One of the main components of a green lifestyle is to consume less. As it has been said time and again, if we all keep consuming at our current rate – even if we are buying eco-friendly products – we are not going to be making much progress. The key is to buy less.

Well that is easier said than done. At least it is for me. I want to buy my son some new toys. Oh geez.

The act of walking into a Toys R Us store is basically equal to green lifestyle suicide. ANY purchase I could possibly make at this place would not only negate the few changes I have made so far in my efforts to “green up”, but take me a few steps back. I am not exagerating here people. Let’s be honest. I don’t know too many stores that can boast that the majority of their products are not only completely useless, they are made in China (Made In China – stay tuned more to come on this subject….) and finally, they are made from the kind of plastic that will outlive my great-grandchildren’s great-grandchildren.

Solution: Craigslist….

I know specifically the kind of toy I am in the market for – Rescue Heroes. My son just loves these things. He will play for hours with them, making up all sorts of intricate rescue missions. Good clean plastic made in china fun.

So I typed in “rescue heroes” on my local craigslist and BAM! – a full set of heroes, rescue station, helicopter, motorcycle – all for a fraction of the price I would have paid for all this stuff at the store. And virtually no guilt consumption. I am recycling here. I am not adding any more plastic to the world with my consumer $. I am saving these plastic little dudes from their inevitable destiny – the local landfill. We are all happy.

Craigslist=Green Consumerism. What do you think about this logic?

Habits die hard. Real hard when they are based on pure convenience.

I went grocery shopping yesterday. And in the eyes of the environmental movement I failed miserably. Why? For many reasons. First, I basically had 10 mins to shop for an entire week’s worth of food. A very desperate 10 mins, knowing that my husband and two small children were in the car circling the grocery store (I know, I know, horrifying – driving around spewing carbon for no good reason at all*), anxiously awaiting my exit. This was not the time to begin my journey to becoming a greener consumer. I didn’t have the time to browse the aisles, read the labels, contemplate my choices. I just had to get in and get out of there, fast.

As I was running through the aisles throwing stuff** in the cart I had a lot of guilt. Now that I have decided to embark on this pursuit of a greener lifestyle I am watching everything I do with a critical eye. The added pressure of this blog being a sort of diary of my progress, is a fantastic motivator. I feel responsible. I can’t turn back now. I am in deep. I have made some pretty hefty statements. I don’t want to look like some sort of hypocrite who talks big but caves when it comes to action. I mean for all I know my mom and my husband are my only devoted readers. But you know what, it doesn’t matter. I am going to do this.

So a big part of making this happen is by starting to change some of my “bad” habits. The next time I need to do a big grocery shop I am going to make sure I have a good chunk of time to re-discover my supermarket. Most of our big grocery stores have a good selection of organic and natural products. There are healthier, greener options which are very conveniently available. And, perhaps soon I can try to avoid the big supermarket for a couple of weeks. There is a fantastic farmer’s market on Thursday afternoons at a park not far from my home. A weekly or at least a bi-weekly visit there would really be a positive addition to my new and improved food shopping experience.

Baby steps.

* other than the fact that if they were to park and turn the car off they would freeze to death due to insanely cold temperatures of -20 C
** I won’t get into the details, but let’s just say there was a few individually wrapped items, a big box of diapers, some seedless grapes from Chile…..

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/fashion/01green.html?ex=1341633600&en=e43fd3c71ee61db7&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

While I am not guilty of the extreme examples given here, I did feel like a bit of an ass after reading it.

It is always good to have a measured starting point from which to evaluate my progress. Calculating my ecological footprint seems like a good place to start.

My sister sent me this link: http://www.myfootprint.org/

Answering all the questions honestly, according to this website my current footprint is:

Food 2.4, Mobility 0.5, Shelter 2.0, Goods/Services 2.6 for a Total of 7.5 Global Hectares
Good news, I am below average for the city in which I live (which is 8.8). Bad news, if everyone lived like me we would need 4.2 planets. That’s not good.

So as a little motivational experiment I fudged the numbers in some of the areas where it is realistic that I can make some improvements. I decreased the amount of food my family eats that is processed, packaged or imported. Easily achievable with a little extra time and energy right? Sure. I decreased the amount of waste I produce relative to my neighbours. Hey, if I buy less processed & packaged foods – that will basically eliminate all of my garbage. No problem. I changed my housing type to a “Green-Design” residence. Right now we have a big old drafty house. Hmmm, this is going to take some time, work and money. But I am pretty sure my husband and I are both on board to go for it. I changed my electricity consumption to one that is efficient and conserves energy. This will go hand in hand with our future dream “Green-Design” home. And finally, I decreased the number of litres of gas per 100 km that my car consumes. There are more and more options out there for fuel-efficient cars which is great.

So answering the questions aspirationally, according to this website my future footprint could be:

Food 2.2, Mobility 0.5, Shelter 1.0, Goods & Services 1.2 for a Total of 4.9 Global Hectares!!!
Good news, I am way below average. Oh and uh the bad news, if everyone lived like me we would need 2.7 planets. That is really not good.

Last time I checked we only have 1 planet.

So i have been thinking a lot about how I am going to adjust my lifestyle, routines and habits in order to become more “green”.

It is no longer really a choice. I have to do something. Don’t I? I am doing something. Aren’t I?

I mean it is not illegal to be a big fat polluting garbage producing energy sucking toxin ingesting human. Not yet. I sure hope it is soon. Maybe then it won’t be so easy to feel good about my very limited (almost pathetic) attempts so far to become more “green”.

I recycle everything I can (I even started to recycle my yogurt pots this week- can you believe I used to throw those in the garbage last week?), I don’t let the water run when I am brushing my teeth or doing the dishes, I don’t let my car idle, I buy environmentally friendly household cleaners (that said, I haven’t ever actually looked into what makes these products “environmentally friendly”), I buy organic fruits, veggies & dairy when available, I bring my own cloth bags to the grocery store, I…..hmmm that can’t be it. Oh yah, I wash my family’s clothes using cold water, sometimes. Huh. Yikes when you put that in writing it really is not much. Kind of embarrassing actually.

There is so much more I can do. Easily. I mean things that are by no means life changing, let alone inconvenient. Because heaven forbid I actually inconvenience myself. I could start to buy more locally produced foods and goods, I could start buying only natural cosmetics & cleaning products, I could walk more often, I could use energy efficient light bulbs (man do I hate flourescent light), I could pay more attention to the packaging of products and avoid those that are uneccessarily wasteful (note to self: don’t buy those single serving yogurt pots). The list could go on and on.

I guess it is not really a question of whether I am doing something. I am doing something. But I am definitely not doing enough. I realize that I have used these small changes as a cop out of actually making any significant effort to contribute to healing our very distressed earth.

So while some may say that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself I have made some changes, it is sad but true that many people have not even made these small efforts, I do have some BIG changes to make.

well now that I have a blog, I had better drum up some interesting things to say. stay tuned…..