Living with Less

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Earth cannot sustain our continuous overindulgence in its resources. We have grown to be a culture that figures out how much we can get away with instead of how little we can get by with. From eating super-sized meals, to driving gas-guzzling cars, to living in big homes and using lots of water and electricity, we tend to overdo it. By and large, we are relatively unaware how much we have and use.

While living in Africa serving in the Peace Corps, I saw how little most people survive on and what ingenious use they made of "trash." For example, they cut up metal cans to collect rain water from their roofs and fashioned sandals from discarded tires.

I greatly appreciate our comforts and abundance but am dismayed at how much we waste. I wish we could load up Matson liners with all the extra stuff we accumulate for garage sales and donate it to needy countries.

If each of us does our part to cut down our consumption, donate to others and share our resources in the spirit of aloha, the whole world would be more sustainable. Let's do more by using less.

Suzanne Hammer
Honolulu