[saturnsc]

Well, there's different ways to view this:

LIVING Green is dirt cheap. Pitching a tent, gardening for food, living off the land, reducing your consumption to next to nill, giving up your car, making your own clothes, etc. will cost you nothing.

BUYING Green is what's expensive. If you decide you want to buy green as well as keep consuming like the rest of this over-consuming society, you will have to pay, and the posts above will all be relevant to this.

But to me going green means that you should DRASTICALLY reduce your consumption, so in the end you will not be feeling it's so expensive because you'll be buying fewer items.

[peachy]

That's a really good point and distinction saturnsc.

[Timetrvlr]

I think another part of living green is taking good care of what you have. I'm always amazed when I see people buy a new car or a new home and just live in it until they wear it out, then move on without ever doing any repairs or maintenance. People look at me funny when I mention home improvement that are easy to do, save energy, and are inexpensive. Simple things like replacing weather seals around doors and caulking air leaks is unheard of. Why is that?

[3plus3]

People in this day in age have gotten lazy. Extremely lazy. Why fix something if they can just buy a newer improved model, right? UGh, I really dislike that mentality as well.

[Timetrvlr]

I remember buying our first home in 1963. It was only five years old so you would think that it would be almost like new, but it sure wasn't! I spent the next year filling in holes, painting inside and out, and re-doing the landscaping.

I've lived in and owned a number of places since then and spent an awful lot of time renovating as well as making improvement so that our home would be more comfortable for us. It doesn't take much money or skills, it just takes a little bit of ambition.

[Simon47]

You make a very good point but I have come to consider it is more a function of specialization. I do a lot of studying in History and much of my business relates to past history and the history of the pioneers and settlers at the turn of the century. One of the things I notice from that and growing up in the midst of profound change is that once upon a time there were not too many things that couldn't be fixed or tinkered or jury-rigged by ordinary folk with the skills of the time. Now that technology has outstripped the individual capacity to maintain it and the skills specialization of individuals has led to or contributed to a societal predisposition to disposables. Given the fact of mass production, just in time manufacturing and planned obsolescence makes it far more personally economical to buy new rather than have many products repaired. Given that the concept of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle is in my view, languishing for markets and economic support, especially at the community level; we can cexpect this state of wastefulness to continue.

What can be done must be done? Does anyone have the time or the capacity to develop the necessary skills? We can take this discussion to the level of what might occur should a direct hit come from a Solar CME sufficient to wipe out technology and shut down all electronics and industry. I don't fear this much given that my life has been relatively wild and rural and have not lost the skills of survival that would be necessary. Sadly, the evolution of modern society would see many people perish simply due to a lack of experience at natural living. This is not to say I would have any greater capacity to survive since there would be so many more people depending on a drastically limited natural world to survive that once depended on supermarkets and parking lots for their continued existance. I would simply last longer because I could survive where many would would perish and few would venture. Are they lazy or too specialized in their skills and technological development?

Sim

Originally Posted by 3plus3

People in this day in age have gotten lazy. Extremely lazy. Why fix something if they can just buy a newer improved model, right? UGh, I really dislike that mentality as well.

[myworldyo]

I am so disgusted with corporate america/canada. It is 100% all about money. From living green to being a naturalist and even a vegetarian.. it is made so expensive that being young and trying to live a good lifestyle is near impossible financially. Why is it that Soy can be used for a million different things, is cheap to grow and produce yet everything made with soy is so expensive except at a Japanese restaurant?

The government really needs to start really backing up this way of living and putting laws in place that prevent companies from making it so hard.