KeepGreenGoing

Today there are plenty of great ways to begin making a positive impact on the environment; but what if one aspires to something more personal than the great yet simple practices of recycling, buying with a conscious and reducing their own impact on the planet? Enter Grassroots Green.

What I have christened as Grassroots Green is getting green accomplished through your own unique, passion instilling means. The beauty of Grassroots Green is that by getting active on another level, others will be inspired, green happens in a whole new way and the opportunity to introduce others to green opens up. From my own experiences I’ve found the following three steps to be fundamental in beginning your own Grassroots Green effort.

Identify a green need within your community. This can be anything from starting a recycling program for you and your neighbors, to getting the ball rolling on legislation for more renewable energy incentives in your city. Don’t get too caught up on it, if we’ve tried to communicate anything through our publication it is that green should be simple. Start small and move on from there. After you’ve got your need identified write out the steps needed to get it resolved. These steps should be flexible as your understanding of the need will more likely than not change as you are working on it. Be prepared to take the first step immediately; it will likely be as simple as a phone call or a bit of research online. Finally, I think that it is important to find someone else that you can count on to partner with you, share in your passion, and help take the steps already identified to see that your community’s needs are met.

My original inspiration for Grassroots Green came from an experience that I’ve recently had/am still going through. My story begins about three months ago as I finished my new favorite piece of fiction The River Why by David James Duncan. Above and beyond being an excellent novel, Duncan comes back 20 years later to write a follow up to the book on the topic of conservation with an emphasis on protecting wild salmon. After reading this I made the decision that going forward I would no longer consume any salmon that was not wild caught (Duncan’s conclusion is that in order to save the wild salmon we need to eat them, or at the very least not eat farm raised. It has to do with market impact and economics…maybe read the book). I quickly realized that there are terribly few restaurants that serve wild caught salmon in the great city of Denver and that there is a great need to bring awareness to the plight of wild caught salmon. I’ve put together the steps to begin resolving this issue (more to come on this later). I’ve also partnered with a friend who conveniently shares my passion and has a tremendous amount of contacts within the culinary world of Denver. The birth of Grassroots Green.

Green can be meaningful on a whole new level for all of us. I challenge all of you to dedicate five minutes to examining your community and finding a unique green need that excites you. Once you’ve got it get to work on it and once you get to work on it be sure to share it with us. We’d love to be inspired by you, and have you encouraged by us at keepgreengoing.com.

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