I'll tell you up front that I'm a porch person. I predict that many a blog post will be written as I view the world from a wicker chair on my big front porch. Laptop on lap. That's the picture as I settled in today to ponder my first post on The Green Home Lady.
Green Peacock
It's on my mind to bring up NBC's Green Week. I didn't seen it coming when the peacock started the week sporting green tail feathers and issuing green tips in the corner of my tv screen. Scripted into all the programs I watched were
characters reminding one another to recycle, buy solar energy or turn off lights. Then the gang on CNBC's "Fast Money" focused on green companies. It made me giddy, I tell you.They are validating my theory that two S-words are the impetus for better environmental stewardship in our society. I'm referring to status and stigma. In general, we align ourselves according to a desired status, and we turn aside from behaviors which we think will stigmatize us. I confess, my face would redden if I knew my neighbors muttered about me, "Look at how she wastes water!" as they stopped to visit near my yard on their morning walks.
Green-hearted Neighbors
Speaking of neighbors - - my neighbor Mary Lou has carried out an act of green kindness that would have gone unnoticed were it not for my porch view. Mary Lou just went down the street dragging a 64 gallon curbside recycle bin with no wheels. She told me at the mailbox yesterday that our elderly neighbor Marian's recycle bin had no wheels. Mary Lou, herself a widow of white haired age, was troubled at the hardship this must pose for Marian's caretakers.
This morning Mary Lou solved the problem. Noting that the empty house four doors away, the one that is waiting to be torn down and replaced with a modern villa, had a recycle container with wheels but no residents, Mary Lou made the swap before the rest of the street was awake - - just me -- on the porch -- telling you.
1 comments:
Our area recently got for-fee curbside recycling service and status orstigma is easily discernible on our street each day at twilight. On Tuesday nights, the green trend-setters are setting out their as-yet unscratched shiny new recyle bins by the curb. On Sunday and Wednesday nights, the pennypinching holdouts are rolling out their garbage bins containing a mixture of trash and yard waste, now that the summer no-mix ban expired Nov. 1. I wonder whether it is status versus stigma that causes each home on the street to stake its respective night, or the conscience versus the wallet?
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