The term sustainability has overlaps with eco-living in that you can live in an environment-friendly, sustainable way by creating a low-tech, low-impact habitat and living responsibly off the land. However, there is arguably an issue in the way that the term ‘sustainable’ is widely used and perceived, in that it is commonly assumed that if you buy an electric car, switch to ‘greener’ energy companies or buy from firms that ravage natural resources but who plant the odd tree in recompense then you are contributing to a more sustainable way of life. But are you really? Virtually every product that we use takes energy and resources to mine, manufacture, package, ship, market and eventually dispose of. There is an environmental impact and carbon footprint cost for the vast majority of the trillions of items that the billions in society buys/uses/consumes daily. And it all adds up. Massively. And at alarming rates! Yet by simply clumping on a ‘sustainable’ tag, companies give millions of well-meaning consumers the impression that by ‘buying green’ then everything will be fine, and the earth will tick merrily along for millennia to come with no consequences. That’s just not the case. And this will become more and more evident as resources dry up, greenhouse gasses cause more havoc, and decades of large-scale agricultural malpractices incur inevitable repercussions.

Now, more than ever, there is a need for action. Buying more and more high-tech products isn’t the answer. Even ‘sustainability’ (in the commonly perceived sense) isn’t a solution. Change will only come about once people stop buying things that they don’t really need, turning away from globalist consumerist mentalities, and instead return more to nature. If more and more people made the transition (or even a partial transition), then the world, at long last, could start thinking in terms of potentially achieving anything like real sustainability.