People don't realize that being eco-friendly doesn't require radical changes. It's not an all-or-nothing thing. Really, it's about very simple, little changes you can make. You can still be into fashion, care about what your skin looks like, or think about what bag you're going to carry that day. You just learn to incorporate better choices.
Buy less, choose well, make it last. Quality rather than quantity: That is true sustainability. If people only bought beautiful things rather than rubbish, we wouldn't have climate change!
A vegan riding a hummer contributes less to greenhouse gas emissions than a meat eater riding a bicycle.
You can't be an environmentalist, you can't be an ocean steward without truly walking the walk and you can't walk the walk in the world of the future, the world ahead of us, the world of our children, not eating a plant-based diet.
I can tell you what I am working on, which is being more cognizant of my actions and how they affect others, most I will never meet. I've begun with my purchases. I'm focusing on quality versus quantity - a nicer tee-shirt with organic cotton and buying just one or two instead of five that are cheaper but made with GMO cotton, which is hard on Earth. It's caring a little more beyond myself. And I think it may be our only hope - and it feels much better to my soul, which in the end may be all we have.
We know that if you have $20 million, it's better to buy a van Gough print than it is buy an executive jet, from the point of view of the environment. But when you start getting down, it's like the recycling question: What are things we can really afford to do, and how much pleasure do we get out of them? We haven't even started to have that discussion, and it's getting awfully late.
As part of our ongoing series of reports on the environment, 'America Goes Green,' we take on the question that can make otherwise competent adults quake with fear. We've all been there. You come to the end of the checkout line and then comes that question: 'Paper or plastic?' For that one brief moment, we grocery buyers are made to feel like the fate of the planet hinges on our decision.
Everything I do, I try to think, 'Okay, what are the ramifications?' Like, with the clothes I wear, I prefer if it's grown organically, because cotton - which is what's used in most clothing - takes up 50 percent of all pesticide use.
People want to feel good about the choices they make. They want to know they're choosing material that's not going to harm the environment.
I had just gotten to the point when I could have bought any car I wanted to in America. I even looked at a Hummer. But one day I woke up and realized, how can I talk the talk without walking the walk? If you can feel good about not contributing to global change, then all the power to you, but I couldn't.
Putting even one thing in your shopping basket that's locally produced or organic makes all the difference. It's a vote for the future, for animal welfare, for the environment, for your children's children.
