Our minimalist library: Soon the whole house will look like this.
Lloyd Alter
When I started with TreeHugger five years ago I described my philosophy:
Lloyd thinks that we just use too much of everything- too much space, too much land, too much food, too much fuel, too much money, and that the key to sustainability is to simply use less. And, the key to happily using less is to design things better.
It has been said that to a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail; to me as an architect, the whole world, including the question of how we manage our lives, is a design problem, one that we are going to design our way out of. That is why so many of the resources I used when working up my "Get Recession Ready" posts were about minimalism; I think we can live better with less stuff. That stuff takes up space and space costs money. Design becomes a critical aspect of it; what stuff you have had better be good. To me, frugal green living and design are inseparable.
Resources:
Leo Babauta
When I reviewed his book, The Power of Less, I said "I hate Leo Babauta. I mean, really. He starts out by writing that 'Only a few years ago, I was over my head in debt, overweight and unhealthy, eating fried and fatty foods. I wasn't exercising, and I was a smoker.'
"So he took up running, lost 40 pounds, ran two marathons and did two triathlons, became a vegetarian, got out of debt, doubled his income, started two blogs and wrote a book. Oh, and he decluttered his home with six kids underfoot. And he makes it sound so easy: Just simplify. "it's a matter of placing limits, and focusing on the essential."
He has two websites, Zen Habits and Mnmlist, that make me want to hit him over the head with my laptop. But Mnmlist is the cleanest, simplest blog on the web; have a look at 12 minimalist ways to reduce your carbon footprint; it is a masterpiece of minimalism.
Trent Hamm
Like Leo, Trent transformed himself after a personal financial meltdown. He turned his personal financial life around and has been writing about it ever since at the Simple Dollar. It is well written, personalized site that is not at all overwhelming. A recent post Trimming the Average Budget: Eating Out distilled the wisdom of a hundred Planet Green posts into one.
Wisebread
A group of writers of all ages; I particularly like Philip Brewer; a good example is his recent post on Frugality, Simplicity, and Sustainability, where he takes on the subject of dumpster diving, noting that it doesn't scale.
If you look around the net, there are a million sites promoting frugal living, with post titles like "Alternate Use for Cans of Soup! Low-Cost Bookends!" Not interested. This is about still living in pretty much the style to which I have become accustomed, but doing it within our means.
