Thoughts on how it's better to at least try and live a green lifestyle than to throw up your hands and give up completely.
No, you can never be a "little bit" pregnant or a "little bit" on fire, but is it possible to be a "little bit" green? Not only is it possible, I believe, but it's a goal worth striving for.
Too often, we take an all-or-nothing approach toward our goals. Stay on this diet strictly but, after one afternoon's indiscretion involving a bagful of chocolates, give up completely. Resolve on Jan. 1 to start exercising regularly but, after a lazy weekend on the couch, decide to throw in the towel. Pledge to cut up your credit cards if you make one more impulse purchase but, after finding that flat-screen TV on sale big-time, conclude that you're just not the saving kind.
Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Worthy goals are always important, even if you fall off the wagon once in a while. And it's the same way with green living.
So don't despair if you find, after your Saturday grocery trip, that you've bought regular -- not fair-trade or shade-grown -- coffee, raspberries shipped from Chile and a bag of heavily processed snacks made, apparently, almost exclusively from high-fructose corn syrup, trans-fats and genetically modified grains. The fact that you're feeling guilty means you're still paying attention: you read the labels and realized you could have done better. So chalk the shopping trip off to a momentary lapse and resolve to do a little better next time.
Because a "little bit" green is always better than not green at all.
