As populations swell and technologies become ever more advanced, humankind is having a larger impact on our planet. However, we have shown that we can turn things around when negative effects get out of hand. Since 1970, when the Clean Air Act was revamped, the U. S. has cut air pollution emissions by 50 tons. Airborne lead has dropped 96% since the mid 1970s, and sulfur dioxide emissions have gone down 85% in the last three decades. Nitrogen dioxide and particle emissions have also improved.

Water quality got a similar boost from the Clean Water Act and similar efforts. In the 1960s, only a small fraction of Georgia's municipal sewage and industrial wastewater was treated; now it all is. Oxygen in the Chattahoochee River has almost doubled since the Sixties, phosphorous levels have decreased, and fish have returned.

Numerous endangered species have been saved from extinction, including the bald eagle, whooping crane, grizzly bear, sea otter, and gray whale. Forests in America's Northeast also were in danger of sorts when the majority of forested regions were cleared by settlers in the 1800s. Reforestation efforts have been highly successful there, restoring their well-known splendor. Here in Georgia, we now have over 3 million more acres of forest than in the 1930s, and soil erosion in the Piedmont has nearly stopped.

This sampling of good news should encourage us as we look at the seemingly-impossible environmental challenges currently facing us, such as climate change, species loss, and the destruction of the rain forests. We can be sure that if we are immobilized by fear, despair, or apathy that no progress will be made. We can find true hope in the realization that our collective efforts and focused goals can make a significant difference.

Our Carbon Footprint

As individuals, congregations, and businesses, we want to help reverse the troubling trends and wide-reaching effects of climate change. We can't change nature's many feedback loops, but we can reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases.

Our first step, so to speak, is to look at our carbon footprint. That is, to figure out how much of the greenhouse gas emissions are caused by each of us. There are many calculators available online to help. They estimate emissions created by our travel and heating and cooling our buildings, sometimes including other factors such as food choices and laundry methods.

Our goal is to reduce these emissions to zero, becoming carbon neutral in daily living, at least. To accomplish this, we reduce what we can, use renewable energy when possible, and offset the rest. Elimination of waste is already recognized as important to both environmental and financial stewardship. And thankfully, our local power companies here in Middle Georgia offer Green Power options for both residential and commercial energy needs.

Some might have not yet heard about "buying offsets". That money supports a reduction in carbon dioxide equal to the amount created by our activities and purchases. Reductions can involve preserving and restoring natural resources, increasing energy efficiency, or perhaps developing renewable energy. It is important not to view offsets as free passes which allow the bearer to waste elsewhere. They are better considered as safety nets capturing what careful planning cannot curb.

A sustainable lifestyle has a minimal environmental footprint, such that we can successfully coexist with the rest of nature indefinitely. A complete evaluation would look at the full lifecycle of everything we use. Thought is given to all resources needed "cradle-to-grave" - in raw material production, manufacture, distribution, use, and eventual disposal. An exciting new focus in the business world is "cradle-tocradle" design which uses production techniques that are essentially waste free.

Step by Step

We don't have to make complicated calculations to check our progress in sustainable living. Simply looking at our fuel and power bills and garbage bins gives us a good snapshot of our sustainability. Not as much garbage goes into the bin when we choose purchases that are less processed and don't have wasteful packaging. Garbage levels go down further when we donate usable discards, such as gently-used clothes that we outgrew, to local charities. The bin is barely used, then, when we recycle the remaining glass, cardboard, plastic, Styrofoam, and metal.

In dealing with environmental issues, we have power as consumers, household and business leaders, and voting citizens. We also have the power of the Christian fellowship to support each other's efforts with prayer. We find wisdom in words brought down through the ages, "Pray as if everything depended on God; work as if everything depended on us."

It is through the grace of God that we work together with our global neighbors to find larger solutions that succeed in this complex world and through the hope of His Son and the power of the Holy Spirit that each of us follows a more sustainable path.

Step by step our journey continues for His Creation.

Vicki Coulter is a volunteer with The Climate Project and gives Environmental Stewardship presentations in Middle Georgia.