If I Had the Money, I'd Make the World a Better Place

I understand that I don't need money to help make the world a better place. I can do that with my smile!!!!

Actually, the title of this posting is about some of the new environmental and justice-oriented options we are exploring in our household. None of them come cheap.

We are very close to joining Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). When you do CSA, you actually buy a share of farm yield. For a number of weeks in the summer and fall (around 15 weeks), you will get a weekly box of whatever produce they are harvesting at the time. You get a LOT of food. In many cases, the food has come directly from the dirt to your produce box. Friends of ours have said that they have more produce than they know what to do with. We are hoping that it will increase the amount of healthy food we consume. We also hope that we will get more creative in our cooking now that we will have new vegetables sent to us on a weekly basis. The prices for a CSA vary, depending on delivery, length of the season, and farm practices. We are looking at paying around $415 for about 15 weeks of food. If we consume the food, then it will be a good investment. If not, then we will waste a lot of money and a lot of food. We found our farm by doing a comparison of the farms and programs listed at the Land Stewardship Project.

The other obsession that is going through our house right now is an electric car. About a month ago, we watched the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? It was amazing to see GM actively destroy the car of the future. Of course, now GM is falling behind in the global market because people don't want these huge gas guzzlers anymore (or, they don't want to pay so much for gas anymore). Most major car companies make it sound like we are at least 2 years away from a purely electric car that can charge overnight. The new car company that seems to be bucking the gas trend is Tesla Motors. They have created an all electric vehicle sportscar, named the Roadster. It can compete with most high end sportscars in speed and handling. The price of the Roadster is around $90,000. Of course, I don't have that kind of money, so I have to wait until they come out with their sedan. The sedan is supposed to be around $50,000. It's still a lot to pay for a car, but somehow it seems worth it.

Those are the two major trends we are looking at joining. Of course, these all take some stewardship of our financial resources. We are looking forward to my other half going back to work, so money won't be so tight. Maybe at that point we can figure out how to change the world in our own economic stratus.