Last week, I was on the news talking about what it means to be sustainable. While doing this interview, I began to realize that many people do not know what it means to be sustainable. So, I thought I would write today about what it means to be sustainable and what it means for the Earth as well.

Essentially, being sustainable means that you live within your environmental means. Studies have been done that show for everyone on Earth to live at the same level as Americans or Canadians, it would take as many as four Earths to supply the resources. Obviously, something has to be done to remedy this and living sustainably is how we can help ourselves and the Earth.

To be sustainable, we need to follow these criteria:

• Never take more than we need in resources
• Do what we can to conserve resources
• Have an eco-state of mind in all things
• Give back to the Earth for what we take

This involves growing our own food, eating local food whenever possible, limiting packaging, recycling what we buy, not buying more than we need and doing what we can to lower our carbon footprint. Try some of these things to be more sustainable in your life:

• Turn off lights when they are not in use
• Limit water use and recycle as much water as you can
• Walk as much as you can instead of driving
• Eat organic food
• Recycle cardboard, glass, tin, paper and plastic
• Unplug appliances when not in use
• Plant a tree

Being sustainable is something that we can all do to help the planet when it needs it. If we continue to take more than we use, then there will be nothing left for future generations. Even now we are seeing the effects of past generations in global warming, biodiversity problems, rising acidity of the oceans and more.

Going green is all about being sustainable and if we all just did a few things to go green, then things like global warming would not be an issue. We would be able to live on the planet without depleting its supplies and threatening our own future with our idiotic ways. One little change can mean a big difference.