Posted by Canadian Dream on June 12, 2009
I think perhaps I realized a serious flaw with the ‘green’ movement today: we’ve turned it into a party instead of a movement for real change. In the party, everyone is a winner and no one loses. We can all be green by recycling one item a week and ignore the hard choices ahead.
The reality is much more difficult. Our systems which our society is based on are not working they way we need them to in the future. We are still too dependent on fossil fuel regardless of if we recycle our newspaper or not. We’ve ignored the question should we have newspapers at all? Should it be all digital instead and if you want a print copy let a high speed print on demand service that only makes the exact number needed in day. No extra copies. If you decide you want one and didn’t sign up for print version then too bad. Saving resources trumps easy.
Yet when you start to examine our lives you can’t help be realize getting off fossil fuels are going to be painful. It will not be easy or cheap. It will cost trillions of dollars and take decades to do. And here’s the real issue: we won’t get it right the first time. Hell, it may even take a tries to make things work in any given sub-system. We need to get over the idea there will be one way to do it. Instead there will be thousands of possible ways and we will have to try most of them. The good ones will take off and others will fail. It’s going to be just like every other invention we’ve done so far. Trial and error will get the job done.
In the end, change will happen because there isn’t another choice. Being wasteful should cost a lot and easy should have it’s price. The party is going to be over soon, then the real work will begin. We either start to live truly in a sustainable way with our environments or we fail to continue to exist this way at all in the long term.
So how are you enjoying the green party where everything that says ‘green’ is cool?
Posted by Canadian Dream on June 11, 2009
So I’m taking a two week vacation later this summer and I’m trying to come up with some post ideas or even guest posts for that period. So far the brainstorming has been a little weak. I blame the book on sucking up my creative juice lately. In addition, I have a copy of Kerry’s 397 Ways to Save Money to give a way so I thought I would combine the two.
So to enter to win a copy of Kerry’s book you have to provide a comment with one of the following:
- A post or series of posts idea
- A question
- Or volunteer to do a guest post
Now I’ll be honest here, you don’t have to provide a good idea or question, just something. I’m just curious what I’ll get from this and it may help my brainstorming of ideas. Please leave a comment by June 16, 2009 by 8pm CST to win. Contest open to all residents of North America and you must provide a valid email for me to contact you if you win. Winner will be picked by random number generator.
Good luck and have fun.
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Posted by Canadian Dream on June 10, 2009
Now when trying to get more happiness in your life most people don’t think of helping others as a means to get there. After all it does seem counter initiative that helping someone else would have a benefit for you, but it usually does. Helping others usually makes you feel good and puts your own life in perspective. In addition once you retire you can often put more time into helping others for causes you already like to do.
Now how you help someone else comes in various forms and ways. Some common ones include:
- Give some money to a cause or charity or buy something for a fund raiser
- Participate in a activity to raise money for a cause or charity (runs, walks, bake sales, etc)
- Volunteer with an organization (schools, church, charity, etc)
- Help friends or family with tasks or projects or donations
I most fond of doing the last one. Why? It has to do with my own past. When our first son was born ten weeks early we had a huge amount of support from family and friends. So I feel debt of gratitude to everyone around me. As such I will often lend a hand at just about any project where I have the time to help or give away or borrow something someone else will find useful. It my way of saying thank you to others and I tend to like to do things with a personal touch. It what works for me.
For other people their schedules are to the breaking point so giving money is easier for them. I don’t mind that at all. It’s about what you can do, when you can do and what works for you. Often our choices of what we support are personal in nature. A grandfather died of certain disease might make you support one charity over another. There isn’t a ‘right’ way to help people. The point is rather that you do it in your own way.
