Green Choices

courtesy rob schoutenGREEN CHOICES – New Wealth in Action

Fortunately there really are green choices we can make right now, today, that are empowering steps on the path to sustainable living. You may already have begun making lifestyle choices and changes. Where ever you are today, there are steps forwards that are rewarding.

Green choices consume less fossil fuels and natural resources, they protect the safety and availability of our food, water, air and soil, and these individual green living choices combine to build healthy, vibrant, sustainable local communities. For today, and tomorrow.

In many cases, the greener choices are something we can implement in our own lives – – by changing behavior, beginning a new practice, or improving resources in our home and workplace.

In other cases, we will need to collaborate as a community to make the broad behavioral changes called for on a regional, national, and eventually global scale. If we can indeed learn to think about the GLOBAL consequences of our combined actions, it sure seems wisest to act LOCALLY and begin solving problems right here at home. Anything less just doesn’t make good sense.

Here are some examples of enriching, smart thinking,

Green Living Values and Choices:

 

Simple Time-Honored Values ~ walking the talk

+ Use only what you need and share anything extra. Consuming less frees up precious natural resources.

+ When you travel, try to carpool or use transportation less often to cut down on pollution and oil consumption.

+ Keep an eye on your role in the local food system – buy as local as possible and support local farmers, restaurants who buy from local farmers and support local food producers.

+ When you need something, consider finding a way to produce it yourself using the least amount of resources possible, or acquire it as locally as possible to limit its transportation carbon footprint while strengthening your local economy.

+ Is it healthy for you? Is it healthy for the workers who manufactured it? Think about the hidden ingredients – are they safe or toxic? Is it the healthiest option?

+ Is it healthy for the environment? Are there choices that cause less pollution?

+ When you purchase something, local or imported, select resources made from materials and methods that have left behind the least pollution in order to have been manufactured. How green was it’s path to you?

+ When you do purchase resources from somewhere else, check to see how the supplier treats their own local environment, their employees, and their community. Are they a Sustainable Green Business? If not, send them a note suggesting ways you’d like to see them green their operations in order to keep you as a customer. Speak up!

+ As you go about your daily life, follow the never-more-timely campaign to conserve resources (turn off the lights, lower your energy use, drive less often, recreate closer to home, put a brick in your toilet tank to conserve water for example) and always reduce > reuse > recycle to cut down on the pollution caused by new manufacturing as well as your community’s landfill.

+ Live more simply and help others to have access to needed resources so we work together to improve our quality of life. It’s not only smart, it is the compassionate choice. If the developed world stops ravenously consuming everything in sight, our combined ecological footprint will change for the better – and there will be something left for future generations! More people on the planet can enjoy a higher standard of living by thoughtfully balancing all of our consumption patterns. Person by person; town by town; nation by nation.

None of these are ‘hard’ to do, it is just a matter of resetting your intention – making the CHOICE to change. And that is what brings our environmental and social justice values to life. Each week, add a new practice and by year’s end you can implement 52 ways to expand your Green Lifestyle’s wealth of satisfaction.

Enjoy!

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