Renew Fairfield | CommunityFutures / Personal Choices browse

One's personal lifestyle encompasses the practice of every topic to be discussed during the conference. Transportation over long distances is not necessary. Native peoples acquired food, shelter, community, etc off of the land on which they lived. Electricity was not needed, neither were plastics. There is a lot we can do with technology, it should be used sparingly and with respect to our Earth.

The handbook, "the Better World Shopper" is a handy resource to keep in your purse while shopping. This handbook is the work of Dr. Ellis Jones a scholar of social responsibility, global citizenship, and everyday activism. He promotes that it is not one human being one vote, it is really one dollar one vote. It is a comprehensive guide for socially and environmentally responsible consumers.

This book ranks every product on the shelf from A to F so you can quickly tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys” — turning your grocery list into a powerful tool to change the world. Representing over 15 years of distilled research, data is organized into the most common product categories including coffee, energy bars, computers, gasoline, clothing, banks, cars, water and more.

Another website is the New American Dream The site offers extensive ways to live conscious of your choices. Check it out.

For further discussion, click Resources

Diane Comey — 19 August 2007, 20:54

This committee became the Communications/PR Committee. At the conference we realized that education was key to getting people to look at making sustainable and regenerative personal choices.

If anyone wants to help with this committee, please contact me at dcomey@lisco.com.

Do Not Buy Non-Organic products that Contain Soy, Corn, Cotton-Seed, & Canola

These are all genetically modified unless they say organic.

Consumer Choice Story

I went to Wall-Mart to buy some more CFL's. I walked into the light bulb aisle and noticed a lady look at the CFL's and then at the old style bulbs. She noticed the price difference and grabbed the cheaper ones. I proceeded to say, "Oh, come on you gotta buy the compact flourescent light bulbs. Save energy. "No thanks." She replies. I shake my head and ask Why? Then it dawns on me I have a box at home full of old bulbs that I don't know what to do with. So I hunt her down and ask if she would like to take them off my hand. I told her I would pay her to take some bulbs. She says, "No Thanks." "Really," I reply in consternation, "you can save some money, and reduce carbon emissions in Iowa." "No thanks." She replies quietly.

Saturday August 25th 2007.

Ben Stallings — 15 October 2007, 08:29

Here are the recommendations the group came up with at the conference:

Focus on education – to help people move from where they are with respect to awareness and implementation to an even greater degree of involvement and change in their lives
Green education program with Green Information Center, website, community seminars, mentor program, newsletters, emails, work with public and private school systems, connection to experts
Neighborhood Green Associations – fostering community building and support for moving to sustainability through neighborhood and community gathers, meetings, free-cycle (people make available what they no longer want in their homes for others to take – program exists in other communities), shared common tools, community projects
Field trips, demonstrations, and discussions led by local experts
Full force publicity campaign – TV, radio, print, town banners, contests, flyers – to make the green initiative a constant awareness
Networking – engaging all segments of the community and all organizations – identifying appropriate spokespeople in each of the segments and organizations