Missing the point of “Going Green”
May 9th, 2007 by Mollie
There is continuing to be a shift towards becoming more “green”. I think this is so great! However, I feel that unfortunately people are missing the point. Being sustainable, environmentally friendly, or “green” has to do with more than what products you buy.
A change in thinking needs to happen. Even this change is a process, but there is a point at which a light goes on and we need to be moving towards that point. Within this process there needs to be a shift in the way we think about consuming. Most people consume more food, clothing, electricity, natural resources, and produce more waste than is healthy for one person or for one planet.
Think of it like this: Say there was a sedentary person who used to eat 4,000 calories/day in fast food, junk food, and soda and as a result was obese. Then lets say that person decided they wanted to eat healthier foods. So, they remained sedentary and started eating 4,000 calories/day in fruits, vegetables, whole grains—they would still be obese. When you consume more calories than your body needs to operate you will still have extra calories that will turn into fat. You may be doing less harm to your body because you are not greasing it up with fast food toxins, but you are still eating more than you need.
The same is true for the environment. Being sustainable is trying to live within what we need and what is healthy for the planet. We can’t just switch to buying organic yogurt, that was not local, which gets put into a plastic bag when we check out, and then throw away the plastic bag and recycle the container and think we have done our part. Switching to organic yogurt is a great change to make. It’s just that we can’t stop there.
The shift needs to be in the way we think about how we want to live our lives. It’s the same as the person struggling with overeating–they have to decide that they want health over immediate satisfaction. There are going to be times where this feels like we are being restricted. However, we need to remember that our health is more important than the feeling that, “I just had a bad day and a yummy donut would really help to make me feel better.”
I talked to a friend of mine the other day about coping mechanisms. We were saying that there is a difference between healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms. There are somethings that are fine to do to help us get through a period of time, but when our life turns into a series of coping mechanisms then we need to re-evaluate our lives and see what changes we need to make.
There is SO MUCH FREEDOM IN BEING HEALTHY and it is beautiful! Life is not futile. Global warming is not futile. We all are capable of making ourselves and this planet healthier. We just need to continue to make positive changes in our lives and usually the most important and lasting changes happen when we first change the way we approach our thinking about the situation.