EPISODE 09: My Personal Ah-Ha Moment & Guidance On Practical Sustainability

Okay, listeners, today is a little off the cuff and a bit different from previous podcasts. I've been traveling, it's summer, I've been busy in the garden, and I've been working on other projects as well. And don't worry, I've been busy interviewing guests and I'm really excited to share their stories in future episodes. And for today, I thought we could just have a little more intimate segment, just you and me. So I've been wanting to share a little bit more about my journey from being a geologist to becoming a sustainable sustainability professional, and I wanted to have a broader conversation for listeners about sustainability and its many, many nuances. I know this is what a lot of people struggle with. How do you define sustainability? How do you make it work for your life and basically not drown in all the details? So I'd really like to touch on that today with you and me. So if you wanna know what a close encounter with the caribou and ski boundaries have to do with my aha moment and defining sustainability, you will want to stay tuned. Hello listeners and welcome to the Eco-ish Podcast. I'm Tracy Lydiatt, founder of Sustainable Living School and your host today. The purpose of this podcast is really to illuminate the good work that, that companies are doing towards sustainability, honestly discuss trade-offs that they might wrestle with, and to share their interesting stories to help listeners like you make informed choices. And Eco-ish Podcast really honors the fact that we are in an imperfect journey towards creating eco-friendly, sustainable society and brands and companies within that society. That's a society that's currently unsustainable right now. So today is a little different. Uh, there's no guest, it's just you and me. And I thought that I could share a little bit of my story. I'm not even really in my normal podcast setup. So if you're watching this on YouTube, hi, and, uh, you'll notice that it's a bit of a different setup, but so I hope you'll bear with me and I hope that you'll enjoy this. I started out life as a hard rock geologist. As my first career move. And so, and I just want to give a shout out to Ian Gibson, who was my high school teacher for geography. He was really influential, very influential in getting me to like geography and understand that I really am so curious about Earth's processes. And when you pick up a rock on the beach, for example, my brain's always like, how did this get here? What's in it? Um, so I have this innate curiosity about earth processes and rocks. I love rocks. I've grown up going on nature walks with my dad and picking up stuff off the ground, and lots of my friends and family know that a really good gift for me is a rock. And I have rock— I have a rock collection that I've actually carted around the world with me. Not the whole collection, but specific pieces that I just absolutely adore and love. That's how I, uh, started out and I did my 4-year degree, Bachelor of Science at the University of British Columbia and got into hard rock mining. So that means that I did a lot of work in the exploration industry and was in really remote camps looking for precious metals, mostly gold and silver. And that work took me to a number of different, really amazing places like Argentina, also in British Columbia on the Iskut River. I worked for Homestake at the Eskay Creek mine. I also spent some time in the Arctic. So I worked on Bathurst Inlet a little bit, and then also in a very small project called Goose Lake. And I think now that's actually advanced so far that it's being turned into a mine as well. The story about my transition from geology to sustainability, it kicked off at Goose Lake. And imagine in your mind a fly-in fly-out camp. Literally there's not a tree in sight. It's just tundra. It's about a 3.5-hour flight northeast of Yellowknife into Nunavut. And it was by air access only. There was, I think at the most, maybe 36 people in that camp. And it was just a series of wooden buildings built on the tundra beside Goose Lake. We had a crew house, a cook shed, um, well, shed, cook kitchen, and a dry, which is where the bathrooms were and showers and laundry facilities. And then small little cabins. So it was 4 people to a cabin. Just imagine a 16 by 16 foot cabin with a bed in each corner and a diesel stove. It wasn't even finished on the inside, just beautiful pink insulation. This is the, this is the rusticness of this life. And on this particular property, I was part of the geology team logging core. There was several different drilling core shacks that were out on the property and they were poking holes in the ground and we were looking for the deposit and trying to understand, uh, the dimensions of it and the grades of gold and silver in it and what kind of mineralization, what kind of geology, folds, structural geology, all that kind of fun stuff. You can imagine my life was pretty monotonous when it came to logging core. And most of us geologists worked in the core shack. So the helicopter would fly in these big pallets of core and then and we'd spend days logging it, looking at everything I just shared about structures, where the contacts were between different kinds of rocks, and so on and so on. We'd also sample it. So it'd get cut in half and then sent out to the lab. And, uh, that was part of a big process as well. The core shack was always a busy place. The day that my epiphany happened, it was a unique situation because the generator was off, which is always kind of this white noise in the background, and everybody was actually up at the kitchen having a, I think a lunch break. And I just stayed to try and finish up some of this core logging. And it was in the fall. The tundra was just this beautiful color. And I thought, well, you know, I'll take advantage of this quiet time and make myself a cup of tea. And so I took a break and stepped out onto the porch of the core shack and I was enjoying my tea and looking at all the beautiful colors. So you can see things for quite a long ways away. And I was having my cup of tea and I looked down. And when I looked up, all of a sudden there was just this caribou buck standing there, not too close to me, but I'd say like maybe 50, 60 feet away. And it really, I'm sure he just like wandered out from behind a building, but to me it looked like he just sort of appeared cuz I didn't really take my eyes off the horizon for that long, but he just sort of popped up and he was this big, beautiful buck with this huge set of antlers. And we just stood there staring at each other for quite what it seemed like for quite a long time. And it was in that moment that I just sort of had this thunderbolt hit my chest of energy. I don't know if that's happened to any of you listeners, but a complete, complete awareness and understanding all of a sudden that the caribou was standing on the edge of where we had mapped out where the open pit mine might start. And we had done this a couple days previously with the structural geologist that was there on site. The thunderbolt that hit my heart, had this like a complete epiphany that I did not want to contribute in the way that I was at that time to putting a mine there. And it was really shocking and it was really surprising and it really hit me outta nowhere. And I struggled with it for a couple of years. I had student loans, I had made commitments to this job. I didn't want to bail on those kinds of things and it took about about 2 years, um, after working on that project that I was able to finally transition out of the mining industry as a geologist and had the opportunity to go back to school. And I went to school in Sweden in this beautiful town called Karlskrona, uh, the very southern part of Sweden. And I was accepted into an international program that was called Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability. It was a Master of Science program. And during that time, I had the most incredible opportunity to write my thesis about mining in conjunction with two other women that were in the program. One was a Brazilian social scientist and the other one was an Australian environmental health and safety professional. So between the three of us, we had pretty much all the major areas of mining covered. And I'm so proud of the work that we did. And to this date, I think it's been downloaded about 1,500 times. You can see the little tracker on our thesis portal. I didn't even know that existed, so when I logged in to grab a copy of our thesis a little while ago, I realized, oh my gosh, there's like 1,500 people that have actually downloaded this thesis work, which just really made my heart sing, and it made me feel so proud of our work and that I was able still to contribute to the mining industry, but just in a different capacity. And something that I'm passionate about is sustainability, which is pretty much why we're here. So I finished my master's degree in 2008. Carolee, that's 15 years ago. And so many things have changed. I've seen so much transition. The other thing that I really noticed in sustainability is that there's a lot of trends. You'll see them come in waves. Back in kind of 2010, there was like this big wave about toxins, BPA, for example, in our water bottles and toxins in our, in our makeup. Big trend you can see right now is also about plastic pollution and the awareness. So you see these peaks and valleys of different trends that come through sustainability. And I feel like one consistent thing that so many people still struggle with is actually how to define sustainability. Like, what does it mean? There's all these concepts. There's three-legged stool. There was also, you know, three-pillars approach. There's donut economics now, a big jumble of things. There's all kinds of certifications. So I really feel like it's very challenging to understand if you're like me and you want to have impact, you want to invest your time and money in places that help the planet, but that also keep you safe and healthy. It's really challenging to wade through all of this information. What I wanted to offer today is just a really high-level explanation of the theory that underpins the master's thesis program that I took and talk a little bit about sustainability. How do you define it? This is a challenge. As I just shared, lots of things to think about. If you're a consumer that is curious about this and cares about this, which you probably are cuz you're listening to this podcast, let's talk about the underpinning of all of these things and how I see sustainability. I'd like to offer that framework to you cuz I feel like it's a way of simplifying things and helping you wade through all that, those details. And I want to relate it to ski boundaries. So if you're a little perplexed about that, here it is. Similar to ski boundaries, I wanna talk about the ways that we're being unsustainable, and there's really only 4, so it keeps it low complexity. And like a ski boundary, when you define how you're being unsustainable, it actually provides the ultimate zone of where we shouldn't go. Imagine you're skiing and you hit this boundary and it says, don't go there. You want to make sure with sustainability, you understand what those boundaries are, because if we don't, we'll still basically largely, you know, head breakneck speed towards a cliff with a really steep drop-off, intense hazards. And for us, that means potentially the collapse of society as we know it. I know that's a bit dramatic, but that's kind of where we're heading if we choose to keep going with business as usual. When we define sustainability in a way that we know that we shouldn't do, We're drawing the biggest boundary possible, the place where we collectively are agreeing it's not safe to go towards anymore, and that it's fundamentally unsafe for humankind. And when you know what those boundaries are, it gives you so much flexibility and the ultimate creativity to craft the business, the community, the life that you want encompassed within those boundaries. So that you know that when you choose things within those boundaries, you are being sustainable and that your, your steps are taking you towards helping create a sustainable society, which is another kind of one of my pet peeves is like lots of people are like, we need to save the planet. And from a geological— a geo— I can't talk— a geological perspective. Yeah, no, we don't. The planet is totally just fine. We're like a tiny little speck of dust. In the entire, uh, realm of geologic time. If you believe the Big Bang Theory, we've been around for about 4.8 billion years as this beautiful planet has been forming. So we're just a blip on the radar. If we're not around, the Earth will be just fine. What we're trying to do is save us. We're trying to save our society. Let's talk about those boundaries. So before you feel like maybe it might be a little depressing to talk about this, I want to say that once understand these 4 boundaries, we can really flip them on their head so that you can know how to move away from those things. So let's dive in. 4 root causes of unsustainability. Unsustainable root cause number 1. This is one of the ways that we are really mucking up the planet and undermining our society is that we dig up materials faster than the Earth's crust can replenish them, and then we leak them back out into nature. So great examples of this are fossil fuels, and metals and minerals that are scarce or toxic in nature. I always say before a bunch of you crack your knuckles or clear your throat to leave a comment or speak about this, about mining and how we need metals, I'm gonna be the very first one to agree with you. As a geologist, I just shared, I spent part of my career in mining, plus I wrote my thesis on the topic of this. And what I'd like to clarify is that it doesn't mean no mining. What it means is that we need to think about where we mine these materials from and how to capture them in tighter manufacturing and recycling loops. These loops will stop these materials from leaking back out into nature in the form of waste. And it's really criminal because these metals, specifically metals, are so beautiful and elegant, and they're nearly infinitely recyclable if they're properly handled. The processes of weathering and volcanic eruptions create these natural flows of minerals like silica or magnesium or aluminum that really are in such huge volumes that we would never ever be able to overwhelm them. And then there are other materials that are far more scarce or toxic in nature, man-made volumes that are bigger currently than what they flow in nature. And so therefore they be— they can become toxic or dangerous to us or even just scarce. And some examples of these are mercury, cadmium, lead, chromium, and uranium. Also So let's talk about fossil fuels. When we dig these up, it took them millions of years to form, and it's a form of carbon that was removed from the atmosphere and really tucked away by geological processes that we're now digging up and burning. And what the result of this is, is that we're adding a net introduction of these molecules back into the atmosphere, and this is what's causing global warming. Causing the climate change effects that currently threaten our way of life on Earth. And I want to also put a little caveat in here, a little personal pet peeve of mine is that we talk about decarbonization, and I don't mind talking about this, but I feel like it's very limiting because it ignores the other greenhouse gases that are causing the greenhouse effect, like NOx and SOx gases, and methane, we need to also think about where those types of gases are being formed and how can we avoid them. So unsustainable root cause 2, so this is the second boundary of our ski area. We're gonna maybe feel like it's a square boundary by the end, uh, is that we make a lot of chemicals and probably about 100,000 or more of them, and we use these man-made chemicals and compounds in volumes such that they build up in nature faster than nature can handle it, or that are completely foreign to nature. So we've been all super creative in the lab and put all these molecules together, and when they put out into nature, natural systems have no clue how to break them down and they accumulate and build up in toxic levels. Great examples of this are pesticides, insecticides, or compounds like biphenyl A, parabens, or dioxins. Nature is really intelligent, but when we give it chemicals and compounds that it doesn't have any natural ways to break down, these compounds move through the air, the water, our food, soil, and they reaccumulate in living things like fish and animals, in the soil, and in us. And they build up in concentration and cause health issues in all living things. When we don't think about the use of these chemicals, we are slow slowly poisoning the system that we live in and depend on. And this is challenging. Lots of people say like, oh, well, my grandma grew up in the time when they sprayed, you know, DDT or, you know, other pesticides, and she was just fine. So you need to think about if you were in a gigantic swimming pool and one little drop of this was being added at a time. This is a good example of the system that we live in. It is so big that the concentrations take time to build up and concentrate in certain places or areas. Like if you, um, do any research about glyphosate, which is a very common chemical in Roundup, if you want to look at Cancer Alley, for example, you wanna look at the Mississippi River and the Delta where it, um, enters out into the Gulf of Mexico. Do any research around that and you'll understand that these chemicals never go away and they move around and they do get concentrated in certain areas. And Sustainable Root Cause 3, so here's our third boundary, is that we're destroying nature faster than it can regenerate. So this might look like clear-cutting forests, over-tilling farmland, paving over wetlands, or overfishing the ocean. We hurt the health of nature by polluting it with our waste, and this certainly doesn't mean that we cannot use materials from these Earth systems. It just means that we have to address the rate of which that we do it and the methods that we use to harvest from these natural systems. And a very broad general statement about this is that they shouldn't permanently damage or deplete these resources. And the best solution is to pull from resources that are well managed and have regenerative practices. You might have heard this word regenerative. It's very popular in farming right now, and it's moving into other areas like forestry and food production. The big thing about this is once we damage these ecosystem services, we can never get them back. And there's a point of no return in which this damage occurs. And these ecosystem services provide us with things like food, raw building materials, and oh, guess what? Clean air and clean water. And again, no amount of money can replace these. You can bail out a bank, but once an ecosystem fails, that's it, folks. Unsustainable root cause 4. So this is the 4th part of our boundary and the last one. And it's all about social sustainability. When we disrespect people and block them from meeting their basic human needs, it is like an unsustainable gas pedal because if people can't meet their basic human needs, they won't have the ability to consider impacts of their actions outside of their own context, nor will they have the freedom or capacity to make different choices. Where does this disrespect come from? It comes in the form of economics. Economic, social, or political conditions that hurt people's freedom, such as the ability to move freely, speak freely, make a living wage, or even be safe at work. And when people can't meet their basic human needs, it's like throwing fire on the unsustainability fire. The rest of the ways that we are being unsustainable will really only accelerate and grow in magnitude. And it's super valuable to know these ways so we can look for opportunities. And just like, uh, I've been using the ski boundary, we can also use it as like signposts saying like, now that you know these 4 ways in which we're undermining our system and the systems and services that we depend on, we're also undermining trust when we don't support social sustainability. And if we don't trust each other, Well, guess what? All kinds of conflict and wars break out. We don't want that either. So these can also be really useful signposts to be like, don't go that way. And now we can flip them on their heads and they become a really practical way of defining what it means to be sustainable. And I want you to think about these as root causes. So think about a tree. These are the very simplistic fundamental, and I didn't mention this, but they're very science-based. I didn't want to nerd out too much on this podcast, but basically these, this framework is called the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. It has over 30 years of consensus-reviewed journals, peer-reviewed journals, and support, and so many case studies. If you really want to nerd out and go down this rabbit hole of of understanding what kinds of companies have applied this framework and become very successful. Top of the mind examples would be Scandic Hotels in Scandinavia, IKEA, Nike, a great carpet company called Interface Flooring. These are just a few smattering of examples. Framework is also known as the Natural Step in business circles. So if you want to Google that, go for it. Uh, you can spend a long time reading some really interesting material. Without further ado though, I think we should talk about how we can use these as a practical definition of how to be sustainable at home and how it helps you ward off the information overwhelm. So if you get really overwhelmed and you're trying to think through something in your house, just remember that, uh, there's a lot of details and to ground yourself, bring yourself back down and think, is it contributing to one of these four fundamental root causes of how we're unsustainable? I want to talk a little bit about what this might look like at home for you because we're all stuck in a system that's attempting to change. I just want to remind you gently, there is no cold turkey magic bullet answer. And you know what's really exciting? There may also be technologies and solutions that are still developing. In the future that haven't maybe even been introduced yet. And the key takeaway for the second part of this is to take action wherever you can and do your best in your context. And remember, there are many, many, many thousands of brains working on solutions on so many different levels of society's systems. So don't feel alone, don't feel overwhelmed, and let's jump into what a few sustainable solutions might look like within these 4 categories of sustainability. Sustainable solution number 1. So if we go reach our memories back to about 10 minutes ago, we were talking about how we use materials that are mined out of the earth. When you think about this at home, it might be taking the steps to make your home as energy efficient as possible, because the cheapest kind of energy you use, no matter where it comes from, is the kind that doesn't get wasted. Then you'd want to look at reducing your fossil fuel use. For personal transportation. And you can also research where the energy for your running your house comes from. Do you have the possibility of installing things like renewable energy systems? You wanna look at keeping all of your equipment going as long as possible, like appliances and electronics. And when they do die, cuz stuff happens, uh, make sure you try and recycle everything that you can that contains metals, especially ones that contain toxic metals like batteries, light bulbs, stereos, computers, cell phone, and appliances. And not that those all contain toxic ones, but they also contain metals like gold and silver that are really important to have recycled. We want to close that loop so that we don't lose those metals. Also, as a consumer, the last thing I wanna encourage you to think about under this one is demand take-back programs for products that do contain scarce or precious metals, or ask them to be better designed for repair or disassembly. So I know that, uh, in the US there's a lot of really cool kiosks where you can drop off your old cell phones. That's a really important step. You might not think you're making a big impact, but it's capturing those metals so that they can be used again. It's really important. Okay, moving on to Sustainable Solution 2: Detoxing the System. So as I shared, we're slowly poisoning the system we live in, including our soil, water, and air. And these toxins, when we release them, can cause cumulative and ongoing health issues like chronic allergies, autoimmune diseases, cancer, and even genetic mutations. And I'm not making this stuff up. There's a lot of peer-reviewed journals if you want to deep dive on this one. Have— adder— if this relates to anything that you're experiencing, you really might want to look at your home environment and how to detox toxic. So when you want to address this at home, definitely one of the things, uh, well, two big major ways is looking at your food and what kind of pesticides are being sprayed on it. And can you source that food organically or from spray-free sources? Because remember, not every company or farm can afford organic certification. So you want to ask if they're spray-free There's an organization in the States called the Environmental Working Group, and they publish something called the Dirty Dozen. And if you are like, oh my God, Tracy Lydiatt, organic food is off the hook, it's so expensive. And specifically right now in 2023, there's a lot of inflation. So I get you, I hear you. Use the Dirty Dozen as a practical tool. These are the worst fruits and veggies that have the highest level of pesticide residues.. So if you can just swap those out, you are gonna do a massive service to your health. You can also look at cleaning supplies. Are they chemically based and can you substitute them for non-toxic virgin— virgins. Oh my God. Versions. We don't wanna substitute for virgins. Um, what kinds of personal care products do you use that contain perfumes or dyes? So this might be shampoo, conditioner, aftershave, body lotion, and how often do you use, uh, things like Febreze, uh, or, uh, Air Wick scented candles. Um, not good, really not good for your environment. Full of chemicals that you are vaporizing and are now floating around in the air and you're breathing in. Um, so if you could just like ditch those two things, that would be incredible. Um, some other ways too, I could just honestly, this list could just go on and on and on. So I'm trying to summarize here. If you're doing any kind of renos in your house, make sure that you're looking at chemical-free or VOC, volatile organic compound-free insulation, paints, varnishes, glues, and sealants wherever possible. And then, unfortunately, a lot of furniture that we bring into our house, like mattresses, furniture, and carpets, can have flame retardants in them, which are forever chemicals.. So that's just a few really valuable places on Sustainable Principle #2, how to detox in your home. All right, nearly there. So Sustainable Solution #3, regenerating natural systems. So we want to talk briefly about zero waste, low waste, zero waste and circular economy is a really hot topic right now, and I'm so glad because it's such a practical way of talking about these things. And I feel like for sustainable principle number 3 about natural systems, this is just— they're inherently coupled together. So you want to buy— look at buying food that comes from regenerative farming practices, buy seafood from community-supported fisheries or that have sustainable seafood programs, that they're harvested Buy secondhand items to alleviate pressure on virgin resources needed to continuously make new products. If you care at all about this, that you've probably heard about fast fashion and how destructive and damaging that is and how they have, I think, like, I wanna say 52 fashion seasons. So if you were trying to keep up with that, you'd have a new outfit every week and that's not really sustainable. Um, if you were buying it new, also reducing your household food waste by composting. There's lots of solutions for urban dwellers. So those of you listening in the city and think that doesn't apply to me, I would like to encourage you to change your mind about that because there's lots of solutions. According to Project Drawdown, which is written by Paul Hawken and his team, when you decide to not throw your food waste in the garbage, you are contributing to the top third solution to climate change, because when that food waste goes into the garbage, it creates methane, which is is 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. So if you really care about climate change, you would really want to care about getting your food waste into a compost facility, bin, bokashi bucket. Lomi is another one that's out there now. Worm farms. There's so many options. And then of course, we want to avoid so much single-use plastic and disposable plastic wherever possible. And this has been, I think, the crown jewel of the zero waste movement because really think about it. If our oceans and rivers and waterways are choked up with plastic, they can't do their job of helping us have clean water. And there's a massive knock-on effect. I know that's overly simplistic because there's all kinds of marine life and marine ecosystems that are heavily damaged by plastic pollution. Stop using that. There's so many fun kits out there. Of reusable. And I personally like taking my own containers to my grocery stores for refills, like a deli or Bulk Barn. I think bulk food stores are now very amenable to having you take your containers in, but it's also kind of fun sometimes when they don't, and then you can have an icebreaking— an icebreaking conversation about about this. Oh my gosh, okay, I have so many notes about this. What are a few other things? Protecting or creating green spaces help those pollinators out so that they can make food for us. I'd say that's pretty important. And then also, I love the strategies. So this is again going into the circular economy conversation about reusing, repurposing, household items. It can also be called upcycling. If you haven't checked out Pinterest yet, it's your friend if you want to do these kinds of projects. Um, of course, thrifting is now super popular. Um, and those are just some really simple but impactful ways for sustainable principle number 3 that you can help ecosystems' health. So moving on to our last sustainable solution, number 4, healthy people and healthy social conditions. Conditions. So in general, we want to look for ways to create the space and the opportunity for people to meet their own needs and for societies to optimize their chances to flourish and prosper. We need trust, folks, for this to happen and for this to work. And when we have these conditions of trust and the ability for people to meet their own needs because barriers have been removed, we have communities that are adaptive to changes and that give us all better chance of success as we're working towards making a sustainable society. So what are some actions? Because lots of people say, oh my gosh, like, that's happening over there. There's bad stuff happening over there. I don't know what I can do about that. There's nothing I can do to help those people or help those situations. Otherwise, you might be donating to like hundreds of different nonprofits, which is an important action. Select the ones that you feel aligned with, but also there's things you can do closer to home. So one of the big impactful things is to source your food from fair trade sources or even local farmers. Farmers have needs and they're pushed to the very bottom of the supply chain as far as how they get paid and what kind of prices they can offer. So when you buy your food directly from them, you are putting money back in their pocket and remove moving multiple barriers for them, dealing with wholesalers and markups and advertising campaigns. So if you just do one thing, buy from farmers, buy from a farmer's market if you have access to it. One thing I love talking about is bartering or skill— did I say that right? Skill sharing. My brain's a little bit on vacation today, I think. Um, yeah, there's so many things that I've wanted to learn throughout my life. And I just, uh, talked about bartering with a colleague of mine who's really into weaving, and I'm learning pottery, and she was super down with it. So we're gonna barter. I've also been working on a building project personally in my own life. I've been building a small travel trailer, and I can't tell you how much I have learned from my elders. I have a couple of elderly men in my life that are like spirit dads to me and have taught me so much. I'm so grateful. And now I have that skill that I can pass along to somebody else. So look for places that you can skillshare or barter in your community. Another fun, um, opportunity that I love on the neighborhood level is creating lending libraries. Libraries and seed libraries and food libraries. So I don't know if you've ever seen little boxes on the side of a street or at your community center where people will drop off items like excess food they might have or books, and they just leave it there so that somebody can take it that's in need or that, you know, wants to not have to spend money to get those things. Those are amazing resources and hugely impactful for your local area. Also, I think volunteering is really important, um, and that may be simple, as simple as checking in on elderly family members or neighbors. This builds trust and continues to help us have that social cohesion and fabric. You could look at also organizing community events like a local fair for artisans, potlucks, potlucks, clothing swaps, or even meal trains. And I think that one of the ways that trust breaks down rapidly is that we don't know how to communicate with each other. We are always in a hurry to listen and then get our point across. If you ever see people talking over each other, it's one of my personal pet peeves is when people talk over me. Um, taking a class about communication and deep listening and empathy. There's something called nonviolent communication is, uh, gonna really impact the social part of your life and create again that social cohesion. People feel everybody has the need to be seen, heard, and acknowledged. And when we can ground down our, uh, communication skills into those fundamental basics with empathy and compassion and curiosity, I really feel like it accelerates the kind of change that we wanna create and it helps our social systems be healthy. So really you have a lot of momentum that you can create and start at your home and that spreads out into your communities and change really can start with you at home. And I hope that some of these ideas have been impactful for you and that you've come to understand some basics about how we're being unsustainable and then learned now how you can flip that on your head and use that basically as a set of lenses that you can look at through the world. And these lenses are the 4 root causes of unsustainability we're trying to avoid. And hopefully you've taken away now that there's really practical ways and practical approaches that you can use this lens and framework to look through. And you can always go back and ask yourself, like, if I'm trying to make a decision about, you know, should I invest in a trip? Should I— what kind of car do I need to buy? What about clothing or food? Who do I donate my money to or put my charity dollars towards? So many things. When you think about them through this lens of sustainability, it really— it's so simple. As far as the question you can ask yourself, is this pulling me towards being unsustainable? Or is it pulling me towards a solution? And it might not be the most ideal solution, the ultimate solution right away, that's okay. You could ask yourself if it's taking you steps towards the solution. You want to make sure you're going in the right direction. And really that's what this framework helps us with. So as long as you're avoiding contributing to these unsustainable root causes, you really have so much room for creativity and solutions that match your life and the way that you you live, your budget, your lifestyle, and your values. It also really helps us avoid the trade-off trap by arguing what's less bad and hopping around like crazy, getting stuck in details. So I truly, truly hope that this has been helpful for you. If you think that this is a valuable resource and a way to apply to your life, if you want to go onto Sustainable Living School's website, there's a free guide that I've created. Called Sustainability Decoded, and it's going to remind you of all the concepts that we've introduced today. And it gives you some personal prompts that you can work through to save time and help you discover the areas of impact for your own life. And I'll put the link in the show notes below. For those of you listening, it's at www.sustainableliving.school. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I'm so grateful for your time to tune in. And listen to me. And I hope that if you found this information valuable, that you'll take those first baby steps and learn to apply this to your own life. We release episodes every 2 weeks and we've got some fun guests coming up. We're gonna cover some interesting topics like recycling plastic bread tabs, how to have plastic-free hair products like elastic bands. Brands. And we also talk about sustainable death. And oh yeah, there's a fun dentistry one coming up too. We talk about sugar bugs and how they poop on your teeth and what kind of chemicals are in floss. So yeah, there's so many things that are coming up. So I just also really want to say thank you again for listening, for your time, and for your interest in this. I'm so deeply I'm grateful. Bye for now.

Hey listener, thank you so much for tuning in to this latest episode of Eco-ish Podcast. We're very excited to bring you new content every other Wednesday throughout the year. You can follow along at Instagram @eco.ish.podcast. If you'd like to find out more about the Sustainable Living School, which produces this podcast, you can look at the website sustainableliving.school. You'll find information about courses and a free guide that you can download to learn more about sustainable living and how to get started. The Sustainable Living School is also partnered with Your Healthiest Self on a 5-day free Sustainable Living Made Easy Challenge. You can register at any time by going to the website sustainablelivingmadeeasychallenge.com.

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