My inbox is inundated with enthusiastic calls for buying green:  handbags made from recycled materials, jeans from organic cotton, chocolate with earth-friendly ingredients.  The list is long. I applaud the green consumer movement.  But wait a minute.  If we buy just as much stuff as ever, even if it’s a little greener, have we accomplished much? 

 

When it comes to consumption, what we really need, I think, is to look not just at what we buy, but also at how much we buy.  Since virtually all of our purchases produce greenhouse gases through the energy used in manufacturing, packaging, and transportation, it makes sense that we can reduce our carbon footprint by buying less. 

 

So instead of buying that purse made from recycled materials, I can most likely make do with the handbag I already own.  Do I really need another pair of jeans?  Probably not.  And my body, as well as the planet, will benefit if I make chocolate only an occasional purchase. Instead of buying things just because we want them, doesn’t the environmental crisis of global warming require us to discipline ourselves to limit our buying mainly to those things we actually need?   Besides, buying less has another benefit that we can see immediately—more money in our pockets!

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 7:17 pm and is filed under Act now to save our beloved Earth!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.