READ THIS FIRST

Ok, so I’m ready to help out the planet. And I’m not going to lie; I’m going to try to convince a few people to join me while I’m at it. But before diving in, I’ve found I need to pause to consider what this will take. We all know trying to save the environment, to stop global warming, and to preserve our dwindling resources is a good thing. It’s worth doing, and there are lots of people out there who deserve an accolade or two for their efforts. But can you or I, who don’t donate our lives to these worthy causes, actually do anything to help in this effort? And, practically, is it worth it for us to do so?

The aim of this website is not just to toss out my thoughts on environmentally conscious actions that would be great if everyone in the world adopted. It’s not to idealize about a better place to play. It is to present small (minute, even) planet-friendly changes that it might actually be worth a small sliver of time out of my and your busy days to do. Thinking about changes that you could make or knowing about changes that you should make don't do a thing for the planet unless you actually put forth the effort and make those changes.

So, in the spirit of inspiring like-minded individuals who find their days pleasantly filled and like them that way, I've decided not only to rate my eco-changes in terms of the impact it will have, but also on factors of ease and convenience, because, well, I like ease and convenience. And I suspect some of you do too. And let's face it, if I'm going to convince anyone else to make these changes with me, I've got a lot better chance of doing it if I can promise that it won't hurt them a bit.

My plan is to try to rate each small change I explore on several factors: The Initial Effort required to start the change, the Daily Convenience of carrying out the change, and the Feel Good Factor, or how you personally feel while making this change (which is completely independent of the Impact it has on the planet, which I’ll also try to evaluate).

I’ll do my best to equate each of these categories to a commonly known action, in hopes of making it easy to evaluate whether the effort is worth it, not just environmentally, but personally and practically as well. Because I’m pretty sure that if something affects the way you prefer to live your daily life a little too uncomfortably, whether it seems too extreme, too inconvenient, or just too weird, even if ultimately benefits thousands of people, there are lots of us out there who won’t make the change. I mean how many of us would honestly trade sitting on our couch sipping a margarita on a Friday afternoon, casually letting the cares of the work week slip out of our minds, for completely foregoing the margarita because we’ve decided to donate our couch to charity, then replace it with a bamboo-and-organic-cotton chair made by living-wage-earning employees, so that we can come home, sit on the chair while sipping on fair trade green tea in a reusable mug as we donate 10% of your income to environmentally friendly nonprofits? Let’s not get out of hand here.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the ratings, hope you find that there is a thing or two that actually wouldn’t be that bad to try to incorporate into your lifestyle. I have a hunch I might find a thing or two that I actually don’t mind at all.