Earth Hour
The Grey Tower
Originally uploaded by Ampersand Photography. » It was Earth Hour last weekend. Being the environmentally minded hippies we are, Mandi and I spent the hour illuminating the subject on a podcast. We ruminated on why it is I might feel things that carry the "green" brand are geeky and I'm just too cool for. We only scratch the surface on the actual show, but it is a three-fold issue for me.
First and second, I'm put off by the sanctimonious tone a lot of supposedly green hypocrites use when they pat their own backs about their feeble environmentally aware actions. To be fair, they don't realize their actions are ineffectual and totally bullshit and so they, in their minds, have earned the right to be sanctimonious. Unfortunately it makes me want to burn effigies of them made out of styrofoam packing material rather than get in-line with their rah-rah rhetoric. Rah-rah rhetoric that makes people feel good about their trifling actions are going to kill us all. The more people feel like they've solved the problem by participating in Earth Hour, the less likely we'll see bans on food packaging, privately owned vehicles or significant, enforced caps on electricity usage. But like any religion, environmentalism exists to give people a sense of hope about their future and to make sense of a world which is rapidly falling apart. It's not meant to provide actual solutions, just spiritual band-aids.
The third reason is related to this religious aspect. There's a goody-two-shoes feel about a lot green behaviour. Now, I don't own a car, a TV, a microwave, an air-conditioner or a cell-phone. True, I benefit from other people owning these things, but I'm trying to live free of as much resource consumptive technology as possible (yes, yes you're allowed to laugh at this blogger and podcaster's own hypocrisy now). I agree with the reduce, reuse, recycle and refuse ethos, but anyone who talks to me about these things comes off like a Sunday-school keener. Perhaps just it's a hold-over from the band-camp kids who were in the eco-club in high school. I just feel like icky whenever someone brings up "a few simple ways to make the lunch-room greener."
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» Tangerine closure: I'm off my tangerine kick but I've noticed what I've been buying as Minneola Tangerines are now called Minneola Oranges in several stores. Was I being duped all along? Somebody has some explaining to do. About tangerine nomenclature.