The Greenest Generation

Last week during Christmas dinner with my family, my father, who will be 75 next year, asked the following of all of us gathered around the table:  What have you done to be green in 2008 and what will you do to be greener next year?  Here a man born during the Great Depression was asking a question normally asked by the younger generation of the older. I was a bit taken aback by the fact that becoming greener has become so commonplace so as to transcend generations.  Perhaps Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” was actually the “Greenest Generation.”

All of us gathered around the table took our turn to say how green we had become and how much greener we were going to be.  We rattled off the usual suspects: Fewer flushes, fewer paper products, less laundry, carpool, turn off lights, eat less, consume less, reduce, reuse, recycle, yadda, yadda, yadda.  The conversation progressed toward a discussion of my parents’ childhood experiences on their Nebraska farms during the Depression.  During a time of intense scarcity and unimaginable uncertainty, the simplicity of life on the farm was, out of necessity, green.  Farm families during the Depression used and reused everything.  The old saying when butchering a hog was to use everything but the squeal, and that saying could be applied to any commodity, staple, or item used or consumed on a family farm.

Perhaps in our current time of anxiety, fear, perceived scarcity and economic turmoil, we should take a lesson from our parents and grandparents on how to be green.  Sensible consumption for older generations wasn’t called green, it was called life.  I shake my head in disgust at the amount of waste I have produced in my lifetime, waste in the form of discarded product packaging, paper products, and even food.  I took for granted my abundance and strayed from my simple roots.

Though it is tempting to march under a green banner in 2009, I think it would be more effective to lead a simpler life, one of abundant meaning and not of abundant material possessions . . . just as our Depression-era parents did.  Architects use the term “simple footprint” to describe a home or building that minimizes the foundational space required to complete their design.  A simple footprint takes less space and forces the designer to be creative with the space allowed.  And hikers who are purists have as their mantra, “leave no trace” when they enter the woods for their athletic dose of nature.  Hikers leave no sign of their presence in the woods: no trash, no stray footprints, no noise.  Both mantras serve as apt metaphors for living in our new reality.

As I plan construction on a new year and plot my trail for 2009, I will try my best to live within my simple footprint and leave no trace.  In living a simpler life, I hope to become greener by default . . . and use everything but the squeal.

Comments

[Jim Mc Mahon]

Joel, great article and great thoUghts. That was a good discussion we had. Michele is the "Green Queen"- I got started to thinking about "Green" serioualy when you gave us the book "100 ways to go green" Titla close to that.

Way to go. We all need to think "Green" More.

Dad