Just like Kermit the Frog, we think that “Being Green” means many things. It means making choices and it means realizing that the issues and solutions change over time and under different circumstances. What’s green in the dessert isn’t necessarily green in the forest.
Ellie busy weeding our garden
Because being green changes, it is important to be thoughtful and aware of the choices we make every day. We can’t give you one silver bullet for being green, but we can give you information, things to think about and opinions to help you make green decisions.
To us, being green means:
- Reducing Green House Gas emissions
- Using natural and organic products & foods
- Using fewer chemicals and healthier products
- Using fewer natural resources
- Reducing, reusing, repairing & recycling
- Educating our children and others about “green” choices
Don’t try this with a CFL or incandescent
Overall, we feel that being green means being good to our planet, Earth. Right now, the most important way we can be good to our planet is to reduce our green house gas emissions and our impact on climate change. However, we also need to make healthy and natural choices in our day to day living. When these priorities conflict, again, we need to make educated decisions. We realize that everything we do affects not just us, but the people and places who produced the goods we use and the food we eat.
For example, when I eat an organic, fair trade banana, I reduce the chemicals and pesticides that go into my body. However, I am also supporting the people who work on banana plantations by supporting less toxic working & living environments for them. I am also voting to reduce the toxins that wash into the oceans.
To help you get started on this journey I wrote a particular piece on getting started with advice for everyone. Then we have several different places you can start:
- Go here to see things that you can do once and then forget about, like installing a programmable thermostat.
- Here are easy actions that you can try out and easily incorporate into your every day life.
- Here is information on reducing & reusing.
- Want to green your travels? Here are posts on traveling green.
- Like to camp? We have lots of tips and information on camping.
- We have a variety of tips to help you go green.
- We only review products we really love.
- We have three kids, so here are things on going green with children and my original post on how and when to teach children to be green.
- This isn’t a cooking blog, but here are some recipes we had to share.
I could go on and on listing the types of things we have on the blog, but I invite you to explore the menus above to find the topics that interest you.
We often come across interesting things on the web. While we’ve shared some of those in blog posts, we mostly share them on facebook and twitter, so follow us there for additional content. Most importantly though, subscribe via email to receive each of our new posts right in your inbox.
Alicia
Happy Greening
Alicia
I think it’s amazing just how often going green also means saving money! My green journey actually started out just trying to reduce our budget by buying thrifted clothes, shopping garage sales, making things myself instead of buying them, gardening – it all saves money AND resources!
What’s really important to get started is an attitude of contentment – it’s easy to desire lots of ‘stuff’ but living with less is ALWAYS the greener choice. But it doesn’t have to be a bad thing! There’s so much freedom in simplicity.