The Shallow End of The Green Pool

Wow. I cannot believe I have blogging for a year now. Well, almost a year. I signed up for my blog a year ago, but then it took me ten days before I actually got around to writing my first post. Sheesh. That's so me, isn't it?

Not much for jumping right in, I prefer to test the waters by dipping my big toe in first. Then I bitch and moan for a while about how cold it is. Slowly I will step down the first step and let the water lap my cankles, all the while making that contorted "holymotherf'erthisissomeseriouslycoldwater" look with my face. Another five minutes will pass before I actually get the knees wet. And thus it continues ad nauseum, until, half an hour later, I'm actually up to my armpits and conceding that it's not really that bad, but there's no way I'm going under.

And then I do. And I'm just as soaking wet as the kid next to me who dove straight in.

Kind of like this Planeteering stuff. When I started out a year ago, I was reading various eco-blogs and I thought, "well I can try to get a little greener, but I'll never be as green as these folks". But I made a small change, almost every single day and look what happened. I do believe I became one of those "green folks". I'm not saying I'm like No Impact Man or Sharon Astyk, because I'm not. I have not dedicated my life's work to saving the planet. In fact, I barely dedicate a few hours a week to it.

And yet, to look at the Riot Numbers I posted earlier this week, it would appear that with making slight adjustments to my lifestyle, I have definitely made a difference. I have markedly decreased my consumption of gasoline, electricity, heating fuel, water and goods. I have more than halved the amount of garbage our household sends to the landfill and I am contributing to our local, sustainable farming community on a weekly basis.

Lo and behold, I have officially gone green. And now I think I'd like to help others do the same.

I know a lot of you are relatively new to my blog and weren't around when I quit using grocery bags or switched to wind power. Many of you asked if I could review the changes I've made over the past year so that you could learn from my successes and failures.

What I heard: "Less work than coming up with a new change every day".

COUNT ME IN!

So here's what I'm thinking:

If there are any folks out there who just can't take the plunge into the One Tonne CO2 Lifestyle , I will lead you to the pool and help you stick your toe in. Together, we'll make three changes per week towards a greener lifestyle. And we'll have fun doing it.

Starting July 1st, I'll be kicking off a brand new Step-A-Day Program for eco-wannabes. I'll be rehashing all my old changes, providing a year's worth of insight and information, so that your path might not be as rocky or as steep as the one I took. I'm not saying I have all the answers because I don't. And I'm definitely not an expert - on anything. But I have been there. I have felt overwhelmed by the plight of the planet and unsure of how or what I could do to help.

If you're interested in playing along at home, I've set up a companion Yahoo! site that will let you share ideas, commiserate with others or just hang out in the eco-pool. You can join here.

I'll be providing more information on how the whole program will work (cuz yeah, I don't even have it all figured out yet) in the next couple of weeks. I'm envisioning three posts per week(Monday, Wednesday, Friday) which will, hopefully spark discussion and debate at the Yahoo site.

I'm planning on making each change with a varying difficulty level, so that anyone can play along. For example, if the post is about CFLs and you've already swapped all your lightbulbs at home, then you would move up a difficulty level and will instead donate CFL's to a charity, or convince your mother-in-law to switch, or find a local CFL take-back location and promote it. That way, no matter what your level of greenification, you should be able to participate in almost every change.

It's still very much a work-in-progress and I'd love to hear any feedback you have! So either leave a note in the comments or sign on to the Yahoo Group and tell me what you think.

And, of course, thanks for all your support over the past year. It truly means a lot to me. Hope to see you around the green pool!

Yours in Bloggerspace,

- Burbanmom