Furman Greenbelt Sustainable Living Community

Sustainable cities are the future of urban development, and they hold the key to tackling pressing environmental challenges while ensuring a high quality of life for their residents. According to the NRDC, sustainable cities are built on three core principles: reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving resources, and promoting resilience. As we look ahead to the future, it is clear that sustainable cities will undergo transformative changes.

One of the key aspects of sustainable cities in the future will be a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. These cities will prioritize renewable energy sources, such as solar power and wind energy, to meet their electricity needs. They will also encourage the transition to electric vehicles, with an extensive network of charging stations and efficient public transportation systems. By adopting these measures, sustainable cities will not only combat climate change but also improve air quality and reduce noise pollution.

Another crucial element of future sustainable cities will be the conservation of resources. To achieve this, innovative technologies will play a vital role in optimizing resource efficiency. Buildings will be designed to be energy-efficient and equipped with smart systems that monitor and regulate energy consumption. Furthermore, sustainable cities will implement waste management strategies that emphasize recycling and composting, aiming to minimize landfill contributions. Through these practices, sustainable cities will promote a circular economy, reducing waste and preserving natural resources.

Sustainable public transit is a crucial component of a climate-friendly transportation system, as highlighted by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s focus on climate action and sustainability. According to the U.S.D.O.T., investing in sustainable public transit not only helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also offers numerous benefits for communities across the United States. Looking towards the future, sustainable public transit will undergo advancements that prioritize environmental responsibility and enhance the overall transportation experience.

In the coming years, sustainable public transit systems will prioritize electrification. By transitioning from traditional fossil fuel-powered buses and trains to electric vehicles, cities can significantly reduce their carbon footprint. Electric public transit not only eliminates direct emissions from vehicles but also offers quieter, smoother, and more reliable transportation options for passengers. Additionally, the infrastructure supporting these electric vehicles, such as charging stations and smart-grid technology, will continue to evolve and become more efficient. This focus on electrification is an essential step towards achieving a greener transportation system and reducing the reliance on fossil fuels.

Moreover, future sustainable public transit systems will also embrace innovative technologies to improve efficiency, accessibility, and user experience. Intelligent transportation systems will be implemented to optimize route planning, reduce congestion, and minimize travel times. Integration of mobile applications and real-time data will provide commuters with accurate information about bus or train schedules, reducing waiting times and improving overall convenience. Additionally, sustainable public transit will prioritize inclusive design, making public transportation accessible to all individuals, regardless of physical abilities. By considering the diverse needs of passengers, these systems will foster social equity and inclusivity within the transportation network.

U.S. Department of Transportation. “Climate Action.” Transportation.gov, www.transportation.gov/priorities/climate-and-sustainability/climate-action.

National Resources Defense Council. “Sustainable Cities.” NRDC, www.nrdc.org/issues/sustainable-cities#overview.

The concept of a “walkable community” has picked up palpable steam in several channels across the internet recently. While the common or expected reason to reduce the foothold that car-centered infrastructure has on American cities would be the effect on the physical environment, there are a growing number of individuals supporting it for the sake of their social environments. Increasingly, I am seeing a longing for community within younger populations on social media. This led me to the realization that environmental goals do not have to come at the cost of comfort and lifestyle in the way that they are marketed. To achieve more sustainable communities and reduce our footprint on the planet’s environment, it is valuable to build and promote infrastructure that condenses living spaces and increases accessibility to necessary resources.

As the name suggests, walkable communities are places that prioritize the accessibility of goods and services on foot. This can include basic group transportation such as trolleys and buses, but for the most part, the idea is to be able to walk to your needs if able. This style of city holds a number of benefits for the citizens and the environment alike. For the environment, less paved roads and more paved sidewalks improve microclimates that heat cities and raise the need for air conditioning. On top of this, walkable cities minimize land use which leaves more room for animal and plant populations to thrive. For the citizens, commutes shorten, and the entire community is able to live in a much more engaging and vibrant environment including more common use of parks and town squares. Also, they promote more quiet communities as there are fewer automobiles and large vehicles.

College campuses highlight a key example of creating efficient an effective walkable communities. They are required, in most cases, to provide basic necessities to students of all backgrounds. Those without automobiles are encouraged to find other means of transportation. According to some experts, American college campuses can be used as a model for creating and implementing walkable practices.

Since I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, I know all too well the horrors of daily commutes. They contribute to stress and a sedentary lifestyle. I believe that more cities should invest in the walkability of their communities. Between the younger populations that are becoming increasingly focused on building community and the sake of the planet’s environment, these types of cities would improve the economic and mental conditions of this country’s citizens as well as aid it in achieving environmental and sustainability goals. Atlanta, for one, would greatly benefit from less angry drivers.

Steuteville, Robert. 2021. “Ten Environmental Benefits of Walkable Places.” CNU. August 31, 2021. https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2021/08/31/ten-environmental-benefits-walkable-places.

‌Maciag, Mike. 2013. “The Most Walkable Cities and How Some Are Making Strides.” Governing. Governing. 

December 11, 2013. 

https://www.governing.com/archive/gov-most-walkable-cities.html.

https://www.bupipedream.com/author/klee216. 2022. “The Walkability of College Campuses Should Be Mirrored in U.S. Cities.” Pipe Dream. 2022. https://www.bupipedream.com/opinions/133103/the-nostalgia-that-many-americans-have-for-their-college-years-can-be-tied-to-the-walkability-of-college-campuses-compared-to-most-towns-and-cities-in-the-united-states-college-campuses-are-highly-w/.

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It’s getting tough to not think we are headed for apocalypse. With meaningful change on a global policy level seeming less and less likely as our political system continues to stall in arguments over whether climate change exists or not, society’s future is looking grim. In a rather pessimistic (but maybe a better term is realistic) for the New Yorker, writer Jonathan Franzen says that: “You have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth—massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under thirty, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it (Franzen, 2019). Now, Franzen is no scientist, but he seems to be capturing the narrative that our generation has been fed for years now: Unless we do something about it, everything will be wiped out by climate change.

This is sort of a brutal thing to deal with. In the past year alone, I’ve heard the term “climate anxiety” thrown around almost as much as the topic of climate change. Most of us are terrified of what is coming for us. This anxiety is not encouraged by the world momentarily crossing the critical threshold of 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures while I was gathering information for this journal (Ray, 2023). We can’t even really grasp what truly is coming for us. In the absence of legislative change, we are sort of left hoping for a mysterious technological advancement that will save us all. What we are waiting for in the face of the potential apocalypse, is a “deus ex machina”, a literary term describing a plot device that swoops in at the end of the narrative and solves all problems (Methmann, 2012).

What will this look like? It is sort of impossible to imagine what this deus ex machina may look like. Certain movies have tried. Though they are not to be looked at as scientific models for what to do, seeing as they are fiction, there are three movies that come to mind that show technological “solutions” to the apocalypse we may soon face: WALL-E, Interstellar, and Snowpiercer.

First off, there is WALL-E. It is probably not a bas assumption to make that we’ve all seen this movie, as it was one of the defining movies of our collective childhoods. The climate disaster world WALL-E imagines is that of a world filled with uninhabitable amounts of pollution, with humans leaving Earth to board a spaceship in an attempt to leave for a while and come back when the Earth is more livable. Society has vastly changed while aboard the spaceship, with all people being immobile without the assistance of machines, all of them still consuming in large quantities, this time without any of the repercussions. In their place on Earth, a race of robots is left, with their task being to package and dispose of all the waste left behind. Centuries after the humans first left, WALL-E, the last of the earth-roaming robots, and EVE, a robot sent to evaluate life on Earth, to alert the humans aboard the spaceship of a plant that has grown on Earth’s surface, signaling that the planet can now sustain life again. The movie ends with the humans returning to Earth in hopes of re-starting civilization.

Next, we have Interstellar. This film centers on Cooper, a former pilot for NASA who is tasked with finding another inhabitable planet for humans after poor agricultural practices and lack of regard for the environment send humanity into a second, much larger Dust Bowl. The only crop that can be grown is corn, and even this will not last long. Cooper, along with three other astronauts, are forced to leave their lives and families behind in order to find a more suitable home, bringing a civilizations supply of human embryos with them. While Cooper does this, his daughter, Murph, works on a long-abandoned gravity formula that will allow the humans currently living on Earth to continue on the new planet. Due to a combination of love and black hole induced time dilation, the formula is solved, allowing for humanity to continue in tact.

Last on our climate movie watchlist is Snowpiercer. In this movie, in an attempt to combat global warming, world governments released CW-7, a cooling agent, into the air, causing the world to freeze over, killing almost everything. The only people left are those who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that is fully self-sustaining. The train has a strict caste system set in place in order to “maintain order”. The movie centers on Curtis Everett, a man from the back of the train trying to push his way to the front to establish equality. The movie ends with Curtis deliberately blowing up the train in order to stop the system of injustice. Two children survive, going outside to discover that temperatures are now survivable.

So what can we learn? Well, first off, we have to prevent the apocalypse before it happens, because the worlds of all of these films seem horrific, and should be avoided at all costs. Second, and more important to my point, it seems that the message of these movies is to sort of wait the crisis out, hoping that technological advancement will eventually save us. Whether it’s a shockingly adorable robot, a magic formula for gravity, or a train that lets us wait out the disaster, each of these films has some sort of technology that leads to the hopeful salvation of humanity. These movies however, are all science fiction, and ambitiously unrealistic ones at that. The “wait for technology to save us” approach will not work in real life. There’s no funny robot to get rid of our issues. There will be no convoluted formula about gravity. There won’t be a train that can sustain humanity. We’ve got to do something to stop the climate disaster before it happens. There’s no deus ex machina at the end for us. That only works in the movies.

Franzen, Jonathan. “What If We Stopped Pretending?” The New Yorker, 8 Sept. 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-if-we-stopped-pretending.

Methmann, C., & Rothe, D. (2012). Politics for the day after tomorrow: The logic of apocalypse

in global climate politics. Security Dialogue, 43(4), 323-344. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010612450746

Ray, Siladitya. “Global Temperatures Briefly Crossed Critical Threshold For The First Time Last Week.” Forbes, 20 Nov. 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/11/20/global-temperatures-briefly-crossed-critical-threshold-for-the-first-time-last-week/?sh=170fa629368e.

My home city of Tega Cay, South Carolina is known for its historical charm and luscious trees. In fact, the city flag depicts a pine tree which represents this reputation. This is ironic to me, as my town has increasingly favored the economy over nature and wildlife. Not to mention, there are more subdivisions than trees. It was not always this way. Several changes have been made over the past few years. While I was not happy with the state of our environmental policies in the past, they are preferable to the current state of things.

Every time I return home, there’s a new policy in place that only seems to take my town backward. Last year, during my first visit, I was met with a particularly distressing change. It is now $10 per month to continue recycling pick-up each week. This was announced on the city’s Facebook page. There were three options presented in a telling fashion. Below is the graphic posted on the city’s page.

The first option listed is to discontinue your recycling pickup entirely. The second is to pay $10 monthly for an entirely new trash can to adjust for the additional recycling waste that now must be thrown away. The third is to continue recycling, for the low price of $10 a month. I find the order of alternative options to be quite telling. The options are listed in order of convenience, based on time and money. It is convenient for people to not worry about recycling anymore. The cost for pick-up recycling is in line with those for Spotify, Netflix, and other entertainment services. Most people would prioritize their own entertainment over recycling, understandably. It is difficult to see any immediate benefit from recycling, whereas subscribing to an entertainment service has a clear and immediate benefit.

There is currently no location other than the Facebook page where you can find information about recycling policy. When navigating to the “Trash and Recycle” page on the city website, you are met with an error message. I find that this reflects the lack of care the city has for both communicating with its residents and promoting sustainable practices.

This problem is not only concentrated in my small hometown. Greenville County is dealing with its own recycling-related dilemma. Currently, recycling is only picked up within Greenville city limits. Citizens cannot pay a $10 monthly fee to get their recycling picked up; they have no choice but to stop recycling or haul it over to their nearest drop-off area. Furman is affected by this county-wide change and has opted to pay an outside contractor to pick up waste. Even with the trash and recycling pick-up in place, Furman still does not accept glass or many types of plastics for recycling. Only products labeled with a 1 or a 2 are eligible to be recycled.

What has been causing environmental initiatives to regress at this rate? The reasons are a lack of money and education. Several areas worldwide cannot afford to advance their current sustainable practices, much less keep them in place. Though, in many cases, the money is there for a city to utilize, leaders just wish to invest it in more profitable ventures (most of which include the destruction of the environment). Dealing with waste efficiently doesn’t have an immediate reward, making it unappealing to many. The idea of sustainability is to preserve what we have in the long term. If more people were conscious of the long-term in decision making, sustainable practices would be more prevalent around the country.

Sources:

County of Greenville, SC. (n.d.). https://www.greenvillecounty.org/solidwaste/CurbsideRecycling.aspx

Signature Waste. (n.d.). Tega Cay Account Setup. Retrieved October 3, 2023, from https://signaturewaste.com/tegacay/

Trash and Recycle. (n.d.). Tega Cay South Carolina. Retrieved October 3, 2023, from https://www.tegacaysc.org/995/Trash-and-Recycle

Esteemed adventurer and hero Chris McCandless wandered into the unforgiving wilderness of Alaska in April of 1992. Ditching all of his personal items and previous life, McCandless died of starvation in August of 1992. His legacy is frequently debated. Some believe him to be an idol: a brave soul who left society behind to find himself. Others believe him to be a fool: an idealistic, naïve man who underestimated the Alaskan wilderness.

My interpretation of Chris is defined by his conclusions of living off the land. Before his death, McCandless wrote “happiness is only real when shared.” (Azevado 2018) After removing himself from society, living off the land, and rejecting help from anyone else, his main take away was that what he was doing was not the answer to his troubled mind. In a day and age where the current generation is constantly being reminded of how troubled our future will be, these words stuck with me.

First picture shows difference of 18 years in arctic ice (ABC News), second picture shows the difference of 63 years in Alaska (NASA). 

The American Psychology Association (APA) defines eco-anxiety as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations.” (APA 2023) My generation is far too familiar with political inactivity, systemic discrimination, and constant environmental degradation. The ignorance of the general public in the face of climate change can be so overwhelming that Chris McCandless’ philosophy of isolation seems enticing.

Although McCandless’ abandonment of civilization was not in light of climate change, it was in light of his resentment of society and the materialistic values of a capitalistic system. Now applying Chris McCandless’ findings to the modern-day context of navigating a world that seems hopeless, we reach the conclusion that the answer is not a hut in the woods. The philosophy of isolationism in this case is selfish and cowardly and the only reason McCandless pursued this life was because—maybe only deep down—he had no intention of returning from the wilderness. What if McCandless lived a life of philanthropy and social connection rather than giving up completely? Would helping and connecting with others not spark introspection and acceptance? 

The only way through the problems we will inevitably face, is to tackle them together. After all, humans are, and always have been, social creatures. We must find a way to be less critical and egocentric, and more compassionate and empathetic to those who live their life in constant struggle.

Personally, as an SUS major, my eco-anxiety is lessened by the knowledge that I will always try my best as an individual to address these daunting and seemingly impossible tasks. One in my position must be able to reimagine and question every aspect of our modern-day life. This kind of positive thinking requires a certain fairy-tale, picturesque imagination that can see past the rigid societal structures to envision a world in which children will not have to have to walk miles for drinkable water, violent storms will not shake the foundations of homes, and coastal cities will not be washed away by destructive flooding.

The eco-cabins serve as a bridge between everyday people and habits that must be adopted to create a sustainable future. It has served as a symbol to the Furman community that we acknowledge the lasting effects of climate change and that we will commit ourselves to do everything we can to create a different life in the future. Most importantly, we do it together, as a community, rather than trying to conquer society’s biggest problems solo. 

Works Cited:

The Cabin we live in has a porch on the outside. Often, at the end of a long week, all I want to do is go and sit on the porch. I might read, listen to music or (my personal favorite) talk with some of my cabin-mates. It’s wonderful – being able to sit and do nothing, having the earned privilege of laziness after working tirelessly through the week. 

When living in South Housing, I didn’t get this opportunity. I remember waking up on a weekend and wishing for nothing more than a chance to just sit and do nothing, but the only option was an inhospitable “backrooms” corridor down the hall that didn’t even have a window, much less access to the open air and a gorgeous view. I would just go to breakfast, but to do that I had to shower, and if I showered I might as well start on my day, get my homework done, or if not, I would go drive to town to spend my time with friends getting food somewhere. Without an opportunity to expend my time uselessly, I fell into the endless cycle of productivity followed by high-energy leisure. 

This isn’t a “me problem.” This is a socio-economic problem. 

Since 1950, global resource use has increased steadily and exponentially (Steffan et al. 2015). The global economic system has pushed itself to an existential extreme, tearing apart the intricate systems that keep our world functioning. This dramatic increase is not strictly necessary for our survival – it is only the most wealthy that are responsible for the majority of our ecological overshoot (Wiedemann et al. 2020). From this it follows that we can feasibly reduce production, redirect existing production towards equitable distribution, and thus increase equality while reducing our global ecological footprint. One of the most popular means by which we can reduce material throughput is something that typical economists would scoff at – work-time reduction and increased leisure. If we work less, we can use less materials for production given the surplus is distributed equitably. 

BUT, it is crucially important that our leisure time is spent doing non-materially-intensive things, and Ryan Gunderson says “there are perhaps no more ‘environmentally friendly behaviors’ […] than idling or doing nothing” (Gunderson 2018). This is where the porch comes in. Common spaces, access to the outdoors, and proximity to others create perfect conditions for social idleness and enjoyable laziness. But why, even when provided these spaces and opportunities, do we still choose to work? On a personal level and on a societal level, why would we rather pursue something that is so destructive?

Georges Batailles, a 20th century philosopher, would argue that this is an economic and existential problem. Our continuous pursuit of growth, he argues, exemplifies the struggle for survival. Even though we have accumulated well more than enough to establish our survival, social and economic atomization reduces the amount of excess that we can use as individuals, whereas the immeasurable excess that society produces collectively could allow us all to live comfortably and joyously. Bataille argues that part of the reason why we choose to focus on survival (or growth), and avoid expenditure is that survival as a goal is provided to us when we are born – it’s easy to fall back on. Expenditure, on the other hand, forces us to confront the existential freedom that we are all faced with and say: “What are we going to make of ourselves in this terrifyingly free world?” (Romano 2014)

So what do we do? Having a porch in a collective living space can help us to firmly, collectively choose – against economic, social, and existential factors – that we have a right to be lazy, and we are going to take advantage of it. 

Works Cited:

Gunderson, R. (2018). Degrowth and other quiescent futures: Pioneering proponents of an idler society. Journal of Cleaner Production, 198, 1574-1582.

Romano, O. (2014). Dépense. In D’Alisa, G., Demaria, F., & Kallis, G. (Eds.). Degrowth: a vocabulary for a new era. Routledge.

Steffen, W., Broadgate, W., Deutsch, L., Gaffney, O., & Ludwig, C. (2015). The trajectory of the Anthropocene: the great acceleration. The Anthropocene Review, 2(1), 81-98.

Wiedmann, T., Lenzen, M., Keyßer, L. T., & Steinberger, J. K. (2020). Scientists’ warning on affluence. Nature communications, 11(1), 3107.

Since the beginning of last year, I’ve made it my mission to switch as many household items to reusable as possible. It started simple, switching disposable Keruig pods, once I used up what I had, for a few reusable ones and switching out disposable round cotton pads (for your face) for some cloth ones. These were a few of the simple things that were easy to switch to when moving into college for the first time. But as I have moved into the Eco-cabin I’ve learned it’s not just about switching products from disposable to reusable, it’s also about changing one’s habits to a more sustainable one. 

You might be asking yourself ‘How can one change their habits or where would I even start’. Let’s start by talking about what a habit is. Habits are a subconscious repeated manner that helps dictate some of the things we do in our day-to-day lives. Habits can range from small things like looking up when you hear a noise, to looking at your phone constantly when it pings. Habits are formed by four cues: number one is cue, which could be the pinging of your phone: number two is craving, now you crave to check your phone to see the notification: number three is response, now you pick up your phone to see the notification: number four is reward, now you are satisfied after looking into what the message was. These four cues all relate to James Clear’s model, The Habit Loop. 

You now might be asking yourself how this relates to sustainability. Well, to become more sustainable one has to change their habits. For example, looking back at my Keurig example., When using disposable Keurig pods, I always felt guilty about throwing them away when I knew they could be composted and recycled. To fix this, I got reusable Keurig pods to satisfy my craving for having the ability to compost the coffee grounds and, if needed, recycle the Keurig pods. This is an example of fixing a small habit, something easily manageable to do in a short amount of time. But the bigger the habits that need changing, the harder and longer it takes to do. The new types of habits that I want to form require more time and patience, as well as starting to notice when the habits are in effect.

To create a good habit, we first need to know what our cue is. Finding out what are cue is will make it so we know when the habit will trigger into action. The second step is making the craving look attractive enough to break the old hold. The third step is making the response easy to change. Finally, the fourth step, making the reward to be satisfying. Combining all of these steps, from James Clear’s chapter, will allow you to start making new good habits. But with every good habit, there will always be some bad habits that need to be changed.

To make new habits have an effect, we might need to break a few old habits because they might counteract what your new habit might be doing. Like the previous times, we always start with cues and work our way down. To break a bad habit one must make their cue invisible, out of sight out of mind. Second, making the craving unattractive. Third, making the response difficult to do. Lastly, make the reward as unsatisfying as possible. Following these steps that James Clear has set up, will start you on a path to creating new sustainable habits. 

If you having trouble starting new sustainable habits start with something small. For example, eating out less, going thrifting before buying new, buying in bulk instead of in small quantities, etc. Starting out small and seeing what you can accomplish is the best way to try to change some of your habits into more sustainable ones. 

Sources:

Clear, James. Atomic Habits. Chapter 3,  How to Start New Habits that Stick.

https://jamesclear.com/three-steps-habit-change#:~:text=All%20habits%20proceed%20through%20four,the%20same%20order%20each%20time.

Duhigg, Charles. The Power in Habit. What we do in life and business

https://courses.furman.edu/pluginfile.php/760606/mod_resource/content/0/Habits%20book%20chapter.pdf

(Thank you Dr. Allen for showing this resource to SUS 120 last semester)

Image Source:

https://jamesclear.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/The-habit-loop-01-e1537283945960-971×1200.png

In late February 2015, the Republican senator from Oklahoma, James Inhofe, brought a snowball from outside the Capitol building onto the Senate floor to prove that the Earth is not getting warmer (Barrett 2015). We can address Inhofe’s misinformation with simple ecological definitions: in which, the climate is the general trend of atmospheric conditions, and the weather is the atmospheric conditions of a discrete moment in time.

Ontology is the branch of philosophy concerned with being. It attempts to answer questions like, “What does it mean for something to be a thing?”; “If you were to break a table in half, do you now have two half-tables or one table that is in two pieces or all three of those things?”; and “How do our interactions with objects change their identities?” With that in mind, Inhofe unintentionally raised a very interesting ontological question that we could frame as, “Without the use of any specific scientific jargon, what is Climate Change?”

Philosopher Sean Esbjorn-Hargens provides one answer, stating, “Climate Change is a complex phenomenon that is enacted by multiple methodologies from various disciplines. No single method by itself can ‘see’ or reveal climate change in its entirety.” He continues, “[Climate Change] is a multiple object. So, while it may be multiple… it is an object nonetheless… it is real!” (Esbjörn-Hargens 2010). So, climate change is a complex web of intersecting and interrelated causes culminating toward a trend. The warming of the Earth is not the only aspect of climate change; it also encompasses poverty, famine, instability, flooding, drought, disease, etc. Climate change’s identity is necessarily entangled with all these factors.

This complexity is very difficult to unravel.

Perhaps this is why much of the up-to-date literature on how we ought to think about climate change, sustainability, and the environment seems to draw an opposite conclusion: mindfulness. Mindfulness, as Ericson et al. write, “[is a meditation practice that] means being aware, taking note of what is going on within ourselves and outside in the world… It can be defined as ‘paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally’… one simply pays attention to one’s experiences, from moment to moment” (Ericson 2014). This doctrine, when applied to the environment, resembles Inhofe’s snowball. Mindfulness seems to suggest that we should care that it’s snowing, not just that it will be warmer next summer.

However, research shows that this perspective is useful for developing a more sustainable mindset. “Mindfulness meditation [is] widely practiced for the reduction of stress and promotion of health” (Tang 2015). Additionally, “stress, depression, and physical pain make it harder to consider societal concerns such as climate change” (Ericson 2014). See fig. 1.

This leaves us with a seemingly intractable dilemma—how can we balance the ontological fact of climate change’s complexity and interconnectedness while thinking about it in a way that does not feel completely overwhelming? This can lead to stress and, consequently, more unsustainable behavior.

Tang et al. suggest something akin to what a psychoanalyst might call ego-death. They propose that an ideally mindful practice looks less intrapersonal and more like a breaking down of the walls between the self and the rest of reality. “The distinction between self and object is absent… awareness is itself the subject of awareness” (Tang 2015). On the other hand, Esbjorn-Hargens offers a perspective that claims that the real nature of what climate change is is  contingent on your personal relationship with it. “The argument is no longer that methods discover and depict realities. Instead, it is that they participate in the enactment of those realities” (Esbjörn-Hargens 2010).

These arguments are not mutually exclusive, but I don’t think that they are universally applicable. Which I find problematic. Tang’s account is logically consistent but pragmatically unhelpful. Per their own account, years of intentional practice are often necessary before we can measure physical neurological changes from mindfulness (Tang 2015). We must also remember that meditation is hard, achieving ego-death even moreso. Esbjorn-Hargens’ suggestion may fail to resonate with the layperson; if I am not a climatologist, political analyst, or an Arctic researcher, am I really ‘participating in the enactment of reality’? Or, if I am, what else is there to do?

My perspective is that the simple awareness of one’s climate-related stress—or any stress—is as good as it gets. I would still suggest that anyone practice mindfulness; it does help you become happier, healthier, and more sustainable. However, it may not alleviate the overwhelming nature of climate change because it is not designed to do so. As Viktor Frankl once wrote, “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior” (Frankl 2006). Meditation will not make climate change any less overwhelming; it will only provide you with more freedom in how you experience being overwhelmed. For me, even the simple act of saying to myself, “I am feeling overwhelmed, I am feeling stressed, and the reason is climate change” can provide almost immediate relief.

It’s worth noting that I try to avoid “I am…” and instead start the mantra with “I am feeling…” or “This person is feeling…” in order to create distance between myself and the emotion. When I just state “I am overwhelmed,” that feels like tying up the entirety of my identity with my momentary mental state. This is what separates mindful reflection from Inhofe’s snowball argument. The distinction is between existing in the moment and being tied-up in it. There is a difference between me and the weather, or the climate and my emotions.

References
Barrett T. 2015 Feb 27. Inhofe brings snowball on Senate floor as evidence globe is not warming. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/politics/james-inhofe-snowball-climate-change/index.html.

Ericson T, Kjønstad BG, Barstad A. 2014. Mindfulness and sustainability. Ecological Economics. 104:73–79. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.04.007. [accessed 2023 Sep 9]. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914001165.

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It is time. The dreaded finals week. James B. Duke Furman Library is crowded with overwhelmed and sleep deprived students. The atmosphere is thick with tension and anxiety. I, myself, sit amongst the crowd buried deep within my semester’s notes and my textbooks. As my focus drifts, I look around at my surroundings and notice there are a lot of notes and textbooks laid out around me. That is a lot of paper. I begin to question, with all this paper- how is this good for the environment? Are there any better alternatives to traditional hard-covered textbooks and spiral notebooks for students? Would these alternatives be viable and actually sustainable? 

 Since kindergarten, I have been taught that paper is bad for the environment, it destroys the rainforests and natural habitats, and I should always recycle my paper waste. So how bad is paper production for the environment? According to the online Paper Calculator presented by the Environmental Paper Network, manufacturing one pound of standard copy paper would result in the release of 9.0 pounds of carbon dioxide, the use of 10.7 gallons of water, the use of 0.02 US short tons of wood, creation of 0.6 pounds of solid waste, and the total energy required would equate to 0.01 million BTUs. So these numbers appear daunting, but what do they actually mean? Luckily, the Paper Calculator provides further explanation of these measured values. The production of one pound of paper releases the same amount of carbon dioxide as 0.001 cars per year. The 10.7 gallons of water used to make one pound of paper corresponds to 0.008 clothes washing machines operating per year. One pound of paper is made from approximately 0.01 trees. 0.6 pounds of solid waste is generated by 0.1 people daily. And finally, 0.02 residential refrigerators operated per year generates the equivalent 0.01 million BTUs of energy needed to produce one pound of standard copy paper. (1) These numbers may not seem so bad for one pound of paper. However, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, ”the average American uses more than 700 pounds of paper a year.” (2) Now multiply the numbers above by the 700 pounds and by over 330 million Americans, and you can see that paper production has substantial implications on the environment. 

So what alternatives to paper are there? Probably the most popular suggested solution is the substitution of paper with technology such as laptops, tablets, and eBooks. Especially with advancements with technology that allow users to take as many notes and download as many files as their harddrive can contain. It appears as a simple and an easy solution to decrease paper waste, however is this solution so simple? Learning about sustainability, I learned that one of the key pillars is social equity. Tablets, laptops, and note-taking applications all cost a lot of money. An iPad 10 sold on the Apple website cost $449 while a 70 page spiral notebook costs 34 cents at Office Depot. Individuals from various socioeconomic backgrounds may not have the luxury to renounce themselves from using paper, and forcing the digitalization of academia may further encourage economic and social disparities. Additionally, when writing this blog post, I consulted with the Queen of Notetaking, my older sister. She has been avidly taking paper notes and purchasing physical copies of books throughout her entire education. When I asked her what she thought about switching to electronic notes, she told me it would be impossible given she is a spatial learner, and she is able to memorize content based on its location within a book or within her notebooks. So switching to electronic note taking could potentially put individuals, like my older sister, with spatial memory at a disadvantage. Finally, when researching the topic, I came across a study, published in August of 2020, which compared the Environmental Life Cycle Assessments (an evaluation of the product upon the environment over its lifespan) between a notebook, an Apple iPad tablet, and a reMarkable tablet. The study was able to conclude that “the paper notebook [outperformed] the tablets in almost all impact categories… a student considering a new note-taking device, paper notebooks seem to be more environmentally friendly than the tablets, given the current state of technology.” (3) 

It seems that reducing the environmental impact of paper production is a difficult problem to tackle with no simple solution. Afterall paper has been a part of humankind since 105 AD and has been instrumental in documenting history, preserving cultures, and facilitating communication. I do not believe we will ever be without paper. However, with advancements of technology and education about sustainability, I believe we can come up with some compromises. Raising awareness and encouraging individuals to be more conscious of their paper use and waste is a good start. Encouraging recycling and the use of paper made from recycled materials can also be beneficial. Also, possibly implementing a note or textbook exchange, where students share their paper notes and textbooks once they complete their finals. I think implementing these small changes can be a great start to decrease the environmental effects of paper manufacturing until more technological advancements and sustainable solutions can become available.

1. https://c.environmentalpaper.org/individual.html#
2.  https://www.epa.gov/greenerproducts/identifying-greener-paper
3. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212827120302687#sec0019