Green-eyed monsters

These days everybody is going “green.” I even feel clichéd discussing the growing desire for a green label. Suddenly, in the wake of a global warming crisis, it’s hip to be environmentally conscious. Which is great; I mean obviously there are better reasons to be environmentally conscious than the cool factor, but, we’ll take everything we can get, right?

Except that somehow the green of environmentalism is starting to take on the same shade as the green of money and consumerism. There’s all these great “green” products we can feel good about buying; high-fashion made from organic cotton, imported organic tropical fruit, pesticide free cosmetics, and even a hybrid Lexus. Great right? Not really, because the biggest problem at the root of our looming environmental crises isn’t what we consume, but how much. We are fooling ourselves if we believe that we can buy our way out of global warming. An article in the New York Times yesterday discussed the growing commercialization of the “green” movement, and how it’s dividing the environmentalist community.

We assuage our guilt buying these products; many are good for the environment and many are green in marketing only. Imported organics are one of the biggest evils actually; the amount of fossil fuel energy that goes into transporting your organic strawberries to Anchorage in February is a huge contributor to global warming. So is buying organic natural tomatoes at the grocery store in Virginia in July, when you could get them at your local farmers market. Those little decisions matter WAY more than investing in expensive organic clothing. Don’t drive to the gym to run on a treadmill, even if it’s a fancy, new-age solar powered gym. Run outside around the neighborhood.

Remember the three R’s of elementary school? Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. That’s what we need to bring back in style. Buy less stuff. Use less energy. Take care of the stuff you do buy. We unfortunately live in a disposable culture, and it’s coming back to haunt us. Smaller houses, efficient cars, re-usable shopping bags, drying laundry on the clothes-
line, biking to work, and turning off the electronics you’re not using. Really, we could all do these things without becoming martyrs, abandoning the grid and the man and decent rules of hygiene. I still buy stuff, obviously, but i try not to trust a "green" label to fix everything. Being environmentally conscious is important, but it doesn’t require more money or even much more time. It just requires more common sense.