Sorry, this came out of a long discussion with some co-workers today. I don't know if/what the solution is to a lot of this, but I thought some people might be interested by the read. Sorry, it's long.

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With all the discussion of trying to lead a low impact to the environment lifestyle, by taking tests such as 'What is my Global Footprint', you start to think about how your lifestyle affects the world around you. For instance ...

So, lets say we go out and drive a hybrid car? Well, take the Prius for example - the batteries are produced in Sudbury, which has caused and continues to cause ecological damage on a large scale , to a point where entire tracks of wilderness are destroyed by the acid rain and other toxins, killing plants, animals and entire lake ecosystems.

Ok then, so lets drive a regular car? How does the drilling, refining and shipping oil affect things around us? Well, we've all seen what happens when a tanker runs a-ground - death to sea birds and mammals. what about the refining process? How many pollutants are sent into the atmosphere, how much runoff gets into the water tables, lakes, streams? And what about the smelting of the metals, and the casting of the plastics needed to make a car? And what happens to the car once its life is over? More scrap in yards.

So, lets say we go out and change all our lightbulbs to high efficiency light bulbs - great idea huh? What happens when they burn out? Well, they contain mercury, so just throwing them out is not a good idea as its a hazardous material, and very few recycling depots will take them. What happens to the mercury? Well, once released, vaporizes and travels northward where its ingested by animal and plant systems. And the energy to run those lights? Well, unless everyone has solar panels or wind turbines in their backyard, we're runnning off the grid -- based on energy sources such as Coal (dirty burning, generates more acid rain - killing off birds, fish, etc.) and Nuclear (how to dispose of that?).

Want to have a hot shower in the morning before work? What work went into making that water clean, and what energy is going into heating it for you? Oil? Electrical Heating from the grid?

Eat Meat? Well, unless you're getting it from an organic source, its coming from somewhere, and quite possibly a large scale farming operation. Waste runoff enters the water tables , causing sickness in people and animals. Look at what happened in Walkerton, Ontario

Buy that loaf of bread or that jar of pickles at the store? Well, if they were producted using components from large farming, then pesticides and herbicides used in the production are just as incidious, and enter the water table just the same.

Deciding to go the Vegatarian route instead? Not wearing any animal byproducts? Better hope that the pleather (pleather=polyuruthene=plastics) has been fabricated in an environmentally friendly way. Made in China? probabally not then. So your shoes have worn out? How to dispose of them now - landfills are filling up with unwanted trash (which as it breaks down can leach into the water tables) and burning them in incinerators without proper scrubbers just add more pollution to the atmosphere.

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and the problem is that the list goes on and on. Look at anything within arms reach - like your computer for instance. How (and sometimes more importantly, *where*) was it made, what impacts did the fabrication cause, and what will happen in the disposal of that product? How does it affect people, animals, birds, fish and different ecosystems in general around you and afar?

Is there any solution? How can one 'live more green'? I really am looking for input here, how are people managing to live a more green lifestyle in their own lives? And what are people willing to give up to attain that goal?