Going Green isn't a Fad, nor is it an Option

"Going Green"

I use that phrase a lot.  I claim to be "going green" in as many aspects of my life by doing things to the best of my ability to be eco friendly.  At the end of the day though, I still crawl into bed feeling really hypocritical and down right embarrassed that I am not better.  Consider this the disclaimer as I climb up on my soapbox to preach about environmental friendliness, I am not perfect, I am not net energy zero or negative, I am however... passionate. 

Being Green is not a fad.  It is not a special edition of a monthly magazine, it is not bringing reusable bags to the grocery store, and it is not easy.  Nor is it an option.

Being Green as I am learning is anything but easy, or fast, or effortless.  Being Green is the next necessary step in the American Dream.  We used to be the Land of Milk and Honey.  I want to be the Land that still has grass pastures for cows and fields of flowers for honey bees.  I fear we are running out of both in an ever accellerating pace.  

I have fairly strong views on a lot of political topics.  I align pretty strongly with the liberal thinking folks on many issues and my Green vein only magnifies that alignment.  However, I don't see Going Green as a political issue anymore.  Going Green has to be something that we don't fight over doing, but we fight over how to do it better than we used to do.  I can point my finger at the Bush Administration for trying to undo a lot of efficiency programs and failing to push standards higher.  I can also point my finger at the Democrats who rolled over and let a lot of bad policy be passed by very obvious acts of special interests.  I can point my finger at my own family who as a family of 4 has 4 vehicles, 3 SUVs and one sports car, none of them are hybrid or fuel efficient.  We are the families that drive the markets to produce cars that are not global competitive and it breaks my heart.  I sold my car almost 2 years ago when I moved to NYC.  I don't miss it one bit.  I do however dread moving back to the US where I will need to purchase a car again do to our nonexistent public transit. 

I can point the finger at myself as well for not doing better.  I use my right to vote to sway government policy but I do not usually use my intellect to try to have a dialogue with those people I elected to insure they know what I really want in governance.  I've never written a letter, I've never gone to a protest, I've never signed a petition, I've never invested my money into a truly green company.  I've never studied ecofriendly technologies, and try as I may, I've failed to persuade anyone into buying ecofriendly products.  Many times, I have failed to buy ecofriendly products as well.  This is why I crawl into bed feeling hypocritical.  Despite my good intentions and point of view regarding the environment, I still go to bed consuming WAY more than the average human on earth, and probably a lot more than the average American does.

So my plea to those who will listen is this:  I am going to try to do better and I hope that you will to.   Can we do better in trying to make the US an energy leader again?  Help us become the most environmentally forward thinking country on the globe?  Can we do better in using our collective dollars to invest in resources and products that do not fund terrorist organizations (Hello OPEC nations), do not encourage non-sustainable business practices (Hello deforestation of Rain forests), and do not put harmful amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere creating irreversible changes to our climate?  I am going to try.  Will you try with me?

I am reading a great book right now called Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman.  I highly encourage you to read it also, or at a very minimum read these quotes and please... try harder to love Mother Nature, if not for Mother Nature, than for the American economy and that standard of living you've grown so accustomed to.

"September 11 knocked us off our game, prompted us to pull in, to export more fear than hope, to build walls rather than windows, and to devote enormous amounts of money and energy to homeland security rather than nation-building at home."

"What it illuminated was that our oil addiction is not just changing the climate system; it is also changing the international system in four fundamental ways. First, and most important, through our energy purchases we are helping to strengthen the most intolerant, antimodern, anti-Western, anti–women’s rights, and antipluralistic strain of Islam—the strain propagated by Saudi Arabia."

"Ross’s study offers data indicating that when a nation’s oil income goes up, the number of women in the workforce and the number of women who gain political office both go down—other factors being equal. “These results are consistent with the claim that oil production reduces female political influence by reducing the number of women who work outside the home,” "

"Mother Nature “is just chemistry, biology, and physics,” Watson likes to say. “Everything she does is just the sum of those three things. She’s completely amoral. She doesn’t care about poetry or art or whether you go to church. You can’t negotiate with her, and you can’t spin her and you can’t evade her rules. All you can do is fit in as a species. And when a species doesn’t learn to fit in with Mother Nature, it gets kicked out.” "

"We are the only species in this vast web of life that no animal or plant in nature depends on for its survival—yet we depend on this whole web of life for our survival. We evolved within it. As we adapted to it, it shaped us into what we are. We humans need that web to survive—it doesn’t need us. But we sure need it—and it thrives only if the whole system works in harmony."

"Remember: oil, coal, and gas are all exhaustible resources. The more of them we use, the more their price goes up. Wind, solar, electric car batteries, solar thermal, and geothermal are all technologies. They benefit from learning curves. The more we use them, the more we move them down their cost-volume learning curves; they cost less, do more, and deliver more energy for less money."

"Just because we can’t sell shares in nature doesn’t mean it has no value."

"What is our problem? If the right things to do—most notably raising the gasoline tax and putting a fixed, durable, long-term price on carbon—are so obvious to the people who know the most about the energy business, why can’t we put them in place?"

"But let’s not confuse what is necessary with what is preferable, and let’s not call a pig a rabbit. Coal is never going to be a clean fuel in CO2 terms. It is preferable that we transition away from coal as fully as possible, as alternatives become cost-effective."

Please... can we all just try to do better??