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California: Let It Burn?
As we all know, social media is both a blessing and a curse. One of the negatives of social media has been the propagation of misinformation and catchy sayings or infographics that just don’t hold any truth. The biggest one of these has been regarding the wild fires of 2020, specifically of those in California and the Western United States. I’ve seen tweets comparing 2019 wildfire statistics to those of 2020, and posts like “I don’t need a time machine to see climate change, all I have to do is look outside my window,” set to scenes of red smoky skies. As you can imagine, these and other similar posts…
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Let’s Talk Financial Sustainability
The coronavirus pandemic has taught us many things, but two of the most important things are that we need to take care of our health and our finances. While two separate categories, they are inextricably linked. United States household and consumer debt reached a record high of $14.3 trillion in the first quarter of 2020, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s quarter 2 Household and Credit report. After the effects of COVID-19, which resulted in many households and individuals constricting on finances, the second quarter saw a drop in overall debt of about $34 billion, the first drop since 2014. The practice of being indebted is not…
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Is Sun-kissed Skin Safe and Sustainable?
We are all subject to external and internal pressures to meet certain beauty standards. While much of this pressure comes from societal expectations, sometimes our own desires align with those standards. For me, I’ve been pale my whole life. In the summer I might get the slightest bit of color, but I usually just burn and fade back to pale. Now, there is nothing wrong with being pale, and furthermore there are historic and systemic benefits of being light skinned (aka white privilege) which I acknowledge but isn’t the topic of this post. Because I never had success just tanning in the sun, I learned to accept my pale skin.…
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Now We’re Cooking With Fire
Happy Earth Day!!! Another Earth Day is upon us, marking the one year anniversary of The Sustainability Guide. Thank you to everyone who has viewed my website, read blog posts, or visited my Instagram for other more regular content. This year’s earth month and earth day activities are very different as the world collectively deals with COVID-19. Most universities and colleges in the United States have sent students home, uncertain of when they will be able to return to campus. As an alumni who worked in the sustainability office of my university, I was asked to participate in the annual “iCommit” pledges to help reduce energy consumption during the school’s…
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Talk the Talk but Don’t Walk the Walk?
My freshman year of college, I took a 13 hour-long bus ride with a few of my classmates from Maine to Washington D.C to participate in one of the largest climate marches of its time. In the college spirit of trying new things, I figured this would be a fun opportunity to do something completely out of my element and normal practice. Not to mention its a unique story I would carry with me in life. I’m not sure what else I really expected out of the march, but once I was there I could physically feel the vibrations of the crowd’s energy. That said, the march didn’t have any…
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Average Joe Versus Uncle Sam…Where Does The Responsibility For Action On Climate Change Fall?
Every day I scroll through my Instagram feed, I see posts condemning the consumption of animal products, and in the same breadth messages about how we should be holding corporations accountable rather than shaming each other for our individual choices. So when it comes to tackling climate change, whose responsibility is it? As you know, this blog discusses matters of sustainability at the individual level based on my own practices and experience. I obviously believe in the power of the individual, when multiplied by millions, to affect change on a larger scale. That said, the role of government and regulation of corporate pollution and environmental practices are irreplaceable in the…
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What’s My Shoe Size? Calculating My Footprint
Calculating your “footprint” can be a great starting point to identify areas of your lifestyle where you consume the most amount of resources. But what’s the difference between and ecological and carbon footprint? Ecological footprint calculators are different from carbon footprint calculators in that they include more components of everyday lifestyle in more relative terms, whereas carbon footprint calculators are more specific to energy consumption but often allow for more precise responses. While I explore different footprint calculators and results in this post, this article is not a comparison between different tools. Instead, I will show you how I interpret the results and ways to implement changes to reduce my…
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How I Got Into Volunteerism
Half way through my second year of college, I realized that I could graduate not only a semester early, as planned, but an entire year early. While how I accomplished that is a story on its own for another time, I quickly began to realize that I needed more external experiences and connections. I had a planned internship at my university that summer, to build a rain garden, and had already lined up a part time summer job at a retail store. In an attempt to gain more experience in my remaining spare time, I applied for a few volunteering positions, one with Maine Audubon doing outreach on the beaches…
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Coexisting With Wildlife When it Comes to Our Furry Friends-Part 2: Indirect Impacts
For me, pets were a staple part of my childhood. My parents liked animals but it also helped teach us the responsibility of taking care of another living being. I knew my first year living off campus in college I was going to have a pet. As much as I wanted a dog, I knew starting off with a cat would be best (not to mention I like cats a little more than dogs, but truly love them both). Maxwell is my cat, I adopted him from my local shelter and he has been with me for four years now. For the first year, I lived in an above garage…
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Opening Up About the Complex Relationship Between Food and Sustainability
In a world of over 7 billion people, food is a major component of sustainability. Food is perhaps one of the most complex facets of sustainability due to the cultural ties humans have with food. This is why I have admittedly avoided this topic thus far. Whether you have food or you don’t, all life centers around it. I can only speak on my behalf, a middle class white American that has never truly wondered where my next meal is coming from. Because food is such a personal issue, many discussions regarding food and its impact on sustainability can quickly become heated, so it’s important to practice acceptance of others…
