Although they may have been a far cry from the green eco-warriors of today, perhaps we should look to previous generations for inspiration as to how to care for our planet. That’s the focus of a recent Adbuster’s article, Our Grandparents: The Real Environmentalists?
Scarcity has much to do with the conserving attitude of previous generations. When people need to work hard to make ends meet, and to eat, nothing gets wasted. The Depression defintiely hammered this point home, but it’s also an Old World value tracing its roots back to many of our ancestors’ pre-immigrant homes.
From Adbusters:
If my grandparents hail from outer space, it is from a planet quite possibly more sustainable than the one I have always called home, and despite having gone about their business not knowing their greenhouse gases from their carbon credits, they might still have a thing or two to teach me about being green.
They appear to have the credentials to back them up. By and large, they used less water, burned less gas, needed less electricity, put less carbon up into the air, imported less food, bought fewer cars, built much smaller homes and threw out way less garbage. Moreover, whether they accomplished this by choice or by harsh necessity, they managed it all without organic grocery stores and front-loading washing machines and hybrid gas-electric cars and compact fluorescent lightbulbs — all of those glittering new consumer choices that we keep hearing so much about.
The green attitude extends to transportation and car usage as well. Trips in general, and planet-killing air travel in particular, have consistently grown cheaper. We’re a generation constantly on the move, and we’re wasting our planet in the process.
Scarcity forces a change in attitude. While I don’t advocate self-deprivation, there’s definitely lessons to be learned from the way our grandparents and great-grandparents lived. As I’m sure they’d be all-to-eager to tell us.
See also: Economic Collapse Made for Healthy Cubans
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