Andy B
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Matter of perceptionWhen i am at work i wear a posh suit and in a break i was looking through permaculture mag and one of the comments from a work collegue was about bloomin hippies and was generally negative. Although it was partly a wind up it made me wonder if the wrong type of people are trying to educate people on environmental type problems. I also get funny looks when i am out shopping at certain hippy style shops
First impresions are important. And i hope i havent upset any hippies.
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Lozzie
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andy you are so right!
until environmental issues become "normal", then many people will still consider those of us with some sort of environmental concience as "green", "hippy", "tree-huggers", "new age", "alternative" or any other number of more derogatory names that I have come across.
I am trying to organise an Outreach programme for our local Agenda 21 group at the moment and one of the things we all agree on is that the softly-softly aproach to "informaing and encouraging" people is best done by first of all just encouraging people to THINK a little about their own lifestyles, without frightening them too much 
Then offering straightforward practical advice about what they can do to change, even if only a little bit.
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judith
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Yes, I do agree with you to a certain extent. While I don't think you need to wear a business suit to work down on the lottie, if you are trying to get a message across - say that allotment gardening is a good thing - then you do need to look presentable. A clean pair of jeans and decent T-shirt would do - just so that you don't present a "them and us" image. If you want people to buy into your message, then you don't want to look too different from them.
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Viking_Chick
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I got called a tree-hugger by someone I know fairly well, because of a conversation we were having about factory farming - I was astounded. He is the first person to jump on any human rights violation bandwagon, but it seems animal life doesn't matter (and anyone that thinks it does is automatically a bit 'odd'). Well, if thats the case then I for one am going to celebrate my 'oddness'!
(IMO I am about as normal as they come...)
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tahir
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This is something that I think is very important, "normal" people need to see others like themselves doing sustainable things in order to feel comfortable making a change. Personally I don't care what you look like or what you wear but that's definitely not the case for everyone.
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