Living a sustainable life, minimize damage

[flashl]

People change the natural environment just by living in it. We cut down trees, pave roads, build cities — we leave a footprint. As our cities grow, so does the footprint and so does the damage to the land.

The sustainability movement offers ways to keep the footprint small and minimize the damage. That's not always easy in Arizona's fragile environment. The state's forests and rivers still bear scars of decisions made a century ago.

Some of the solution lies in living within the earth's means: planting gardens, recycling or simply making do with less.

In the end, sustainability is about doing things that matter, one thing and then another until we find the balance that will let us, as the back-country hikers say, leave the place in better shape than we found it.

...

Sustainability is about how to find a balance between using resources and overusing them, between protecting the planet and still living on it. Sometimes it's also about restoring a balance one step at a time.

The Arizona Republic

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.

(Motto of the National Park Service)