“I’m going green!”

We hear about it everyday, in some manner or another: going green!  And many of us would like to truly, “go green,” to, “live a greener lifestyle,” and, “help the environment,” but what does all of that jargon mean?  Are we just buying relatively “greener” products just to feel better about ourselves, yet still falling short of, “green”?  Is it just a slogan?

A Spectrum, a Gradient, a Continuum, if you will…

Greener living belongs on a spectrum: it’s all but impossible to not produce some waste, some pollution, and some environmental damage; call it “original environmental sin” or what have you, but at the end of the day, we all are polluters.  But how do we react?  We can try to pollute less!

So, it’s all about lessening the damage we cause, it’s what I’m talking about when I say, “improve your envirohuman impact.”  I try not to use the word, “decrease,” when discussing envirohuman impact simply because we can have a positive impact as well, and so it’s all about a gradient of extreme damage on one end and doing great deeds for the environment on the other.  Think of said spectrum as having the decimation of an ecosystem on one end  and the planting and growing of a tree ( a native, non-invasive species) using only rainwater and organic matter on the other end.

For example:

Of course, it can be difficult to gauge what is, “good” for the environment.  Go ahead and recycle your soda can and I’m going to support you while also putting it somewhere in the middle of the gradient, because it still had to be produced, shipped to you, and, after being consumed, shipped to a recycler and smelted, all of which are carbon-intensive activities.

Am I saying not to drink soda?  That’s not my point at all — just to note that until we are all using carbon-free energy for such activities, then we’re all imperfect on these types of things.  Yeah, recycling lessens the damage, and we should therefore do so, but we’re fooling ourselves if we think that recycling is an absolute solution to our larger problems of finite resources and greenhouse gas emissions.  It’s somewhat, “greener,” but it’s not, “green,” per se.

I can’t believe how green…

I may have mentioned this story on here before, but once, at work, a woman was sending off her glass water bottles for recycling and commented how she can’t believe how green her life is becoming.  While recycling is the right thing to do with spent bottles, the truth is that her water was shipped all the way from Italy in glass bottles (packaged in a box) on a boat which used carbon-based fuels in order to ship it to the U.S.  Trucks shipped the box from harbor to warehouse then to the building in which she works.  A recycling truck will ship those bottles to a recycling facility for reuse.

Am I judging her?  No, rather I’m only saying that for her, the fact that she’s recycling is, “going green,” in the sense that it’s perhaps greener than before, when she did not recycle her bottles.   I was tempted (but resisted) pointing out the implications of the use of those water bottles.

Is she just fooling herself?  Maybe.  Or maybe it’s a good faith effort on her part to do what she thinks is right.  The key is education and discussion of these issues.  I don’t feel comfortable telling her that a much greener option is to get a reusable metal water bottle and fill it up at the tap each morning.   She might be offended, and who am I to be a smarty-pants, know-it-all coworker?  She also may have already considered this option but decided against it.  After all, I’m not perfect, I pollute, and I make choices all the time between greener options and ones that are less so.

How many of us are comfortable telling our coworkers how to live (or green) their lives?  If we want to get along at work, we’re probably more comfortable keeping such opinions to ourselves.   It can be difficult enough sharing such things with close friends and family.  No one wants to be known as that, “eco-guilter.”

The grass is greener on the other side (of the spectrum)

Not to toot our horn here at Earthascope, but that’s why blogs like this and thousands of others on similar subjects exist: it raises awareness about such issues and caveats, but puts the burden of the message on a different messenger.   You can share “useful advice” from one of our columns on greener living on any given social network, and a friend may be hard pressed to be offended at your posting it — but he might take a look and pick up a greener habit.

These considerations are seeping into the public’s consciousness and that adds to our general sense of deciphering our way through the myriad daily choices between products and practices, and to wade through the marketing and sloganeering.

“Greener”.  Sounds cheesy?  Sure, it’s become as cliche as the word, “cliche,” itself, however it’s a simple way to point out any given activity’s relationship to the previous, less green, way.  So in the coming months, we’ll concentrate on greener living options, tips, product reviews, and overall lifestyle adjustments that can put you on a greener, less environmentally damaging path.  Feel free to share with friends, introduce some of the products into your home, or take up a greener habit.  At the very least, you’ll be closer to the greener end of the spectrum.

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