I’ve just read an item of news on the New Consumer website which is something we may already be aware of but is such an important issue to raise again and again. That is the additional effects that climate change has on women and girls in developing countries like Kenya.

The news item ‘Climate Change Devastating Women’s Lives‘ reiterates the harsh reality that whilst climate change affects all members of such poor communities, there are added, knock-on social issues for the women and girls in these communities. Some of the issues are:

• Women and girls (some as young as seven) who are tasked with fetching water are now having to walk triple the distance than they previously did to find it.
• Women are having to turn to prostitution because they are struggling to feed their families.
• Girls spending more time walking for water are missing out on vital education, women have less time to care for their families.
• Women and girls, exhausted from walking long distances, are vulnerable to rape and risk of HIV infection.

How could anyone read these facts and ignore the devastation that climate change causes? For the sake of making a few changes to our lifestyles it doesn’t seem much of a sacrifice knowing what these women have to go through every day does it?

The full New Consumer report comes from information via Esther Musili, Kenyan Aid worker, who is speaking alongside Foreign Secretary David Miliband on September 23 at a meeting at the Labour Party Conference. Let’s hope the politicians sit up and listen to her.

august is my first “no consumption month” for me – I have taken up a challenge from a book I bought so I can’t get any more stuff in august at least (I bet my husband is real happy for that).. I will however get the normal stuff to keep the household going =)

and I have a couple of IRL events to attend – but no more ebay or vintage dresses or shoes or books – Im tired of consumption and it doesn’t make me happy and what the world needs now is less consumption so people in less developed countries can afford to eat proper food again… – I will keep you posted if I can keep this up

NB: just a thought: this provokes the same feeling that i got when I became a vegetarian – it’s a little thing to do to make the world a better place…

Im not a vegetarian anymore – but maybe im the first declared anti-consumerist ? at least that I know of…

crossposted on henrietteweber.com

Recently, after I reviewed another book on greening the fashion world, the publisher sent me a note saying that she had seen my site www.goodcleanlove.com and was going send me another new book she thought I would be interested in: Sex Secrets of Porn Stars.

I wondered if she had actually read anything on my site.

After years of attending the big Vegas “Sex Shows,” it had become increasingly clear that my corporate mission, brand identity and personal beliefs about the connection between love and sex was a universe removed from both the intent and content of the adult industry.

Giving into curiosity, however, I opened the book to the first page, where the author compares the women we emulate, like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Mead, with the famous women of the silver screen, the ones who bare it all: the stars of pornography. The author suggests that if we emulated these women (instead of great women’s rights leaders?) we would all enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. The plot thickens, as the author details everything from the hair, make up and costume choices of porn stars, to their borrowed positions and scripts, suggesting all of this in order to spice up one’s own love life.

Ironically on the same day, I got a lengthy email from a New York literary agent with whom I had been corresponding about publishing my work in book form. Having made contact with her through an editor at a large publishing house, I was anxious to hear her thoughts on how best to position my work. She said that although she liked my work, the idea of the work involved in building and maintaining sustainable relationships just wouldn’t sell nearly as well as a cute book about discovering and enjoying a more passionate life. “Couldn’t you just write a book about finding more passion? After all, you have this cute company that sells sex products…. Just downplay all the hard work in relationships, people don’t really want to read about that.”

It occurred to me to send her Sex Secrets of the Porn Stars.

I do sometimes feel that my tag line – “Making Love Sustainable” – is a little like pushing a big rock up a steep hill. We aren’t really a culture that applies the wisdom of sustainability to our most important relationships. Often when I use my tag line, there is a thoughtful pause, as though the idea were completely new. It isn’t just about promoting green and healthy products (although the adult industry could certainly do with a green washing of its standard ingredients). It is also about the deeper possibility that we might be willing to give up momentary happiness or the ease we expect our relationships to provide and actually commit to the work of making our relationships sustainable and lasting – perhaps with the same effort we might put into our homes, businesses and personal health.

How far our collective reality is from this sustainable love model is evidenced in our society’s demographics: from rising divorce statistics, to the trends of young people who choose to “hook up” or to be “friends with benefits” rather than engage in committed relationships, to the commonness of pornography in our lives. The percentages of people who participate in the on-line pornographic universe, for instance, are startling. One in four adults spends four or more hours per week in sexual experiences that are cut off from the relationships that define their lives. Many actually prefer these virtual relationships to the real ones that fill their homes. In a time when there has never been more opportunity and technology to connect to each other, we have never seen the incidence of this many people living alone.

That we don’t choose to stay in real love relationships is not that surprising, as loving another person is one of the most challenging and elevated skills that we are demanded to develop as human beings. Most of us come from families which gave us little useful information on how to love with longevity and commitment. And if you graduated from any public institution in this country, then you know how little relationship skills are provided in the standard K-12 curriculum. Even skills as basic as conflict resolution are rarely standard for children, compared with say, geometry. Given our collective history of warring and pillaging, you would think it might occur to our society that loving each other is not an ingrained quality in the human makeup. Rather than a sideline activity, it could be that teaching the skills of loving, relationship-building and conflict resolution could be something for which we try to achieve mastery.

Still, as complicated and messy as loving relationships can be, they are also a clear path that can provide the kind of mind-blowing, wow-that-was-amazing sex that we all long for most. Making love with someone who you deeply love is a singular experience that so unites the intimates involved that it transforms them. It is the proverbial glue that keeps the rest of the mess intact and inspires people to a compassion and kindness that they may not even know they are capable of. It is the truest part of what it means to be human and the act of love that accompanies it has the power to change the world.

And change the world it does. Loving someone is the largest single predictor for health and longevity. As Dr. Dean Ornish says: “Love and intimacy are at the root of what makes us sick and what makes us well, what causes sadness and what brings happiness, what makes us suffer and what leads to healing…I am not aware of any other factor in medicine – not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery – that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness and premature death from all causes.”

Love is the cure as well as the illness in our world, and evolving our ability to love increases not only our chances of survival but creates a depth and meaning in life that can only happen in relationship.

The healing effects of intimacy and connection extend deeply into the physical act of lovemaking. Hundreds of major medical studies have shown that an active sex life leads to a longer life, better heart health, a healthier immune response, reduction in chronic pain symptoms, lower rates of depression and even protection against some cancers. Men who have regular sex (only twice per week) have half as many heart attacks as men who only have sex once per month. In fact, a regular garden variety sex life has been shown to extend life by as much as ten years. People who enjoy a meaningful sex life are less anxious, fearful and inhibited.

So now that you are sold on the benefits of love and intimacy, let’s also reveal the unspoken truth about sustaining love over time: loving someone else and allowing yourself to be deeply loved is an act of heroic patience, intention and commitment. After the honeymoon wears off (and I promise it always does) we humans are all as annoying as we are loveable. Accepting this as fact and then building the skills to undertake the daily problem-solving of loving, is not only wise, but is also a prerequisite for enjoying the kind of sex that can change your world.

I was in our local hospital emergency room the other night.  I was comforting my 10 year old daughter awaiting a surgical repair to her broken and dislocated arm.   All the rooms were full with some degree of trauma and pain.   This is not exceptional, emergency room visits occur over 114 million times a year in the United States alone.  We live in a world with gravity, as my ten year old experienced with her recent bad landing on an unfortunate trampoline bounce.  At some time or another we all miss and fall,  and the force of gravity bears on us all equally,  where we hit the ground-  but we’re not running.

The other gravity of life takes hold at these moments that often usher in serious injury and grave tragedy.  We are never prepared for the end of anything, even if we are fully aware of the statistics and uncertainty that qualify life.   How could we go about the fullness of life’s activities and challenges expecting tragedy to fall with the even handedness that the universal law of gravity metes out?    In order to keep it all going, we  move forward with the naïve expectation that the difficult and challenging experiences in life only happen to other people, not to us.   Sooner or later, even the luckiest among us joins the ranks of surviving.

I had just started reading I Will Not Be Broken by Jerry White, the day before I spent the night in the emergency room.   I have suffered illnesses and diseases with my children before, some that seemed like they would define life forever.   I remembered his words about how when people suffer a major loss of any kind, they all carry  a date.  This is the moment when tragedy, loss and surviving transformed their lives.   As I sat in the  ICU waiting room, hearing hushed conversations around me,  I knew that some of that date setting was going on right there.  I felt so grateful that all I had in front of me in the middle of the night is getting a girl through summer without the pool.

That is another phenomenon of tragedy that happens for most of us.  We often end up comparing our loss to those of others we know or have heard of.   Even in the most dire of circumstances,   survivors find gratitude,  their problem is manageable compared to people they know.   Jerry White, himself was the victim of life changing loss when early in his twenties, he lost his lower leg in a minefield outside of Jerusalem.  His book is an account of the years he has spent founding the Survivors Corp and he shares the gravity and grief of daily life on planet earth along with  remarkable stories of resiliency.

Tragedy and loss is not limited to bodily events,  the emotional wreckage that can result from dysfunctional relationships is no less an issue of survivorship than losing a limb as I was recently reminded from one of my readers.   She asked me to write of the loss and trauma of reinventing a life after being left and abandoned in her long term relationship. I hear these kinds of stories everyday,  where the heart can become so bruised that we become unable to feel, unable to risk expressing love,  isolated with our fears and loneliness.   Finding the courage and the heart to rebuild a life that has meaning and brings joy requires the same skills of survivorship which begin by giving up being a victim and choosing life.

The universal law of gravity is based on the fundamental force of attraction between bodies (objects of mass) which is what gravity in life should teach us.   We are all in this together and reacting to the losses that we sustain with the ability to reach out and give back is the basis on which we not only survive, but thrive.   Often it is not until the world seems to be coming apart that we begin to feel both compassion and connectedness to people, both that we know and that are strangers who have experienced a loss like ours.

Early stages of recovery from tragedy happen as we lose our sense of being a victim and realize that we belong.  Joining groups of people who share similar experiences is a profoundly healthy response to finding meaning in your own experience.   Settling into a new and different life experience is heightened and more rewarding when we risk offering our help to others just beginning their journey.

Experiencing our brokenness is where we get a heart that is cracked wide open.   A heart that has the both the strength to grieve,  the courage to forgive,  the tenacity to live in gravity.

This is a very happy announcement and I hope you will all join me in congratulating our Green Girl, Clare, on the arrival of her baby, Theo!

Clare, who also runs the fantastic Veg Box Recipes has been one of our longest standing GGG editors, sharing her wealth of knowledge on yummy seasonal veg and scrumptious recipes.

What lovely news eh? I think Theo must be our youngest Green Guy yet!

When I first agreed to review Green Chic by Christie Matheson, I admit I was not prepared to be inspired.  Aside from the fact that the book arrived with another  unrequested book from the same publisher called  “Porn Stars Secrets of Sex”,  (note- bad practice for publicists)  the idea of combining the drive for style with earth friendly tips seemed dubious.    After all, it seems almost the purpose of fashion magazines to make us perpetual consumers.

Although I have never  been much on following the latest style trends , having a family and  raising children who need the newest flair  or ever lowering  waistline to their jeans  has made me a consistent if reluctant consumer over and over again.  Green Chic offers  well researched facts and suggestions  on everything  from home care, to transportation,  and  of course the fashionista staples of clothing, hair and makeup solutions.

What made me want to go back to Green Chic, was that Matheson, admits early on to being  a new environmentalist ,  and  she shares an  authentic journey of  transforming  her own life decisions based on her research.  I appreciated the places where she choose to  give up favorite fashion practices like nail polish as well as some that she couldn’t – deodorant.   Her honest  tone made the book  feel like a conversation I would have with a friend and not a preachy  list of “should do’s”.

Where her book made a real impact in my own life choices was when I read the chapter about giving up  shopping bags.   From Christie,  I learned that  worldwide,  we use and throw away over a trillion shopping bags- Here in the US  that translates to  an average household disposing of  1000 plastic bags in a year.  Most of these bags end up in landfills where they take hundreds of years to degrade  and  because of their petroleum base they release toxic chemicals into the air, ground and water.  Even worse many bags end up in streams and rivers where they poison hundreds of thousands of animals per year.  The ten billion paper bags we use in this country, requires fourteen million trees to be cut down.  This is a problem where individual choices can go a long way.   And it felt  like a transformation of sorts, the day I decided I wasn’t  going to use another  disposable bag-paper or plastic.  So even when I have to run out to retrieve the bags from the car,  the satisfaction of  making this small but powerful change is liberating.

Feeling free from any life habit inspires you to try out others and so the slow process of change which sustains itself  also inspires itself.    Christie’s also offers some great research for Bedroom accessories, which although it didn’t include my favorite love products, made a seriously good argument for organic cotton sheets.  Another shift I plan to investigate soon.  So even if you have never thought of yourself as fashion conscious ,  Green Chic is a great resource for  making informed and thoughtful choices on a  path to making your life greener and the world a little healthier.

See the following link to purchase. www.amazon.com/Green-Chic-Saving-Earth-Style/dp/1402210825

Well, Jez and I are now back from honeymoon and back to reality and our wedding day, although only two weeks ago, now seems like a distant happy memory. Wow, it flew by so past but that’s probably because we had such a fantastic time!

This post is just going to be brief but after so many good luck wishes from everyone I wanted to give a quick update on how it all went. My original post, ‘Planning a hand-made, eco wedding‘, gives more details about what went into preparing our big day.

I suppose one of the things about planning an ethical wedding is that many people are curious about what it will be like. I think quite a few of our guests were really expecting something unusual but in fact it was traditional in many ways.

It was great for us that people entered into the spirit of the day so happily, some of our older guests said they enjoyed it because it reminded them of the simple, family weddings they used to go to when they were children. One of our friends even recycled part of our invitation to put into her wedding card.

The maypole cake and chocolate cupcakes looked beautiful and went down a treat. Everyone loved the food and organic wine and nothing went to waste!

On the morning of the wedding we picked up the flowers and took the hall keys to the caterer. Our caterer was excited that she’d bought so much local food from the market that morning and the florist made a point of writing down where the flowers had been sourced – “Flowers and foliage from Leiston Suffolk, Spalding Lincolnshire, Penryn Cornwall”.

For our honeymoon we went to Brussels on the Eurostar and then on to Amsterdam on the Thalys train. We hadn’t travelled on the new Eurostar from St Pancras before and I have to say I was impressed that there was organic and fairtrade food and drink on the menu. Their information also says that they are constantly reviewing their environmental performance, reducing waste and increasing the use of biodegradable packaging. OK, so this statement isn’t quantifiable but its a start, right?

It’s strange to think that after so many months of planning, preparation and creating your day is over in a flash. Of course it isn’t really because it’s just the foundation of a new commitment you’ve made to each other for many, many more days to come.

As mine and Jez‘s big day approaches and most of the preparations in place I thought I would steal a little time to reflect and share my experience in planning our eco and ethical wedding.

Right from the start we wanted our wedding to reflect our everyday values and beliefs, how we live and work. Although we didn’t tell anyone until the summer, our plans started last spring, looking for all of the main wedding necessities – a place to have the ceremony, a place to celebrate and someone to provide food.

Ceremonies & Celebrations

Finding a place to have the ceremony was easy, neither of us wanted to get married in church and the cost of using a hotel or other licenced venue ruled that out immediately. So, register office it was to be. We didn’t choose the one in Nottingham city as it isn’t very pretty and would be further for our families to travel so we chose one in a nearby town which has a walled garden and is just as easy to get to via public transport.

Party Venue
Looking for a place to celebrate and a caterer went hand in hand because of course the venue needed the facilities to prepare and serve food and the caterer had to be happy working in the chosen venue. It took me a little while to catch on to the idea of having a celebration in a village hall, I don’t know why but I think I originally got the idea from an Ethical Weddings blog post. I had spend days and days scouring the internet for a suitable place in Nottinghamshire, again hotels were just too expensive and many places wanted to provide their own food but I was determined to find an ethical caterer of our own.

Ethical Caterer
Luckily after the great realisation that a village hall would be just right for us, I narrowed it down to two possibilities, visited them both and chose one immediately, a charity run hall not far from the register office. In-between times I was glued to my computer searching for a suitable caterer and in Nottinghamshire that isn’t easy. I think in total I found 3 caterers that could provide local, organic and fair trade food but when I called Cate from C8TER I need look no further. Right from the start Cate reassured me with her friendly, professional and flexible approach and her attention to detail. She’s knowledgable about sourcing local and organic food and after sampling her cooking I’m really looking forward to the meal on the day!

Dressing Up

Luckily, finding a dress happened quite quickly, although I expected it to be difficult. In fact initially I didn’t see myself with a traditional wedding dress and thought I would buy a pretty organic cotton dress or something similar. However, wedding fever soon took over and I got carried away with the idea of having a bridal gown. At this point I can’t say too much as Jez hasn’t seen the dress and I don’t want to give anything away.

Oxfam Bridal
Once I knew I was going to get a wedding dress I also knew where I wanted to buy it – Oxfam Bridal. So, last July my mum and I excitedly set off to Leicester where the nearest Oxfam Bridal store is. Unfortuntaly I didn’t find the dress for me on that first trip but I was heartened and encouraged by how nicely they had set up that separate part of the shop and the variety of gowns. The next nearest Oxfam Bridal shop is in Bradford and that shopping trip was the ultimate in making the most of public transport – All tied in with a business meeting and a visit to see some friends I managed to get from Bradford train station to the Oxfam store, pick a dress, try it on, buy it and get back on the train all in about 30 minutes! I was so pleased that I’d found something that was just right and was really impressed with the choice and facilities in the Oxfam shop. The staff there were excited and fussy which made it even more special.

I realise that for some people the thought of buying their bridal gown from a charity shop sounds terrible but its probably the single item that I’m most pleased with and I’m so happy that I did manage to find it at Oxfam.

Bouquets and Posies
I had a mixed experience trying to find a suitable florist for my bouquet. Initially I was going plant some tulip bulbs in the garden, ask our families to do the same and make my own bunch of flowers nearer to the time. Then I came to my senses and realised I know absolutely nothing about keeping or arranging flowers once they’ve been plucked from the ground and decided to seek professional advice.

I spoke to a few different florists, some of whom were sympathetic to the idea of having a green and ethical wedding and others who just looked baffled when I asked about locally sourced flowers. I’m not picky, I think all flowers are beautiful and so I wasn’t going to dictate exactly the type of flower I wanted as long as it was grown as nearby as possible and were roughly in the colours I wanted. I chose a florist called The Rose Bower in the end because they were the most helpful and were willing to find out what seasonal, locally grown flowers would be available at this time of year before I’d even decided to use them. I can’t wait to see mine and Beth’s (my bridesmaid, niece & guest GGG editor) tulip bouquets when I go to collect them on the morning and they will have only travelled from the next county, Lincolnshire.

Invitations & Decorations

After organising the food and venues the rest of the planning was quite easy. I love making things and wanted something individual, so I decided from the start that I would make the invitations, menus, favours, name places and decorations myself.

Bunting!
The village hall is quite typical in that it really needs a lick of paint and looks quite grubby in daylight but I like a challenge and so last September Jez, his mum, my parents and I went off armed with notepads and tape measures to figure out how we could transform it into a beautiful place to celebrate. From then on I spent months finding large pieces of fabric and sheets to drape around the room, some from charity shops and some from ebay. I also bought some pink, yellow, green and white cotton to make my own bunting. I have metres and metres of the stuff and my friends at our craft group, Stitched Up, found it quite amusing that this cotton bunting never seemed to end!

I love bunting, it always seems to cheer me up. I’ve even had a small piece hanging up in the house for a few weeks.

RSVP
Because the venue is near to a maypole (which I used to run around and around when I was little) we’ve ended up with a maypole theme and the spring colours lemon, pink and green. So, I was very lucky when I asked my graphic designer friend if she could design me a motif for invites, menus etc using that theme. What she came up with was beautiful and I just what I wanted. I bought all of the recycled card, paper and envelopes I needed from Eco Craft who delivered it very quickly.

We asked our guests to RSVP via a website we’d built. The website also provides details of transport, directions, local hotels and so on to save from using up any more paper than necessary.

Tables, Favours & Name Cards
Aside from card for invites and menus I bought some lovely recycled paper which has confetti embedded in it. From this I made little origami boxes (which I talked about in my ‘Origami Genius!’ post) and will put in each of them a bulb from my Dad’s garden – these are our guests’ favours.

The name places are hand made, natural fruit lollipops with no artificial colours or flavours from sweetstall.com and I have added little labels to each one for our guests with a little picture. Jez and I have a house rabbit so our labels have loved-up bunnies on them, ahhhh. The others have butterflies, hearts and flowers.

Also, to decorate the tables we painted some plant pots white and decorated them with our colours and theme and soon I will be planting in them primroses or another spring flower which have been grown by a gardener just a few miles down the road.

The day before the wedding myself, Jez and an army of sisters and nieces and my mum and dad will spend the day putting all of these decorations together, hopefully creating a lovely room for eating, drinking and dancing.

Cake, Wine & Water

One of the nicest things about planning a wedding is that people really want to help and be involved. Jez’s mum is brilliant at making and decorating cakes and there was no question that she would be making ours. We decided to go for a traditional fruit cake (with organic ingredients) as well as Fairtrade chocolate cupcakes. Jez’s mum and I spent a lovely weekend making all of the little white sugar flowers for the main cake and hearts and butterflies for the cupcakes.

Guests will will take home slices of cake in pretty white recycled card boxes from The Tiny Box Company. Rachel at The Tiny Box Company was so obliging, helping me to choose the right size box and keep within my budget – This was the very last thing I bought and so I didn’t want to spend too much. It was a very speedy delivery too so I didn’t need to worry about any last minute hitches.

The bubbly and wine is all organic and Fairtrade and one of the types we have chosen is an English wine from Pennard Organic Vineyard.

I’m also extremely happy that we even managed to find eco friendly bottled water thanks to our Green Guy Gareth’s post ‘Bottled Water: Environmental Disaster?‘ . In that article Gareth mentions Belu Water, a carbon neutral company whose profits go towards clean water projects. So, I contacted Belu who very helpfully found me a local supplier, Lee & Fletcher, who delivered the water to my door in just a couple of days!

I Do!

The rings are the last thing I’m going to talk about although I’m sure I must have forgotten something. I’ll probably give an update afterwards anyway so I can show pictures of the decorated venue and my dress, which won’t be a secret by then.

Looking for rings was quite a strange experience. We wanted to get antique or second hand rings because that is the greenest option available – I always work on that principle and used it throughout the wedding planning. I guess we were a little niaive thinking that we’d be able to pop into one of the many antique shops in Nottinghamshire, pick up two gold wedding bands and be on our way. Apparently this isn’t the case.

After going into a few shops, looking at every other type of antique ring but finding no wedding rings one lady told me that they just don’t sell them because people are too superstitious to buy them. She said that if a wedding band was brought to the shop it just got sent for scrap! What a waste! I was so disappointed. However, the internet is a fantastic thing and after a quick search I not only found John Clive Jewellers but two perfect second hand rings in exactly the right size!

When I look back I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. Not everything is 100% green, we’re having a fancy car to take us to the register office and a disco in the evening but all-in-all I think we’ve done really well.

I’ll be in touch again at the end of April to let you know how it all went!

From the age of 12 when I decided to become a vegetarian I understood and felt very strongly about the power of the consumer. Back then it was more about boycotting things (well asking my mum not to put meat in my dinner) rather than using my pocket money to protest because, really, how much weight can you throw around with a few pounds a week?

Nevertheless, now that I’m grown up with a proper bank account rather than a piggy bank those values are still important and this is why the Big Green Purse instantly appealed to me.

The aim of this book is to highlight to women the power of their spending and how they can use it in a way that is positive for the environment and for their health.

Although most of the facts and figures relate to American laws and culture the points in this book will still ring true in other countries as it tackles the issues of every day life.

The beginning of the book starts with some inspiring stories of how consumers have already effected change in the manufacture of products such as cars, nail polish and tea. Diane then asks her readers to pledge to shift $1,000 of their annual spending to green products. That’s roughly £500 right now for us in the UK and I think entirely ‘do-able’ especially when you think of all of the areas of spending covered in your life and this book:

• Cosmetics and personal care products
• Cars
• Food and drink
• Cleaning products
• Gardening
• Kid’s stuff
• Electricals
• Home decoration and furnishings

There is a strong theme on personal health as well as environmental health and as this book is aimed at women this includes issues around pregnancy and babies too. Although shocking I think it was necessary to include some of the findings on how the chemicals we’re exposed to can pass on to our unborn children. Even more shocking is the fact that we’re allowed to be exposed to these chemicals but this is very motivating too. It encourages you to read on and find out what we can do about it.

The Big Green Purse shows us how we can shop smarter, how to look out for greenwash, how to understand jargon and acronyms and what the multitude of badges and labels really mean. Throughout the book Diane provides suggestions on good brands to look out for but doesn’t shy away from telling us which companies might need a nudge in the green direction too.

I personally like the checklists which give you the opportunity to think about your own day to day activies and spending such as “How much do you drive?” and “How much [cleaner] do you use?”. This is a great way to get that particular chapter’s subject matter into context for you right at the start.

Diane realistically recognises that greener options such as organic can be more expensive which means sometimes this isn’t a option but her first principle is always to buy less and consume less and I think we would all agree with that. She provides money saving tips and ideas too.

This is a lengthy and detailed book and its clear that Diane has researched it thoroughly but she breaks it down in a digestible way using prompts and symbols which means it could read just as well from cover to cover or as a reference.

What I’d like to see next is a similar book for men. Although Diane’s target audience is women because they “spend $.85 of every dollar in the marketplace” men are still the big earners and its important for everyone to understand the valuable lessons here.

Check out the website at www.biggreenpurse.com

Have you ever considered whether good lives have to cost the earth? Well a diverse group of people have considered the question and their answers were documented in a book (with the question as the title) edited by Andrew Simms and Jo Smith.

Before I started reading the book I already had an answer to the question myself and that is No. It has always been my belief and my experience (even as a child) that a good / happy life does not have to cost the earth. To me the simple / free pleasure are always the best for example:

* Just peacefully being with my loved ones

* Volunteering my time to help people and also the planet

*Breathing the fresh air of the countryside

*The taste of freshly picked organic food from my garden

*The beautiful sound of bird song

*Walking along the beach with my fiancé

As you may have gathered from some of my posts I always aim to consume as little as possible in life as it is my belief and the book also supports this that….

“people who consume above their fair and sustainable source of the Earth’s resources is no more likely to be satisfied with life than someone who is living within our collective environmental means”

(Quote within book and sourced from the European (un)Happy Planet Index, 2007)

The book has some interesting contributors all of whom have focussed on different areas of what makes a good life. Below you will find my favourite quotes from all of the featured contributors:

Tom Hodgkinson (Editor of the Idler): “Good lives are cheap, cheerful and will save the planet to boot”

David Boyle (Author): “Victorian economists calculated that the average English peasant in 1485 needed to work fifteen weeks a year to earn the money the needed to survive. In 1564, it was forty weeks. Now of course it is questionable whether we can manage to afford a reasonable life in
Britain without two salaries all the year round”

David Goldblatt (Author) “Step forward motor sports: Seriously, guys, yes you in the fast cars, peak oil is here or near. What are your great-grandchildren going to think a hundred years from now when they look back and see you spunking up the last precious drops of gasoline”

Phillip Pullman (Author) “Environmentalists need to know something about basic story telling in order to make their words effective”

A.C Grayling (Philosopher) “The environment has suffered in pursuit of wealth”

Oliver James (Author) “We talk of needing these things (i-pods/cars etc), but really we only want them”

John Bird (Creator of the Big Issue) “What we need today is to keep monopolies out of our life. Whenever we have a monopoly, whether public or private, you have the limitation of choice.”

Adair Turner (Vice Chairman at Merrill Launch Europe) “Population stabilization will be crucial to our long term success in dealing with climate change and other global environmental impacts”

Dame Anita Roddick (Founder of the Body Shop) “Providing for these vital human needs requires another kind of economy altogether, which emphasizes beauty, community and creativity”

Ann Pettifor (of Advocacy International Ltd) “We live in a global community that worships the god ‘Money’”

Larry Elliott (Financial Journalist) “The idea of personal thrift has gone out of the window, to be replaced by a culture in which it is not just permissible but commonplace – acceptable even – to live beyond our means”

Colin Tudge (Author) “The people who get to be in charge are the people who like power and the people who like power are not necessarily on the side of humanity”

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (Writer, broadcaster, campaigner) “Buy local food and almost by definition your buying seasonal produce with a low environmental impact”

Rosie Boycott (Writer and Broadcaster) “How you live is just as important as what you say. We argued (the feminist movement) that by changing the way in which we lived, we would in time influence the larger world around us. Now, I believe that sentiment is back”

Kevin McCloud (of Grand Designs) “I think that human beings are of our own environment, we are the problem but we are also the solution: the cause and the cure of our own environment”

Wayne Hemingway (Creator of Red or Dead and the Land of Lost Content) “We cant change the fact that new things stimulate us. But if we are really to achieve sustainability, then durability is incredibly important”

Stephen Bayley (Design Correspondent of the Observer) “Man is homo faber, a divine monkey who makes tools. While saving the planet it is a priority no one should ignore, its important to remember that since we stepped out of the primeval glop on to the dry shore and started the journey that ended with reality TV, the world has been constructed by us”

Nic Marks (Founder of the Centre of Well-Being at nef) “The language of well being doesn’t rely on an economic model that assumes that more consumption is always better”

David Cameron (Conservative party MP) “The greatest responsibility in the fight to save our planet lies with the Government, which must give a lead on the issue and set the right framework”

Hilary Benn (Labour party MP) “Transforming our economy, our cities, our way of life and cherishing our countryside and wildlife is something that we have to do”

Caroline Lucas (Green Party MEP) “Whether good lives are defined as happy lives or lives of well being, the bottom line is that living a good life and sage guarding the climate are not only simply compatible, they are inextricably connected and mutually dependent”

As you can see the book really does have a wide range of contributors, each providing their own insight in to whether good lives have to cost the earth.  I found the book an excellent read as it provided different perspectives on the green movement, I highly recommend it – however to be green and frugal get a copy from the library, a friend or second hand.

If you have already read the book what did you think? If not what are your thoughts about the featured quotations? And a question for everyone ‘do you think that goods lives have to cost the earth’?

Let’s all discuss….