When Salem resident John Gear looks for a true model of sustainability, he looks in the most unlikely of places — the U.S. Navy.

During the Cold War era of the mid to late 1980s, Gear was stationed as an officer aboard a nuclear submarine. As he patrolled the planet in the harshest conditions, he said he discovered what sustainability really meant.

“I wish everybody could spend time on a submarine,” Gear said. “Living in that environment is a great training. You have to care for all your life support systems, which is the same on Earth.”

Down the road at Marion County Environmental Services, Recycling Manager Bailey Payne had just completed a tour of four recycling industries in Marion County with a large group of Master Recycler Program students. Just a few years earlier, he said there were rarely enough students to hold a class let alone fill one. Times have changed.

“Now we find we have to add additional classes,” Payne said with a broad smile. “People’s attitudes about sustainability are changing. People have stopped thinking about what they can’t do and they are seeing it as an opportunity for what they can do.”

The two Marion County residents hold strong views about sustainability that were born before “green” became a buzzword for popular culture, and were working to make changes long before it became the latest fad. While each takes a great deal of pride in what's been accomplished, they also hold different views regarding what needs to be done and whether the bright green visions of the future will last.

Oregon has long been on the forefront of sustainability and environmental issues. While many may say it began with former Oregon Governor Tom McCall, Garten Industries Sustainability Coordinator John Matthews said it was a nationwide movement during WWII.

“People of this era made extraordinary efforts to conserve,” Matthews said. “The phrase Use it up – Wear it out – Make it do – Or do without was a mantra for those of the WWII generation.”

During the 1950s and beyond, many efficiencies developed during the war were cast by the wayside as wealth increased and people could afford to buy more.

“They stopped recycling,” Matthews said. “They didn’t look at the consequences of then and after.”

While there were many advocates for the environment and sustainable living during the 1960s in Oregon, Matthews said the 1970's served as a reawakening for many including his own efforts to change hearts and minds about recycling at Oregon State University early in disco decade.

When Governor Tom McCall took office first in 1966 and again in 1970, he made Oregon’s environment a top priority and worked with businesses, not against them, by offering tax credits and other incentives to help change practices. Once a change made economic sense, not just environmental sense, many industries rethought and retooled to reflect environmental concerns.

Although Oregon has long been heralded as being a model for environmental and sustainability efforts, Matthews said there is still a long way to go. However, he is optimistic about sustainability becoming a household conversation.

Before NBC started its “Green Week” segments and Fred Meyer, Safeway and Costco started selling reusable totes, the lessons Gear learned far underwater changed the way he viewed the world and how people need to treat it. He began to model his lifestyle off of these lessons, trying to reduce his impact on the planet through sustainable living, including being an early advocate of solar technology, energy efficiencies in his home, growing his own organic produce and removing his home’s lawn in favor of edible native landscaping.

“I bought my first compact fluorescents in 1989 and they were $27 each,” Gear said. “They weren’t all that compact and they weighed a ton each but I still have them and use them.”

He said he and his wife would walk to work when others drove and have had the same car for most of their 25-year marriage despite others buying and selling cars every few years.

While most people didn’t say much about his “extreme lifestyle,” he did try to convince the utility company in Richland, Wash. where he lived to become more efficient.

“They gave me the ‘What planet are you from?’ response,” Gear said. “These are the people who should have been helping the people in the city become more energy conscious.”

At just 36 years old, Payne has a lifelong history of sustainable living that started with his parents.

"I grew up in a recycling family,” Payne said. “My first job was picking up beer cans after football games for the deposit.”

As he grew up, he studied environmental sciences and even served with the Peace Corp helping residents of the Dominican Republic manage a growing trash problem. He later became an elementary school teacher where he started a recycling program that saved the school more than $700 per month.

Payne accepted his share of laughs and sneers as he bucked the trend of conventional thinking while growing up. During the 90s, he hauled his own bags into the grocery stores, he drove small cars when SUVs wrapped around him at traffic signals and he separated every bit of recycling he could before there were co-mingled bins.

While it may be easy for Payne to sit back with the “I told you so” mentality, it’s something he refuses to do.

“You look at what’s happening in schools and it’s very exciting,” Payne said. “It’s great that this is becoming entrenched in kids. I’ve been seeing it for awhile, but there has really been a surge in the last four years.”

He is optimistic that people in the United States will reach the 20 percent threshold. Once 20 percent of the people have made sustainability a habit, Payne said that number will only continue to grow.

“The question is how do we sustain it so it’s not just a fad,” he said. “It has to continue to be of value to people.”

While sustainable practices may be on many people’s minds, Gear isn’t as optimistic as Payne about the change in people’s minds and attitudes. He points to Hanford Nuclear Reservation as an example of how far we haven’t come.

“This is just one example of damn the consequences,” Gear said. “This is what happens when we throw resources at something and don’t worry about the waste.

“I don’t know that the message will ever really get out,” he added. “The media constantly cheer leads for economic growth. Economic growth means using more energy and more materials every year than the prior year. That’s the definition of good times in America."

“Earth is just a bigger submarine but we all don’t remember that,” Gear said. “This big submarine is moving through a very hostile environment called space and if we don’t manage the life support systems, we’ll all pay for it eventually.”