Are you "Green" ? Really?

[Reverend Rick]

While I still disagree that global warming is man made, or even admit that global warming is going to continue, "Green" ideas still make sense to me.

Are people "Green" just to feel good about themselves? Is carbon offsets just a ripoff to make folks feel better?

Let's say I buy into the cool aid drinking "Green" ideals, (I plant trees and recycle).

Why do we still buy products from Walmart, (China Mart)?

China's pollution is a world problem not just theirs. They do not have many environmental regulations, not to mention worker safety or product safety.

If we are super serious about being "Green", why do we still run air conditioners, clothes dryers, hair dryers, curling irons, take long hot showers several times a day and use several clean towels each time we do this and live in bigger and bigger homes?

If a person buys a fuel efficient car and still drives to work by themselves, are they truly green?

Would a person who consolidates trips and car pools with a gas guzzler be less green than a person who drives a hybrid to work by themselves?

Would a person who buys carbon offsets be better than a person who ensures they are helping the planet by stopping the reason for offsets in the first place?

If everyone in the United States changed their lifestyles, would the planet be better off considering the pollution China is spewing?

My point is, if we are going to save the Polar Bears, we need to do just that, not just do some small insignificant thing in our life to feel better about ourselves personally.

 

[PureX]

It's difficult to overcome the short term temptations of cheap and easy for the long term goals of efficiency, quality, and responsibility. I'm no better at this than most others. I try, but I often fail, too.

But there are several reasons that I try. One is that I believe it's right. Human beings do not own this Earth, contrary to the vast majority of us thinking that we do. And because we do not own it, we don't have any right to exploit it for ourselves, at will. Instead, we have been given the gift of being allowed to live here, and off of this planet, and along with that gift comes a responsibility to leave the planet the same or better than when we found it, so that this gift may be passed on to future life forms.

And we have horribly and grossly abused our gift, and horribly and grossly ignored our responsibility to all future life on Earth. And we have done so for no other reason than our own selfish greed.

I love being a human being, and am thankful for this experience every day of my life. But I am also often ashamed of my own humanity, when I see how grossly I and others abuse this gift and ignore our responsibilities to ourselves and each other and to all the life forms on Earth. I feel ashamed by what a self-centered and short-sighted greedy pig I am. And it's mostly this sense of shame that makes me want to try to do better.

Also, I truly believe that my own life would be qualitatively better if I could learn to live more efficiently and in communion with my natural environment. And I believe that everyone else's would, too.

 

[Valjean]

Good questions, Rev. I think every little bit helps, whatever the motivation. True, some of these actions amount to a mere drop in the ocean, but actions should be guided at least as much by principle as by expedience.

Personally, I'd advocate not having children, but the idea seems to anger just about everyone.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Good questions, Rev. I think every little bit helps, whatever the motivation. True, some of these actions amount to a mere drop in the ocean, but actions should be guided at least as much by principle as by expedience.

Personally, I'd advocate not having children, but the idea seems to anger just about everyone.

My wife and I had two children. We did not add to the problem or take away from it. We just replaced ourselves. I will leave the planet with more trees than I took from it. I heat and cool my house with a geothermal system and my water is heated by the sun. I recycle, so my trash is reduced. I still use fossil fuels so I am just reducing my damage to the planet not offsetting it. In other words, the world would be better without me. Just because I am not the biggest offender, I still am an offender.

I hate being the cause of the Polar bear problem. What right do I have to live an affluent lifestyle at the expense of another species?

 

[yossarian22]

There is no such thing as the environmentalist movement anymore.
It was hijacked long ago by a anti-corporation and socialist movement.

I do not think any person can consider themselves "green" unless they do not contribute to the perceived problem at all. And nobody can say that.

 

[Mathematician]

There is no such thing as the environmentalist movement anymore.
It was hijacked long ago by a anti-corporation and socialist movement.

The environmentalist movement has always been dominated by socialists and anti-corporation activists. Corporations and capitalism are the leading causes of pollution of any type. Unfortunately, the market has been ignoring the Earth all through industrialization. It's again time for the community to intervene and slow down, if not put an end to the problems. Rick is correct. We can't do that without expecting China, probably the next superpower to hit the world stage, to join along. And that will require more than just sitting down at a table and saying "please" -- especially since our country won't commit.

I'm a proud eco-socialist.

 

[Reverend Rick]

I'm a proud eco-socialist.

Gene, would you care to comment on any of the questions raised in my first post? Especially the China factor? How many China made products do you buy?

 

[Mathematician]

I avoid Chinese products like the Black Plague. There's so many factors that turn the price factor on its head: labor, quality, environment, and danger. Recently when shopping for electronics I've made a habbit out of checking equipment to see if its made in either the US, Japan, Europe, or Taiwan. Food is harder, but I usually stick with organics.

If a person buys a fuel efficient car and still drives to work by themselves, are they truly green?

Indigo? That depends on several factors, the most important of which being: does he live near any co-workers that he knows of?

If we are super serious about being "Green", why do we still run air conditioners, clothes dryers, hair dryers, curling irons, take long hot showers several times a day and use several clean towels each time we do this and live in bigger and bigger homes?

We're a culture of excessive consumption and waste. It doesn't help that it's become "acceptable" to go into debt and just fix the problem with more debt, either. People have been trapped into thinking soley about short-term solutions [cheap food, debt management, big house, cheap labor] without thinking about the long-term, and all that's done is hurt ourselves and make things harder.

Would a person who consolidates trips and car pools with a gas guzzler be less green than a person who drives a hybrid to work by themselves?

I would say anyone who is going out of his way to help the environment is green. The word is subjective but there are definately cases [unfortunately, lots of them] where someone can be identified as not being green. I go to the grocery store and see them all the time.

If everyone in the United States changed their lifestyles, would the planet be better off considering the pollution China is spewing?

Yeah, but it could eventually be elapsed by India and China once they become superpowers.

 

[Booko]

There is no such thing as the environmentalist movement anymore.
It was hijacked long ago by a anti-corporation and socialist movement.

The "green" folks I know locally would be better described as libertarians, actually.

 

[yossarian22]

The environmentalist movement has always been dominated by socialists and anti-corporation activists.

It was founded by them, but in its early years, it was not just a front for those agendas.
Want to be a socialist? Fine whatever. Hate corporations? Great.
Just stop masquerading it as a green movement

 

[yossarian22]

The "green" folks I know locally would be better described as libertarians, actually.

Go to an environmentalist rally. They tend to be dominated by people bellowing "Quarantine Corporate Greed" and so on.

 

[MaddLlama]

When did being "green" become all about global warming?

I thought being "green" meant helping care for the environment, instead of supporting turning the planet into a trash dump. Global warming is only a small part of that.

That's one thing I hate about the environmentalists.....there's always one big environmental issue that everyone focuses on, and nobody mentions the other issues. 10 years ago it was recyling, and now its global warming.

 

[Mathematician]

When did being "green" become all about global warming?

I thought being "green" meant helping care for the environment, instead of supporting turning the planet into a trash dump. Global warming is only a small part of that.

That's one thing I hate about the environmentalists.....there's always one big environmental issue that everyone focuses on, and nobody mentions the other issues. 10 years ago it was recyling, and now its global warming.

Unfortunately, that's everyone.

Liberals, it's Iraq.

Conservatives, it's abortion.

Socialists, it's capitalism.

Libertarians, it's government.

 

[Valjean]

Some people here seem to have had a very limited experience of the "environmental movement." What's being discussed here sounds more like a cult than an ecumenical, humanitarian world-view.

People who care about the happiness and welfare of others, and who have a degree of insight into those factors affecting it, tend to be concerned about global warming and recycling; habitat destruction and community gardens; corporatocracy and civil rights, chinses sweatshops and local consumerism, saving the Darfur refugees and the whales.

It's all related -- and nobody can focus on all of it.
Just as a military is broken up into a thousand highly focused specialtys yet still retains a unified overall mission, these "greens," that seem overly focused on some particular problem, are really members of a larger, humanitarian and ecological movement; a movement to bring sustainable ecological and social harmony to the whole planet.

 

[Reverend Rick]

I have recycled for over 30 years. I have planted trees since childhood. I have done this not to make a statement or further an agenda, I do what I do as a responsible steward of the earth.