I'm trying to be more "environmentally friendly," which really means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I won't go into what it means to me at the moment, except to say that I want to try to be more responsible with my purchases of food. That brought me to Pittsburgh's East End Food Co-Op a couple weeks ago. I have shopped there on and off over the past year, but I had never gone on a Sunday. It seems that everyone and their mother shops there on Sundays, because I had never seen so many people.
I also guess that Sundays bring out the die-hards, because as I strolled around the store picking up my granola from the bulk food section and the organic greens for Joelle and selecting a locally grown eggplant (they are sooooooo good! I can't believe I have lived for so long without appreciating the wonder that is eggplant...!) I found myself feeling quite inept, and in fact not at all environmentally friendly.
Not that people are judging, but if they were, it would have been obvious that I wasn't a real tree-hugger, because real tree-huggers brought their own glass jars, prelabeled with the jar's empty weight, in which to put their bulk food items. None of those yucky plastic bags like I picked up. And real tree-huggers wouldn't look at the organic ice cream and say, "Oh, that's all the selection there is? And only in pints? And no store-brand? Nevermind." Real tree-huggers would embrace the fact that there are no less than five different brands of organic ice cream, in a variety of flavors, not to mention the soy-based ice creamy stuff; they would support the companies who are producing sustainably-grown products when the store brands are just going for cheapness -- and they would be happy that portion-control was built in to the size, because who in the world needs to eat a half-gallon of ice cream by herself anyhow? Real tree-huggers wouldn't groan internally and say, "Man, I can buy this same cereal at Target for about half the price...!" instead of choosing to support a locally owned and operated business. They would proudly flash their Co-Op membership cards...and they'd probably then hop on their bicycles and ride home, unlike me who mumbles, "No, I'm not a member..." and gets into the car and drives the three-ish miles back home.
But hey - at least my gets 40 miles per gallon and is certified to be an ultra-low emissions vehicle!!
I guess there are levels of environmentally-friendliness, and there is probably always more any given person can do to stop depleting the earth's resources (...to be quite technical, I guess the best a person could do is DIE, because not only is the person no longer using the bounty of nature, he's now giving back to the earth as his body decomposes...but I'm not suggesting that's what we do to save the earth!). And I guess that my small steps are better than no steps at all.
2 comments:
Ok, so I like to think of being green like being Christian. Yeah, that could be taken several ways. My pastor once likened the Christian life/relationship with God to a linear continuium. Its not a sudden transformation. God meets us where we're at and invites us to the next apot on the line or "blip." So I may not be a perfect person/Christian, but the goal is to be constantly moving forward and transforming more into what God wants me to be. Am I making sense? Anyway, being green is kinda like that. I am not a co-op shopping, granola buying, tree hugger, but I am always trying to move to the next "blip." And now that I look back to last year, I've moved quite a few blips forward. Last year, the only green part of me was that I sometimes recycled my propel bottles. Now, I recycle all the plastic I use, cardboard, tin, aluminum, newspaper and glass. I walk to work. My washer and dryer are energy star front loaders. Last Saturday, I spent 4 hours shrink wrapping my windows to save heat (and to save money of course!) So now I realize that I am much greener than before, even though it was a gradual process, as is Christianity at times. As a side note, I think God is green too. I heard a sermon on that once. So basically, don't compare yourself to others--just keep trying to move to the next "blip"
Your blog made me think about using glass jars for our lunches. I had never thought of it before. We use endless amounts of sandwich bags instead. I'm going to start making the switch to glass containers for dry lunch items and at least move to plastic sandwich containers and ditch the baggies. We also went to the thrift store and bought cloth bags to carry our lunches in.
I think a big part in moving along to the next "blip" like Anna is talking about is having that moment of inspiration as well. Whether its Al Gore, a friends blog or a sudden realization one day that you hate plastic bags, those things keep you moving along the right path : )
Thanks for the inspiration!
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