Is It Easy Being Green? Understanding sustainability through study abroad
By Diana Jue
Every morning in Bangalore, my host father, Prabhakara, wakes at 6 a.m. to select fruits and vegetables from a freshly stocked sidewalk stand down the street from his house. Afterward, he stops by a local restaurant to pick up warm idli (a white rice cake) or masala dosas (an Indian crêpe) that come neatly packaged in one sheet of thin wax paper, newspaper, and string. After his morning exercises and prayers, he prepares breakfast for both of us: sliced apples and carrot sticks, idli and chutney, homemade roti (flat bread) and curry, or my favorite—scrambled eggs with chopped vegetables and spices.
Two amazing things about these morning meals were the food (obviously) and the ecologically friendly path it traveled to get to our table. This story of our morning meals is just one example of how the environmental impacts of typical U.S. citizens differ from the rest of the world. Contrast the Bangalore experience to one typical in Boston, where I live. If I weren’t a student, I’d drive my car to the grocery store and buy a week’s worth of (not-so-fresh) imported produce and packaged, preserved foods with unnaturally long shelf lives. I would order take-out food packaged in non-biodegradable Styrofoam cartons, not newspaper and string. I would overbuy fruits, tossing out rotten oranges a week later, instead of purchasing only what I knew I could eat, as my waste-averse host father did.
The concepts of sustainability, environmentalism, and green living are receiving more attention than ever in the media. The latest Nobel Peace Prize went to people who alerted the public to man-made climate change, and the eco-savvy consumer is buying hybrid vehicles and solar panels in the name of the “green revolution.” But what does sustainability really mean? I’ve heard a few attempts to give the word substance: making ecological systems indefinitely productive, ensuring that future generations are as well off as the current generation, and saving the Earth from doom because “it’s the only one we’ve got.” In America, the more environmentally conscious of us look for “green” products and technologies, but we tend to forget the basic lessons of reducing, reusing, and recycling.
My homestay families in India and China practiced sustainability without energy-saving light bulbs and other eco-friendly products. The only trashcan in my Bangalore house was a 2.5-gallon kitchen canister, which held a day’s worth of trash. Most of our waste was organic and could be tossed into the outdoor compost bin. Ceiling fans and large windows provided adequate ventilation without central cooling. I shampooed and rinsed with one bucket of water. We hung our clothes to dry on the porch. In Beijing, I visited a classmate who lived in her host family’s hutong, a type of communal-style housing with shared public bathrooms. One three-person family lived in two small rooms with a total floor area less than that of my freshman year dorm room. Yet the hutong was cozy and comfortable.
In both cities, my families were proud of what they had. Even though they didn’t have the material goods that Americans sometimes use to measure status, they had what they needed. Perhaps they were even better off because they were satisfied with what they had.
Of course imitating this outlook is not easy. I’ve begun acting more eco-friendly by taking baby steps; sometimes I put my Nalgene water bottle to good use, opt for silverware instead of plastic, refrain from having my groceries bagged, and turn off the lights in an empty dorm lounge. But I’m still a product of American culture, and I can’t bear to part with my stuff. After traveling around the world with two small bags, I was shocked by how much junk I had in dorm storage and even more surprised by how much of it I was unwilling to get rid of.
A real commitment to sustainability requires a change in lifestyle and thinking, not just a change in the products we buy. This strategy may equate to having less stuff, asking us to check our legendary consumerism for the health of the earth. For now, I’m hopeful that my small efforts toward sustainable living, together with the efforts of others, will impact how we live together with our planet—from Bangalore to Boston and everywhere in between.
Diana Jue is an urban studies and planning and economics double major at MIT. She studied abroad with the International Honors Program Cities in the 21st Century (www.ihp.edu) from August to December 2007. She can be reached at dmjue@mit.edu.