.Filed under: Green Living
I had a great conversation with a colleague last night about what it means for the average person to ‘go green’. Yolanda Kennedy, owner of Ladies Going Green, and I agreed on a few main points that I would like to share:
1) Living a greener lifestyle is no longer optional, its essential. Polluted air and water, toxic chemicals in food and other consumer products, rising energy prices and geopolitical turmoil over natural resources are major reasons why we must find alternatives to our current lifestyles. After all, when was the last time a windmill blew up (like natural gas pipelines) or a solar farm caught on fire (like a coal mine)? The link between environmental toxins and cancer has been proven time and again.
2) Going green doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, living a greener lifestyle can be simpler than the wasteful, toxic lifestyle that we default to. For example, using a hand mower to cut your grass not only reduces the amount of pollution from a gas powered engine but can also serve as one of your workouts for the week thus relieving you from making a carbon footprint heavy trip to the gym! In another instance, I switched my waste hauler to Evergreen Waste Services because they pick up both the regular trash and the recycling can on the same day! This simplifies my life tremendously.
3) Most people think that going green is expensive, but it doesn’t have to be! One of the icons of the green movement, compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL), is extremely inexpensive. If you compare CFL to the traditional incandescent light bulb on a per watt basis, the CFL is a small fraction of the costs. It only takes a 13 watt CFL to provide the same output as a 40 watt incandescent thus using one third of the energy. The average lifespan of an incandescent is measured in months whereas the average lifespan of CFLs are measured in years so the savings can really add up.
4) Change starts with each of us. Only when we change our habits and make demands with our tax dollars and consumer purchases will structural change happen that will make it easier and less expensive for us to go green. For example, many banks are making online banking easier and simpler because consumers are demanding mobile and remote access.
I invite you to share some of the conversations that you have had around going green. Please use the comments section below.
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