Greening Your Parents

Image: takepart.com

My grandparents lived through the depression and understood how to be frugal with resources. They saved, reused, recycled. Those habits passed on, in some ways, to my parents.

Typical among their parental don’t-do-this, don't-do-that, chants were such familiar old standards like "Don't stand with the fridge door open," "Turn the lights off when you leave the room," and "Don't waste electricity." Burned forever into my memory.

But that "waste not want not" mantra didn't translate to everything, since the life of a baby boomer in the western world was generally one of plenty and abundance. What was now considered the scrimping, miserly ways of the depression - that just happened to be environmentally friendly - were cast aside in the generation of plenty - in the late 20th century.

It became infra dig to be seen as anything other than wasteful and over-consuming. It was a sign of wealth and status to own lots, use lots and basically do the opposite to what one's depression era forebears did.

And so - those great habits of my grandparents managed to skip a generation or two.

I say 'skip' because thankfully they're coming back, and now it's the other way round. Green My Parents is an environmental Youth movement "to seed the green economy & save the Planet". It's all about getting kids to teach their parents and peers how to leave a smaller and greener footprint on the planet.

And it uses money as the great motivator that we know it to be - especially in this age of global financial meltdown (who knew there could be an upside?).

By using less resources, households save money and save the planet at the same time – all through simple, everyday actions.

For example, here's what one sixteen year old GMP member has achieved.
• Switching to an energy efficient light bulb saves $40 and uses 75% less energy
• Riding his bike 5 miles to school saves his mom $16.45 a week - that's $164.50 a year - on petrol.
• To save paper he reads the news online and reminds his family to use reusable bags.

The GMP kids are then encouraged to spread their successes across social networking sites, to get their friends to change their habits too.

It's a pretty neat idea and I hope it spreads right across to other countries.

You can read more about it here at takepart.com.
And on the official greenmyparents website.

Kids are the future, after all. They're the ones who really care what sort of world they're going to have to be living in 50 years from now.

So it makes sense that they'll be the drivers, setting the good example and encouraging the olds to join in.... for their kids' sake.