The Cowtown Chronicles

I’ve probably made it clear before that I have a general dislike for the term “green.” It has become something which is fetishized, another excuse for people to go out and buy more stuff. People who espouse “green” living tell themselves that they’re doing something good for the environment because they’re buying shade grown, organic Nepalese water which has been blessed by the Dali Lama himself, but they don’t think about all the other things that go into bottling that water and getting it into their organic hemp shopping bag. (Don’t even get me started on Fiji Water.) To someone who lives “green,” it’s okay to go buy that Hummer, just as long as you fuel it with biodiesel.

Our modern lifestyle has insulated us from what goes on before that thing we’re buying gets back to our house. Since almost nothing is consumed where it’s produced anymore, we externalize the environmental costs of producing those things to their place of origin.

Unfortunately, the fact is that this planet isn’t big enough to have that attitude. The pollution that projects like injection wells and natural gas drilling cause doesn’t observe political boundaries. Fertilizer runoff from big farming doesn’t care if it’s going into the ocean, or into the river or aquifer where your drinking water comes from.

The problem is that the people who are creating all that pollution are only doing what WE want them to do. We want cheaper heating bills and cooking fuel, so drill more gas wells! We want cheap agricultural products, so we don’t care how it’s produced, as long as we have money left over to fill our houses with more cheaply produced crap we don’t need.

How do we fix it? The solution isn’t going to be easy. It’s not as simple as “buy this, don’t buy that.” Wait, no, it IS that easy. Today our default response to most buying opportunities is “yes.” I think we need to change that default answer to “no.”

For the last 60 years or so, our country has put convenience ahead of EVERYTHING else in our culture. Small, local restaurants have gone out of business because there’s a fast-food joint down the street where I don’t have to get out of my car to get a burger. It’s slightly inconvenient to carry my purchases from the grocery store while I get my car keys out, so the checker puts my loaf of bread (pre-sliced and packaged, how convenient!) into a plastic bag that I’m just going to throw away when I get home. Convenience breeds waste.

I’m not suggesting that we make our lives more inconvenient. I’m suggesting that we shift our focus from consuming to conserving, from wasting to saving. That doesn’t mean you have to go out and hug a tree, or sponsor a panda bear; all it means is that we need to live more like our grandparents did. (Our parents, by and large, are responsible for the mess we’re in, BTW, because of their fascination with all things synthetic and the post-war boom during their youth.) Try growing your own vegetable garden. If you don’t need a second car, don’t buy one. Save money by going to the library instead of buying a new book, or buy it at a book reseller. Support mass transit options. Every little step helps, so what are you doing to live your life more sustainably?

Today is Blog Action Day, a day when bloggers around the web have united to put issues concerning the environment on everyone’s mind. This is the first of a couple of posts that I have planned.