I have been thinking a lot lately about lifestyle and the effect my lifestyle might have on the environment. My fiance is a real greeny which I find very endearing. I am challenged often by his commitment to living in a way which cares for the world around us. As a young woman the media seems intent on making my ecological footprint as large as possible. All the cosmetics women use have so much packaging and are often tested on animals. So much of the food we eat is convenient because we are so busy but contains chemicals rather than food or is genetically engineered or contributes to pollution and deforestation. When you think about it it is rather overwhelming.

I guess what I am realising is that being green is a difficult choice which you have to make everyday so many times. Someone wise told me that choosing to be kind to the earth and responsible with your use of resources is actually choosing inconvenience and I think htey are right. It is exciting to know that you can choose to do things which take extra time and effort and you are actually thumbing your nose at the God of 'time' and 'convenience'. Who said life was meant to be convenient? When you think about it most human endevours have aimed to reduce our effort to exist so that in the end we don't even have to do anything.

So many of the joys of life are suprisingly mudane. THe growing interest in skills and crafts of previous generations such as knitting, quilting, gardening and slow cooking all reveal that there is a hunger for real and tme consuming acitivities which allow us to be creative without having to but it. There is nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread, especially of you made it yourself.

I don't want it to sound like I am being green now. I find even th esmall things tough such as recycling. But I want to leave the world i touch at least in as good a condition as I found it so it isn't really a choice, it is something I have to do.

Apparently a boy in Australia has invented a solar powered lawn mower and it only cost $1000 dollars to develop. Lawnmowers are worse than cars and mowing one lawn produces more immisions than a 200 km car journey. I'll keep you posted on my attempts to be green.