The Blind Environmentalist

For the past twenty years or so going green in the U.S has become the hip thing to do. We teach our children the importance of recycling, we scoff at the lazy person who takes the elevator to the third or second floor, and we try to elect green politicians who push for change in office. But the truth is many American Environmentalists do not even know which plastics are recyclable or where the turkey in our sandwich comes from. We are a nation of blind environmentalists, our hearts are in the right place, but we fail to see that many of our "green" actions are not really green at all.

Take the example in Green Planet Blues about California. The West Coast is often considered the more greenly minded population, but they only pretend to conserve. Sure they have saved their deserts and many of their state parks, but they simply get their finite resources imported at over double the coast. And when one factors in the environmental impact that occurs in shipping those goods from New Zealand, California is more of a threat to the global environment then ever before. Then there is the use of ethanol, most Americans view the use of ethanol as a good green practice, when in reality ethanol causes an increase in the demand for corn, that cannot be filled by American farmers, so corn fields pop up in other parts of the world and their products are shipped to the U.S. Causing an increase in carbon emissions to get the corn to the U.S and the new corn fields cause great deforestation.

Its not that Americans don't want to be green, its that we don't know how. Big businesses and the government give us "green" choices but normally we are not given reasons why they are green or they appear to be green on the surface, but if you dig a little deeper you discover that we are actually doing more harm then good. So what can Americans do to see the light? Become more educated, ask questions about where that ethanol is coming from and what has to be done in order for it to be created. Yes it takes time and more attention the most average Americans are willing to pay to the environment but if we all just try a litter harder and think about where the Coke can is going to end up after its thrown in the recycling bin then we can avoid such counter-productive "green" programs and polices like the ones in California and open our eyes to a brighter, greener tomorrow.