Green With Envy
There was a time when you didn't have to be a snob to be green. Things green people did were mostly common sense conservation rather than tasteless self promotion. We did things like put bricks in the toilet to save water. My parents had me crush and recycle the aluminum cans and let me keep the five or six bucks. I would be outside either looking for cans around the neighborhood or smashing them with a sledge hammer so they fit in the garbage bag. It even kept me from getting fat. It got me outside finding joy in accomplishment. I'm not any better than any of you, and I am probably a lost less noble than most of you. Still, that personal drive and satisfaction that comes from within. That joy that you experience because you wanted to do something and achieved it is where a person's character comes from. I don't see that in the green movement these days.I went to the restroom in Wehner and all the toilets have green sheets of plastic on the flushers. Does that in any way help the environment? Does producing green plastic flusher condoms actually use energy and create trash and serve no purpose? Yes! It is greenies desperate for recognition for what they do. Look around campus and you will see stickers slapped on surfaces everywhere. They will weather away and become trash. They were resources used for nothing but the self indulgent gratification of greenies.
I can already hear the crying, “bbbut Tyson, we are getting the word out.” No, you're not. No one has ever been swayed to start recycling because they saw a crappy sticker or flusher condom. No one cares if you stand outside a building with a big sign saying, "Go Green!” It isn't an argument. It isn't convincing. There is no direction given so we walk by and think, “those idiots must be cold.” If you guys spent half the time you spend self promoting, you could actually get something done.
I have also noticed in my years that green has as a result of tireless self promotion, become cooler and cooler. People often equivocate cooler with smarter, and thus better. The problem is that in the same time span, what being green stands for is dumb and dumber.
Cash for Clunkers: You scrapped a working vehicle. That vehicle took resources to make that will now sit in a scrapyard mostly unused. This means you have a newer car, which also brings forward the time you will have to buy another new car. That means manufacturing that car which means using more resources and energy, then scrapping the second car leaving two cars in the dump sooner. The gas mileage isn't making up for the energy spent in manufacturing and you can Google Dust to Dust for more information on that. The best thing you can do is conservation which means getting as much utility out of your property as possible. All this isn't even broaching the economic effects of destroying working vehicles so you can get a sense of satisfaction.
Recycling Paper: You probably don't realize this but the government subsidized paper recycling. They do this because it is more expensive to recycle it than to make it straight from trees. You have to sort it out with man power, remove garbage, then you have to bleach it with massive amounts of chemicals and then the government forces newspapers to buy it. Paper is made from trees. Trees are a crop. Do you recycle your corn or wheat, or just buy the new harvest next year. Have you ever cut down your own Christmas Tree? They ever turn you away? No, they rotate their crop each year so people get good trees.
Greenies have become so jaded by their own cause they've gone green with envy. They want you attention, they want you to do what they do, they want to change the world but they are so busy self promoting they have forgotten that just because it is called green doesn't mean it is good. The only thing green I'll be partaking in is a green beer on St. Patrick's Day.
Tyson Bam
