It began with my book club, a group of five thoughtful women with delightfully diverse tastes in reading.  We had chosen to read “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life” by Barbara Kingsolver.  This started me thinking about eating locally.  Then we moved on to “Hot, Flat and Crowded” by Thomas Friedman, a reporter’s vision of the world that is and is to become.  He got me thinking about how we consume energy.  By now I was hooked on “green” books and moved on to “Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Year of Raucous Eating Locally,” by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon.  This couple challenged themselves to one year of eating food that came from no farther than one hundred miles.

I kept adding to my growing collection of books, moving into subjects such as energy, organic gardening, small farming, green cleaning, green building and remodeling, and how to live more lightly, borrowing where I could, buying where there was no other option.  I searched the Internet for green living topics and was overwhelmed with information.  All this input had an effect.   I began to wake up and I began to question.

How could I, one ordinary individual, learn to live more in tune with the earth, producing more of what I needed while consuming less?  Could I change my habitual American lifestyle into a more sustainable option?  Could I make a difference?  Would it matter?

I am in the thick of this experiment, having begun to challenge myself to think differently about how I go about my daily routine of living.  I invite you to join me.  Each week I will share information about what I am doing to live a more sustainable lifestyle, more lightly, and more in tune with the natural rhythms of life. We want to hear your ideas and comments.   Tell us what works for you, what doesn’t work, and what you’ve learned.  Let’s start a community of green thinkers and practitioners, who can share ideas and imagine solutions.  The next generation is counting on us.

Where to begin:

A friend said recently, “I think people want to go green, they just don’t know where to start.”  I think she was expressing the overwhelming, and sometimes contradictory, information that the green movement has produced.  In order to bring “green” into our everyday lives we need a focus.  For me, the first step was to answer the question, “Does it matter?”  This is a question for which each of us will find a personal answer.

I look at the facts:

   1. Our planet, with its environment, is a closed system.  We extract resources, we produce, we consume, and we create waste - and it all happens here.

   2. Our natural resources are finite.

   3. Members of industrialized nations are using these resources at an unsustainable rate.

   4. Consumption of resources produces waste, which in the quantities we generate, are often toxic to us and to our environment.

   5. The human population is expanding.  It has doubled in my lifetime to six and one-half billion.  It is predicted to double again by 2050, within your child’s lifetime.

   6. As economies industrialize around the world, more people want to live our North American lifestyle, which is unsustainable in the long term.

Whew! It’s as if we are blowing up a giant balloon.  At some point the next breath will cause the whole thing to explode.  We need to reduce the pressure, so that the generations of life to follow can have enough to live without unnecessary pain, stress, and struggle in a healthy environment as diverse and beautiful as we enjoy in the North Country.

In order to stay focused and committed to living a more earth-friendly lifestyle I knew I needed a principle, or value, to keep me motivated.  Think of it as a green star by which to steer the course.  The word conservation came to mine.  Conservation – the wise use of resources.  In this time of economic as well as ecological upheaval, this seemed to be a useful choice!  I wrote it on an index card and stuck it on my refrigerator, one place I’d be sure and see it every day.

Your turn:

Share with us your ideas about why living a greener life matters to you.  What helps you to stay focus and committed?  What inspires you?

Resources and Inspirations:

“Sustainability by Design: a Subversive Strategy for Transforming Our Consumer Culture” by John R. Ehrenfeld

“Mindfully Green: a Personal and Spiritual Guide to Whole Earth Thinking” by Stephanie Kaza.

“Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future” by Bill McKibben.

www.newdream.org

Next week:  Start where you are.

Roberta is a retired educator who lives, writes, and gardens in Watertown, with her husband and several resident cats.  In addition to lots of reading, she  has a business as a creativity coach, motivating writers to get their words out into the world.