Green Options

Living a low-impact, eco-friendly life often boils down to simplicity and sheer common sense. Just follow the old proverb “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” and you will be a long way towards minimizing your impact on the environment.

But sometimes consuming less and acting with a green heart still leaves much in the “gray area” of wastefulness and pollution. To help make your life at home as green as can be, Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin compile 100 great eco-tips in True Green Home. Part of the National Geographic True Green series, True Green Home serves as an accessible introduction to the countless areas of your home that can be either eco-friends or eco-foes.

It is also a great “cheat sheet,” as the authors call it, by combining comprehensiveness with brevity and generality.1 That is, you get a lot of quick glimpses into where your home (or apartment) might be wasting resources and some basic steps you can take to reduce your environmental footprint. (Nearly every page has more space devoted to a photo than words.)

Our sustainable future is only going to come with the full participation of the next generation, our children. Put the tools for learning about alternative energy and sustainable living in their hands with one of these fantastic science kits from Thames & Kosmos.

The local food movement is gathering steam. To keep locavores informed about best farming practices, one organization spreads the word about what sustainable farmers are achieving under the radar.

Formed as a coalition of schools, Mid-Atlantic-based nonprofit organizations, and the USDA, the Small Farm Success Project is “dedicated to helping small and emerging farmers improve their financial success.” Project researchers keep raising that million-dollar question:  How does a small farmer committed to sustainability find success?

Ecobrain, a green publishing company offers ebooks, the ideal green reading choice. Ebooks can be instantly downloaded to your desktop. Ecobrain has a series of ebooks that make ideal reading for Ecopreneurs.

EcoBrain.com offers thousands of other titles about or relating to the environment. Their genres include environment, sustainable living, cookbooks, biographies, kids’ books, how-to guides, green architecture titles, organic gardening, composting, fiction and more.

What a wonderful time of year to express gratitude for our natural world and how it nourishes us. Discover through this free visual guide how an enriched school or family environment can enhance student understanding of personal well-being and the natural world.

The guide is available for download in pdf format, and while it is designed for kids in a learning environment, there is something in there for everyone to learn from.

It’s graciously offered by the Center for Ecoliteracy which is dedicated to education for sustainable living. Their work is based on these four guiding principles:

Nature is our teacher

Sustainable living is rooted in a deep knowledge of place

Sustainability is a community practice

The real world is the optimal learning environment

Oh gosh readers, this is quite the contest, and I’m only telling you about it because my kids are too dang old for it. The prizes are good but the opportunity to have your baby on a book cover? That is amazing. A Dr. Sears Book cover no less.
From now until December 30, 2008 HAPPYFAMILY and HarperCollins are offering 4 babies the chance to be on the cover of Dr. Sears’ book plus each Grand Prize Winner will also receive over $1000 in prizes:

Teach your kids about alternative energy and the basic principles of physical science with a super educational kit from Thames and Kosmos.

Integrating technology, physical science and the adventures of living on a remote island and building a house, Power House teaches children about harnessing the power of the sun, the wind, electrochemical and plant energy. Power House was developed by physicist Uwe Wandrey, and includes a 96 page manual, 70 different experiments, and 20 projects to build.

Last week I wrote about how much of my hard work when I toiled away for a large advertising agency (definitely NOT sustainability-minded) ended up contributing to the problems facing humanity. It didn’t get me much further ahead financially, either.

When I think about sustainability, I’ve come to the conclusion it needs to be something that’s holistic and inclusive of both my life AND my career, livelihood, or, if you must, “job.” It doesn’t make much sustainability sense [...]

I went to Northern California recently on a business trip.  I got too much done.  Meetings, work sessions, proposals, emails, conference calls, and a few very memorable dinners. Four cities in just as many days. Before returning to San Francisco, I stayed with a friend in a small town up north. One sunny morning I decided to explore the area, so I asked her what there is to do.  Knowing me, she told me there’s a nice walking trail.  I could walk there or drive.  Well that was a no-brainer, of course I’d walk.

But I got thrown totally off track.  What I expected to be a calm, relaxing, reflective stroll beneath California oaks, turned into a passionate, ecstatic, breathless plunge into excesses the likes of which I hadn’t experienced in years.  It took my breath away, melted all self-control, and spun my world halfway round.

Oh, shame on you for thinking naughty thoughts.  It wasn’t the Adonis of the Litoral I encountered on the path (sorry gals… !)  It was an unassuming blackberry sprig.  Peeking out from the dried grasses along the edge of the path.  Winking at me in the sun.  I winked back, then looked around.  Is it legal to pick a blackberry here? I walked past it, choosing planetary well-being over my own base desires.  That’s probably the only blackberry sprig on this trail, and how awful would it be if I picked it rather than leave it for the birds or animals trying to earn an honest local living.

Now that the proverbial dust has begun to settle from my recent discussion with Caroline Savery on defining “sustainability,” I have been reflecting on it all with great appreciation and pleasure.

The main realization I have come to is that Caroline and I seem to be focusing on different audiences in most of our posts. (Caroline, if you are reading this, please feel free to correct me if you disagree with what I say here!) That is, most of my posts feel more appropriate for and geared towards “beginners” in sustainable living…those folks who are taking their first steps on the path of Green. Having done a lot with various methods of sustainable living and environmentalism (as an “-ism”) so far, I have felt called to use my experiences along the path to help others with little or no experience.

At the same time, and by doing so, I have been most dedicated to celebrating all the things in nature that I believe are sacred…and that so often get overlooked, even by us environmentalists! It is easy to forget about the sacred things in nature that are all around us, wherever we happen to be, and it has been a joy for me to sing their praises with all my heart and voice.

Caroline seems to be focused a bit more on speaking directly to the more experienced members of the sustainability crowd. Her Sust Enable experience/experiment of living off the grid, in my mind at least, is largely something that people would look to in order to take the next step in adapting to a more completely sustainable lifestyle. These sorts of folks would be more acclimated to that lifestyle already and so ready to, and likely more successful with, inching closer to being 100% sustainable. (Of course, much of what Caroline shared is also relevant for beginners in green living, just as what I have written is useful for anyone at any stage. But her sort of life off the grid as a complete life experience seems to me more appropriate for the seasoned sustainabillies.)

Dear Justin… and Dear all!

Special thanks to Jeff Strasburg for helping us indulge our imaginations in this series!  I’d also like to extend my gratitude to Justin for engaging me in this form.  It has been edifying to explore concepts about sustainability.  I hope that the readers of this “debate” have enjoyed the process as well, and I know I speak for Justin when I say: we welcome all comments!  This a dialog, a free exchange of ideas, so tell us yours and help to fuel the mutual inspiration.

(Author’s Note: I include the image above not only because, figuratively speaking, the “sun is setting” on our Sustainability dialog, but also because I will be travelling westward-ho! throughout the United States until the beginning of September.  My objective is to get some relief from my high-technology-based lifestyle right now, so the vacation will heavily consist of camping in national parks.  Therefore, I will blog if I am able to during this time, but if not… be prepared for both the Sust Enable episode debuts AND a bona fide blogging bonanza upon my return in early September.)

Without further ado,

Here are my final thoughts, in conclusion.

1) If you can learn to modify your life to be as close to environmental sustainability as possible, it is necessary that you proceed to do so. The human will is one of the most powerful–and dangerous–elements on the planet.  At first glance, it might feel like “too much” to give up using a flush toilet (just for an example).  But is it really?  Think about the idea.  Get familiar with it.  Picture what it would look like to use a composting toilet in your home.  Maybe start with a little one, to be used only sometimes.  Soon, the consequences may not seem all that daunting. There is always a choice. 

Don’t let your true identity and dreams for what the world could be become casualties of conforming.  You only have one life, so use it, in the most effective ways visible.  If many individuals decided that, deep in their hearts, ecocide felt wrong to them, that many persons when taken together comprise a mutiny against old, obsolete customs and beliefs.  Your little action today plays a role in a social revolution, of the “green” kind.