Something happened when I had my first child.  An inner mother bear roared to life and she’s had me in her grip ever since.  Much of what I do is driven by how it’s going to affect my children and their path in life. 

In the past few years, mother bear has been making me obsessed about what kind of environmental future our kids going to face. I’ll admit it was a slow start. As a parent of young children, you slip into a convenience-driven fog – anything that can simplify your life is your friend. But when I saw Al Gore speak in the summer of ’06, the fog really lifted. I felt like I had to reinvent my life overnight. Yeah, that wasn’t happening – particularly with small kids in the picture.) So I tried another approach. We simply started doing what we could because something had to be done. Little things like:

Turning off the lights. 

Turning of the water when we brush. 

Recycling more and more and more. 

That worked out pretty well.  So we tried more: 

We improved the overall energy efficiency of our home. 

Unplugged our chargers. 

Put brakes on the disposables (bottles, bags, drink boxes, plates, cups, you name it.)

Started using our own grocery sacks. 

And that worked out well too.  So we’ve continued pressing on and now it’s downright viral.  Every week there are a handful of new little ideas to make an impact.  We’re by no means perfect, but we’re a heck of a lot better than we were a few years ago and we’re going more in the right direction every day.  Mother bear is very pleased.