Monthly Archive for April, 2008

Why bother going green when there are so many reasons NOT to do green things;

they appear to cost more
they can take more time
they might be unattractive
they may seem to be just a drop in the ocean
what about all the people doing nothing
i like my stuff
and so on and on

so why bother going green.

This New York times magazine article starts with the premise that going green is too much of a bother

BUT

It ends with one of the nicest and clearest call to action without mentioning light globes. The author, Michael Pollan, calls us instead to garden;

Measured against the Problem We Face, planting a garden sounds pretty benign, I know, but in fact it’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do — to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important, to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to change the cheap-energy mind.

I suggest you all read the article all the way through, all the way. Then look into the act of changing your dependency on others to supply all your food, all your needs;

Cheap energy, which gives us climate change, fosters precisely the mentality that makes dealing with climate change in our own lives seem impossibly difficult. Specialists ourselves, we can no longer imagine anyone but an expert, or anything but a new technology or law, solving our problems. Al Gore asks us to change the light bulbs because he probably can’t imagine us doing anything much more challenging, like, say, growing some portion of our own food. We can’t imagine it, either, which is probably why we prefer to cross our fingers and talk about the promise of ethanol and nuclear power

I have a second family which of Italian origin, and nonno in this family grows a great vege garden, my father who grew up in a different age grows a great vege garden and always has. I walk to my inner city supermarket and complain bitterly about the quality, taste and age of the produce. well I did and will for just a few weeks more. I have found a backyard now and I intend to join my father and adopted Nonno in the pursuit of feeding myself.

Like some reality TV sea changer I expect my simplifying my life will be a complex thing. But I look forward to telling you about the successes. So tell us about yours.