THIS POST IS NOT A PRODUCT REVIEW
Let me just say this blog is not meant to represent me as someone who composts, lives off the grid and rides my bike everywhere. I do my part, as an average Southern Californian, recycling, reusing bags, turning off the lights when I am not in the room… But I feel like it’s not enough. So this blog is meant to help mitigate my current environmental damage. I watched the documentary Chasing Ice when my daughter was an infant and at the end James Balog says “when my daughters, Simone and Emily, look at me 25 or 30 years from now and say ‘What were you doing? When… global warming was happening and you knew it was coming down the road?’ I want to say, guys, I was doing everything I knew how to do.” After I stopped crying, I made a promise to my then weeks-old daughter (or at least it was a really strong wish in my head) that I, too, would like to be proud of my efforts to make the world a better place at the end of my days. I was a huge animal lover as a child. I love the outdoors and the wilderness. I believe climate change is real. But I am also a perfectly average Southern Californian with all of my car driving, my dollar section loving, and my cheap, trendy clothes shopping. While I might do a teeth-grinding inhale internally as I throw out tiny plastic bags I get from the dentist or as I put those super convenient single-serving olive cups in my shopping cart, I still do it. So what am I going to tell my kids when they’re older and blaming my generation for the trouble and mess we left for them to clean up?
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children – Chief Seattle
I am a product person at heart and while I completely believe all of the small things that we do to help the environment are important, I am a huge fan of product innovation. Toys were my jam before I left to have kids; I really like consumer products and tangible goods. And sadly I really love plastic. So to be completely transparent (no pun intended) I just bought a laminator and I LOVE it! Sorry! The idea for this blog came as I was laminating letters for a reading book for my kids so… yeah. I am a hypocrite. A contradiction of sorts. But I don’t think I’m the only one. I’m talking to you fellow Angelino driving your BMW, drinking your organic pressed juice, wearing your Toms and on your way to your Botox appointment. I feel that as humans no matter how much we strive to be green, our mere existence creates waste – literally and figuratively, that is bad for the planet. But there are smart people out there innovating and figuring out how we can embrace our human nature while not harming the planet. Those are the things that I’m attempting to focus on for this blog.
My husband is a finance professor and is often saying you make changes and vote with your wallet. There are people who are taking the environmental problems of today and doing something about it. I like this notion of economic incentives because it’s exciting and positive, and it gives us power in situations that we sometimes can otherwise feel powerless. With information so quickly at my fingertips I often get lost down the rabbit hole of doom and gloom. A boss I worked for once had a rule that you couldn’t come to her with a problem unless you also had three solutions to go with it. I like that idea. Hopefully this blog and experiment will help bring to light for me, and whoever is reading this, some much needed solutions to our current environmental problems.
buyingmywaytogreen.com 