Planet Green
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Green' means a lot of things. I like the term because it can't really be pinned down. To some people it is a huge lifestyle shift that is difficult to maintain and involves a 180 degree turnaround from the way they used to live.
To others it means slight changes in habit that lessen your negative impact on the planet and are very easy to work into your life.
I guess I fall somewhere in between, but I really enjoy all the different aspects of my time here on earth that could be categorized as 'Green' but in many ways are not.
One of the basic tenets of the Gaia theory, and the environmental movement, is that everything is interconnected. That each choice we make or action we choose to do will have repercussions all over the world, and that nothing happens in a vacuum. It's all pretty Zen or Quaker at it's base: think before you act, and try not to do anything really obviously horrible.
And that is a great way to look at a green lifestyle. Sometimes just trying to think things through before you do them will end up saving you money, saving a bit of the planet, making your life easier, and making you feel good about yourself. And, while not all of those results are officially "Green,' they are all part of the thinking behind the green movement, and so they count.
I will give you an example:
I have a cordless phone in my home, and I use the bundled services of a cable provider for my phone internet, and television services.
Well, the other day the phone broke. I could answer calls, and I could hear a dial tone, but when I dialed an outgoing number the dial tone just kept returning, mocking me, making me feel stupid. If I listened long enough, I could hear laughter.
I have had the cordless phone for years (a basic form or green living is to Not Get Rid Of Something Until You Really Need To). And, while it worked well for a long time, it maybe had run it's course.
I was running out the door to work when I discovered that the phone was busted, so figured I would buy a new, cheap, foreign-made cordless phone during my day out in the world.
But wait...
Later in the day, walking the city, I stopped for a second and thought through my options. I realized that, instead of the old days when a dial tone was the only thing coming into my house through that wire, I was now dealing with megabits of digital information of many and varied types. So maybe my problem wasn't the handset.
Using the Scientific Method very loosely I thought through the possible problem areas, and figured I should at least go home and take another crack at it myself before spending money and creating packaging and carbon usage by buying a new unit, as well as possible landfill space taken up by my trash.
So when I got home I crawled under the dining room table and my desk and did a full 'hard reboot.' A hard reboot is a great euphemism: it sounds like a genius thing to do, and very technical. it, in fact, translates as: Turn everything off. Count to twenty. Turn everything back on again. See if problem remains.
Hard reboots were ushered into the American Home with the digital cable box and the modern computer. Because so many digital and silicon-chip-based systems in our lives are now somewhat self-aware and capable of self-correction, the good old 'kick it and see if that helps' that most of us grew up with has been replaced by the hard reboot.
Lo and Behold, I plugged the phone jack back into the wall and fired up all the power sources for the digital cable system, picked up the phone, dialed the first number that came to mind, and had a lovely ten minute conversation with my mom.
And I did not:
Create a need for more packaging.
Put a functioning device into a landfill.
Create carbon usage through shipping and manufacturing.
Waste money on a product I do not need.
That's a Green List, no matter how you slice it.
The Moral: give your actions a little pre-thought, in everything you do. It ain't 'green' per se, but it will, almost without fail, improve your life. And that's the goal, green or not; a better life for all of us.
Don't miss Holter on Wa$ted!
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