Is Being Green Becoming Too Trendy?

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Is Green to trendy

That is the question that is posed by Slate Magazine. You really can’t miss it. Being green is the new catch phrase now a days. Celebrities, Politicians, and Urbanites have all jumped on the bandwagon. So are we just doing it for kicks or do we truly care about the Environment? I admit I am a casual environmentalist. I have been blessed enough to have started and now run a couple of different business in the past decade that that teach people how to recycle, refurbish, and retail old clothing back into the mainstream. I am not about to go join GreenPeace, in fact, they kind of give me the creeps. When I used to live in a real city, whenever one tried to approach me, I would actually start running to the other side of the street dodging ambitious cab drivers and cyclists who were probably biking to reduce Carbon Emission. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for the environment, but I didn’t need some college kid with nothing to do during breaks do a sales pitch on me in the middle of the streets of San Diego.

So back to the article… this is what Slate said, “Yellow journalism now comes in a new color: green. Often as sensationalistic as its yellow predecessor, green journalism tends to appeal to our emotions, exploit our fears, and pander to our vanity. It places a political agenda in front of the quest for journalistic truth and in its most demagogic forms tolerates no criticism, branding all who question it as enemies of the people.”

It seams that after Al Gore’s movie came out that everyone wan’t to be part of the fad. Corporations are jumping on the band wagon, and changing the terminology in their marketing campaigns making them seem green or sustainable. Take for example, Live Earth, that was on a couple of weeks ago. It was a nice touch, but did it help the environment. How many emissions were used for people to travel to the events. How much coal was burned so we could use the electricity to watch it on TV. These are just a couple of questions that were hidden behind the corporate sponsored commercials and ads that went on to put on such an event. It seemed a bit odd.. Here you are having all these advert to consume more and more.. And then commercials about consuming less, Identity crisis for sure.

Then back to the article.. Slate questions the validity of Carbon Off-putting programs and companies that are all of sudden going green Equally skeptical of the carbon credits has been the Financial Times. Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on carbon credits projects that yield few if any environmental benefits, Another brilliant FT piece cites several academic studies to show that imported foodstuffs are not necessarily the carbon bombs that calvores make them out to be. The piece speculates that the car ride back from the grocery store might be the most carbon-intensive part of a fruit, vegetable, or leg of lambss journey from farm to pantry.

So what do we do now.. should we just say “CHEESE SH*T and give up? No, I don’t think that’s the answer either. Perhaps it is a marketing gimmick to get people to buy more products meanwhile doing nothing for the Environment. Maybe this is a whole big conspiracy to make people want to do for the environment but actually harming it instead.

I can go on an on, but the truth is it starts with the individual not the corporation. Corporations like religious organizations will give you the false hope that everything is all right, as long as you don’t doubt or question what they tell you. Because of this it has to start in the home. You as a consumer can make some decisions to lessen the impact that doesn’t cost any money.. or little money. You do not have to buy a compost that costs couple hundred dollars. Certain things make sense.. like Recycling. It does not cost you a dime but it is effective ¦ Recycling is Indeed Better. Turning off the lights you do not use.. makes sense


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