Inspiration and Experience

I just got an email from a friend telling me I was a great role-model for my child. Thanks! I want to be able to tell Ruby one day I tried to change things, I did not ignore the destruction of nature and climate change warnings. As Vanessa Farquharson put it, it's better to pollute and do good deeds instead of polluting and doing nothing about it. So for a little inspiration it’s helpful to read her book or blog (Green as a thistle) as well as any of the stuff from Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man. What it comes down to is the trying. "Probieren geht ueber Studieren" we say in German, meaning trying is better then studying. It's about being creative too and how many of you would admit to not being creative now? 

C.B. and V.F do try a lot of things, they find out what works best for them, they realize it’s not all that hard and bad to go green and hey, they keep plenty of the things up even after their one year trial is over! Colin's wife is a hard core city person living off take away and Starbucks coffees, she shops until she drops, she is totally disconnect from nature, has no idea where her food comes from and can't cook. She did it, too!       

A little story from home: Last night I told Dave that V. F. had a really great idea: She cut up an old bed sheet into handkerchiefs because she had given up on Kleenex and did not want to buy new handkerchiefs. - Somebody stared at me blankly, not showing any understanding for my excitement. Then he said he has never had handkerchiefs; I grew up with them but without Kleenex (Tempo in Germany). Next came the conclusion: he grew up in a throw-away society, I grew up in a country of permanent shortage of just about anything. Yup, not everything was bad in the GDR. I think we should fake a nation-wide supply shortage to keep people from shopping and wasting so much. I think we all value and take care of our stuff more if we know it can’t be easily replaced.  Also, when I was a kid, things got repaired not thrown out. And yes, I do use handkerchiefs again, still the ones from my childhood days.