A sustainable life means living a life using renewable resources, without causing permanent damage to the earth. It’s easy if you try.

Sustainable lifestyle is as much as the credit card can handle. when it maxes out you cannot sustain your lifestyle. It does not require you to be spartan just to be able to recycle your usage into a system that recovers a significant part of it, the balance is made up with credit cards.

First define sustainable. Will it cause more harm or benefit others? And you don’t need to go change your life greatly. It’s more a mentality. Don’t be fooled into thinking buying a hybrid car will make you green. That’s green washing. If you believe in recycling news papers, or doing something so simple like dropping trash in the proper bin will save a lot. Even turning off the lights when you are not using it is more helpful than driving around in a hybrid car. Even in the way you eat. If you eat less meat a week and take vegetables in a balanced combination, you lower your ecological footprint.

It’s easy to buy solar panels and say my house is green. In reality if you wanted a green house, you would have to make your house follow passive solar design guidelines. A good rule of thumb is count how many appliances you use and it’s a direct reflection of how much power you use.

i just wanted to add most of the answer you got are in the right line as i see it…over all it is balance…green is so funny,,,ie the solar to be solar one the house would have to be built for it in doing so there are a lot of parts that do not meet up to the over all idea….say the hybrid car ok one it steel need oil to run oil to make the tires and most of the the car any thing plastic…so wheres the help,,,,,next if you look at the gas it runs on it is grown which rapes the soil and takes oil burners to do the job than you have the plant where it is turned into gas and it uses tons more of the resources it trying to save to make it so what have you gained oh the (at lest im trying) or the big greenie winnie award….im mean come thank about it us being here has to be payed for one way or the other…..if we where not here and there was a fire due to lightning how much damage could it do?so just have balance…do what you can with out going out of your way to gave back and to take only what you have to have..these is a true story some people i know they do not need money they have that…so they went out two days a week picking up aluminum cans spent a lot of gas doing so,on the 3rd day they would load them up and drive some 10 miles to the center,so i went with and we unloaded and in back of where we dropped them off was a worker in a gas powered loader picking them up and putting them into a crusher (elect) pick them back up and stacked them up,,later they move the stack again same loader onto a big truck more Fuel ,,,so i ask where do they go and did some checking from there….after being trucked some 300 miles to a plant they where off loaded stacked and than moved inside to be smelted,,,,,it was reformed into bricks stacked again and than loaded onto train cars to be sent to a foundry where again it was truck to the foundry unloaded and stacked and than remelted and made into stick form stacked loaded onto trucks and from there who only knows how many more times it was loaded and unloaded and stacked but if you thank about it it would be at least 3 more times and that was a ton of Fuel and elect.and all that goes with that…in doing it from its Natural state is far less they dig up the the raw metals load Straight to train drop at foundry make the product and truck it to suppliers and again to user….so what was gained ,,,forced economic all them people made money ….so what you can do is give back your yard do not rake up leafs,grass cutting and through them in trash or send them into recycle centers put them into your yard vacuum sweeper dump it back in your yard plant a tree got a leaking water fix it if you dont need the light on turn it off dont go driving just to show off your car or just to have some thing to do..i could go on but i have for to long good luck

Amusing !! Should we also add population control to the issue: given that California can’t supply enough water to support it’s growing population AND the agriculture required to support that population !!

OR should we cease purchasing anything from CHINA given their environmental history, the incredible amount of fuel required to transport their goods here to the US, and their habit of not meeting FDA safety and health regulations with the goods they ship here ??

I would consider myself relatively sustainable and self-sufficient: Our buildings are built from douglas fir harvested from our ranch, OR they are hay-bale homes (we have a house, 2 guest houses (hay), and numerous barns out-buildings). We grow almost all our veggies (compost from the horses, chickens, cows, and veggie-scraps), we have three beef steer a season, goats, pigs and chickens. We heat and power the ranch with wood-stoves, solar panels (for electrical AND heating), and wind-generators for 90% of our usage. We’ve had two bio-diesel trucks and the tractor since the mid-80’s (before Green was cool)… the bio-diesel comes from local (relatively) restaurants. We recycle almost everything… half our fencing is from the barn from the previous owners.

What we HAVE to buy… feed, rice (from California rather than China), propane and clothing.

I wouldn’t consider our life Spartan… though friends from the City certainly find it rustic when they visit and realize the nearest store is 10 miles away (a bicycle is absolutely impractical) in town. Town is the store, post-office, real estate office, and bar.