Get Happy, Be Happy, Stay Happy

It’s getting to the point where I’ll no longer need to drive 30 minutes to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods Market to get my “health” stuff. Much to my surprise, our town’s new Fry’s supermarket has a well-stocked health section. And just a few months ago Safeway introduced its O Organics line of USDA certified products. Very cool. But I’ll still do my TJ runs — they’ve got really fun food from all over the world.

Last week at Fry’s I bought several Seventh Generation nontoxic, environmentally-safe cleaning products, which I’ve been wanting to try. The company name is derived from the Iroquois belief that “in our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” I believe that environmental toxicity is one of our planet’s greatest threats. I’m on the fence in the global warming debate, but I have no doubt that we’re harming our world in other ways.

Anyway. Yesterday I used Seventh Generation’s Free & Clear Glass and Surface Cleaner to clean our bathroom mirrors and a glass-top table. Their claim that it cleans without streaks is true. I’m really impressed. No smelly ammonia, no perfume. That makes me very, very happy!

I also tried the Natural Citrus Shower Cleaner, which has a very light orangy fragrance. It also worked great. I have been using Simple Green, but I don’t care for the smell. Plus it makes my eyes water.

If every household in the U.S. replaced just one 32 oz. bottle of shower cleaner containing chlorine bleach with our hydrogen peroxide based shower cleaner, we could prevent 1 million pounds of chlorine from entering our environment.

This Sunday is Earth Day. It’s weird, but I haven’t paid much attention to environmental awareness campaigns and movements. Mostly because they’ve been so political and polarizing. But now almost everyone understands that our planet needs some TLC.

While visiting the Seventh Generation site, I saw a link to TreeHugger.com. I’ve never hugged a tree. I tend to stereotype tree-hugger types as a bit loopy. But I checked out the site anyway. I’m glad I did. Despite some areas of disagreement, there’s a lot to like. They seem to strike a nice balance in their approach to sustainability and environmental issues — an approach critically needed to bring sustainability into the mainstream. From their About page:

TreeHugger is the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream. Partial to a modern aesthetic, we strive to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information….

Why is TreeHugger Doing This?

Our environment is currently facing huge obstacles that have the potential to seriously disrupt our future and the future of all our fellow flora and fauna friends. Keeping that in mind, TreeHugger also sympathizes with the fact that most people aren’t willing to compromise their current lifestyle in order to improve our shared environment, so we have created a place where you can discover how to maintain or improve your quality of life while reducing your harmful impact on the earth.

TreeHuggers know that you don’t need to run off to live with the wolves to contribute to the betterment of Mother Nature. (We do, however, prescribe this to anyone with strong urges to pursue cave art and moon howling). TreeHuggers live in the 21st century, make quotidian decisions, consume, have fun and maintain their aesthetic je ne sais quoi.

Knowing that apocalyptic predictions tend to paralyze the masses instead of mobilizing them, we also prefer an enthusiastic, upbeat outlook.

We live green, through education and action.

TreeHugger’s Simran Sethi is appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show today to talk about going green. Should be a great show. I hope I can watch without talking back about global warming