This story manages to be uplifting and discouraging at the same time – about Joan Pick, a retired scientific advisor on energy efficiency. She hasn’t flown since ‘71 or even been in a car since ‘73, except for one trip in an ambulance and another in a funeral car. No TV, no heating, no cooking.
Her personal mission in life? To be a "pioneer of personal energy efficiency."
It raises some super-sticky questions: Like what IS sustainability and is does anyone even come close to it? Are most of the changes we’ve made so far just feel-good measures that don’t mean much? After all, most of us are sure as hell still on the grid. In other words, compared to Joan Pick, are we all frauds?
Photo and original story from EcoStreet.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ll choose to do what I can within reason as I always have. How is this for ‘Green’ ….a woman & her car. You gotta love her!
http://growingbolder.com/media/technology/vehicles/romancing-the-road-259598
Following that line of thinking, we’ll all be more sustainable when we’re dead. Anywhere I can sign up to be composted?
She is just awesome. I don’t watch TV but I am online. I don’t like cars but they are necessary. Spending any more than 15 minutes to drive anywhere is nuts and city driving just plain stinks. It’s not just the exhaust and the traffic, there is more concrete than grass and it is unsettling. Green acres is the place to be but walkability is 0%.
Moderation in everything.
Fortunately, not all of us are cut out for this. I highly doubt anyone can live a truly sustainable life without the benefits of those that aren’t, and that includes historical achievements and developments that required non-sustainable practices.
That being said, anytime we have a choice as to which way to do things and get the same end result, we’d all be better off to choose sustainability.
If she’s happy, then more power to her, but I neither regret nor feel guilty that I have seen the Yangzte River, Monet’s garden, and heard the bells on Easter morning in Florence. . We’re not all cut out to be ascetics.
Her story is interesting but I’d rather garden with modern tools, and use heat so I don’t freeze in winter, and warm up my food like a civilized person