First post - why is earth day a one-day issue?

It would seem to me, that if we are all going to spend our entire lives using and managing the natural resources that were here many generations before us, and will hopefully remain many generations after us, we would focus on our environment more than one day out of each year. In fact, you would think terms like "sustainable resources", conservation, environmentalism, and renewable energy would be used more commonly in everyday discussion.

We live in a world of consumerism, and we are constantly bombarded with advertising and marketing telling us to buy the newest, fastest, greatest widget out there. Then, the old widget goes into the trash, and ultimately into a landfill. Once it is past our driveway, it is easy to forget about it.

Same thing goes for sustainable resources. Why worry about whether wind energy could actually be a viable alternative energy resource to offset a significant amount of our current dependence on fossil fuels if electricity to us means flipping a switch and having our electricity bill paid monhtly by automatic debit from our checking account? Why worry about throwing your towel at the hotel on the floor when a new one shows up while you are out? Why worry about the impact of purchasing bottled water from the gas station or grocery store and throwing many bottles away each week if we can't see the cumulative effect of the 50 billion water bottles it is estimated Americans throw away each year?

Sustainable thinking means we should consider the cumulative impact of all those seemingly insignificant isolated issues. In this Sustainable Thinking blog, I encourage all of us to take up a challenge. Let's all try to make a difference, and let's all commit to a new way of thinking. Instead of the old attitude of "it's not my problem" when it comes to the environment, let's make it our problem. We can all contribute to the solution by making small changes - compact fluorescent light bulbs to save energy, reusable water bottles, making less trips by car, recycling, taking your own bags to the grocery store to reduce waste, and other simple changes.

Let's all commit to Sustainable Thinking -- let's do our part to consider what simple changes we could make for a positive impact. Please feel free to add to this discussion, and to advance the dialogue we should all be having about sustainable energy, sustainable resources, and sustainable thinking. Visit SustainableThinking.org for more info.