Green Options

Take it easy.  Go slow.  Take your time.

Lately, I’ve been writing about lessons learned during my three-month sustainable living experiment.  Most of them are not concrete facts, but rather emotional insights which came to the forefront when the stresses of my new lifestyle began taking their toll.

Welcome to my most significant understanding: that developing an environmentally sustainable lifestyle MUST be personal, too.  It must reflect the individual.  It is not a one-size-fits-all game plan for green living.  There’s an unfortunate popular “Wonder Diet” mindset pervading American media, which says:

1. There IS one solution.
2. It’s painless and requires no real effort or commitment.
3. It’s quick and tidy–no mess!

I realize I made a mistake in planning for my Sust Enable project by embodying some of these cultural concepts of media in MY media.  For the sake of being easily recognizable and gimmicky, I assigned a strict deadline to my sustainable living project, thus making it sound more like a game show than the life-changing experience it has been.

Three months exactly.  From Day One to Day 92.  A riveting progression from novice to expert, from struggle to smooth sailing.  

Don’t do what I did.

If you are to be successful in your sustainable living venture, your actions need to come organically out of your motivations.  Your goals will shift over time.  You will realize what is feasible for you and what is not; what you need help with and what you can push yourself to do.  

Am I expected to stop living as close to 100% environmentally sustainable as possible once August 1st clocks over?  And when did I really begin?

Can a summer vacation help create a sutainable future? YES! Sustainability begins with a concern for the wild places in the world and summer vacation is an excellent place to instill love of the outdoors.  A few months ago, I was privledge to attend the Student Conservation Association’s Earth Vision Summit.  I know the young folks walked away inspried and ready for action; but I learned a few things too.

There are 391 National Park areas  comprising over 84 MILLION acres in the U.S.   A meaningful summer vacation is closer than you think!  Our National Parks are your tax dollars at work.  If you want your kids to experience the wilderness, explore it, be amazed by it, develop a sense of stewardship and a passion to protect it, you might be surprised by all the ways our National Parks can help make that happen!

For example, do you know about the Passport? 

Well, we went on vacation.  When you are out away from big stores and need particular products (and don’t have time to arrange special orders locally), it can be very hard to cut down on the miles you travel.  What we did manage to do: