Conflicting scientists, greenwashing corporations, self-congratulatory conspicuous consumers of green products… I think the noise to signal ratio is getting a little out of whack. I have less direct connection to nature than I used to. As a child, I used to go fishing along a tributary of the Musquodoboit River. In the spring, green was everywhere. There were fiddlehead ferns emerging from sun speckled patched on the thick blanket of moss that lined the forest floor. There was the dark green of fir boughs.
When I grew up, I worked in the lumber industry to support my young family. The huge sawmill was fed a steady diet of wilderness and it grew as the wilderness shrank. I had already left the country when the sawmill shut down due to a perfect storm of financial factors. I felt sorry for all those who lost their jobs, but I was also kind of happy to imagine the forest having a chance to catch it’s breath. I was wrong about that. The greenwashing steamroller is cruising through my childhood home in the form of a multi-national company harvesting biomass. It’s not green and it’s not pretty. I applaud environmentalists that choose to devote their lives to trying to save wilderness areas from being consumed. I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with people who are passionate about sustainable forestry. These people are green. Books should be written about them and their inspiring ideals.
Am I green? I’m having a hard time answering that question. I try to consume less. I do what I can to avoid polluting. I devote time and energy to creating this blog that is devoted to one focused issue. Sometimes I worry that I should be taking some sort of stand or shifting my focus to an issue that needs more attention. Other bloggers are doing a better job of bringing attention to the issue of plastic waste. My choice of location feels green to me in some ways but not in others. There are local vegetables available year round, but my drinking water comes from a desalination plant that burns fossil fuels. I can live car free, but friends and family have to fly on an airplane to visit me. Right now, I think that the greenest thing I can do is to teach my children to think in terms of sustainability.
I think that just the fact that you remain conscious of these issues and do your best each day to achieve a goal of minimal carbon foot print puts you way ahead of billions of people. You can’t get discouraged even though that’s easy to do sometimes these days. We were born into this world that’s all up side down and full of toxic crap and it will take a generation or two or three before we get things on the straight and narrow. I do worry that maybe we’re running out of time but I feel compelled to keep working anyway.
Hey Martin, it’s great to cut down on pollution but don’t feel guilty. Mother nature has a way of fixing herself when the balance tips too far one way or the other.
I guess other than death (and having a green burial) no one is 100% “green”. We do what we can with the resources and information we have. Living in the city has its advantages and disadvantages. So does living in a rural area – we can go on and on.
I agree that using less plastic will be beneficial to everyone! In our business, we encourage users to purchase cotton or jute, which are biodegradable.