ABSTRACT
Personal responses to planetary crises seem to be in vogue in the 1990s. Many Europeans and Americans, especially those of us weaned on the social activism of the 1960s and 1970s, really do believe that the cumulative weight of small, individual efforts can turn the tide—whatever that tide may be. Entering the 1990s on the cusp of environmental crises that seem larger than all of us, facing what seem to be impossible environmental odds, we search for some way to shape, even in a small way, our environmental future; we strive to find ways to “make a difference.” The “green consumer” movement, which started in Europe in the late 1980s, rolled across Canada, and is just beginning to show its colors in the US, gives direction and coherence to this inchoate individual impulse to reduce global environmental issues to a manageable scale. Many of us are comforted by the belief that we can change the world one kitchen at a time.
