Playing and Sustainability

Sustainability is typically a dry, hard, uncomfortable issue.

On the one hand, it's no wonder: After all, we are talking about things like global climate change, natural catastrophes the effects of which may be exacerbated by climate change and certainly affect more people on a more-crowded world, conflicts over resources, and so on, and so forth. Lots of gloomy stuff.
In all that, discourse on sustainability usually takes the shape of the prophet walking in from the desert, warning of the impending apocalypse, and asking all to mend their ways. No matter what the immediate pain would be, you gotta act...

On the other hand, "green living" is a fashion, the tightening economic circumstances are not good for this fashion's (usually upscale) representatives, but may be excellent support for a return to values of thrift and make-do and the accompanying reduction in conspicuous consumption.
Moreover, there is a new realization that "green collar jobs" in fields such as renewable energy and energy conservation are likely a better - more future-proof, and addressing social as well as sustainability issues - way forward than forging ahead into likely trouble with business-as-usual.

Nobody likes being told what to do (notwithstanding that this is basically all that marketing does, and very successfully). The new generation of people involved in sustainability affairs are realizing that -

"The mission is serious and yet, like life at the Oberlin house, it blends
idealism, hands-on practicality, laid-back community and fun.

“It’s not about telling people, ‘You have to do this, you have to do that,’ ” Mr.
Brown said. “It’s about fitting sustainability into our own lives.” And hoping,
he added, “that a friend will come over, recognize that it’s fun, start doing
it, and then a friend of theirs will start doing it.”

Source: New York Times, May 26, 2008 - How Green Is the College? Time the Showers

Suggestions for things you can do, steps you can take to reduce your consumption, decrease spending, and possibly increase life happiness, are something very different from the lists of "50 simple things to do to save the planet."
Taking a playful attitude to these issues, serious as their background may be, it becomes a way of taking control of your life, living instead of just sloughing through life, running in the rat race...

What is aoi?

aoi, first of all, is the Japanese word for the color green/blue (and it can also stand for youth). Traditionally, the green of vegetation and the blue of water and the sky were both described with this word.

It is a fitting label:

• First of all, the issues that face us are both green - environmental protection, conservation of biodiversity, sustainable agriculture - and blue - the challenge of water availability, ocean dynamics, and global climate change.
• Secondly, "blue" is coming to be used as a descriptor for initiatives that go beyond mere "green" issues to include social and economic themes as a direct part of what they are about.

Actually, we have been there - knowing that sustainability is really about protecting our own living conditions and chances for a decent life - for a while:

• American environmentalism may have been a bit too strongly oriented on the idea of wilderness as nature apart from human influence, which is to be protected by keeping people away. Yet, there are also great ideas and initiatives for sustainability. Not least, the recent push for "green collar" jobs.
• European environmentalism already had to be a bit more inclusive. Not least, many of the landscapes that we are very fond of are not wilderness, but rather cultural landscapes shaped by millennia of agriculture. The idea of Nachhaltigkeit (sustainability) also came out of European forestry, seeking to use the resource without depleting it.
• Moreover, from its start, the idea of sustainable development was founded on the idea of three pillars: ecology, economy, and society. All of these would need to be considered.
  (Unfortunately, although ecology as being about the preservation of our very life-support systems should be the foundation, it was usually turned into an afterthought to economic growth.)

Still, we need to go deeper:
Why bother to do anything differently?

Whenever there are calls to mend our ways, there's this question. It's understandable. And it is plain stupid.
For their long-term survival, societies have always had to change. In our very lives, we see many changes. - It's just what life is.

Changing your lightbulbs to CFLs alone won't do the trick, though.
Our very cultures - the way we live, the ways we make a living, and even the aims we orient ourselves on - will (have to) change.
Change to living according to nature - both ecological principles, and "human nature."

Saying this, it's usually said that you can't tell people how they should live… Well, our "normal" ways of life actually do just that, consumerism is based on it.
Sustainability, on the other hand, requires diversity. Ecological principles may be like the laws of aerodynamics (as Lester Brown suggested in "Eco-Economy"). - If you want to fly, you have to pay heed to them. Nonetheless, using a squirrel suit and constructing a jetliner are both valid options.

The ways we live are neither sustainable, nor do they lead to happiness anymore.
The necessary change is deep, but largely in keeping with equally deep human values and needs. It offers possibilities for both the development towards post-materialist values to "being," "living" rather than only "having," "consuming," and for the material development so many people of this world still need.

It takes courage to face the questions of what the sense of life is, and how we should live it. At the same time, there is a deep power in recognizing these questions rather than letting ourselves be distracted from them through the modern "bread and games."

aoi aims to accompany others in, and shows my own ways of, harnessing this power of understanding yourself and living according to nature.