I understand yesterday was Earth Day, and I understand everyone is all atwitter with glee over Gore's power point presentation....I mean movie but come on!!! This "being Green" crap is getting to be too much now. Ever notice when you try and buy "earth friendly" products they aren't "wallet" friendly??? It's the new Beanie Baby collectible market. Let's cash in on people's guilt. Sorry folks, these Corporations don't actually give a rat's ass about the environment.....but they will sure market the crap out of their ECO products for you. Or you will get slammed with "at least once a day Carpool...or take public transit..." Easier said than done. Carpooling was great when folks didn't work the crazy hours they have been working for the past decade or so. If you all worked at XYZ Factory from 8-5, then you piled into Joe's car and all drove to the factory, then went out after and had beers. Sorry it doesn't work that way any more. At least for office folk. Public transportation is great, if they dumbasses worked together. When I got married the first time, I lived in the East Bay Area. I worked on the Peninsula so to get from home to work I had to drive across the Bay Bridge and pay a then two dollar daily toll (it's like 5 bucks now....). Or I could have taken BART ( the Bay Area's subway). I could get on a BART train as early as 5 AM. It was an hour and a half walk from the station to my office (trust me I did it once....) and should have been a 15-20 minute bus ride. I took the 6 AM train. Got to the station closest to my work at 7. The bus didn't come until 7:30-7:45......that was the first bus. Imagine if I had taken the train at 5 am. I would have been sitting around waiting on the bus for an hour and a half. As it was it took almost a half hour for the bus to get me to my office....basically at 8am on the dot when I was supposed to be sitting on my duff working. Yeah that worked out. So far my ride to work was a good 2 and a half hours. Or I could drive. As long as you were at the toll plaza by 6ish you were good. It would take me an hour and a half to drive. Hmmm what's better.....that's why there's so many cars on the bloody road. In Tennessee, we don't have public transit. Just MTA busses in Nashville proper. I work on the outskirts of Nashville.....we have a commuter train that goes from home to downtown Nashville.....a ways out of my way to get to the office. I'd have to hop on a bus that might take a good half hour/hour to get me to the office. Or, I can commute 30-45 minutes each day. Hmmm....yeah carpooling works soooo well. Want to be ECO minded? Stop buying gas guzzling behemoth vehicles. It was the fascination with the SUV in the 90's that has us paying almost 4 bucks a gallon for gas. Thanks Jones and those keeping up with said Jones.......thanks so much. I was okay with the rash of Mini Vans there for awhile...at least Mini Vans get decent mileage.....much better actually than SUV's......oh, but wait.....it's funny actually, I've gotten so many owners of big SUV's stop me in parking lots, etc and ask about my Scion and how do I like it and what mileage it gets. I politely answer it's a Toyota for 15 k and it gets 35 mpg (I also smirk a little when I say that because in my head I'm doing the Ha Ha dance). What I really want to tell these people (but unlike popular opinion I really don't like being an ass) is "oh now you want the fuel efficient vehicle. After you and all the other SUV drivers in the world have sucked up almost every last drop of fuel and NOW you want to preserve it.......should have thought of that sooner!!!". I don't say that though; I don't have to. They realize it. Don't get me wrong, I do honestly believe that the last 100 years or so of being an Industrialized civilization has sped up the natural progression of a changing climate, but I don't get how bringing your own bags to the grocery store (and Oh God let me tell you how trendy this is getting....oh wait..that was a few entries ago...go read it) is going to keep plastic out of the land fills. Everything you buy in the grocery store is packaged in plastic. Yes by not using plastic bags you will not be throwing them away...but you will be throwing out the plastic wrap covering the meat you buy, the plastic bag you put your Organic vegetables in, etc etc. What exactly are you saving? All you are doing is giving the store a reason to charge you for their dependence on plastic bags; remember, THEY are the ones that started pushing plastic because paper kills trees.......we tend to forget that little tidbit....the reality of it is the plastic bags cost the store less than paper ones did so that's why they pushed them....they could care less about trees....remember one thing...your friendly neighborhood grocer is run by a CORPORATION.....and all they care about is maximizing profit. If they want us to be sooo concerned about the environment and wean us off of Plastic bags, then they can start giving us paper or the reusable canvas bags and give us an actual discount.....or not. I mean if they bagged your groceries in reusable bags...basically gave you your first set of bags for free......then would only bag your groceries in those reusable bags you brought in from now on, they wouldn't have to buy those plastic grocery bags. Most of these places have Reward cards. They would scan your card, then enter a certain code that would tell them in the future when you scanned that card again that this person has already received a full set of bags so don't give them additional then you wouldn't get wasteful people. If they gave me the bags, or at least charged me what they charge me for the plastic (oh yeah.....you didn't know that? The price you pay for groceries already has the cost of those plastic bags factored in.....) then I'd reuse the things. What is funny is that most of these reusable bags they sell aren't canvas. They are plastic coated and cost upward of 4 bucks a bag!!!! For what? So you can get 4 cents off a bag?????? OOOOO that's good economics right there. Or better yet, do like Costco and Sam's, put it all in cardboard boxes. You know there are tons of empty boxes in the stock room from all the products that are on the shelves. Instead of some poor sap having to shove all that crap in a compactor and bundling it up reuse it!!!! What a concept!!! You get rid of your trash by giving it to someone else!!!! Around Tennessee, each County has it's own dump. Guess what, it's free to dump your trash there. No shit.....it shocked me too. Back home in Cali you went to the dump it was like 10-20 bucks a carload. Here there is a place for household trash, recycling bins for plastic, glass, newspaper, magazines/junk mail, a HUGE bin for cardboard plus a bin for crap (broken furniture, old sinks....etc). Then there is a separate bin for old washing machines/fridges that kind of thing. Seriously you can go once a day and most of them are open 7 days a week. So if Kroger "bagged" my groceries in old cardboard boxes, you damn well know they'd end up in the cardboard recycling bin at the dump. Now isn't that better for the environment and your wallet???? This going "green" has become too freaking trendy and people are feeding the machine to make themselves feel better.....because God Forbid they admit that if they got rid of the H2 and bough a station wagon they'd actually save gas and money. No we have to bring our own bags to the store...carried there in our Cadillac Escalade. Yeah save the planet.....You're doing it wrong!!!
2 comments:
There are a cohort of politicians and eco-activists who want nothing else than to make Americans feel uber guilty about our lifestyle. The Left is really good at it...in fact they're quite good at making men feel guitly about being men, and white people feel guilty about being white, the blue-collar class feel guilty about having money, etc. etc. And so we have a growing demographic of folks that do as they're told with the selling point being that they feel "good" about saving the planet in the process.
YES, it's true that Americans have a horrid track record re. wasteful policies/lifestyles as it relates to all forms of limited resources. YES, we've had entire industries throughout our history that operated with a philosophy which prioritized profit over environment.
YES, we have politians, legislators, government, and policies that throughout our history succumb, at times willingly, to the practice of de-regulation; an attitude of expansion and growth at the expense of our natural resources and clean environment.
But at the same time Americans are, incrementally but steadily, moving toward change; a change in leadership that values conservation, a change in policy that regulate industry, a change in our daily lifestyle that reflects the morality in caring for our environment and a stewardship of resources of every kind.
However, our vision is soo utterly near-sighted, and speaks to the narcissism of most Americans. As the largest and oldest industrialized nation on the planet, we certainly still have problems related to the amount of trash we produce, the amount of food we eat, the amount of fuel we consume, the amount of resources we waste, the amount of pollution we cause. But here's the gist: we're coming around to making changes.
Just one example; for 2 consecutive years, we've been using less fuel..."but how come oil prices are going up!?". The answer is that we aren't the only ones on the planet! Somehow we soo love to blame ourselves for everything, we've come to think we're the only ones who are at fault AND have something to lose. We can't even mention the rest of the world and how emerging nations are rapidly increasing the amount of fuel they burn, the amount of resources they use, the amount of pollution they spew, etc.etc.
It could be said that each nation/culture must undergo the same evolution ALL industrialized countries undergo...and in the process deal with all the pitfalls associated with this process that OUR country have had to deal with: pollution, lack of regard for conservation, no-checks on expanding industry, and pollution. Unfortunately, with time as a factor, we don't have the luxury nor does out environment have the patience to see each nation through this evolution.
To tell you the truth, I'm actually glad to see corporations making a buck AND going green. It certainly beats making a buck and poisoning our rivers and lakes with acid rain. As the Supertechnician in Germany put it; "there are BILLIONS to be made by going green. The resistance is related to our industries and our politicians who are ill-positioned to take economic advantage." But Americans know how to make a buck (there's that cliche again), and you can see our economy moving in a different direction, one that can profit off from also being good to our planet.
I happen to think the opposite relative to the extreme left's world view...I happen to think many Americans are quite mindful about waste, pollutions, resources, et.al. My wife and I certainly are and go to extreme lengths to make sure that we care for our planet. And given the opportunity most Americans, if given the choice, will chose green or eco-friendly alternatives if the cost differential is equivalent, and certainly will if the cost is favorable to the pocketbook. We simply need better choices, and that's where leadership in politics and industry come into play.
Sorry, I've ranted too long Steve. This is quite lengthy and I should put it up on my blog!
No worries P.....you've actually added to the discussion. It's like I pointed out...yeah great you are bringing your own bags to the store...but you still are throwing away plastic, foam and other items into the landfills that don't biodegrade....so what are you saving? Hopefull the trend of Eco-ness will make the Corps wake up...I doubt it but we can hope.
Post a Comment