Unsustainable Life Impacts.
To begin, I do use a lot of electricity in other ways like when I use my laptop. I use my laptop for school projects, watching Netflix, and anything that I need to do online day to day. It’s one of the best investments that I have made as a student, but I wonder how much energy it takes to charge it, and my cell phone every night. That would also be an outside factor since I don’t control where I get my electricity from, but I do determine whether I use it or not.
The things that we all do day to day affect how much things cost, how it impacts nature, and how it changes the way we think about what is good and what’s not.
As a student, I can be more sustainable by just drinking water or making my own coffee instead of buying coffee. With charging my laptop and cellphone, I can invest in a solar panel, and charge those devices that way.
I see that in the future, I will still want to live near where I work, since it is much easier to commute back and forth. My personal habits are hard to alter, since I don’t notice that I use a lot, but the consumer society as a whole makes it seem that way.
From the Urban Landscapes and Sustainable Cities reading, “Sustainable development is a broad term generally thought to include equity, and economic and environmental concerns.” This means that there are a lot of factors that play into how a city functions, and what it means to be sustainable. There are ways to improve equity, the economy and protect the environment that we have. For instance, Professor Kocs states in her document on Ecological Restoration in Urban Parks, “undertaking ecological restoration in urban settings not only provides local stakeholders with opportunities to define for themselves what counts as history, but also to define what counts as the “original” value of an area.” This perspective on cities and the environment do play a major part in how we view our lives in the realm of sustainability.
The most critical challenge that we have today is how to achieve this goal of a having a sustainable city. For that to be the normal in the next few decades would be really cool.
Thank you! Hope you all have a great weekend!
Sources:
https://us130urbansustainability.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/es-2006-1639-1.pdf
https://us130urbansustainability.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/kocs-edraconnections_april2015.pdf
Photo credit: Lexi Christianson
Principles of Urban Sustainability 
This is very true! It goes right over my head how much I use my laptop and phone. I normally keep my laptop plugged in and charging at all times and It is so wasteful! Solar powered phone charger sounds like a smart investment as well.
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I agree, I also use a lot of energy and electricity with my electronics. Its interesting that you mention a solar powered phone charger, do you know where they could be purchased?
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Good example of phone and computer energy usage, it is very important to be knowledgeable these issues especially on a college campus
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Today, almost everyone lives with a cellphone. No matter what they are doing, people cannot live their cellphones away. I like to charge my phone fully before I leave home for school. The most important thing for me before I leave home is taking my cellphone with me. I like to keep my cellphone fully charged, so I charge it several times a day to make the battery full. Even though I know this is not good and it is not an environmentally, I cannot change this. This is also a big problem for all the people who addict on their cellphones.
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I’m the same way. I use my laptop for everything and everyday. When I’m feeling lazy, then I use my phone or tablet. My biggest concern is the amount of electricity each one uses. I think it’s especially tough because I live in a single-parent household and my mom has the burden of almost all the bills on her. So I try not to keep these things plugged in after the batteries are at 100%. I think if everyone was more aware of their electronic charging habits, it would help the environment a little bit.
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I think you touched on a good point. A lot of our daily habits that may negatively affect overall sustainability, are hard to alter because we do not even realize we have such habits. As I mentioned in my post, many things just seem harmless until someone points out the impact that you are having. I think many people probably feel the same way. In my opinion, i think that more awareness should be made about sustainability and the impact, big or small, that we are all having. If more people knew about such impacts, I think they would think twice about where they are throwing their trash, how much electricity they are using on a daily basis, etc.
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I too am rather guilty of using my laptop and other electronic devices for hours. I leave them on the charger all day and don’t unplug them very often either. I never really consider how my actions effect the environment. I never really considered how our consumption also effects the cost. As we use up more of our natural resources, the cost to obtain them will increase. I guess that idea goes along with everything we consume, but it was a very interesting point.
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