This is Friday the 13th–as good a day as any for considering whether we make our own luck, or not. We talk a lot on this blog about what solar can do for us in terms of saving us money, minimizing the margin of our electricity bill that’s open to price fluctuation, and reducing our reliance on fossil fuels (a hazy goal in its ultimate incarnation, since we have not yet figured out how to achieve cost parity with renewables, or reliable safety with nuclear).

But what we don’t talk about–and we’re hardly alone in this–is whether or not finding renewable energy solutions is enough.  The reason a fire is being lit under renewables R&D right now is that world governments, our own slowest among them, are finally owning up to the reality of climate change and global shortages of natural resources. So we look for ways to reduce the carbon we’re releasing into the atmosphere, since we’ve at least identified that as a tangible thing we can do to make a difference. But frankly, climate change is just a symptom of a larger problem: we’re burning through–sometimes literally–Earth’s natural resources in a determined fashion. We’re literally eating ourselves out of house and home.

I’m not saying this isn’t natural. Far from it. We’re the most successful species to have yet evolved on this planet, and we have a right to consume what we need to in order to thrive, and boy, are we ever thriving: our only predators are disease and warfare, and there are 6.7 billion of us. But the consumption patterns that have got us this far are outdated, as we peer over the precipice of exhausting food supplies, fuel sources, arable land, and stable economies: it’s adaptation time.

In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, author Thomas Friedman discusses the issue at hand with great directness. He asks if the current economic crisis is a reflection of more than just bad market management, and is instead a reflection of these outdated consumption patterns. He thinks we’ll eventually look back on 2008 as the start of a new age. He refers to a few different knowledgeable voices and makes some great points, but this is my favorite:

“Just as a few lonely economists warned us we were living beyond our financial means and overdrawing our financial assets, scientists are warning us that we’re living beyond our ecological means and overdrawing our natural assets,” argues Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. But, he cautioned, as environmentalists have pointed out: “Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts.”

The folks who are reading the NYT and commenting on Mr. Friedman’s piece (almost 500 of them, thus far) are for the most part, whole-heartedly in agreement with the need for change, so clearly the concept of revolutionizing our consumption resonates with those who are paying attention to the signs. Yet 25% of Americans still aren’t even recycling–setting aside the question of how we actually achieve change, how do we convince everyone we need it? 

Education is the best tool we have. After you read this, go watch “The Story of Stuff“, a remarkable brief video detailing the life cycle of manufactured products and the history of the consumer culture in America. And read; discuss; act. This is not going to happen overnight, but it has to happen. We might think our quality of life rests on the size of our bank accounts, our cars, or our houses–but of course it doesn’t. And hopefully that’s the silver lining to this economic crisis: making us revalue the things we should never have forgotten. 

Here at GetSolar, we love that solar energy is becoming mainstream. You can’t really call renewable energies “alternative” anymore, because their value is becoming so clear and their applications so integrated into the vision we have for our future. But we need to be looking deeper into how they can play a role in helping us change our energy-consumption habits, rather than providing an excuse for continuing to indulge these habits unabated. 

It’s going to be a long road, doubtless hard at times. We will have to adjust the way we measure not just growth and success, but happiness. For each of us, this will mean a re-evaluation of the principles according to which we live our lives, and globally, a re-evaluation of the fundamentals of government, markets, and trade. It’s scary. It’s also exhilarating. Our choices can help us achieve a truly sustainable high quality of life.

Remember, we’re not talking about making sure our kids (and heck, ourselves in twenty years) have access to great cars or nice vacations. We’re talking about food. Housing. Jobs. Drinking water. It’s all connected, and it’s not some far-off science fiction dystopia we need to avert. This crisis has–hopefully–helped us see how close we are to the edge. We’ve recognized the need to reduce the carbon we put into the atmosphere and to change our energy production; now let’s recognize the need to reduce our energy consumption and to change our parameters for success.

“Do More–Use Less”: the governing ideal of a new era.