Making green issues tangible
Meaghan O’Neill demystifies the process
As the co-author of Ready, Set, Green: Eight Weeks to Modern Eco-Living, due to be published next spring by Random House, Newport-based freelance writer Meaghan O’Neill is one of Rhode Island’s reigning green gurus.
The interest of O’Neill, 33, in environmental issues ramped up while she was working at Interior Design magazine in New York. Impressed by an exciting surge in eco-design and sustainable architecture, she helped in 2004 to launch treehugger.com, which has grown into one of the Web’s preeminent ecological lifestyle Web sites (it was acquired by the Discovery Channel in August).
The freelancer helps to take some of the mystery out of going green, writing for Slate, for example, in 2006 on how transportation is one of the biggest contributors in producing carbon dioxide. Her article noted how seeming small things can make a big difference since, for example, an estimated 32 million US vehicles ride on under-inflated tires, wasting 500 million gallons of gas each year.
O’Neill spent summers in Rhode Island as a kid and returned after getting married in 2003. Hailed as one of the “greatest brains in the field” by Glamour magazine’s eco-issue in April, she has contributed to various periodicals and is contributing editor for green design at Design New England, a shelter magazine published by Boston Globe Media. And like a true greenie, O’Neill includes in a note in her bio on how she resides “with her husband, son, several pets, and a hearty composting bin.”
Leaders in the fight
Apeiron and grow smart RI help to show the way
One day, green practices will be the norm, and the wasteful old practices of yesteryear will seem quaint and unusual. While that time is still a ways off, two local organizations, the Apeiron Institute for Environmental Living and Grow Smart Rhode Island, deserve credit for helping to set us in the right direction.
The mission of Grow Smart, helmed by the energetic Scott Wolf, is inherently green: helping to preserve Rhode Island’s special sense of place by fighting sprawl and, as its name implies, encouraging smart growth. In an increasingly big-box culture, the importance of this effort can’t be emphasized enough. Between 1961 and 1995, Rhode Island’s consumption of land increased at nine times our population growth. Providence-based Grow Smart also notes that staying on our current sprawl course through 2020, rather than pursuing a modest shift toward development in the state’s urban core and ring communities, will cost taxpayers almost $1.5 billion.
The focus of Apeiron, led by Brad Hyson, is similarly based on sustainability. Noting Rhode Island’s place as the smallest state in the most powerful nation of earth, the institute has cited the Ocean State “as a ripe model for transformation, to show the rest of the nation how to grow in harmony with the Earth.” To help make this a reality, the institute pursues a variety of efforts: in 2001, it launched Sustainable RI (sustainableri.org), which has attracted more than 50 partners. Providence-based Apeiron’s Center for Environmental Living in Coventry models more than 50 innovative ecological systems, technologies, and products. Among other efforts, Apeiron also sponsors an annual Sustainable Living Festival.
While going green remains an uphill battle in a disposable culture, the efforts of Grow Smart and Apeiron point to the possibilities of a brighter future.
