With the election of President Obama, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. Finally, a president that not only understands the importance of healing the environment, but one who also understands the significance of citizen participation in the process.

For years, eager environmentalists like myself have been trying to eke out a living with our ideas and products in a country that wasn't quite ready to grasp the importance of living in a more sustainable way. Suddenly, there appeared to be some hope that green businesses and green initiatives might finally get the leg up that they need to drop the misnomers of ‘tree huggers' and ‘radicals' and ease their products and programs into mainstream commerce.

All across America, aging eco-hippies gathered produce from their organic gardens to hold celebrations in their decades-old energy-efficient homes. It was a time to relax and celebrate as they envisioned what they would finally be able to do when they began earning income with their hemp clothing , solar panels, and composting toilets designs. Finally, what was once extreme would be mainstream!

But when the new day dawned and these long-time eco-trepenurs began seeking assistance for their plans and projects and ideas, the reality of the new green movement hit them like a ton of home-made, adobe bricks. The movement that they had created and lived for twenty or twenty-five years, had moved right past them!

Resusable shopping bags, like the ones they began sewing at home in the early ‘70's and lugging to craft fairs and farmer's markets ever since, are now being mass-produced and distributed by thousands (or perhaps millions) and are only a mouseclick away via the world-wide web. Rain barrels, which have been a mainstay of self-sufficient living for hundreds or thousands of years are being sold in-store and online by the big box stores such as Walmart and Home Depot.

The products and procedures that they had created to reduce their impact on society and the earth and to keep them out of the rat race had now been taken over by the rats! And the big problem with this new rush for "green" everything is that these originators of environmental products and ideas, products that are now making huge corporations millions of dollars, just don't know how to compete. They designed their products and lived their lives of self-sufficiency to escape the world of board rooms and business suits and cut-throat competition. They just aren't cut out for it. Certainly not at this point of their lives.

‘Ah, but that's cool," they thought. "It may have taken decades of decadence and destruction for the general public to understand the impact of their actions, but finally, many have seen the light - and it is in the shape of a compact fluorescent bulb."

"All of these new and eager young minds are sure to add impetus to the healing of the planet and slow down and maybe, someday, even stop the degradation of our environment. Or will they?"

In the ‘60's and ‘70's, the era of self-sufficient living was a communal one. People worked together to develop ideas and projects and initiatives to save the planet. They were discovering processes for living their lives the way they wanted and like-minds got together and participated in the process together. It was cooperative. It wasn't a competition.

But now, money is involved. The economy is suffering and the green movement is being touted as a panacea. People are seeing an opportunity to make money off the whole environmental movement and nobody wants to share. Minds that were previously working together to solve problems are now divisive and defensive. It's gone from being a sincere desire to go green and turned into a severe desire to earn green. The collective consciousness has crumbled. And the result is an endless array of weakened-pseudo-solutions instead of the strong, powerful processes and policies that cooperative minds could create.

But do the lust for the almighty dollar along with the world's economic problems actually run the risk of slowing down the environmental progress of the country more than they have of helping it? They already have.

The perfect examples of this ‘every entrepreneur for himself' mentality are the many new websites that are popping up that are touting themselves as "Green Business Directories." Each one has a smattering of listings and the curious internet searcher could easily be fooled into thinking that if a business isn't listed....well, they must not be green. But a closer look at the sites will reveal that almost all of them are fee based listings. Companies can list themselves for a price, and in many cases can even ‘earn' green certification (usually a logo or symbol of some kind that was developed by the website itself) for a higher price.

Both the businesses and consumers are suffering from this glut of green guidebooks. The consumer still has an almost endless array of sites he must search to find green businesses. None of them appear to be any more complete or "official" than the last. And anyone with a green business could easily go broke trying to pay the annual fees to be listed on these sites.

So rather than having one good, strong site that we all can go to and find the information we need, more and more sites are going to continue to pop up and dilute the effectiveness of the sites that are already out there. As long as there are free websites (ning, myspace, LinkedIn) and the possibility for income (google ads, affiliate programs, etc.), everyone is going to want to try to get their share of the new Green economy.

All I know is, that sort of mindset would have gotten you kicked right out of the commune.


© 2009 Betsy S. Franz, All Rights Reserved

http://thenaturelady.blogspot.com/

www.naturesdetails.net

CPR* for the Planet ~ Conservation, Preservation, Restoration

Image this scenario. You are walking down the road and you see a man, lying on the ground, gasping his last breath. Do you:

1) Pass him by
2) Stand around and discuss how he got in that predicament
3) Immediately jump in and try to help
4) Commit to educate yourself so that you can better handle the situation if it occurs again

Well, our planet is ailing and it is up to all of us to try to help it.

A new forum was created for the people that want to 1) Immediately jump in and help; or 2) Educate themselves so that they can better handle the situation before it gets any worse. It is most DEFINITELY not for those who want to stand around and point fingers or complain about how we got here.

It is a place for us to network and to share our work, our ideas, and our solutions.

The forum is moderated and complainers, whiners and gripers will not be permitted to post. If you are working towards solutions, or LOOKING for solutions, please join us.

(*The term CPR for the planet was adopted from the work of David Brower, famed conservationist and author)

"Politicians are like weather vanes. It is our job to make the wind blow"

The quote above is from esteemed environmentalist David Brower who is my current inspiration to keep going on my environmental project to encourage our governments to educate and encourage all of us to Take Care of Our Share of the planet.
Our aim is to encourage all levels of government to join together to provide information to their residents about what they can do as individuals to help make a positive change.

Many of the environmental problems facing our planet can be healed by educating and encouraging all property owners to Take Care of Their Share of the planet, their own homes and yards. As property owners, each of us has the opportunity to affect not just the environmental health of our land, but because of the interconnectedness of all land and all species, the continued health of the entire planet. However, many individual citizens do not have the scientific knowledge required to make the best environmental choices for our homes and lands.

Please visit our website for more information: Take Care of Your Share

The Take Care of Your Share project was started in 2003 to encourage all residents of Brevard County, Florida to learn to Take Care of Thier Share of the environment. The project soon expanded to include the entire state of Florida and then the entire United States.

Now that we are starting to get requests from citizens of other countries looking for information, and since this is a planetary problem, we are trying our best to comply.

We are a very small group of individuals trying to do our part to Conserve, Preserve and Restore the planet. It is a daunting task, but one to which we are committed.

The project is run entirely by volunteers who, over the last six years, have provided thousands of man hours as well as their own monetary contributions to keep the project running.

If you would like to help with this project, you may do so is many ways:

Join our team. Add your name, your face, your positive words of encouragement, your webpage skills, your time.

Share this page by emailing it to a friend...or two or three. Post it on your blog. Link to it from your Facebook or Myspace page. Encourage others to Take Care of Their Share of the planet.

Sign our petition to let us, and your political leaders, know your concern and commitment to the environment.

Contact your local government to encourage them to create their own central website that educates their citizens to Take Care of Their Share of the environment, or to link to ours. Sample Letter

Shop at the affiliates listed on this site. All affiliates are carefully chosen for their shared concern to the environment. By shopping from this site, a small percentage of your purchase will help support the Take Care of Your Share Program

Help us apply for grant money to continue our work. If you are a grant writer or are associated with any group that provides grants, please consider helping us receive grants.

Help us apply for 501c non-profit status so that we may be eligible for more grants.

Contribute links and information that should be added to this website. If you found this website while searching the internet for environmental information, please share whatever links you have found which you think would be appropriate for this website.

Make a donation.

Most of us have heard of the Six Degrees of Separation theory: That each person is no more than six steps away from each person on earth. Well, I've decided to test that theory to find celebs to help endorse my idea, which is to encourage each citizen of the planet to Take Care of Their Share

My goal, for the remainder of the month, is to post blogs, send letters and do whatever it takes to find someone who knows someone who IS a someone who will endorse what I am doing. By endorse, all I mean is a message, a soundfile, a snippet from a letter that says they encourage the concept for each individual to learn to Take Care of Their Share.

So if you know anybody who knows anybody who knows a "somebody", see what they think of the idea to encourage everyone to Take Care of Their Share.

I believe that once I get ONE strong endorsement, others will follow.

People are sometimes sheep, but there is nothing wrong with that if they are following the right shepherds. Who will be the shepherds? Who will help me to encourage others to Take Care of Their Share?

I was browsing around at somebody's profile on the AARP website the other day (yes, I'm that old) and it mentioned the gratitude dance. I immediately went and checked it out.

I was so inspired by the craziness and joy of it, that I signed up for their email list. I love it! Love it! Love it! Daily reminders about the importance of living with gratitude. I encourage everyone to sign up!

What do you do to help Take Care of Your Share of the planet?

I have written a petition to try to encourage state governments to help educate their citizens to Take Care of Their Share.

You can sign the petition by adding a comment here.

I also need citizens of every state to help contact their governors to sign a proclamation to make April 2009 Take Care of Your Share month.

If you want to forward the proclamation to your governor, you can get a copy here.

I am currently on a ski trip in Utah with my husband. As always, I was surprised to find out that the resort we are staying in does NOT provide any means to recycle cans or bottles.

I am going to start compiling a list of resorts that do and do not provide a means for recycling and I will post it on my website: http://www.takecareofyourshare.com

Please help me compile this list by adding comments to this blog post that list resorts that do and do not recycle.

Thanks

and I thank God everyday for giving me so many opportunities to learn it.

I have a website called Take Care of Your Share which was created to help people learn how to take care of the environment.

I have statcounter software installed on it that allows me to see who visits it, where they are from, and what search strings they use to get there.

Frequently, people get there by searching on phrases such as "how to take care of the environment" or "how can I take care of the environment." What is sad to me is that almost always, those visitors are from other countries. In fact, the ratio of visitors from other countries to visitors from the U.S. is very higher. At least 10 to 1.

As a "green" writer, I also cover many articles about green products and techniques that are just gaining ground in the U.S. It is VERY common to hear that these are techniques that have utilized in other countries for many years.

Citizens of America - get with the program!! Now is the time for all of us to learn to Take Care of Our Share. It is up to all of us to help rebuild the greatness of our country.