Well, the end of the semester is almost over.  I feel like it has flown by, and yet I am also a different person than when I first started this class. Walking into this class, I had no idea what to expect. I thought I knew what it meant to be sustainable, but as the semester went on, I learned that there was so much more to living a sustainable life.

Sustainability, to me, means to make decisions while being conscious of the environmental impact it has. While that is still true, sustainability is so much more than that.

One epiphany that I had, was during our discussion of industrial ecology. The idea that our current industrial climate does not exist in a vacuum that is separate from nature is not rocket science. If we think about it, we all realize this. The problem is that we do not think about the impact these things have on the environment. We don’t focus on the fact that if the environment is destroyed, so are we. We live in cohesion with nature, and our fates are intertwined. Once we accept this, and put it at the center of everything we do, can we achieve true sustainability and industrial ecology.

I think my favorite thing that I have learned this semester is how important it is to be an activist. Now I don’t mean this literally, because as we learned there are different roles that you can take, but I feel like all of them lead back to activism. Whether you are an educator, facilitator, entrepreneurship, and activist, you are still making a difference. As students, who have had the privilege of taking this course, we now have a social obligation to use this knowledge for the good of the environment. Personally, I can’t wait to share my conviction with those around me so that I can change the world, one step at a time.