Beth Terry, aka Fake Plastic Fish’s last blog post..Plastic Sea Monster crashes Marin’s Green County Fair

Nothing to do with kids. And yet my concern for the earth and all its creatures does feel maternal. Maybe this is where I’m putting my maternal energy since I chose not to have children? Dunno.

Beth Terry, aka Fake Plastic Fish’s last blog post..Time is Running Out for 2 Causes I Care About!

That said, my bunnies broke all of the rules. I adopted Mz Bunn years ago and tried and failed to get her a friend many times. She fought with everybody! I adopted Ricky earlier this year after he was returned to our rescue twice. He is the sweetest old bunny man, and I couldn’t bear for him to get passed around any more. I just kept them in separate areas of my apartment. Eventually, Ricky started sneaking over to Mz Bunn’s pen and tried to make friends. They pretty much bonded themselves.

Jelly, my foster, lives in a big pen with lots of toys and hiding spots. A lot of fosters spend most of their time in cages, so I’m glad she gets so much room. I just wish she would get adopted! I want her to be in a forever home, and she is such a cutie. I would have adopted her myself but Mz Bunn gets VICIOUS with her. I just hope that there is a great home for her just waiting to open up. Until then, she will get spoiled by me.

Heh, this is probably more than anyone wants to hear about my rabbits, but I love talking about them :-)

Russ and Kim — I like how both of you are pointing out how sometimes we don’t appreciate things until they’re suddenly not there — then you realize how ingrained the things you took for granted are in your sense of well being. For ex, I totally took daily sunshine for granted until I went to college in Indiana — then learned the hard way that sunshine makes me happy –

Another thing your comments made me think of: When we’re suddenly taken out of our element, we notice and try to change things — but in many communities, enviro degradation’s happened slowly but insidiously — eroding with it people’s quality of life. But the slowness with which this happens leaves people sort of complacent (like the frog in the slowly-heating water) —

I’m reading Ecological Intelligence right now, and the author talks a bit about how, because these changes (bad air, rivers we can no longer swim in, etc.) happened gradually, people accept as par for the course today things that their grandparents would’ve found completely unacceptable –

Becoming more environmentally aware was actually related to studying religion 10 years ago. I really started thinking about what it meant to not kill and I stopped eating meat. I then learned about factory farming and it all just snow-balled from there.

I do have a child but all of this occurred before she was born. I completely agree that the enviro-mom marketing is just one more way to get women to purchase products out of guilt.

Kim Woodbridge’s last blog post..WordPress 2.8 Theme Editor Review

I have 3 bunnies now (and 2 cats) and the bonded pair have free rein of the living room and kitchen. The 3rd bunny is a foster, and she lives in a large pen in my bedroom. Bunnies will usually fight if they aren’t bonded, so she has to be kept away from the other bunnies. The cats like to visit her though. All of the animals are litter box trained. The bunnies get hay on the floor, but that is easy to sweep up and toss in the compost.

My sister and I are actually working towards opening our own animal sanctuary in a couple of years, so we are researching everything from how to build eco-friendly dwellings that require minimal heating and cooling to how to develop a grey water system to irrigate the gardens.

Part of what prompted the question: Way too many press releases about how people — esp. women — become environmentalists when they have children. This “momhood as birth of enviro consciousness” line gets repeated so often — and it bugs the hell out of me, because I think it’s simply a marketing gimmick to get new moms to buy stuff (granted, greener stuff) to “prove” their eco-consciousness — or else they’re “bad mothers.”

Another reason it bugs me is that it’s just plain false. I do agree that some people may come around to environmentalism this way (i.e. needing to buy baby bottles, googling “baby bottles,” then finding a whole bunch of news articles about BPA) — but I really don’t think it’s even a significant way — much less a primary way — by which people “discover” environmentalism.

So far, no one mentioned kids as a primary motivator — but I do think green LA girl readers tend to be child-free. What I find interesting is how many of you came to environmentalism AS kids –