Using solar panels to power your home

The words renewable and sustainable are being knocked around quite a bit, and both are strongly associated with energy conservation. Renewable forms of energy constantly replenish themselves with little or no human effort. Solar energy is just one example — no matter how much you use, the supply will never end (okay, it may end after billions of years, but your using solar power won’t make the sun burn out any faster). Other examples of renewables include firewood, water (through hydroelectric dams), and wind power. Note, however, that firewood is notoriously polluting; the term renewable does not necessarily imply good environmentalism. Firewood also has another potentially severe drawback in that people go out into forests and cut down trees, often without much thought to the overall health of the forest (a good example of not seeing the forest from the trees).

To make sure that resources last, humans need to focus on conservation, recycling, environmental restoration, and renewable energy sources. Sustainability is commonly associated with such a holistic approach to personal lifestyle. Not only are sustainable forms of energy renewable, but they also have the ability to keep the planet Earth’s ecosystem up and running, in perpetuity. Sustainable energy, such as solar, is nonpolluting to the greatest extent possible. The basic notion behind sustainable energy sources is that by their use, society is not compromising future generations’ health and well-being, nor their ability to use their own sustainable resources to any less capacity than we have. Who can argue with this very fundamental version of the Golden Rule?