The Green Parent Interviews: Melissa Goldberg
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A green parent of two young boys, Melissa Goldberg is a committed environmentalist who has decided to change her life and her community by changing the way her family lives. Melissa’s biggest passions are family, food and fitness. She has been thinking about, talking about, and acting on environmental and food issues for her entire adult life.
Melissa runs her own public relations firm and continually takes on environmental/sustainable clients pro-bono to help spread the word on important environmental issues. Goldberg is on her town’s Sustainable Task Force working to make her community a better, greener place to live. She is also a founding member of her town’s community supported agriculture group. Melissa blogs about her the ups and downs of making her world a little greener at Green Luvin’. Here’s what Green Parent Melissa Goldberg has to say about going green.
TGP: What does “green” mean to you?
MG: I believe we need to look at every aspect of our lives and see if there is a way that we can make a change that is better for our health and the environment. Green to me is recognizing that the buying decisions we make impact on planet as a whole as well as our health. For example, the concept of locavore is all the rage right now. We’re told to buy local, but there are times when buying local might be better for the environment but not for our health. Also there are times when buying locally is actually NOT in the best interests of the environment. Understanding how to make these choices is at the heart of being “green”. Walk into the supermarket today and there are tags all over the produce department touting that the vegetables are from local farms but many of these local farms are industrial farms that use tons of pesticides and fertilizers damaging the environment and providing us with inferior nutritional quality food. Green to me is looking at our environment and health holistically and demanding better policies and habits that improve the human health and the global environment.
TGP: Do you think it is more difficult to be green as a parent?
MG: I think our society makes it difficult for all of us to green - parent or not. We are constantly bombarded with advertisements on TV, direct mail, messages via the internet and radio ads about products and services that we are told we absolutely need. It is hard to break through all that clutter to discover what is really important. At least as parents we can instill “green” values in our children that we hope to continue throughout their lives to make our world a better place.
TGP:How do you get your kids involved in going green?
MG: My husband and I believe it is very important for our kids learn where food comes from. So we have our own garden where we grow our own fruits and vegetables. Our boys help us out a lot in the garden and love to eat what they pick. We are also involved with a CSA (community supported agriculture). The kids meet the farmer each week and see all the produce he delivers. We have taken them to the farm to help weed and learn about how the farm works. They know what is to recycle and what goes in the garbage. They see that we bring reuseable bags whenever we go to the market, Target, even the toy store. We try to make living in as sustainable manner as integrated into their everyday life as possible. We believe that if it all becomes daily routine rather then a change or a chore they will carry these lessons and decision-making paradigm with them for the rest of their lives.
Check out Melissa’s previous post on triclosan and be sure to read more about her challenges in going green at Green Luvin’.
