Our Sustainable Future - CSU, Chico

With students packed into every corner of the Performing Arts Center 134 on February 27, David Chameides described himself as the average “shmo,” except this “shmo” has a basement full of garbage and a car running off of vegetable oil.

At the beginning of his talk on Chasing Sustainability, Chameides posed a challenge to the students, I want you to think about the choices you make and how you live your lives. We have all got to do a better job of living sustainably now so that seven generations from now people will have a better quality of life.

Although sustainability is a very broad topic Chameides says if you asked 30 people who are involved in the environment what sustainability means, you would get 47 different answers.

Chameides is a freelance journalist for Edmund.com, teacher of sustainability and renewable energy and winner of two Emmys, one for his work on the television show ER.  He said he doesn’t have the answers nor is there a “silver bullet” to solve the problem of sustainability, but every individual must make a choice.

With our growing population and need for energy, if the world started today, people would need to “build one new power plant every other day for the next 34 years,” so there would be enough energy available to power the world, Chameides said.

Chameides explained that in today’s society if people thought about the consequences of turning their lights on, people would not be using as much energy.  He explained that if every time someone wanted to turn on their lights, they had to walk down and ask a coal miner to create the energy and then have pollution sit over their house because they are the ones who created it, more people would think twice about how much energy they really use.

The mind set of society today is, “I want lights on all the time, I want my TV on all the time and I want free energy all the time,” Chameides said.   

During his talk Chameides explored the various technologies that are being offered as sustainable solutions, however, each has its own drawbacks. 

For example, bio-diesel is one alternative however, it can use up our food supply when we use corn for fuel.  Chameides said although the end result has potential, the means of creating the bio-diesel needs to be examined. Food should be grown to feed people. 

Chameides has converted his own car so it runs on waste oil from restaurants and feels it is a step in the right direction because in general the cycle is a “closed loop system.” He believes that if 80 percent of all cars were electric we would not need to generate more power, and would not need more power plants.

Chameides said for humans to start making a change we first have to make a “social shift in thinking.” People need to start thinking about renewable energy, and “we need to start now ~ refuse, reuse, recycle.”

Instead of using the phrase reduce, reuse, recycle, Chameides uses the idea that an individual person must first make the changes in their own lives by refusing to buy unsustainable products.

To make that social change and shift in mindset, Chameides suggests several small changes in a person’s everyday life to start “chasing sustainability.” There are things out there people can start doing today in their individual lives by stopping the use of plastic bags and water bottles, because doing those two things alone are a step towards saving our oceans.

Chameides demonstrated the need for change by swirling a glass jar filled with water and loaded with plastic and plastic particles.  This was just a small sample taken from the Pacific Gyre, a mass of plastic the size of Texas floating in the ocean. Little fish eat the small particles of plastic which then work their way into our food supply. Big fish eat the little fish, we eat the big fish, and so it goes. By choosing to use less plastic we can eliminate or reduce trash in the ocean, and live healthier lives.

In addition to lowering the amount of plastic consumption, Chameides says individuals can also lower their energy consumption by using compact florescent lights, calling local power companies and paying for "green power" and by driving smarter by driving less.

Chameides says “it’s our problem before we pass it to someone else.”

To find out more about chasing sustainability and what you can do to help, go to David Chameide’s website at http://www.sustainabledave.org/ or click here to see his Chico talk on youtube