I really hate to say it, but this world is based on consumption. Even for Anabaptists who want out of it, claiming to be "in, not of" the world, there are choices to be made every day.
As I posted earlier, the last time I went shoe shoppping, I chose New Balance because of their relatively responsible business practices. The last time I bought a dress shirt, I didn't do as well. How can we do better?
As they say, "knowing is half the battle." When I heard David Radcliff speak last week, he quoted some astronomical number, 50 or 500 miilion, as the total head of beef cattle in the Amazon, it stuck with me. My wife and I dediced last night to not purchase beef unless it is local, organic or free-range. Even staying away from Amazon beef poses a problem. I still have memories of driving out west with my family and passing huge industrial beef farms, where cows stood in small concrete and metal pens. I was vegetarian then, but eventually gave that up. I eat meat regularly now, but realizing that beef is the animal that places the largest impact on the planet of all the animals you can eat, I decided to start to cut that out of my diet. I'm not going vegetarian (not yet anyway), but no more mass produced beef from here on out, as far as I can prevent it.
Next on the chopping block (for reduction of use, not erradication necissarily), the car.
In that spirit, I've been surfing, and linking, pages that help you as a consumer make better choices on the impact you make in and on this world. Here's a good example. I call it impact shopping: the practice (dare we call it a spitirual practice?) of purchasing goods and services based on reducing the impact of such choices on social and environmental realms.
Here is the del.icio.us feed for the topic:
And since three is the magic number of all magic numbers (everything comes in threes!), here is a great 3 Step Plan for getting off on the right foot as far as consumption goes.
As I posted earlier, the last time I went shoe shoppping, I chose New Balance because of their relatively responsible business practices. The last time I bought a dress shirt, I didn't do as well. How can we do better?
As they say, "knowing is half the battle." When I heard David Radcliff speak last week, he quoted some astronomical number, 50 or 500 miilion, as the total head of beef cattle in the Amazon, it stuck with me. My wife and I dediced last night to not purchase beef unless it is local, organic or free-range. Even staying away from Amazon beef poses a problem. I still have memories of driving out west with my family and passing huge industrial beef farms, where cows stood in small concrete and metal pens. I was vegetarian then, but eventually gave that up. I eat meat regularly now, but realizing that beef is the animal that places the largest impact on the planet of all the animals you can eat, I decided to start to cut that out of my diet. I'm not going vegetarian (not yet anyway), but no more mass produced beef from here on out, as far as I can prevent it.
Next on the chopping block (for reduction of use, not erradication necissarily), the car.
In that spirit, I've been surfing, and linking, pages that help you as a consumer make better choices on the impact you make in and on this world. Here's a good example. I call it impact shopping: the practice (dare we call it a spitirual practice?) of purchasing goods and services based on reducing the impact of such choices on social and environmental realms.
Here is the del.icio.us feed for the topic:
And since three is the magic number of all magic numbers (everything comes in threes!), here is a great 3 Step Plan for getting off on the right foot as far as consumption goes.
