Over the years, we have suggested, explained and incorporated strategies and practices for leading a sustainable lifestyle. We have gone over the many reasons to go green, including saving money and being environmentally responsible. But are you REALLY making a difference? I have personally gone on a quest to be more eco-conscious by recycling, being “that friend” that annoys my friends into recycling and reusing or unplugging everything I can get my hands on. However, one has to wonder if those things matter when you drive hundreds of miles a week, far offsetting any carbon emissions you may have saved by conserving.

I think it’s the big chances we have to start making. Recycling and unplugging aren’t enough anymore. We have to start making the big and inconvenient changes if we want to reinvent our wasteful mindset. To remain a major competitor on the world stage we have to find a way to conduct environmentally responsible businesses or we will continue to slowly kill both our economy and the only planet we can call home. If we want our children, grandchildren and generations beyond to have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink and a healthy planet to live on, we have to start thinking on a grander scale.

Did you know that the Surfrider Foundation has a beach cleanup almost every weekend? Or that in Pacific Beach there are farmers markets every Tuesday? These are just a couple things in San Diego alone that will help change the world. Being an active supporter of the environment requires changing the little things like recycling and unplugging but also the big things like cleaning up our beaches, supporting local farming and cutting our carbon emissions in a substantial way. When was the last time you, or anyone you know biked to work?

We invite you to send in your thoughts and ideas about achieving a truly sustainable lifestyle. We are doing all we can to achieve this on an individual level, but it’s time for the revolution to grow and expand into a nationwide crusade. If we want things to change, we have to initiate it in a big way.

Please comment on this page with how you are saving the world, one person at a time…