Earth Day: It IS Easy Being Green!
by Pete WannA few weeks ago I stumbled upon this claptrap, reprinted in the S-T. I’m not going to go into each point individually to point out the real non-decisions and wrongheaded assumptions made in the article, because I have come up with the answer that solves all of the “dilemmas” posited.
Don’t.
Yep, that’s it. Don’t. What do I mean by that? Here’s an example, based on one of the “dilemmas”:
Drive-thrus vs. getting out of the car
Idling a car engine for more than 10 seconds emits more pollution than turning it off and back on again. So if you’re able, environmentalists recommend that you park your car and walk into the fast-food restaurant or the bank.
Many cities recommend that drivers avoid idling as much as possible, especially on days when alerts are issued because of ground-level ozone and soot.
Or better yet, walk to the restaurant. If you can safely walk or bicycle, there is no environmental or health downside. And riding the bus or train helps take cars and trucks off the road, cutting down on tailpipe emissions, which account for a large percentage of air pollution in most urban areas.
Instead, I recommend that you don’t go to the fast food restaurant. Buy groceries at the store (local before organic, organic before conventional, and NEVER, EVER green peppers or tomatoes from Holland), and prepare your own meals, leaving the car in the garage. You’ll be healthier, and so will your family.
Okay, okay, I know that my philosophy is overly simplistic, and that it can’t possibly account for EVERY circumstance or accommodate everyone’s schedules and dining habits.
To that I say: “So What?“
It’s a guideline. A basis for making a decision about what to do, when presented with a choice.
We’re faced with choices all the time; at work, school, church, in stores, and at home. We can’t get through a day without making a single decision, even if the only one we make is whether to get out of bed or not.
Unfortunately, Americans have become too used to doing things on auto-pilot; because that’s how our parents did them, or that’s how everyone else around them is doing it. I think that’s a very un-American (and particularly un-Texan) way of viewing the world. This observation doesn’t preclude adopting someone else’s pattern of behavior because you view it as better than yours; I’m just saying that we could put a lot more thought into WHY we do things.
Instead of following the same worn path (which is demonstrably unsustainable), let’s do something different: Let’s “Don’t.” The next time you’re faced with a decision, ask yourself what the impact would be if you decided NOT to buy or do a given thing. Be honest with yourself, REALLY think about it. The more you tell yourself it’s okay if you don’t buy a given thing, or do a given thing, or go to a particular event, the lower your impact on the planet.
We don’t want to hear the hard truth and the REAL solution to our environmental (and many of our societal) woes: Consume less. If we all made a conscious effort to take that one small step, we wouldn’t be in the situation we’re in.
I said I wasn’t going to quibble with every point in the article, but I feel I MUST address her assertion that “…plastics don’t biodegrade easily.” The fact is that plastics don’t biodegrade AT ALL, and plastic is wreaking havoc on some of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet. Like it or not, everything on Earth is interconnected, and destroying the environment in one part of the world will eventually have negative repercussions everywhere.
Tags: earth day 09, environmentalism, star-telegram, sustainability, the environment
One Comment, Comments or Pings
Reply to “Earth Day: It IS Easy Being Green!”
By posting your comment, you agree to abide by the terms of the West and Clear comment policy.