The 438-horsepower Lexus luxury hybrid sedan, only $104,000….
Yesterday being July 4, Independence Day here in the USA, I got to thinking about the environmental impact of probably 200 million grills being fired up all day long…think about it, whew! And then this morning I was driving my somewhat eco-sensitive Honda Element, 23 mpg around town, way more on the highway, at just about 5mph over the posted speed limit when a Toyota Prius goes flashing past me at the speed of sound…..what the hell..lead foot in any vehicle obviously. I get home and I’m flipping through the New York Times when I come across a very gratifying article - Buying Into the Green Movement.
In a nutshell here’s what this article says - “The genuine solution, he and other critics say, is to significantly reduce one’s consumption of goods and resources. It’s not enough to build a vacation home of recycled lumber; the real way to reduce one’s carbon footprint is to only own one home.”
“Buying a hybrid car won’t help if it’s the aforementioned Lexus, the luxury LS 600h L model, which gets 22 miles to the gallon on the highway; the Toyota Yaris ($11,000) gets 40 highway miles a gallon with a standard gasoline engine.”
“The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747 — it’s a complete joke. The idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn’t matter if they’re organic. It’s diabolically stupid.â€
And my favorite -
“Maybe the solution is instead of buying five pairs of organic cotton jeans, buy one pair of regular jeans instead.â€
Read the article here.
But I think you can take that extreme to the other end as well. Instead of having only one home, why not live in a shared cluster type home, or teepee, or totally save resources and off yourself (Preferably somewhere off in the forest where you’re free to decompose and feed the animals and soil)?
Weird as it seems, even if someone has three house built by green standards, they still use less than if they had three houses not built by green standards.
But even in the absurd, and in the band-wagon jumping, at least the idea of conserving resources is gaining so much attention. And hopefully, will continue to be embraced and in time, practiced more logically.
July 5th, 2007 at 2:56 pmHave to disagree with the 3 green homes vs the one none green home. I think the point of the article is very much about consumerism…for instance, one old-fashioned TV is preferable to any LCD or Plasma TV/monitor because the old TV uses less energy. Point is less is more….again…
July 5th, 2007 at 3:06 pmoh, I disagree too…I meant 3 green houses to 3 none green, in that people who want three houses are still going to get their three houses.
I think about this a lot as I’ve lived a in an old boat in a storage garage for the last year.
And in principle, yeah, I can’t see the need for collections of things. But on the other hand, who am I to walk up to say, Jay Leno, and say, “dude, do you really need all those cars?”
July 5th, 2007 at 6:24 pminteresting article.
i think that a positive aspect of all this trendy “green thinking” lately is that i’ve seriously began to question my personal spending habits. yes, a hybrid car like a prius sounds fantastic, but what about all the specialized parts that are shipped globally to make up the car? what about the mining of nickel that make up the special batteries? there isn’t an easy answer to all this. do i buy the nice-looking conventionally-grown lettuce that was shipped in from california, or do i get the not-so-great looking organically grown - covered in aphids - lettuce from clackamas? what matters to me, and what am i willing to give up?
as a side note: is it me, or does “carbon offsets” reek of selling indulgences to the masses?
will there be a martin luther of environmental issues? questions, questions… hmmm….
July 5th, 2007 at 9:52 pmDave, that Prius that flew by was Al Gores son overconsuming meds.
I just had this argument yesterday with a coworker. His wife works for a local company, local meaning where the business resides not the manufacturing. He is not one to have an argument with because he is kind of an idiot, regardless, his wifes company produces these cookies that are gluten free/crap. They also make these taro chips…I asked him where everything comes from. It sounds like they import the shit out of their products raw ingredients, if it could come from the moon they would get it as long as the labor was cheap. Their manufacturing is done in California, nothing comes from Oregon. Ok so my point here is right in line with the less is more comment. Do you have many regional manufacturing locations acting as psuedo-distributuion points, also utilizing all local ingredients or do you have one major manufacturing point and do what is cost effective even if it means importing everything from other countries, is it more eco friendly to do is that way? And that Carbon Offsets deal is kind of like a “green condom”…
July 6th, 2007 at 5:58 amAll these points are valid but the bottom line ultimately becomes consumer confusion. As the article says it’s just like when people were told that it’s ok to eat a fat free cookie they went ahead and ate the whole package definitely remaining fat free in the consumption end but becoming fatter from calories but feeling good about themselves. Carbon Offsets, hemp clothing, organic lettuce etc all let the consumer feel good about purchasing and consuming but not necessarily about being environmentally concious. Remember this line - “The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747 — it’s a complete joke. The idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn’t matter if they’re organic. It’s diabolically stupid.â€
July 6th, 2007 at 8:42 amyea I like that quote most of all. hybrids aren’t good enough if a better power source can be put into production or certain cultural habits could be changed (like riding a bike or bus) just as recycling isn’t good enough when we could eliminate alot of packaging by changing our own consumption patterns. we have to stop overproducing and overconsuming if we want history to see us as globally conscious. unfortunately the way we view the harbringers of the industrial revolution as nearsighted is exactly how I fear the more critical people of the future will view us.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:39 amThank you for posting this Dave, it’s so true! I write about green trends all the time and I’m tired of them becoming a fashion statement or used as some sort of elitist status — green building is still limited to the wealthy (for the most part). The best way to build green is to reuse and old building! Not construct a new mansion in the hills, throw in some bamboo floors and energy efficient appliances and then brag about your greenness. The best, best, best thing is to just stop buying so much! Well, that and cut the world’s population in half … ;)
July 6th, 2007 at 12:02 pmMaybe Portlanders are more green conscious than most, in fact I’m confident of that but we all need to think about our consumption. As Trevor Graves from Nemo Design said to me as we were discussing Portland-based Nau, a sportswear clothing company that touts its environmentally conscious approach - “How can a clothing company be environmentally conscious if it is designing and manufacturing new clothing. If it were truly revolutionary and honest then the best thing it could do is encourage recycling. For instance, need a snowboarding jacket? Then go get one from Goodwill. When you’re done with it donate it back for someone else to use….”
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