Examples of going green statements that can easily be turned around:
- Save water! It takes gallons of water to clean that glass. – So I used paper cups. Don’t use paper cups it’s bad for the environment!
- Don’t use that dishwasher, wash by hand. It uses less electricity and less water. – But I bought the dishwasher, it was made with materials that I can’t just waste. I want to use the dishwasher because I don’t want to stand there washing dishes.
- Heating oil burns cleaner and is better than using electric heat. – Heating Oil keeps us dependent on finite resources, yet electric and natural gas are also based on finite resources.
- Get rid of that car and buy a hybrid. -Â But my car is paid for, it gets 32 mpg, and it already exists in my life. Hybrids have actually larger carbon footprints (or so I have read, I don’t know that that is the gospel truth though) and batteries have to shipped from place to place. What happens when the batteries need to be disposed of?
I am very tired of the contradictory messages. I am tired of feeling stupid. I’m tired of feeling like I’m not doing enough or anything. There no one saying, “Yes, you’re doing good, here’s more that you can do…” in any kind of hierarchy. Maybe a Eco-pyramid or Earth’s Hierarchy of Needs to help people understand that they should be doing something that makes sense.
But for all of this, the message seems to get diluted to me, to the point where I’m ready to rebel against it.
I’ve changed my light bulbs to CFs, but I hate they light they give off. I love the warmth of incandescent bulbs. I’m not going to just replace all my bulbs, that’s completely wasteful. So when my incandescent bulbs in my home burn out I will replace those with CF’s.
But seriously, I’m very tired of articles, tv segments, movies, etc. telling me I’m doing it wrong, not doing enough or not doing anything. What’s next? Green computer ram?
So I’ve just given up on this whole “green” thing.
And why green anyway? Why not blue? The oceans are blue, the sky is blue, and I think blue is a better color. Certainly better than green.