Iowanic wrote:
To me; the 'green aspect' works better (as a story) if it's background: something the characters in the story may not even think about, day to day.
Of course, does that make it a 'green' story?
Too casual, people don't notice.
Too much attention, it's a story about green living but I fear the number of people willing to read may drop.
Prob:....Explaining the need for 'green'; without lecturing.
Limited equipment? It takes lots of equipment and expertise to run a hydroelectric system over distances... not so much so for local solar/wind power generation. It also takes heavy, EXPENSIVE equipment do get petroleum 'harvesting' going (sorry, i couldn't resist

). When I was a kid, we were pretty poor, but us kids weren't really cognizant of it. We had chickens for eggs and meat. We had turkeys too, and even had one once that weighed 48 pounds after it had been cleaned (i.e., ready to go in the oven)... all without steroids, antibiotics, and the crap they are given now. We even had goats to keep the blackberries down without running equipment-yes there were THAT many. We always had fresh, canned, or pickled veggies from our garden; we made our own jams and jellies from the berries that grew on our property; my mom made outfits and ALL of our Halloween costumes because we couldn't afford to buy them sometimes. We also had FUN as a family growing food, baking, canning, jamming (??), pickling and sewing. It really brought us together and was far less expensive than if we had gone out and purchased those items. JMHO. I think you might want to address that aspect. I am thankful for those experiences in my life, and I think too many people haven't even thought about what that might be like.