Amen. That's really is looking at the big picture.
Fixing what you already have is a lot better than trashing it all and replacing it with something new. If you don't throw it away, you don't have to replace it.
Go back a couple of generations when they had to conserve just to survive instead of it just being a 'good thing to do', and you'll see what it really means to be a 'friend of the earth'.
It was also smart, because in the end you 'tread lighter on the earth". Isn't that what environmentalism is all about?
