Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Day 107 of our Green Year: Learning From The Past

Today, for Our Green Year, Layla and I traveled back in time to learn about the world as it once was. Now, we did not literally go back in time of course, but instead we went to a living history museum to get some ideas for how we can go green. The reason for this is that to really go into the future of going green, we need to actually take a step back into the past. The past holds our future because in the past there was not electricity, gas or anything like that to help people live their day-to-day lives. As a result, they had to essentially find green ways to live their lives, without realizing they were being green.

Through our journey in the living history museum, we learned about putting sod on our roof to help insulate the roof and keep things cool. We learned about things we knew about, like making butter, and we learned about how important it was to have animals on your farm to ensure you always had food.

We also learned all the great things you could do with a wood stove and how people could live for 10,000 plus years without television, so we don't really need it now. One thing I noticed about going through this living history museum is that as more and more people move into the cities, and more and more people are located in one area, they seem to know the people around them less and less. There are many reasons for this, including suburbia, the television, video games and more, but there is something to be said about being able to sit on the grass and watch a performance with the people of your town, all of whom you know.

We have some great ideas now and we have learned to respect the past to find our green solutions in the future.

Also, we received our carbon offset certificate from CarbonFund.Org, and I encourage all of you to do the same. It is literally the least you can do to help mother nature.