A Live Green, Live Smart Briefing 
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Finding love, or even a date, can be a hard slog. One issue that always arises is what values are shared – today, that’s especially the case when it comes to the environment.

Do you desire a companion recycles and composts everything but toenails and lives in a crib lit by compact fluorescents or can you accept someone who proudly drives an SUV and tosses glass bottles in the trash?

For many people living your values means finding like-minded carbon-footprint reducers who take their sustainability seriously. A new trend dubbed “eco-dating” helps create social networks self-proclaimed tree-huggers, Prius drivers and composters who prefer a date familiar with Al Gore and global greenhouse gases than one tied into television and conspicuous consumption.

It’s socially responsible dating with a twist, the twist being shared concern for the environment. And the result of eco-dating may be an eco-wedding.

Green Social Networking
Driving the eco-dating trend is, of course, the Web, where social networking sites cash in on the green cache.  These sites offer a shared space where tree-huggers devoted to energy reduction and environmental activism can meet.  And sometimes, their mutual embrace of green issues becomes something more personal.

Chief among the social networking sites are Green Singles (greensingles.com), Green Passions (green-passions.com), Vegan Passions (veganpassions.com) and Earth Wise Singles (ewsingles.com).  A quick glance at the sites shows various levels of membership dues ranging from free to a modest $48 annually, in one instance.  

They are not much different than other dating site except for one thing – the shared passion for, primarily, the environment. Most people on the site invariably note their dietary practices, such as vegetarianism or veganism.

Topics of discussions on the sites – and on dates – might include global warming, socially responsible investing, public transit, political activism and other green-related issues.

Earth Wise Singles describes its members as being the following:  “green-living and environmentally responsible adults; friends of Mother Earth; organic gardeners, farmers, and ranchers; lovers of nature and the outdoors; concerned about human rights and world peace; interested in alternative and holistic medicine; looking for long-term friendship and romance.”

Sound about right? Sound like you?

You are not alone.

From Cyberspace to Shared Environmentalism
Daniela Rumpf used social networking sites in the past on occasion to try to strike up friendships. When she moved from Minneapolis to attend Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, she met a few new friends through MySpace. As a graduate student at WSU bored with always talking to people in her graduate program in fine arts, she Googled “green singles” more than a year ago and discovered the earthwisesingles.com site.

She had had a couple of email relationships with a few Earth Wise members but nothing that really clicked – until she traded messages with Andy DeRocher, who lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and works in the renewable energy field. He had met a few girlfriends in the past through social networking sites, she says, so he was a bit of an old hand at it.  For her, this was going to be an important first.

“Andy was the only one who emailed me on a regular basis,” she says. “We’d talk about conservation, snow, work, places to hike, food, our favorite granola, that sort of thing. I never thought I’d meet someone online because it never worked in the past. But I was more relaxed about it this time.”

Rumpf and DeRocher, both age 27, decided to meet when she returned to Minnesota in the June 2006. They chose, appropriately, to participate in the Sierra Club’s “Walk For Wind” in Minnesota, an effort by environmentalists to promote wind energy by walking through small towns throughout the state to gather attention and support. Sponsored the North Star chapter of the club, the event brought the two together. They discovered they had a mutual acquaintance in Sierra Club organizer Cesia Kearns, a friend of Rumpf who had met Andy at other events.  This personal connection further developed the sense of context and community.



The relationship began to flourish, in real life. DeRocher invited Rumpf to a renewable energy fair in Wisconsin. They met three out of four weekends for months in 2006 and 2007, often for camping outings at state parks between Madison and Minneapolis. In March, 2007 Rumpf decided to further reduce her carbon imprint and increase her chances for a long term relationship with DeRocher by moving from Minnesota to Madison.

The couple lives as they preach. “We ride our bikes to many events and to the grocery store and to the co-op,” she says. “We go tent camping and hiking. We have all compact fluorescent bulbs in our apartment and Andy hardly uses hot water for anything. We hang our laundry outside in summer and in the laundry room in winter so we don’t have to use the dryer. We don’t use A/C in our cars, either.”  

But they’re not Luddites. Both own aging cars and plan to keep them for longer trips and for transportation in winter, when biking in Wisconsin can be hazardous. They try to do what they can to reduce their energy usage while staying cognizant of the reality of living in a community where not having a car can be a huge challenge.

Rumpf says she would hardily endorse eco-dating for those looking for love. She was able to meet someone who shares her values for reducing energy use, for being politically active on behalf of environmental causes and for enjoying the outdoors through camping, hiking and biking. That’s been a good thing.

“I would recommend it, but I will confess I got lucky. I happened to meet that right person who shared my beliefs,” she says. “You never know what’s going to happen but I think you have to keep an open mind. I used to think a lot more about what I was saying when I emailed people using these sites, but when I didn’t care what happened –  that’s when things worked out.”




Written by Frank Jossi, Live Green, Live Smart staff writer.