"I have a dream..." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

     "I have a dream...", is an extremely famous introduction to a famous speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Well, I also have a dream.  A dream for a sustainable future where generations to come are able to live substantially better and healthier lives than our current generation.  A future where little to no natural resources are used or wasted.  Where people understand how fragile this planet of ours is and how lucky they are that the generations before them changed their unhealthy, unsustainable ways before real permanent damage was done to this planet.
     I believe that my vision of the future is an optimistic one.  The people who occupy this planet would need to understand a few things in order to truly achieve a sustainable future though.  Some of these understandings would include: realizing that global warming is not a political game used by politicians to scare people into voting for their agendas; it is not a quick fix issue; every person can make a difference and must participate in order for this ideal future to come about; and change has to start with our generation.  There are many other "understandings" that must be realized by people in order for a sustainable future to really be a possibility, but the above few are just scratching the surface of where we need to begin.  First we need to realize that having a sustainable future really is a possibility.  According to the reading by Lombardo, we must first change our thinking from pessimistic to optimistic through the use of psychotherapy.  Believing in ourselves is the beginning step in achieving our future goals.
     I believe that one of the hardest parts to realizing this sustainable future will be changing our habitual routines and beliefs.  As stated by Durning, we need to achieve a balance between under-consumption and over-consumption.  People will have to change the ways in which they consume and what they believe about consumption habits.  It is like they have a blindfold on and can not see what their consumption/waste/etc. is doing to their environment.  They are blind to the consequences of their actions.  All the more reason to make what they are so used to doing as blatantly obvious as possible, so that maybe it will cause them to realize what they are doing.
     That is where this change will need to start.  Where it will need to take root in peoples lives, habits, and routines in order for us to make any sort of difference.

Good vs. Bad

EARTHKEEPERS^™
PHILOSOPHY 

We’re constantly looking for and inventing innovative materials that allow us to reduce our impact on the planet and make better gear. Plastic from recycled soda bottles goes into our breathable linings and durable shoelaces. Coffee grounds find a place in our odor-resistant jackets. Organic cotton grown without toxins makes it into our rugged canvas.

How BP Ultimate Unleaded reduces exhaust emissions

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A clean engine is a more efficient engine, which in turn produces fewer emissions. And tests in a range of vehicles confirm that using BP Ultimate Unleaded instead of ordinary petrol can significantly reduce the harmful emissions from your car’s exhaust.

The topic I chose to write about this week is eco-promising.  I had not heard of the term eco-promising before taking this class.  For those who are unfamiliar with the term, it is defined according to the Business for Social Responsibility as: the practice of making claims about the environmental attributes of products.  In other words, eco-promising is something that corporations try with their products/services.  This can either be a good thing for their companies, or it can be a bad thing.  Sometimes it can have a negative impact on a companies credibility.  If for instance a company claims that their product is completely sustainable in every aspect of the production process and it is found that some part is in fact not sustainable or is really harming the environment, then that company will lose some of its credibility with consumers.  For example, in my opinion, one of the best eco-promising companies out there is Timberland.  Timberland has started creating in-house eco-labels for their products, and increasing their use of electronic tags embedded into their labels.  By changing these seemingly small practices, they have started to reduce their carbon footprint.  On the other hand, I believe that one of the worst eco-promising companies out there is BP (British Petroleum).  This company claims that they are creating cleaner fuels that both make your engine run "as it was designed to" and are less harmful for the environment.  In my opinion, the simple fact that BP is responsible for the disastrous oil spill in April of 2010 is enough for me not to trust their attempts at cleaner fuel.  For each day that the oil spill went on, 2.5 million gallons were released into the Gulf of Mexico.  Now just imagine how much of an impact that spill and BP's lack of good management had on our already decreasing oil reserves.  I am not one that will be looking to BP for anything to do with improving the environment, because I do not believe they are capable of handling something so important.  I think that when companies eco-promise, they are mainly looking out for their own interests instead of the consumers interests.  I think that it is all about guilting people into spending more money on their products because of their claims to be green.