This section focuses on sustainable (green) lifestyles and consumer choices. It includes articles, speeches, reports, interviews, book and anthology excerpts, PowerPoint presentations, and presentation transcripts. Every day we have a stream of choices that can be made in a more eco-friendly way. When added together, our collective choices have a huge environmental impact, whether positive or negative.

Going green not only benefits the environment for generations to come but also helps us as individuals. For instance, you can save money in your home through water conservation, energy efficiency, and waste reduction. Buying non-toxic cleaners and household products can also help keep your family healthy. Sustainable lifestyles involve product choices, transportation choices, vacation planning, child rearing, retirement planning, and much more.

Art, Nature & Recycling. By Reena Kazmann. Whether you think of your household garbage or your local landfill, chances are good that what comes into your mind’s eye is not a pretty picture. But there’s beauty to be found everywhere, and so its not really surprising that a growing number of talented and committed artists, designers, architects, and builders are converting old stuff that would have gone to landfills into a wide array of useful and beautiful products. Article >>

Dissatisfaction Guaranteed. Book excerpt by Dave Wann. From Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic. Based on two highly acclaimed PBS documentaries, Affluenza uses the whimsical metaphor of a disease to tackle a very serious subject: the damage done-to our health, our families, our communities, and our environment-by the obsessive quest for more material possessions. Book Excerpt >>

Green Jobs Growing In Your Home Town Government. Article by Melissa Everett. Many environmental protection decisions are being made at the local level, from land protection to transportation policy to industrial development. As a result, local governments are employing recycling coordinators, bike trail developers, water conservation educators, planners, and many others. Article >>

Live Clean and Go Green. Interview with David Gottfried. In this interview, Gottfried shares why it’s so important to shift to a greener lifestyle today. Lifestyle changes can protect the health of your family right now, and they can protect the planet for the generations to come. Interview >>

Living Beyond Our Means. By Dennis Church. The idea that we humans may be growing beyond – or overshooting – the capacity of the natural resources we depend upon to sustain us has a long history. It has proven premature when previously asserted, but now appears increasingly realistic. Article >>

A Matter Of Balance. Article by Dave Wann. "An 'affordable' economy means cutting away the destructive, polluting practices of the past and embracing the 'three P's' of intelligent growth... prevention, precision, and participation." Wann explains how we can achieve a balanced future. Article >>

The Meat Of The Matter: The U.S. Livestock Industry Creates More Greenhouse Gas Than Transportation. Article by Jim Motavalli. Ask most Americans about what causes global warming, and they’ll point to a coal plant smokestack or a car’s tailpipe. They’re right, of course, but perhaps two other images should be granted similarly iconic status: the front and rear ends of a cow. Article >>

Opportunity Green. Interview with Josh Dorfman. Dorfman answers questions about Vivavi, lazy environmentalism, government action on climate change, sustainable entrepreneurship, and hope for the future. Interview >>

Our Plastic Century. Article by Wallace ‘J’ Nichols. But there’s nothing convenient about our future with plastic. We have a lot of work to do to reverse this mess. There are opportunities for leadership, innovation, research, solutions, green businesses, sustainable tourism, cleanup and restoration enterprises, and as much creative passion-filled activism as we can inspire. Reigning in and reversing the century of freedom we’ve given to plastic will take an enormous wave of personal and political will. Article >>

Real People Finding Peace And Fulfillment In A Complex World. Book excerpt by Linda Breen Pierce. From Choosing Simplicity: Real People Finding Peace and Fulfillment in a Complex World, this excerpt goes beyond why and how to simplify your life to describe what has really happened in the lives of people who have done it. How does simplicity translate into our modern day-to-day world? Can people who embrace this lifestyle sustain it over time? Book Excerpt >>

Want To Be A Green Slacker? Interview with Josh Dorfman. Dorfman talks about his book, The Lazy Environmentalist, and the green movement at large. He gives some simple tips people can use to be green. Interview >>

Washington Post Green Lifestyle, Cooking & Eating Discussion. With Jeanie Pyun and Jay Weinstein. This discussion offers advice on eco-friendly cooking and eating, as well as related tips on green shopping. It features questions and answers, as well as suggestions, from readers all over the country. Article >>

What Would Jacques Do? Article by Wallace ‘J’ Nichols. We must confront our own legacy with oil, plastic and associated toxins. We should stop pouring toxins, any toxins, into the drains around us; reject anything plastic we use once then throw away; and free our homes, schools and businesses of single-use disposable plastics. Article >>