Green Options

You wouldn’t know it by this week’s headlines, but the truth is that President Obama’s proposed military budget actually increases military spending by about 4%.  Much of the histrionics and hand-wringing about budget cuts concern specific unsustainable weapons programs like the F-22.  Well, as long as gearheads are running the newsrooms, gear will grab the headlines, but it’s military sustainability that’s the critical issue here.

There’s more to buying that high-tech gizmo or fancy new clothes, especially if you put it on plastic.   If you’re anything like the so-called average American with combined balances on your credit cards pushing upwards of $10,000 per household, then you’re paying a lot more than the purchase price after factoring in an exorbitant interest rate on the unpaid balance.  Just one credit card with a balance of $15,000 and a monthly minimum payment of $300 based on an interest rate of 13 percent would take nearly twenty years to pay off, amounting to nearly $9,000 in interest, according to the website Cardweb.com.

To save or spend?

This raging debate among economic recovery pundits mask the reality that based on our current “free trade” global economic system, what we really mean by spending is consuming.  And in this global free trade system, ecological costs are “externalized” if we use the correct economist’s jargon.  As a result, we pollute, destroy and exploit where ever we can.  If you can’t do this in the United States very easy thanks to national laws and regulations, well then, export your manufacturing and service operations to places that don’t have many, or any, regulations.  Then import these products back into the U.S. to sell at a big box store, plopped down where there used to be viable farmland.  For example, these BIG companies move operations to places where poor people can sort through toxic junk computers for scrap or to places where throwing something away can’t possibly ruin our own clean air or water in our communities.

According to Emily Kaiser’s analysis for Reuters:  “U.S. President Barack Obama needs to convince Americans to spend now and save later in order to get the U.S. economy back on solid footing.”  It doesn’t have to be this way.

President Obama estimates a deficit of $1.75 trillion, equal to 12.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. He also delivered a $3.6 Trillion Budget Blueprint.

Whether or not we’re actually in a recession (it feels like one from where I’m standing), there’s been a lot of discussion about if that could be a good thing for the environment.

The pro side’s argument goes like this: Yes, because people spend less during a recession. That means fewer miles driven and flown, fewer factory items shipped, more items reused and recycled rather than replaced.

Sounds logical, right?

Editor’s note: This week, Eco-Libris blogger Raz Goldenik talks with author Diane MacEachern about her new book Big Green Purse. This post was originally published on February 22, 2008.

Can women make the world a greener and a better place with their purses? Diane MacEachern believes they do and she wrote a great book Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power To Create a Cleaner, Greener World, which is a call-to-action for women to use their power as buyers (women spend 85 percent of every dollar in the marketplace) to make a difference.

MacEachern’s message is simple but revolutionary: if women harness the “power of their purse” and intentionally shift their spending money to commodities that have the greatest environmental benefit, they can create a cleaner, greener world.

We covered the book few weeks ago, and since I was fascinated with the simple but yet powerful message of the book, I wanted to learn a little bit more about it from the author itself and interviewed Diane MacEachern. I know that not all of you see green consumerism as the best way to fight global warming and achieve sustainability, but Diane makes a very good case here in explaining how realistic and powerful option it is. you are welcome to read and judge for yourself. The book was published last Thursday, February 28.

With the exception of automobiles, we don’t often take things in to be repaired. Instead when something breaks, we throw it away and buy another one. Unfortunately this leads to a lot of excess waste and more money spent in the long run. Next time you make a purchase consider the quality of the item in addition to the cost.

Well-made items are usually sturdier, more durable and will [...]