During the 1990s environmentalists started talking more to family farmers. The discussions led to familiarity. And familiarity led to openness, which precipitated authentic dialogs between salt-of-the-earth farmers and dyed-in-the-wool greenies. The end result being: Once the hoopla and jargon were cleared away, the family farmer’s problems turned out to be amazingly allied with the issues faced by those concerned about air, water and habitat quality. And now we are finding that the same thing is true when we look at the problems faced by the financially challenged among us. Here are two examples and solutions:

Affordable housing was once the kingdom of social services agencies and those focused on the welfare of humans. But as we examine that issue we find that it is also about resource use and climate change. Folks of lesser means tend to live farther away from job centers where the housing is cheaper and therefore commute longer distances. Not only do they use more fuel but they tend to drive older cars and have less money to keep those cars running in tip-top shape. The end result being more and worse pollution for all of us.

Heating oil costs also enter into this dynamic of social issues bleeding into the environmental realm. The lower salaried among us and those on fixed incomes need help paying their heating or cooling bills. And at the same time they live in houses that are poorly insulated and in areas where housing is cheaper because it is either hotter or colder than average. Leaving them in a pinch as well as between a rock and a hard place as our lungs, climate and societal fabric suffer until we are able to deal with this issue.

In both these situations the solutions are building or buildings. We should build well-designed and functioning affordable housing near job centers; it is in our economic and environmental best interests and it is the right thing to do in terms of addressing quality of life issues for a vulnerable sector of the population. At the same time we also need to work to upgrade leakiest of our housing stock. A big step in that direction would be figuring out a way to replace or insulate pre-1978 mobile homes. Sure the above will cost some money and times are tough and getting tougher, but showing some compassion and making these commitments in spite of the pain might be some of the first steps we take towards taking meaningful actions to save the Planet and our children’s future.

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