Inspirational Acts: Green As A Thistle
Mar 7th, 2008 by Ann
I came across Green as a Thistle yesterday. You probably haven’t heard of Vanessa Farquharson or her blog , unless you read the National Post and/or are into green blogging, but you may very well see her book in a store near you in the next year or so. But let’s start at the beginning.
One year ago, Vanessa gave herself the challenge of doing one green thing a day for a year. And it had to be continuous, i.e. if she gave up her car, it had to be for the whole year, not just one year. Slowly, she started giving up Kleenex, her fridge, etc. The idea was to see how hard it was to be real environmentalist and that you didn’t have to be radical to live a green live.
Her last blog post was on February 29th, where declares three points about what she has learnt:
- ” In order to be truly green, we need to maintain a constant awareness of everything we do, use, eat and throw away, everywhere we go and how we get there, what we buy, why we buy it and what happens when we don’t need it anymore.”
- “Ironically, the greenest way to live is in the gray area…There’s no point in trying to be so absolute about whether or not you’re officially green; just determine your own value system, try to make your choices accordingly and allow yourself occasional slip-ups because, well, pobody’s nerfect.”
- “Stop buying crap. You don’t need it. In fact, you don’t even want it — you think you do, you want to be like that pretty girl in the commercial who has it, but it’s crap, it’s all crap, and you’re better off without it.”
I think green living or trying to be an environmentalist is an area that many people shy away from because they assume that it’s associated with radicalism and they don’t want to end up feeling hypocritical. What I like most about Vanessa’s project is she is trying to dispel the notion that making an effort isn’t enough.
It’s also a matter of how you approach it and Vanessa’s progressive approach (literally one day at a time) is one of the most convincing projects that I’ve seen in a while. Most of us don’t have the will power to one day get rid of the car, throw out the fridge, start biking the 15 miles to work, and only buy organic food. But doing all of the latter over the course of a period of time is a realistic prospect.
I urge anyone interested in going green (which frankly should be all of us…) to take a look at her blog, especially if you think you can’t make a difference. Remember - one day at a time.
Image courtesy of Green As A Thistle.