Blog Post: Good News for Greendiegans

I really love good news, especially when so much of the news today is super depressing.

So for our daily dose of good feeling, let’s hitch a ride with the U.S. Green Building Council to Kansas . Their recent annual report takes us to Greensburg , Kansas to meet Daniel Wallach, who’s founded a non-profit group called Greensburg Green Town to rebuild a town that was wiped out by a tornado in late 2007. He’s working with Greensburgers to create the nation’s first green-built city.

Wallach points out that rural Americans make excellent environmentalists. “Politically this demographic is conservative and not activist, but they are more organic than most city folk,” he says. “Many of their ancestors homesteaded the land around the sun, built well-insulated homes with rain catchment systems. Most Greensburgers grow crops. And while nobody calls it ‘recycling,’ most own sheds containing scraps of metal and wood for fixing things.”

More good news: for those of us who don’t green our world as naturally as Greensburgers, there are great places to learn how. San Diego State University ’s College of Extended Studies has designed an online Professional Certificate in Green Building Construction that focuses on building the practical knowledge and skills that employers in fast-growing green industries will need and value.

You may not be a Greensburger, but it’s probably time you join the Greendiegans, the Greenlanders (they had a head start), the Greenistanis and Greeniards everywhere who are learning the skills they need to make a difference in the workforce and in the environment.