“I’d love to see more ‘green ideas’ that veer away from the need for raw material production and product transportation.

Two of the things that I’ve seen are:
Growing your own Xmas tree (www.ourgreenhouse.com) and CallWave’s idea of replacing the fax hardware with software AND planting a tree(www.callwave.com/landing/other/plantATreeProgram.aspx).

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We are also having energy star rated low e windows installed in a couple of weeks.

I am hoping to keep our recurring energy costs as low as possible.

Personally, I fell sucker to that with the Mac software promotion site maczot.com. It offers substantial discounts on software, but looking back on what I purchased, I hardly use any of it. It’s basically just money wasted. I still occasionally hear of a great deal being offered there, and I’m almost always tempted to pick it up. I haven’t caved yet … nor have I felt I needed that sale software so bad that I’ve gone out and purchased it afterwards.

I suppose that by lumping “women over 30″ together as their target audience, they’re hoping to mitigate this problem. But I’d rather make an informed decision about what to buy myself than let someone else tell me what my best option is with only the knowledge that I’m over 30. Even though I trust the parent company, my goal is to be an educated consumer, not an automaton.

I’m big into environmental construction concepts as well, in part because in Canada, colder winters mean that good stewardship also impacts the bottom line — bad insulation and bad windows means a lot of wasted energy when it hits -40°F outside!

I have to agree with Courtney @4; it is a huge challenge balancing environmental attitudes with frugal living. I had a very difficult decision this summer when a condominium townhouse I rent out got hit with a special assessment for stucco remediation. I had no choice on the special assessment, but along with that I was given the option of spending several thousand dollars more to get windows and doors (both the responsibility of the owner in this complex) replaced with modern stuff, so the whole outside envelope would be sealed and modernized. I went with the additional expense, but have been struggling a bit since. Still, I think that this was a worthwhile investment, especially since I plan to boot the tenants and move back into the townhouse when I get married. I’ll appreciate the cheaper utility bills!

jp @10: I think the point of the Consumer Consequences is that the majority of the people on the planet manage to get along without the luxuries of even your hypothetical walking single apartment-dweller. In most of the developing world, lots of people would be crammed into that kind of space, and economies of scale start to kick in in a big way. I think you’re right, that we can’t win — maybe the point is to reconsider the way we live as a culture.

For those not familiar with the book, its basically an exploration of what would happen if humanity just disappeared. What kind of a mess would we leave behind, and how long would it take the Earth to recover, if it could recover at all? The chapter on plastic really hits home with a very good look at how all the plastic we create doesn’t go away. Literally every piece of new plastic we have made is still here, somewhere. Whether it was recycled as many times as possible or simply chucked, it’s all still here, not breaking down, not being dissolved, just piling up in the oceans and the food chain.

I’ve always been an environmental sympathizer, but I’ve never really been an activist or made a real stab at living a green life. But this chapter scared the crap out of me. I’ve heard it before, but reading about the Africa-sized plastic trash heap floating in the Pacific in the doldrums above Hawaii… that made me stop and think about all the disposable plastics in my life: the coke bottles, the grocery bags, the strawberry boxes, the sandwich bags. How many of these could be replaced with older methods of storage?

I’ve found a few sites, like PlasicFree, but everything seems too extreme for me. Maybe I’m not hardcore enough for a no plastic lifestyle?

Sometimes I just feel so helpless. No matter how drastically I decide to change my life, I’m still just one person. Even if I manage to save a hundred pounds of plastic, it doesn’t mean that plastic I’m not buying isn’t being made, used, and dumped. I guess I just wish the world was smaller sometimes. At least when I make sacrifices for my personal finances, I can see the progress towards my goals and it keeps me going. But when I try and give up conveniences to live green, it’s so hard to stay honest. I just can’t feel like I’m making a difference.

I was reading the comments on energy star appliances. I recently bought a house and it needed basically all new appliances. Most of them I got off of craigslist for real cheap, but the refrigerator we decided to buy new. I really wanted to buy energy star, but the nearly $300-$400 price jump from a non energy star refrigerator was just too much. I realize total cost of ownership is probably lower, but we just don’t have that kind of extra cash up front. I wish I knew why energy star costs a premium for some things and not for others. (energy star power supplies for computers or energy star monitors are not that much more expensive and are actually becoming the standard, where as energy star refrigerators or washer/dryers can be twice as much as the basic model)

However, if it helps ease your frustration, I will relay something that once helped me (It was a letter to the editor in newsweek a while back — wish i had the whole thing!): compared to homeowners, (apartment) renters are energy efficient by default. We use all of our neighbors for insulation. Instead of 4 sides of our properties being exposed to hot and cold elements outside, we only have one or two. We and our neighbors have only one lawn that needs to be mowed and fertilized. And so forth.

If I can find the whole article, I will post it. It was great!

Also, I agree that as a renter it is very difficult to make my space more energy efficient. I can change the light bulbs and shut off appliances that are not in use, but other than that it is pretty much out of my control.

They cover articles on green construction, green products (CFLs, reuseable bags, recycled furniture, non-toxic paint, etc), and also tips on how to incorporate “green” into your life, no matter what your budget. Often, the best tips are from the reader comments, especially if you like the eco-friendly couch but not the price tag. Readers will chime in with more wallet-friendly alternatives or how to find something cheaper that’s equally eco-friendly. One great tip was looking at Habitat ReStores, which sells surplus inventory from Habitat for Humanity projects. Items aren’t thrown away, you get a great deal, and the funds go to help future projects.

This is true. My parents have had a Consumer Reports magazine subscription for awhile now and I had a chance to look through this magazine when it arrived over the weekend. It fits well as a “shopping magazine for women”, but there is something for everybody really.

It was also kind of unsettling (but in a good way) to not see any advertising (or samples) of any sort in the magazine.

~Q

On a more positive note, since I hardly ever leave comments, I’ll take this opportunity to say that GRS is a wonderful, abundant, and seemingly endless resource. Thanks, JD!

I would suggest on the big ticket items making sure that it is in your plan. i.e. make sure you aren’t saving the environment while you are drowning in debt. Sort of like the instructions on the airplanes about putting the oxygen mask on yourself before assisting your children. However while Priuses are over priced there was a 3 month window where the frugal shopper could have gotten one for a pretty good steal. At least in Southern California the Toyota dealership over ordered and had trouble getting them off the lot. So if you keep your eye on frugality and have done the research you can still do both help the environment and save money.

The idea is that you have to have values in conjunction with your frugality. If environment is one of them then you align your frugality to try and take advantage of both.

With very little change to my eating habits, that was at a 5. On top of that, they included all meats together, ignoring the fact that different meats take up VERY different amount of resources: Compare a cow to an equal amount of farm raised salmon! Normally, I’m all for including fish in with the “meat” rating, but in this case, it’s one of the times to separate it out. It also did not give a place where one could comment on food being grown by yourself, as compared to shipped to you.

In addition, it had a blanket term for “organic or locally grown.” While this may have been very similar even 3 years ago, as Biggies like Wal-mart or Whole Foods start to included “mega organics”, these can and are starting to be shipped just as far from their locations as non-organics, thus reducing or removing many of the ecological benefits, per resources.

From a technological/web-site standpoint, I very much dislike when a website is entirely flash-based. Slower computers (EG house-holds with typically larger “foot prints”) would not be able to run this site, and this is something that should REALLY be addressed.

A side note, I just remembered: given their statement that multi-dwelling buildings were “better,” this would imply that those who live in the country are “hurting” their environment. This seems a very urban-centric point of view, and actually upsets me.

I guess i feel let down, since this kind of resource could be SO very useful to those of us trying to change our habits.

I am at work, so could only give a cursory glance to one of the other sites, that of the Energy Star, & once again, I was struck with the same feeling i had when i last tried to look at this site, coincidently about the time this website started: They don’t have much, if anything, to say to Renters.

In my area, at least, renters for the most part pay their own utilities, and the landlords are under NO compulsion to change the efficiency of their properties. Most (almost all) of the tips on the Energy star website seem to be tailored to those of us who have A) Lived at a location for more then one year, and B) can change things like the windows, the furnace, even the shower heads, &c. It would be nice if they could look at the numbers, and realize that a VERY large percentage of the population still rents!

Save trees, energy, and money all at the same time! It only takes a few minutes…

For Courtney, it isn’t so much about spending more to help the environment. You might spend a little more up front, but you will save energy using it. An energy star appliance doesn’t just use a better form of energy, but it uses less energy than other appliances, therefore saving you money each month on your energy bill. A plus is that it helps the environment.

The tools on that website are really helpful in considering “total cost of ownership” which is a concept that every consumer should become intimately familiar with. It’s why I’ll never buy a major appliance that isn’t Energy Star rated.

Having said that I’m glad for energy star … I know when I replace my monster of a refrigerator those guidelines will figure prominently in my decisions.

For those struggling … how do you justify spending more to help the environment. Especially when there is only so much to go around?

I keep telling myself this is something I’ll tackle when I’m out of debt and in the meantime, I dry clothes on the line and don’t run the water when I brush my teeth, but I rarely buy anything specifically because it is green.

On another note, I am anxiously awaiting a day when the word “green” isn’t glued so securely to the word “trend.” Oh, for green living to replace consumerism as a cultural tenet! In the meantime, thanks for the links – some are good friends, some are new – I’ll be visiting them all in the coming days.