Monday, September 24, 2007

Consumer fly wheel

This past weekend I have been reading "Serve God Save the planet" by J. Sleeth. If you are in the mood to be convicted about your lifestyle than read it, if not stay far away.
How did my life style and thinking on what was appriopriate consumerism thinking evolve? In comparing myself to the American dream I would say we are ok. Not to much of an extravagent lifestyle, no credit card debt. Nothing that gives a huge warning sign. Yet subtly there are so many ways that my lifestyle can improve to help both my consumerism and the enviorment.
There were some aspects of Sleeth's book that got me thinking. One was if every household in America changed their top five most used light bulbs to compact flourescent lightbulbs the country could take twenty one coal fired power plants off line tomorrow. This would keep one trillon pounds of posionous gases and soot out of the air we breath. Another thought from the book was how much stuff in my house do I have or even need? His presuppisition is that the reasons Americans have such big houses is to store unneeded stuff. Bigger houses=More energy spent= More pollution in the air= more cancer and other air breathing diseases.
I haven't thought much about enviormental issues, but I am beggining to realize that the way I treat consumerism, the enviorment, and what kind of world I want to leave to my kids and grandkids is a direct result of my faith. It starts with consumerism, the more we want the more unhealthy we become.

1 comment:

A Rocha USA said...

Hi, my name is Dustin and I work with Christians in Conservation: A Rocha USA. I saw your post about the book "Serve God, Save the Planet”, and I thought that you might like to know that its author, Dr. Matthew Sleeth, has recently become the president of our organization. We would love for you to check us out at our website, en.arocha.org/usa.