Curating: Being Accountable for Sustainability
My quest to curate posts that support sustainable endeavors
Fact: Compared to the people I curate, I don't know a whole heck of a lot about living sustainably. I was raised in the United States, and I currently drive a gas guzzling automobile. And even though I recycle and try to buy my clothes and furniture second hand, I don't live on a farm. My toilet flushes into a city sewer system. When I need light or heat, I flick a switch. My water comes from a tap, and my food is bought in a supermarket. In fact, I would be hard pressed to fully explain electricity, farming or sanitation. I am ignorant and I take much for granted. And I know it.
This is why I want to support sustainable living through curation.
When I first started college (way back when), I came across a term that would pop up numerous times, intriguing my curiosity and focusing my resolve.
Sustainability. The ability or quality of not being harmful to the environment; not depleting natural resources. Supporting long term ecological balance and diversity.
I first came across this term when studying sustainable societies. Many ancient tribal societies revered nature and lived upon the land. These tribes incorporated customs and habits which governed their cultural outlook. They took from the land only what was needed to survive in a modest fashion. Their methods were adopted because after centuries of existence they recognized the interconnection between man and nature.
Over the past few centuries, the earths cultures have had to adjust to the changing needs of a growing world society where the need for more resources has become a way of life. Our economic system stresses consumption, so we are constantly making "new and improved" goods and technology so that we can save time and work harder at jobs that create or provide more and more goods. It's a never ending cycle of supply and demand, but at what cost?
Ecology is an interconnected and interdependent system between organisms (insects, fish, plants, animals) and ecosystems (forests, deserts, lakes), where changes in one area of the system can effect another area - the natural cycle. All of our ecosystems make up our ecosphere, the self regulating system the earth uses to sustain life. We are dependent on the earths mechanisms for our food, water and air.
Why is this important? Earth's resources are not finite, nor are her natural systems which replenish our air and our water uncorruptable. We can see this presently with air pollution problems in New Delhi and the overgrowth of algae in many lakes, including Lake Erie. These issues are man made and life threatening. Some people choose to deny that these issues are traumatic, that man will create a new technology or the earth will somehow cope under all of the tremendous strain of constantly adjusting to pollution and climate change.
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. ~ Wikipedia ~
I believe it is of the utmost importance that we pay attention to why we live the way we do, to the environmental costs of how we live, to the education of children about ecology and sustainability.
Since I believe in the idea of sustainability and sustainable living, one of my goals on Steemit is to promote people and projects that are sustainable. This includes anyone from the homesteader and third world farmer to the ecobuilder and village project coordinator.
Curation goals
For the foreseeable future I will be curating sustainability and related topics such as ecology, solar energy, homesteading, eco-friendly habitats and ecological projects that protect or maintain the environment. Currently I am curating for the Minnow Support Project, Humanbot, and also as the recipient of the Make a Minnow award. In time I hope to start a page that curates the #sustainability and #sustainableliving tags through the MSP curation bot.
How can you get my attention?
If you write a post that you feel is covered under the umbrella of sustainability, use the tag #sustainability. I will be curating various other tags as well, such as solar, windpower, eco-building, ecology, climatechange, tinyhomes, conservation, etc.
I will also be creating a #sustainability post, which will highlight the top posts for sustainability, ecology and homesteading.
What am I looking for?
Well written original posts with low payout (sorry papa pepper) about sustainable living. If you post three photos and a few lines, I might read it, but I might not curate it. Tell me something I don't know. Try to write more than a few short paragraphs. If possible, please include sources for facts and credits for photos, including your own and even if they are creative commons use, so I can be sure where they come from.
How to NOT get my attention
Spamming posts that are poor quality or repetitive, with no new content, or posts that have nothing to do with the topic. Posting links to old youtube clips or articles not written by yourself. Posting content that is copied and pasted from work that is not your own (plagiarized), or including photos that are from copywrite protected sources.
Curation project
I am currently looking for a few more Steemians interested in curating through the sustainability channel on PAL- Discord, where we will discuss topics and curation guidelines. Curation for the project will be a labor of love and gratitude, aimed at supporting people choosing to live sustainably and projects geared towards sound ecological principles.
Please direct message @torico if you are interested.
all above photos Pixabay
It's a very nice idea... because it matters that we move towards more sustainability in the world. And I'm also all for hand-curated content on Steemit.
Very nice idea. I sure hope it catches on and some ideas to help our environment are obtained through here. It seems our government is never going to do anything except let the big companies do 'their' thing, so maybe the little guy can help out somehow.
exactly. we need to do what we can at the local level to fight back against big business. personally i give chain businesses, corps and banks none of my business. so many people throw up their arms and say what can i do I am just one person. we need to recruit all the one persons into many people. business cannot do their thing if they have no one buying their product.
@torico I, too, hate supporting monopolies, but I think many of us stuck in certain financial levels find it difficult to move out of that seemingly-endless loop because those are the only places we can afford to shop at.
Finding sustainable ways to live, I hope, is one way of trying to bust out of that loop. Even small ways. Also finding others who have similar philosophies (like the discord group) is encouraging. :)
while certain monopolies are a must for vital necessities, theres much one can do without. and it helps with your budget if you give up expenses like coffee at starbucks, using banks, and buying brand names. whenever i can i buy second hand.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by torico from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
I'll try to do that when I do I'll call your attention. I think it would be humbling experience
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45.45% @pushup from @torico
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Strange, you mention lake Erie. A documentary once showed how a lake was cleaned by planting reed which helps create oxygen in the water.
that could very well be so, however I was mentioning the article because the situation developed, in Lake Erie and in other lakes, because of agricultural run-off. Correlation between man made activities and potential devastation of an ecosystem. There are other areas mired in pollution where the solution isn't fixable. Point being that averting overload on the system in the first place is a wiser choice than getting to a point where it takes costly intervention to maintain homeostasis.