Open Blog 3

What It means to Be Green

Being green to me means keeping our planet healthy and beautiful for the benefit of all beings and future generations. It means creating an environment where all can grow spiritually, emotionally and physically healthy - loving, living, and being happy - the way it was meant to be. A healthy environment means a healthy and happy soul. There are so very many ways one can contribute to the health and well being to our beautiful planet.  There is an old saying that goes, "Sayin ain't doin." We can talk about going green all day long, but until we actually do something, even if it is a tiny step, it doesn't really do much good, does it? To make a positive impact on the environment, you can start out by shutting down and unplugging all electronics when not in use, wash your clothes in hot water, recycle, use refurbished electronics (you can often find these at incredible prices), swap CD's and DVD's with your friends or a business that swaps CD's, DVD's and books, start using reuseable shopping bags instead of plastic or paper, and use energy saving light bulbs. If you don't think changing your light bulbs will make a difference, consider this: If everyone changed just ONE light bulb in their home to the more energy efficient ones, it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes a year. Other ways I have added to my green lifestyle are using environmentally friendly cleaning products, starting a compost pile for our organic garden, setting the thermostat lower, and instead of buying bottled water, I have installed a really good water filter in my house to help with this which has made all the difference.In today's world, I know I can't do everything, but I do what I can to contribute to a healthy environment, not only for our local community, but for our global community as well. Whatever we can do at home benefits everyone 

Open Blog 2

I have been noticing a lot lately that it seems that for many people eating organic and being green is a fashion statement, or a way of showing off how much money they have. In my opinion I don't really care why you do it, as long as it is helping. But when the fad makes it cheaper to buy processed foods than whole foods, something is seriously wrong. So here is list of ways to be green without breaking the bank. If you just start with these little things it will big difference. Here it is:

        -Find a CHEAP bulk food or whole food store and buy your stuff there, don't feel bad that       it isn't organic.

-Grow what you can. Guess what, if you grow it, it's organic! Just don't use chemical pesticides. These are easy to grow and can even go on a balcony: Herbs, tomatoes, small lemon tree, and peppers. I am sure there are more as well.
-Exchange produce with friends and neighbors. This is what people do in the country where i am from. You grow one thing, have too much of it, so you trade a little bit with a friend or neighbor who grows another thing. It is a fantastically cheap way to get fresh, and usually organic produce without having to learn how to grow a million different things.

-Farmer's market! In most places it is much cheaper and it is a great way to support your local economy. Plus they are a blast


Being green is not just an upper class luxury. It bothers me that our society has turned it into an expensive fad. It can actually be very easy if you just know where to look and change the way you look at things. 

Open Blog 1

I have always had an interest in being green but when it comes to practicing it I have really only gone as far as recycling. Even when comes to recycling I really have only tried to put bottles and plastic in the blue bin that the city picks up and when there is one near use put water bottles in the containers around campus. I also try to keep the lights turned off when I am not in a room and make sure the water does not run to much. I do have to admit that this is more to save money than anything. Over this past semester and in part due to this class I have tried to be more green and even taken the step of thinking green. I have tried to make being more green not so much of a chore but more in line with saving money. I have found that in many areas these to go hand in hand. If you just start look at things different there are things all around that you can recycle to make new things. It amazes me the things that people just throw out because they are either to lazy or do not know how to fix. Also things that are commonly thought of as waste can often be used for other things. For an example my roommate and I wanted to add to are backyard as it was to shaded to grow grass. We decided that we would a patio and firepit in. We did want to spend a lot of money on it and I decided that it would be cool if we could make it for free and out of stuff that we found with it still looking nice. We ended up using pallets and bricks that we found and it turned out really cool and has been a real hit with friends. It is always cool to see peoples reactions when we tell them we did it all for free.