The transition to renewable energy will fail without reducing consumption

We’ve been told for a long time that the transition to sustainable living can be done without having to consume less. But we’ve been misled. The reality is that we need to be both changing our energy sources AND reducing consumption. The article link from Resilience paints some of the details of this complicated picture.

When reading this, keep in mind that past societies had a very different relationship with our Earth. We had the ethic of ask permission from the Earth to use certain materials. At some point, we shifted to a mindset that anything belonging to the Earth was ours to take–when we wanted it and how much we wanted. This can’t continue. Let’s ask ourselves what it might take to restore that ethic of asking the Earth for permission.