Green Options

There’s something that’s been made increasingly apparent to me living in an ecovillage for the past year: environmental sustainability requires a change in culture. Society cannot achieve this sustainability through simplified living alone. Growing organic food, using renewable energy, and decreasing one’s ecological footprint are all positive things, no doubt, but true, holistic sustainability comes along with a culture that values cooperation and community.

At Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, there exists a unique culture distinct from that of mainstream society. Of course, this is to be expected: every group develops its own culture over time. (Think of something as ordinary as a college dorm or office: these places too have their own special microcultures.) Although it would be hard to define Dancing Rabbit’s culture and exactly what makes it what it is, there are certain shared values that certainly help to shape it.

Ecological sustainability is the core value of Dancing Rabbit’s culture. Beyond that, cooperation and a sense of community are highly esteemed values, too, and these are achieved in many ways.

More than 90% of Americans are recycling — but fewer than 5% have taken recommended green actions such as driving less or reducing their utility use, according to a new Harris Poll on green living released today.

The poll — for which The Nature Conservancy provided input and advice — found that 53% of those surveyed have taken steps to green their lives.

But it also found a substantial lack of knowledge about how to go green — and skepticism about

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In honor of the impending wedding season, The Nature Conservancy offers tips to make your special day one Mother Nature will celebrate.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something… green? It’s really not as out of the ordinary as it sounds—last year, Brides.com estimated that approximately 33% of future brides and grooms in the U.S. are planning an eco-friendly wedding.

Today, The Nature Conservancy is issuing tips for planning a greener wedding or commitment ceremony, with ideas from invitations through

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This world is founded on some basic laws, including cause and effect. Every action has a reaction. Every cause has an effect. And we may think that we’re all separate beings in this world, separate beings and entities. But in reality, we are all connected, we are all intertwined, and we are all One. And thus it follows, for everything we do, it has an effect not only on us, but on everyone else and everything else around us and even beyond.

So, we are tackling the problem of environmental fragility today. And how did we get to this place? How did we get to this situation?

Of course, there are a lot of scientific explanations, political explanations, systematic explanations, and so on.

But how did we get here, really?

By every action ever made — by us, by others, and by all of us combined.

By every thought.

By every feeling and every want or need in our hearts and expressed in our thoughts, our words, and our actions.

We can see that no matter how hard we try, we will fail to address the problems we face today if we don’t address our own personal sustainability and situation. What do I mean by personal sustainability?

Africans were colonized for hundreds of years. In the process they have lost their culture and religion. There are deep wounds in the collective consciousness of the African continent. Colonization has dismembered people’s culture and religion. Africans went through a lot of the suffering that has ever existed in this world.

Let’s put an end to human suffering and racism by treating each other with respect and dignity. UBUNTU: I am because we are. No individualism. Let history be our teacher. When countries and leaders are fighting over natural resources, when they want to overpower another country, this has a huge effect on the ordinary people on the ground. There is a proverb that explains this very well. “When two bulls are fighting, what suffers the most is the grass.”

Deepti Kalsi on Indian environmentalism | Well, I would say yes I do consider myself an aspiring environmentalist, but I have many areas in which I think I could stand to improve.

As for India, it has been two years since I went back and whenever I go I tend to visit the same 2 or 3 places. I always go to New Delhi. I think based on Delhi alone I would say I have seen a strange dichotomy. On the one hand, Delhi has planted a lot of trees in recent years in an attempt to counteract the increasing air pollution.

In fact, a few years ago there were boards all over the city promoting “Keep Delhi Green.” They also have created a Metro rail system that runs within Delhi as well as to some outlying areas. From my experience traveling on it as well as accounts of friends and relatives who used it recently, it is fast, efficient, and clean. It’s hard to find anything that actually stays clean in Delhi!

Julie Chow: Environmentalism in Singapore | The first impression most people have when they think of Singapore is cleanliness. Hand-in-hand with the anti-gum-chewing rule, it is not an unfair assumption, given the island-city-state’s patriarchal government and tropical climate (palm trees and greenery cover the island in abundance.)

Here is something that might surprise you though: Singaporeans don’t recycle. Or if they do, it’s not as blatantly apparent as in the United States. Occasionally, you’ll see a receptacle on the street that is divvied up into plastics/metals, paper and waste, but for the most part, everything gets tossed into one big trash can. Trash shoots aren’t sorted into blue recyclables and black everything-else-goes here. I remember once during the summer, I was sorting trash while at work when my boss came up to me and asked what I was doing. Apparently it’s all just trash over there — nothing specific about it.

Lately, however, there has been a growing concern in the country, due to rapid industrialization and urbanization. Over recent months, the government has been giving the country a massive developmental face lift, introducing towering high-rise apartments and chicly designed shopping plazas to rival those of Paris, Tokyo and New York City. There are more plans to introduce casinos (”integrated resorts”) and a Formula One race track — all for the sake of drawing more tourists to Singapore and boosting the country’s economy.