it's not easy (or cheap) being green

When I was a kid, my parents used to take my sister and I to the recycling center where we could see collected soda cans turn into well-earned nickels. I remember heading down the dirt road up the street from my house on a Saturday morning with my sister. We should have been at home watching cartoons but instead, we each had a side of the road that we were scouring for aluminum cans. We stumbled upon a twelve pack of Budweiser with more than half the cans in it unopened. We were young and way more interested in the nickel than the beer so we opened up each can, emptied them out and tossed them into our sacks.

I've always been grateful to my parents for instilling a sense of environmental responsibility in me early on. Since then, it's been a persistent voice in the back of my head, asking me if what I'm about to throw out is recyclable or reusable and it evolved to consumerism, asking if what I'm about to buy is damaging to the world or its inhabitants.

Today, I went to the Give Green Festival at the Double Tree Suites here in Portland. It was a nice little gathering of homemade, organic, environmentally friendly vendors and services. The above picture is an electric car. I want an electric car and I want a small one (maybe not that small) but the maximum speed on it was 25 mph. A lot of the things we saw were nice but not functional living items like accessories, not clothes and wine but not substantial food. It was nice to see green alternatives though.