NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:

The economic news coming from Wall Street and Congress over the past few weeks has been both frightening and depressing. In fact, the word “depression” has been bandied about more and more frequently.

Whether this is a recession or depression, one thing is for sure — the current economic situation is going to affect the environment. An economic downturn will mean a reduction in tax revenues to government at every level. This in turn will result in reduced expenditures to protect and maintain the environment from Central Park to Bolsa Chica to the Everglades.

Vic and I foresee hard times coming in terms of available funds for upkeep of our beloved parks, wetlands and refuges. Volunteers and donations will be needed now more than ever.

Over the past year, we’ve seen the value of our homes plummet by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and our retirement funds are disappearing faster than a campaign promise the day after an election. Home foreclosures are up too, with 227 foreclosed homes for sale in Huntington Beach and 78 in Fountain Valley, according to Zillow.com. As we see our financial security circling the drain, we all batten down the hatches. We become tighter with our dollars and postpone major expenditures. We economize and conserve.

Although there is no minimizing the great personal harm that this recession will cause for many people, there may be a thin silver lining to the dark cloud, at least from an environmental viewpoint. People may learn to make do with less and thereby consume fewer resources. Perhaps, finally, we’ll do more reducing, reusing and recycling.

This is certainly not the first time people have had to learn to get by with less. We don’t have to look any further than our Depression-era parents or grandparents to find ways to economize. From 1929 to 1933, the U.S. economy was in the toilet. Looking at how people survived those times may provide insight into things that we can do today.

My Grandma Wilson had a large garden in her backyard that helped feed her family of six children after she was widowed during the Great Depression. Meat was a luxury, not something to be eaten three times a day. Flour came in printed cloth sacks, which my grandmother used to make hand towels, clothing for the children and underwear for herself. In case you’re interested, flour still comes in 25-pound cloth sacks, which you can find at Smart and Final at Goldenwest and Edinger.

As young teens, my father and his older sister helped support the family in several ways. In addition to their paper routes, they walked the railroad tracks, looking for dropped lumps of coal to help heat the house. They also went door to door, begging for slivers of bar soap. Once they accumulated a few cups of soap remnants, they cooked them on the stove with a small amount of water. Then they formed the soft mass into oval, handmade bars of multicolored soap. My father continued this small economy his entire life.

My mother had different Great Depression stories to tell. Her father was a well-to-do businessman in the small town of Spencer, Indiana. At the first word on the radio of the 1929 stock market crash, my Grandfather Williams withdrew all of his money from the bank. The banks crashed, and people who had left their money in lost it. Back then, there was no FDIC to insure their deposits.

My mother remembered her mother feeding hobos who got off the train and went door to door, asking for food. She also recalled that her mother made quilts from scraps of cloth left over from making the children’s clothing. Another economy was “turning the sheets.” When bedsheets wore out in the middle, frugal housewives cut them down the middle and stitched the outside edges together to give the sheet new life. Watchwords of the era were reuse, repair and make do.

Times have changed considerably since the 1930s. Back then, houses were much smaller, and it took less energy to heat them. People didn’t have televisions and computers in every bedroom. Families had one radio for entertainment, and it sat in the living room. Work in the kitchen was done by hand, with no food processors, electric coffee makers, electric mixers or bread machines. Modern families use far more electricity than Depression-era families did. One way to help the environment and your pocketbook at the same time is to save electricity, gas and water.

Back during the Great Depression, few things were disposable. Kitchens were cleaned with dishrags, not paper towels. Sandwiches were wrapped in waxed paper, not plastic Ziploc bags. I recently saw a TV program called “Wasters” on the Green Channel. The hosts examine the lifestyles of families, and show them how to conserve and live greener lives. This particular family used an entire roll of paper towels in the kitchen every day! Out of curiosity, I monitored our paper-towel use. It takes us about two months to use up a roll of paper towels. We use cloth hand towels to dry our hands and sponges to wipe the counters. We save paper towels for greasy jobs. Also, we buy Brawny Pick-a-size towels. Each sheet is smaller by nearly half compared with regular paper towels. We’ll even rip those into pieces if a smaller size will do the job.

We’re sure that you can think of many more ways to not only save money and economize, but to help save the environment as well. Green, sustainable living isn’t just for hard times. It’s the only thing that is going to allow billions of people to survive on this planet for longer than a few more generations.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at vicleipzig@aol.com.