Welcome welcome, today we’re looking at family photos and analyzing them- lol- don’t worry, it’ll be fun :) 

For this blog series, I’m showing you the pictures in color from New Earth Publishing Haus’ latest book, the  “Modern Sustainability Master Guide.” 

The book is science and experience together -- decades of research and living the life crammed into like 42, 000 words - so I’m taking the pieces apart here in the blog so we can digest and process and have fun at the same time. 

I love getting the back stories about things, and since I used all personal photos in the book, I wanted to share why I chose them and how I feel they relate to the sustainable chapter they show up in, so here we go :)

The featured photo from the Sustainable Consumerism chapter is a pic is my 3 youngest sons after we moved from our urban homestead in southwest Missouri in the Ozarks to our off grid completely isolated 10 acre cabin in northwest arkansas in the Ozark National Forest. 

It is here in arkansas, completely off grid, as in no power lines running near enough to me to get grid power, where conscious consumerism began to really dawn on me.  Before, on my urban homestead, it was about getting simple, being self reliant and detoxification- and saving money.  However, the shift of seeing how all things are connected and how our spending and consuming habits really do affect the environment around us as well as the environment for us all came into greater focus for me at this stage of my journey. 

Thinking and planning for power, water, transportation, food, cleaning, etc. all were magnified as we had to change the way we had been used to operating, which in turn allowed more awareness to settle on the real-life priorities and how our all our little choices add up to major impact. 

We generated electricity using solar panels and a basic battery bank, it was “enough” but not effective really, we had to supplement our power with a petroleum gasoline generator.  I could go on and on about it down there, and I do some in the master guide;), 

but suffice it to say: 

1 mom + 4 young sons + no reliable power, water, roads, etc. = lots of experience and education and experimentation :) 

So let’s look at the photo and spy some sustainable consumerism habits which could lead to a stable climate on planet earth, shall we?

Notice the low/no waste food stuffs we have packed with us. 

There is no way to stay human and not eat food, at this stage of our evolution anyway -especially- when traveling/living with children (or kolee). 

Humans are incessantly eating, and I don’t care about that right now, the main point is if you eat food, you have to consider where it came from, how it got to you, how is affecting the environment, how were the workers/creators treated, how does it affect our body, where does the packaging go when it’s empty, and on and on it goes.

Eating is fine, being aware of what we eat is boss. 

So a fabulous place to focus awareness on in order to support a stable climate is our food habits.  There is a whole food chapter as well, so fear not, we’ll talk more about it in another post ;) 

   

  2. 









Notice our clothing items.

Phew, here we go…

Yes the fashion industry is a huge culprit in the degradation of earth. 

First, as with allllll sphere’s of sustainability and the current “modern” work we as earth aware Beings are involved with we are walking on a bridge which spans from past semi successful innovations and technologies and mindsets to changing ones where unity, awareness and respect live in harmony. We need to be able to deal with both, at the same time, during this transition. 

Tricky?  Yep. Way. Very tricky and we do need to be skillful and agile or we’ll end up - well I don't know but at any rate, here we are so we need to keep stepping forward while be guided by the results of our last steps to be stable and enjoy the walk. 

I say all that to say this- we are alive on a planet that does not wholly support actual life, just a watered down version of it, and everyday we are faced with decisions which do harm to others in order to support our own life. 

See, it’s tricky. But we can maneuver through it with Grace and Clarity and Strength one step at a time. The boys are outfitted in mostly old navy clothes in this pic.  Unfortunately, this company does have a slight track record of destruction to our environments and this is to help us all keep calm and carry on. 

When faced with choices of clothing, we are all doing the best we can, yet we can all do better. So I have a bunch of kids to keep clothed, I live in the USA where cheap disposable clothes are king and that’s what was in my budget - so that’s what we bought. 

Also of note, we also bought/buy used clothing more often than not and do keep the same clothes for the next size down to use later. ALSO, you can see we don’t constantly need new things, we use our stuff for a long time- repairing and reusing the items as long as it’s practical to do so. Again, we live in a world where we can replace items as often as we wish- yet to remain faithful to a stable climate vision, we grow in our awareness of our consumerism habits. 

A  part of the overall consumerism conversation is connecting the dots of our personal habits and lifestyle and aspiring to merge the things we enjoy with doing no harm to others. 

     

    3. 











Last but not least, transportation











is a









part of a stable modern climate.

The car in the photo is one I really would get again. I bought it used, maintained it, and used it as long as possible.  Acura MDX if you are interested.  And yes, we do have a whole other post just about transportation but again the overall consumerism concept is very integrated and wholistic, it’s all one and in the master guide we break down each component. 

The gas type, mileage, safety, emissions, and ultimately comfort are all very important considerations we have to be mindful of if we choose to own a car. 

The location and walkability/rideability/group transportation of the place we choose to live is also of course something we need to be mindful about.  We can say we don’t have choices, but in reality, we do. As we transition to no harm transportation, we use what we have and when we are ready to replace or relocate, we make beneficial changes. 

We got this, don’t worry, we’re all in this together and we’re fine- just fine ;) 

We just keep going, adapting, aspiring, and accepting our journey and enjoy it! 

Here’s our next picture we’ll dissect next post about sustainable fashion,

Till then, create some space to be mindful of your consumerism habits and see which aren’t a great fit anymore- then allow them to drop away as you fill the space with something more aligned to creating a stable climate on planet earth ;) 

xxxoo kolee n krew love you