Sustainable living to me is a changing and growing process. Not long ago, I watched a video about plastic being ingested by fish in our oceans in huge quantities. This was somewhat disturbing because they actually cut open fish to reveal that they had impossible-to-digest plastics in their stomachs. Now I look at plastic products much differently. I try to use reusable bags, bring my backpack to the grocery store, and I save all my bags when I get them and try to give them a second life by donating them to the library so people can put their books in them.

I know that worrying about our environment isn’t going to help much, but still I worry about some things. It concerns me that our bees are becoming endangered. They perform such an essential role in the pollination of plants, many of them staple foods. I also worry about such things as the many wars going on now, which are a huge drain on human lives and money, and cause untold amounts of environmental damage. What encourages me is that I see the world’s scientists and engineers trying to find solutions to many of our environmental problems. I truly feel that global warming can be caught in its tracks by the work of just a few geniuses and the combined efforts of concerned people and governments.

I read an article the other day that said China has been able to greatly reduce coal mining and coal emissions in their country. There was another news piece about our relatively new NDP government offering bonuses to people who use solar power. All over the world, ideas are changing the way we deal with our environment.

What’s my biggest reason for feeling this way? Ever since the dawn of time, be it fear of the gods, prophecies in the Bible, or telltale signs of the ages like the pollution in 1800s London, people have predicted that the world was going to end soon. We’re lucky, I like to think. Human beings are just too smart for that to happen.

Leif lives in McCauley.