At this point along the arc of the course, clearly it is the responsibility of every individual to do his or her part to mend the environmental issues and to restore the Earth’s equilibrium. The realization that we all must do something and can do something is essential to taking on this individual responsibility. Each person must also realize that our lives and society must be balanced and conservative with regards to the environment. That is, we must practice limits and produce and use according to necessary rather than wasteful capacities.

A notion about society brought up in class instantly caught my attention and greatly interested me. That is, humans are constantly concerned with moving upwards and improving and advancing, sometimes at the cost of vital and limited resources. With this improvement and advancement, such as with cars, comes the want to make bigger products with greater capacities and capabilities. I do not wish to imply that improvement is wrong or should not be a constant presence in society. Rather, I mean that certain types of improvement are better than others. Specifically, those that require humans to use resources that we should not use liberally and that move the environment towards increased imbalance are among the advancements that are detrimental to the society, the economy, and the environment.

The key is that we must not create or engineer products to capacities to which we do not need. Similar to the conversation in class, why do we need cars that drive at up to 120 miles per hour when the speed limits in several areas are half that amount? What is the purpose of preparing extra large portions of food that people eventually throw away? Why do we need three-ply bathroom tissue paper when two-ply can suffice? To me, small changes to the wasteful items and processes we use everyday are what can save us from an irreversible environmental crisis. It is at this moment, when we realize that we can take effective action, that we have, as Tony Kushner put it, a messianic moment.

Even after having such a messianic moment, however, many of us may still fear the great responsibility of undertaking the issues of the environment. One must remember, though, that no matter how overwhelming the issue seems or appears, if we persevere, we are bound to see positive results, given that the changes to our lives are reasonable and make sense in terms of environmental sustainability.

It is of much relief to know that there are frameworks and guidelines to follow to persevere in environmental sustainability. The framework through which to view the environmental sustainability is the cradle-to-cradle design, which essentially denotes that we should make use of waste, a variety of renewable energy resources such as solar energy, and different methods of production. To remain faithful to this framework for environmental sustainability, engineers, manufacturers, business owners, politicians, and consumers should pay attention and adhere to the twelve principles of green engineering, which convey that we should try to create as little waste as possible. If we do create waste, we should try to create little waste and, if possible, be able to use that waste as the reactants or starting materials for other products.

Personally, I believe that all of these principles are important to the wellbeing of the environment and humans. In addition to adhering to these principles, we must continuously engage ourselves emotionally to the issue and remain in the mindset of environmental sustainability. That is, if we forget our goals and the intrinsic value of what we are doing, we will lose focus and fall into old, destructive habits.

In our efforts to stay true to the principles of environmental sustainability, it is key to remember that we can make what seems impossible, possible. It is simply a matter of believing in ourselves that we can do something about the environmental crisis and then actually putting our beliefs into action.

Sherifa Baldeo