Boy, am I excited to be introducing our brand-new blog, Green Scene. I’m tickled to be joining such great company—C-VILLE’s already got an awesome music blog and a good headline news blog. Even more than that, I see Green Scene as a chance to talk with all of you on a regular basis about things that interest me anyway—everything from figuring out how to set up a rain collection system at my house, to local debates between developers and preservationists.
 
The journey I’ve taken to this point started around the time when I founded a “save the earth” club at my middle school. Between then and now, I’ve sampled a lot of different perspectives on the environment, crashing with a houseful of wilderness guides in Utah and studying deep ecology in graduate school. Closer to home, I’ve worked on a local farm and closely followed the local food movement. And I’ve gotten to know the land intimately, as a gardener. For me, the challenge and reward of growing food is very much connected to other decisions I make. Do I heat my house with wood or oil? Do I water the plants from the well or the dishwater? Do I buy the local or the organic apple?
 
Daily questions like these are all part of the bigger question: How are we supposed to keep living on this planet, and specifically right here in central Virginia, without screwing it up even worse? We all have to come up with some small part of the answer. Which is why the blog format makes so much sense: It’ll give us—meaning me and several other writers—a chance to interact with you, the readers, via your comments and feedback. It’ll focus on not only tips and how-tos, but also on local happenings, environmental debates, and random stuff we notice that brings us back to that big question.
 
Look for new posts several times weekly on everything from power-line debates to PV panels. Read. Comment. Browse. And when you’re done, shut down your computer! (Saves energy, you know.)