Everyone and their dog these days is hearing about how good an idea it is to do stuff for the environment.  We all know about Global Warming and Al Gore's crusade to inform the whole world that we're slowly destroying ourselves.  The real question is, if you're not a scientist, and you're not an environmentalist, what can you do to save the environment?  Well, the old answer was thought to be "plant trees," but now we know that doesn't really work.  I can tell you from my personal experience that renting instead of owning is the best way to reduce your carbon footprint and start living green. 

Most people think of owning a home as the pinnacle of the American dream; the massive accumulation of property all leads up to it.  But consider also that every house built is more land taken up by one individual.  Look at India or China--some areas of these countries are so congested, they couldn't imagine one person owning a house.  We're not to that state yet here in America, but isn't the real American dream that we might be some day?  We want to be a flourishing nation, but there's an environmental cost to that, too.  Some people may say that America is too big, that there's too much land mass, we'd never run out.  But realistically speaking, China and India are enormous.  We have mountain ranges running through our country just like they do.  When our population is almost four times what it is now, won't many, many more people be looking for housing?

But why renting, you might ask, as opposed to just combined housing?  Why not still build equity in the home while sharing the space with other people?  And my point to this is that I'm staying in a rented house right now with three other people.  The two don't have to be mutually exclusive.  The less singularly owned property we have, the easier it is to adapt to the shared housing system.  And this system is undeniably the way of the future.  We're told that CO2 emissions are endangering our planet--humans exhale CO2.  Does that mean we need to worry that our mere existence is going to bring about the end of the planet?  Of course not.  It just means that if we're not ready for the challenges we will inevitably face, we can't handle them effectively.  Shared housing is going to be the way of the future for all nations.  It's both an economic and an environmental philosophy.  And rented housing is the safest, easiest, most green way to ensure we're ready for our future.