# 5 Living Green
Editor's note: Even before CL's Green Issue hit the stands last week with its list of "100 ways to go green," our online readers were contributing ways to live a more sustainable life. One comment on our fixitnowtampabay.com blog stood out for its thoughtfulness and thoroughness. Local writer, graphic designer and photographer Luke Melton made many of the same suggestions we did about energy efficiency, transportation and informed consumption, but his remarks, excerpted below, began with an eloquent litany that amounts to a kind of green Desiderata:
Become educated about sustainability, then become an educator: Teach your children, and talk to your friends, neighbors and total strangers about it.
Develop an "Energy Mindset" that understands that everything we do requires energy and that energy waste is a crime against the planet and human societies.
Learn what energy is and where it comes from.
Learn that everything that happens on earth requires energy and that energy use always gives off heat and produces some form of byproduct (CO2, sweat, etc.). Making something, using it and disposing of it all require energy and produce heat and possible harmful byproducts.
Learn to think in a broad context about energy; for example, learn to think about how much energy was used to make something you are about to use or throw away, and how much energy is used to replace it.
When possible, use your own muscle energy rather than machine energy. …
Be vocal in your support of conservation of all kinds.
Be vocal in your opposition to waste in any form.
Be vocal in your support of a new social paradigm that promotes conservation and sustainability.
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2008.