Earth Day: Here To Make You Feel Doomed

[nfotxn]

It's Earth Day which is great and stuff. And really I'm on the bandwagon. I don't use chlorine or phosphates, all my detergents and soaps are readily biodegradable, paper products are 100% post-consumer waste. I compost both municipally (they take all organic matter including meat etc.) and in my back yard and of course recycle. If I can fill a single trash bag a week it's been like Christmas or something. I have a re-usable coffee mug, water bottle and shopping bags. I use them every day.

I don't like talking about the fact that I'm an environmental nut really. I understand I'm contradicting myself but really what I've noticed is that it makes people feel bad. Supposedly 1-in-3 kids polled believe that we're indefinitely headed to FULL ON PLANETARY APOCAPLYSE. Which as a kid of the early 1990's lets-rap-about-recylcing era I can attest to fully believing in. Proof that, at least in one third of cases, early childhood traumatization leads to devote adherence to doctrine. Sorta like the Catholic Church.

So just like the movies kids with freckles are predicting a catastrophic natural armageddon with their untarnished wonder and imagination. Meanwhile in the adult world we're concerned with some seriously irrelevant bullshit. Let's come clean people: green jumped the shark. And I don't mean that in a condescending too-cool-for-school hipster way. I mean really it's fucking ridiculous how much green is being used to continue to calm our strikingly rational child-like fear of enviro-chemical biological death. Oh look these towels are made form sustainable bamboo! I should replace all my unfashionable unsustainable cotton towels with sustainable bamboo because that's the right thing to do. Maybe I should replace my otherwise fine man-bag with this organic hemp and recycled bike-tire thing that can make me look like an undergrad well into my 30s? Perhaps I should buy yet another re-usable grocery bag? As to prevent myself the unthinkable shame of being seen with unfashionable plastic bags.

Yes. These are thoughts that have crossed my mind.

But it gets worse. I'm apt to be a bit judgemental, I know, but we need to take this to the next step. Buying a Prius and putting an organic egg in your Whiskey Sour still makes you just a yuppie. Original yuppies bought sweaters and tennis rackets. Now people are concerned about food and water. That's what I'd call a quantifiable degradation in quality of life. So it's nice to know that we're all suffering really.

Again I'm thankful for the recession. Many of us will be forced to respect the natural environment at the same time as spending less money. And I guess what I want to achieve here is to enable other people to "green" their lives without really just finding a new excuse to buy more shit. Because the solution to our problem of climate crisis, waste management and toxic environments is intimately linked to our ridiculously out of proportion need for things.

Yay Earth Day!

Comments

[slumberjack.livejournal.com]

good points... i will say though, i had a Prius as a rental once and they're really great cars despite the reputation. i'd buy one and not just because of the green element (though it's nice how rarely you have to put gas in them).

i guess i qualify as a "yuppie" already though, in the literal sense of the term :-)

[abearius.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, it was Nuclear Holocaust and The Apocalypse. Really, these kids will grow out of it. The good side is that they will waste less and might care more about how their communities behave. *shrug*

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

I'm closer to the tail end of that era but I don't think I agree with you about the caring bit. Mostly we're all left with these FNORDs in our life that leave us with very unreasonable reactions to various things. Sure, some good will come out of it but a lot of weird unhappy stuff too.

[estudioso.livejournal.com]

I could definitely do better on being green, but I have to say that I-m en route for a less harmful impact on the environment. You know, bringing my own shopping back always, changing all the light bulbs, disconnecting electronics when not in use, etc.

However, it is in general difficult being green in my country. For instance, garbage disposal is done without trash separation, and all green products (like cleaning stuff) are sold as premium items, making them an affordable for many of us mexicans.

Particularly lacking is more education on how we impact nature and how can we mitigate it. One thing that strikes me the most: it's us single professionals who really strive to being green, whilst most parents with kids that I know do not. Have they thought about what their kids are going to live in?

[trckrfckr.livejournal.com]

There is no egg in a Whiskey Sour.

That's a Pink Lady.

[montyollie.livejournal.com]

YAY great post. My parents are environuts and they don't even know it and they don't even try. They don't drive, don't have anything too high tech or electrical (push lawnmower, gas stove, battery operated transistor radios) such that during Blackout 2003, Am and I went running to Mom's house only to realize they didn't even really realize there was a blackout because their lights are off during the day, anyhow; Mom was cooking on the gas stove, and dad was listening to the transistor radio like he always does.

Freakshow, but awesome.

I like being ghetto-green. It makes me happy.