Sometimes people think sustainable living involves a lot of sacrifice. You have to turn the heat down, take the extra time to recycle or compost, and ride a bike in the rain.

Sometimes it just seems too hard. Heck, I even take the easy way out sometimes. My husband had the day off on Friday, and I happily accepted a ride to work because it was supposed to storm.

But if you look at the big picture, sustainable living is actually what people want, and not just to be trendy.

The city of Portland, where I live, recently passed a new Climate Action Plan, which calls for both city and county to reduce emission levels to 80 percent below 1990 levels. That’s ambitious. The old Kyoto Protocol called for only a 5.2 percent reduction from 1990 levels.

WorldChanging.com recently interviewed Michael Armstrong, Portland’s Deputy Director of Planning and Sustainability, about how in the world this is going to happen. Armstrong closed with these remarks.

One of the things that gives me hope that we can achieve very large carbon reductions is that many people enjoy the exact things that make a low-carbon community possible: walking to the neighborhood business district; eating fresh, seasonal food; enjoying a cozy, well insulated home; and having affordable, convenient choices about how to get around town.

Sustainable living isn’t a sacrifice. It’s a way of living the best life possible.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neighborhoods/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

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