- April 4, 2006 • 9:55 am PDT
- + responses
What exactly, you might be asking, is this so-called "Greenest Month"? And with good reason. For as this project--or, perhaps more accurately, this "experiment"--has developed, I've been asking myself the same thing. So have my editors at GOOD. And the art director. And my roommates. And my conservative uncle who's fast accusing me of being a communist.
So I'll do my best in this introductory post (welcome, by the way, and thanks for coming) to sketch a rough picture of what this Greenest Month is, why I'm doing it, and how it might shape up. Here goes.Basically, I'm attempting to live the "greenest" month possible. What this means practically and logistically will be addressed in a post soon forthcoming-a sort of guidelines and ground rules. Essentially, for the month of April, I'll be sifting my urban lifestyle through a fine-grained ecological filter. Through this, I hope to create some commentary on a couple of different themes.
First off, can an entirely "green" life be achieved here in New York City without severely compromising a normal lifestyle? Or is this severe compromise essential to living with as little environmental impact as is possible.
Secondly, what can be learned through this process of "extreme" ecological living about the ultimate failings of the environmental movement historically? Now this is but to touch upon a much larger discussion, and I do hope (and expect) that it's one to be carried on throughout this thread.
Finally, we'll hopefully have some revelations regarding the ultimate benefits and realities of doing all that is possible in aspiring to the Ultimate Greenest Life-as in, living to the eco-extreme-versus a more practical, replicable, and compromised approach toward a more sustainable lifestyle.
This last bit is particularly important to me. You see, I have, quite literally, written the book on green living in New York City. (Apologies, any modesty had to be dropped for such an easy line.) But the approach invited in the book is one meant to resonate with any New Yorker who's at all interested in lowering their impact, without being preachy or didactic in tone. Sort of a utilitarian Everyman's take on green living. It interests me, then, to delve deeper into the differences between the extreme and the practical approaches to the greener life.
There's another interesting twist too, regarding to what degree our superlative "greenest" can be stretched, but I'll hold for a subsequent post to weigh on that. (As will soon become obvious, the short submission isn't my long suit, and getting acclimated to this whole "blogging" atmosphere will take some restraint.)
But before I go, I should offer for the record that my greenest month commenced on April 1st, and that there's already been plenty of mild inconvenience and moderate-to-heavy hunger. Details to follow.
Up Next: A Head Start
Ben Jervey is the author of The Big Green Apple
So I'll do my best in this introductory post (welcome, by the way, and thanks for coming) to sketch a rough picture of what this Greenest Month is, why I'm doing it, and how it might shape up. Here goes.Basically, I'm attempting to live the "greenest" month possible. What this means practically and logistically will be addressed in a post soon forthcoming-a sort of guidelines and ground rules. Essentially, for the month of April, I'll be sifting my urban lifestyle through a fine-grained ecological filter. Through this, I hope to create some commentary on a couple of different themes.
First off, can an entirely "green" life be achieved here in New York City without severely compromising a normal lifestyle? Or is this severe compromise essential to living with as little environmental impact as is possible.
Secondly, what can be learned through this process of "extreme" ecological living about the ultimate failings of the environmental movement historically? Now this is but to touch upon a much larger discussion, and I do hope (and expect) that it's one to be carried on throughout this thread.
Finally, we'll hopefully have some revelations regarding the ultimate benefits and realities of doing all that is possible in aspiring to the Ultimate Greenest Life-as in, living to the eco-extreme-versus a more practical, replicable, and compromised approach toward a more sustainable lifestyle.
This last bit is particularly important to me. You see, I have, quite literally, written the book on green living in New York City. (Apologies, any modesty had to be dropped for such an easy line.) But the approach invited in the book is one meant to resonate with any New Yorker who's at all interested in lowering their impact, without being preachy or didactic in tone. Sort of a utilitarian Everyman's take on green living. It interests me, then, to delve deeper into the differences between the extreme and the practical approaches to the greener life.
There's another interesting twist too, regarding to what degree our superlative "greenest" can be stretched, but I'll hold for a subsequent post to weigh on that. (As will soon become obvious, the short submission isn't my long suit, and getting acclimated to this whole "blogging" atmosphere will take some restraint.)
But before I go, I should offer for the record that my greenest month commenced on April 1st, and that there's already been plenty of mild inconvenience and moderate-to-heavy hunger. Details to follow.
Up Next: A Head Start
Ben Jervey is the author of The Big Green Apple
