. We need to be more conscious of the strain we put on the ecosystems around us when we want to power millions of buildings 24/7. Everything is delicately connected, and whether we like it or not we are connected to an unfathomable amount of diverse life every moment of our lives. Through food chain and chemical reactions with biotic and abiotic factors we at some point or another touch a vast amount of other lives. For example, let’s say you eat a fruit and throw the scraps on the ground while hiking in a forest (which you should not do because it is still littering if it is not a fruit native to that area, but for the sake of the example let’s say you did this). Over next few days or weeks, those fruit scraps will get nibbled on by animals and insects and bacteria. It will eventually end up replenishing the soil it landed on with nutrients, which will allow a wildflower to grow. A pollinator will land on that flower and many others, helping to provide food to the animals that eat the flowers. I could go on, but you can already see that your one action has touched the lives of so many beings in that one area of the forest! This connection will continue even to parts of the world one rarely thinks about, like the deepest parts of the ocean where creatures feed on the tiny fragmented debris of dead plants and animals in total and perpetual darkness. We will never truly know of all the connection between the diverse life-forms that exist here, but aren’t we so lucky that we get to be the animals to try? We are the Earth made conscious of itself! I strive to learn all about its mysteries and about the invisible strings that tie us all together as I continue to age here. How often do you think about your own connection with the non-human beings in your life? Word count: 1109.

According to G. Tyler Miller and Scott E. Spoolman, sustainability is “the capacity of the earth’s natural systems that support life and human social systems to survive or adapt to changing environmental conditions indefinitely”. They identify three scientific principles as being the key reasons why this planet has been able to sustain life: dependence on solar energy for the production of nutrients, enough biological diversity to keep populations from becoming too large and to help life adapt to environmental conditions, and the recycling of chemicals through inter-species interactions. While I recognize that these three principles “play key roles in the long-term sustainability of the planet’s life” and also understand that key does not mean only, I still want to advocate for their inclusion of a fourth principle: gravity! Gravity makes the rain fall down, gravity makes the seeds from trees fall down, etc. The gravitational forces between the celestial bodies in the Milky Way must not be overlooked, especially given how seemingly rare our planet’s life-producing/sustaining ability is! We are unfathomably lucky to be in our location in the galaxy, to have our particular orbit, and that our planetary neighbors have their particular orbits — and for these factors to have been the case for over 3.8 billion years — so, I think that is worth mentioning in a lesson about how this planet became and continues to be Living Earth.

In addition to their three scientific principles, Miller and Spoolman suggest three other principles of sustainability that stem from economics, politics, and ethics rather than from science. The principle stemming from economics is the idea of full-cost pricing. To elaborate, these authors call for “the harmful environmental and health costs” of goods and services to be reflected in their prices as a means of increasing consumer awareness of such problems. The next principle, coming from a political science standpoint, is the “win-win solutions” principle. With this principle they suggest that environmental problems can be solved by humans cooperating and compromising with each other to determine solutions that “will benefit the largest number of people as well as the environment”. Their final principle, stemming from ethics, is feeling a sense of responsibility to leave “the planet’s life-support systems in a condition that is as good as or better than it is now” for future generations of humans. I take issue with these three principles because of how human-centric their language is and how little imagination they are using! I think that instead of imagining a future where pollution is taken into account when pricing goods, we should be striving towards creating and using goods and services that do not require our emitting of pollutants. I do not think that when listing principles of sustainability and proposing solutions to our mass level of environmental degradation all across the planet I should be seeing the words ‘the environment’ being processed by the words ‘as well as’ — it should be the primary focus (for once!), and not separated conceptually from ‘people’ because in reality there is no separation. Miller and Spoolman claimed to have named the textbook Living in the Environment to emphasize this last point, but then immediately contradict it in their first chapter! Also, why must be feel a sense of responsibility to future generations of people in order to want to stop destroying habitats? What about proposing instead that we feel a sense of connection to the other life forms on this planet that already actively trying to live and are already actively being hurt by our actions? In my opinion, no matter how much human society changes, the change will not be enough if the voices of ‘sustainability’ and the people who claim to care about the planet continue to think that the universe revolves around our own species. We must recognize our animality and develop a greater, much deeper compassion for our fellow beings on this unique and beautiful and immensely fragile, tiny space rock.In the following section of the chapter, Miller and Spoolman discuss how our ecological footprints are affecting the planet. Almost every person on Earth has an ecological footprint, or, in other words, plays a role in harming the environment by contributing to the pollution of air, land, and water during their everyday activities. One attempt at calculating this human harm is the Impact Model in which Impact equals Population times Affluence times Technology because the amount that one pollutes is very strongly correlated to the amount of wealth one has and how much they participate in the oftentimes-polluting activities of the wealthy lifestyle. Rich people consume more meat, consume more packaged and processed items, buy more clothing and gadgets, travel around in cars and airplanes, and live in houses that take up the most space and use the most energy. To make matters worse, the wealthy people of the world also are the beings that are the farthest removed from feeling the negative effects of climate change and the farthest away (usually) from the sources of pollution (for example, there are no million-dollar mansions sitting right next to a toxin-spewing factory, usually low-income housing is next to that instead). The people living in the United States of America are some of the worst polluters in the world and have the highest ecological footprint. The online ecological footprint calculator states that if everybody lived like middle to upper class Americans, we would need five more Earths to support our species! I find this sickening, but not surprising because I have lived here my whole life and know how much shopping for fun is done in the country and how meat and produce is shipped all around the world for us to eat almost every single meal. When I calculated my ecological footprint, I needed 1.4 Earths to support my own lifestyle. I am now on a mission to get myself down to one Earth, because truly that is all I and anyone else has. I want to reduce the amount of packaged and processed food I consume upon learning that ‘food’ was the section that contributed the most to my own footprint, even though I am a vegetarian. For example, I plan to no longer by frozen vegetables that come in a bag but rather I will buy fresh vegetables from my grocery store that are not in any packaging and during the spring and summer I will go to the farmer’s markets around me more to make sure I am consuming locally-grown food. This is just one example of a small change that I can make for the sake of the planet. Word Count: 1101

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.