By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You want to go for it, but after paying for the Iraq War, the bank bailout and the stimulus packages you’re just plain tapped out. A new greener lifestyle with its eco-gadgets, shiny solar panels and breezy wind turbines sounds fun – and costly.

But wait. You don’t have to wait. Sure a lot of the new green foo-fahs are fashionable budget-busters. But green can also be, well, cheap. In fact, it has its roots in cheap, having been born back when people in caftans tried living together in packs called communes while eating hummus because it was economical and efficient. That was back when lots of people got next to nature, without gadgetry, because, man, it was a beautiful thing. This was before “tree hugger” become a term of derision and students openly doodled rainbows and ecology symbols on their notebooks. Back then in the pre-iStuff period many people also eschewed excessive consumerism (and sometimes clothes, too, but let’s not go there today).

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