Sustainable living; my definition - by Robb

To sustain means to hold up or bear the weight of. Our lives rely on and demand much of the ecosystem we are a part of. To make them sustainable we must insure that the ecosystem can bear the weight we impose upon it. If not, the ecosystem that supports us will crumble like the support of an overloaded bridge. Every single thing we do in our daily lives has an impact on the support systems we rely on.

In order to practice sustainable living we must examine the minutiae of our lives and determine if the individual activities therein are sustainable. A simple example of this is reliance on fossil fuels. There is a finite supply of fossil fuels, they cannot be renewed. Therefore, use of it, in any form; motor fuel, heating, plastics, paints and solvents, wherever it is used is unsustainable because the finite resource cannot support the use of it, not to mention the damage they cause to the ecosystems which support us. But is it reasonable to expect a complete avoidance of fossil fuel use in our modern lives? Probably not, but careful attention to our personal behaviour will reveal many opportunities to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels in many contexts and thus make our lives more sustainable. Each person will have to decide the degree to which they are willing pursue sustainability in regard to each resource.

These types of decisions must eventually be made about everything we do if we are to practice sustainable living