Like many people living in the early part of the 21^st century, our family is trying to find ways to live more "green."

"Green," in the sense of having a lighter impact on the planet – "Green," as in being more careful of how we take care of the world.

After all, it’s not ours to ruin – it will be passed on to our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on. We do want it to be as nice for them as it was for us, don’t we?

I don’t think you have to be crazy about it, like some people. Al Gore comes to mind as an example of someone who takes environmentalism to a ridiculous extreme.

The problem with Al Gore, and people like him, is that they give the very idea of environmentalism a bad name.

Even people who are not like Al Gore – people with common sense, know the need to conserve, reduce, reuse, recycle – whenever it’s practical and makes sense to do so.

To waste precious resources foolishly, is just, well, foolish.

Human beings, however, are by their nature, wasteful and consuming beings.

Go visit a landfill, and you’ll see what I mean.

Mountains of disposable diapers, Styrofoam cups and plates, and just piles and piles and piles of crap as far as the eye can see.

We’re all going to have a certain amount of impact on the planet – a certain amount is just not avoidable.

But still, it makes me angry when I see someone toss bags of fast-food trash out the window while driving down the road.

I mean, really, how hard would it be to wait a little while and throw it in a trashcan?

That kind of stuff drives me up the wall, but unfortunately, we see it every day.

Our family is trying to be better stewards of the world we live in, but we find it’s not always easy being "green."

My wife and I often disagree about how to go about being "greener."

I’m a bad paper towel user.

If I make a mess, I’ll reach for a spray bottle and grab a big bunch of paper towels to clean it up. This is a habit of mine that goes way back. I know that by reusing a cloth washcloth to clean up messes, then fewer trees will have to be chopped down, but still, I reach for the paper towels instead of the dishcloth.

I’m going to work on that.

My wife, however, has a problem refilling hand soap containers.

I’m the kind of guy who will buy one small pump soap dispenser for the bathroom counter and also a very large refill bottle. I’ll happily take the time to refill that little bottle with "big daddy" each time it goes empty. I’ve crunched the numbers on this and ounce-per-ounce, this is the most cost-effective approach, by a long shot. Plus, taking this approach saves lots and lots of all the little pump bottles that will just end up in a landfill slowly degrading over the next several centuries.

My wife, however, will put a bunch of the tiny little soap bottles in the cart and she won’t even think about buying the giant refill bottle. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s laziness – maybe she doesn’t want to rinse out and refill the bottle each time it goes empty. Or maybe she thinks it’s more sanitary – starting with a brand new bottle every month or so.

We don’t disagree on every "green" strategy, though.

We have always been in complete agreement that we won’t water our yard.

Mother nature decides if and when our grass is green, and if it stops raining for a long time, then we’re okay with the lovely shade of brown that our lawn becomes.

In reality, watering a lawn the size of ours would require lots and lots of work – dragging sprinklers and hoses all over the place and maintaining a non-stop watering cycle.

I guess that sometimes laziness and conserving natural resources go hand in hand.

These are the "green" strategies we are most inclined to sign on for.

Although sometimes it is easy being green, sometimes it isn’t. It can be hard to change old habits.

We’ll keep trying to live better and do better, for the sake of the generations that will follow in our footsteps. Because we want them to enjoy the same clean air, clean water, clean parks, clean forests and clean rivers that we enjoy today.