The Six Principles of Green Living
There’s something to be said for striving
to live a Green life, because ultimately living by Green principles
can be far more satisfying than grabbing whatever you can while
the getting’s good.
But the answers to the problems we face today aren’t going
to be found on a bottle of faux-Green dish soap or in the annual
reports of a Green-for-now corporation. They’re not going
to be found in the things we buy and use at all, since buying
and using are part of the problem.
In fact, a better guide to Green Living might well be David Allen’s
Getting Things Done and the rest of the personal productivity
literature, since the principles of Green living are not all that
different from the principles we use to help us be more productive.
Here are some thoughts on what real Green principles are; they
should sound familiar to anyone who takes personal productivity
at all seriously.
6 Principles of Green Living:
1. Simplicity -- More stuff means more complexity; more
upkeep, more keeping track, more things to do. In global terms,
it means more wasted resources.
Some people try to atone for buying more stuff by buying "Green"
stuff — bamboo potholders, handmade mail sorters, recycled
project folders. But that’s a lie: to get that hand-woven
hemp grocery bag from Bolivia to Wichita takes oil, to run the
lights in the store takes oil, to feed the Bolivian granny who
wove it takes oil, to grow the hemp takes oil, and so on. You’re
putting a few cents into the Bolivian granny’s pockets, and
that’s honorable, but it’s not saving the Earth.
2. Fairness -- Much of our consumption-driven market is
based on unfairness. If everyone along the chain, from that Bolivian
granny to the Wal-mart worker, actually were paid what you’d
expect, that hand-woven grocery bag would be out of most people’s
price range.
3. Community -- If you’ve ever had the pleasure of
attending a local farmer’s market, you’ve experienced
something few of us do these days: an encounter with a part of
your community, an actual living and breathing person, who made
that which you’re about to buy.
There were some global resources used (even organic farmers use
tractors, and they needed a truck to bring their stuff to market)
but most of the labor and material involved came out of your local
area — the soil you’re standing on, the person in front
of you. You have a relationship with this person, and with their
land. Your land.
4. Sustainability -- A system is sustainable when the
negative outputs of that system are accommodated and turned into
positive outputs. Think about your working life — if you
weren’t getting paid, would you work so hard? Your hard work
— a negative thing — is converted into something positive
— a paycheck.
However, most of our global production is not sustainable. Waste
products are dumped wherever space can be found, without regard
for the consequences on local resources or populations. Workers
are treated unfairly: they are exposed to noxious substances and
dangerous working conditions, and they are not compensated enough
to feed themselves, let alone build a thriving economy (some aren’t
paid at all: there are some 30 million enslaved workers in the
world today, more than at any time in human history).
5. Planning -- Planning means looking ahead towards a
desired outcome; it also means thinking a little bit about the
community that isn’t here yet and dealing fairly with them.
The last century ran its course largely unplanned — something
that today’s young adults are being forced to come to grips
with. The decisions we make now will create the conditions our
grandchildren and their grandchildren will have to deal with.
6. Transparency -- Planning, community, fairness, and
ultimately sustainability require transparency. Most decisions
these days are made behind closed doors. A Green society requires
the active involvement of all its participants, and we can’t
be actively involved if we don’t have access to all the information
in play. What’s more, given the global magnitude of the world
economy, we can’t ever be fully informed — which is
why simplicity and community are so important. You can know quite
a bit about the farmer at the farmer’s market who raised
the chicken you’re about to eat.
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