This article is excerpted from TIME: SUSTAINABILITY ‘, available in stores and on Amazon. In his book Walden, the American essayist Henry David Thoreau’s famous documented his attempts to live simply and “deliberate” on the edge of a lake in the woods of Massachusetts. While many today think Thoreau memories tell a paean to a solitary existence, those who study and teach Thoreau that this is a mistake. “The message from Walden is not about to retire from the company,” said Aaron Sachs, a professor of history at Cornell University, American culture and commitment to nature and the natural resources studied. “Thoreau wrote at a time when people had to make this quite independent transformation to grow in terms other than their own food and plenty of time to make their own clothes to be dependent on wages and leave industrial production.” This dependence many feeling helpless and desperate, he says. The industrial revolution also led to a new era of never seen before consumption and waste. Given all this, Thoreau was to write about build the waste materials with his own home, or sometimes even to look for food in the forest. “He was remembering the people who live alternative routes that do not rely on the use of predatory natural resources,” says Sachs. In other words, Thoreau was more humanist like a hermit. And it was an early advocate of sustainable living in the country. Today, the ideas that Thoreau married are more than 160 years ago, alive and well. sensitive by nature and minimal consumption practices for thoughtful reclassification and recycling of materials have many new followers are affected at a time when many of the health of the planet and its resources acquired by Thoreau approaches. But while today are not possible in his time, many of Thoreau causes a high degree of sustainable requested personal sacrifice living the same requirements. It only requires a change in attitude and priorities-those that can lead to a happier life, rich and happy. There are indications that Americans are increasingly willing to make these changes. According to a survey conducted in 2019 by residents of the US and Australia, led by the Australian Southern Cross University, about three out of four people in training are interested in living as a more sustainable life. And while the majority of respondents said they engaged in simple environmental behavior on a daily basis. Some of the most common and popular practice among respondents including recycling, turning off the tap while brushing your teeth, turn off the lights when they leave a room, and opt to go paperless when managing bills. Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center in 2019 found the survey that say more than half of all Americans who are now reduce food waste, avoid plastic disposable packaging and engage in other sustainable practices that less popular than a decade ago . While these and other simple green practices have become more common, many Americans are to live in a sustainable way to even greater lengths. reduction of electric vehicles and solar panels on “eco-tourism” and the meat alternative to new opportunities in the waste and its Harms are springing up all the time. While some experts are hopeful that the failure current time will be a turning point for the dynamics of the sustainability movement, dating back many generations American conservatism. Figure out where the country in the past has been the case help, you can orient in a better and less expensive future. The roots of the movement for American sustainability “The word sustainability, until the end of 1980 are actually not in general use, but the idea that the way we’re doing things is not sustainable much older,” said Adam Rome, professor of environmental and sustainability at the University of Buffalo. During the second half of the 19th century there was a big change from the burning of wood as fuel for the combustion of coal, pollution led to a significant increase in the air, especially in cities. it was during the air with smoke, drink black, often dirty, crowded streets were were waste and people in precarious housing. “The industrial city was something so phenomenal again, and it was not clear that it could a company like maintained,” says Rome. “The cities were becoming deadly traps, and capable of supporting the challenge of creating a city and its citizens need a whole range of new institutions and technologies.” In a step landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and reformers. Olmsted is known to help the conceptual and Central Park in New York City on design, but also played a role in creating or imposing a number of environmentalists efforts to make the city green, healthier and more stable. “Olmsted understood the challenge, a sustainable city makes all kinds of necessary innovation is a social problem, political and economic and an environmental problem,” says Rome. In other words, many of the same challenges the people and governments today when addressing sustainable initiatives were found back in time Olmsted. While the American city adapted and developed, so it has the concept of management of the country’s territory. For centuries, many American continent was regarded as a huge bank and inexhaustible resource. But how these resources began to decrease, created new and greener ways of thinking. “Since 1890 we have this new philosophy of responsible land management had credited, Schutz ‘,” said Paul Hirt, a professor of history and senior scientist at the sustainability Arizona State University. An important representative of this new conservation movement was President Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican who created the US Forest Service and hundreds of established forests, parks, bird sanctuaries and wildlife and other protected areas. “In 1920 all also considered an environmentalist,” said Hirt. “It ‘was the right word at the right time. It sets out and the responsible and sustainable use, and was made a philosophy that a lot of sense” The term “conservatism” remained dominant until the early 1970s, when which it was replaced by a new word. environmental protection. While the lexicon principles continue to move the base to gather broad support. “There was no distinction between partisan Republicans and Democrats to protect our environment,” said Hirt. “Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan was called environmentalists.” This was the time when the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and many other environmental protection passed landmark with the support of both parties. But by the early 1990s, he says, “environmental protection”, had begun to accumulate political baggage and unnecessary connotations. Another change was necessary. “Sustainability is the concept of this generation,” he says. To live in a movement towards a greener and more sustainable is not new, says Hirt people today than ever before have more opportunities to put their beliefs into action. “Now there are hundreds of useful practices, a person could take over,” he says. “Everyone can take to find the ones that make more sense of their lives.” While all are useful, not everyone has the same effect. can the choices that matter most Hirt sounds, the efforts of a single person Sustainable Living a significant difference in two ways do. In the first place, the behavior for example, or by avoiding the use of plastic bottles, it can help themselves are creating a compost heap of food scraps, cut waste and needs. And second, the others will notice these efforts. People are social creatures, and are strongly influenced by what others see. The more a person “models” helpful practices, especially as they are among friends and neighbors are able to attract, he says. While any conscious effort, sustainable is to live dignified Hirt says some decisions more matter than others. “I think the daily decisions that are most important for those that revolve around food, energy, water and transport.” Hundreds of behaviors fall into any of these categories, and each is on a spectrum. For example, a person may choose once a week or biking to work every day. A person may meat for a vegetarian or vegan diet, no, or a person may eat meat less frequently, but also limit the size of the portions. Any change in the right direction is a useful. And over time these small adjustment can to show people their ability to make larger ones. There is an additional benefit to making these types of changes. “Most people go through life not very analytical or think deeply about the choices they make, such as how long to take a shower, what they do for breakfast, or go to work,” said Hirt. “But people who choose to live a more sustainable life, engage in self-analysis, and this is an incredibly important intellectual practice which leads to all kinds of services in the course of life.” Control leads to knowledge and awareness, he says, And new things to try, people can teach, help to ensure that they have the power to Changes- that develop and grow. In these ways and many others, the decision to live in a sustainable way is a mandate. “You have to believe that you can make a difference, and you have to keep pushing,” he says. image Copyright Bettmann Archive / Getty Images
That the modern sustainability could consist of a 200-year-old learning American tradition
