Saturday, January 24, 2009

Going Green

I like to think of myself as greenish. I am not totally Green yet, but I am getting there. I sometimes laugh and say that I was Green before Green was cool.
For example, I remember being in 4th grade when my teacher taught us about the environment. We raised enough money to buy some land in the rain forrest. (Umm, I am not really sure how that all turned out). Anywho, I found out about all the pollution in the air, and so I joined GreenPeace. Yes, as a 4th grader I wrote to GreenPeace and for the next 10 years they sent me all of their literature. After I got their literature I was so moved that I took all the change out of my piggy bank, put in an envelope and wrote GreenPeace on the envelope and dropped it in the mail. I think the mail man scored big that day-- he got a tip that I am sure was no more that 5 bucks. I then threw a fit when I saw that we used the plastic bags from the grocery store so my mom purchased some canvas shopping bags and we used those for a while! So as you can see, I was Green way before Green was cool!!!

In reality, I do my best to be Green, however, because of our circumstances we are unable to make major changes. We rent our house, so we can't make any structural changes, there is no mass transit at all in the small town where we live, and I commute 100 miles a day to work. So I have some major strikes against me.
But I do still use Green bags, turn off the lights when I leave a room, carpool to work everyday with 4 other people, combine all of my trips in town, and recycle. I know that my habits are not earth shattering, but I believe that even a little bit helps. So I am doing my part as best I can.
Do I feel guilty at times for not being as Green as I can? Yes. Do I truly care about this planet? Yes. Do I feel a sense of obligation to do as much as I can for the earth? Yes I do.
I am taking simple steps to Green up. Like I said, it may not be earth shattering, but this is simply all I can do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was just at the store and did not have enough green bags - what is the better choice paper or plastic? I picked plastic thinking I could take them back.