Green Street is going Main Street

This morning, in between having a shower, getting dressed, feeding the dogs, cats, fish, child and making a coffee for myself I squeezed in a few moments to quickly survey the headlines of the morning paper. Even with this rudimentary glance at what is happening in the world I picked up on a trend that made me happier to greet the day.

Green Street is going Main Street!

Increasingly, I am finding discussions and information about environmental issues in the main stream. Just using the Toronto Star as an example [a relatively mainstream newspaper in Toronto], in Saturday's Wheels section there were several articles under the heading "Going Green". In today's paper, the two leading stories on the front page of the Business section dealt with environmental issues [one the potential impact of climate change on the economy; and a second article on a 'new' source of renewable energy]. The best part is that this trend must be pretty strong if someone who 'reads' the paper as I do can pick up on it!

I then started thinking about other indicators that Green Street is going Main Street. Here are a few that I came up with [the list could be longer, but my time in the shower was limited] :

• You can purchase at your local hardware store [Canadian Tire] all the components necessary to set up your own renewable energy system. Solar panels, wind turbines and all the bits to connect them are now just sitting on the shelf!
• A wide variety of solar powered garden lights are available almost everywhere for just a few bucks.
• Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs can now fit into almost any fixture and decor.
• Almost every mainstream grocery store has a viable organic produce section.

The amazing thing about all of these examples is that not too long ago all of this stuff was virtually impossible to find, let alone afford!

Decades ago, it was mentioned that for the environmental movement to have an impact it has to be able to move from the fringe into the mainstream. I think we are making real headway with this. Way to go!