In Defense of Green

Snapshot - When dinosaurs walked the earth...

2008-01-01T15:32:00.001-08:00

I'm pretty sure that title is copyrighted.

This thing was alive 145 million years ago, now it is not. Wow.

There was a big Brontosaurus behind it, but I could not fit it into one shot. :( ~sad~

Topic 9 - Holiday Garbage

2007-12-31T15:12:00.000-08:00

The amount of waste produced during the holidays is immense. Not only are people consuming more than usual, but they are also wrapping (or boxing or stuffing) everything they consume. I am not one however, to completely give up all the traditions of the holiday. There is one side of me that loves the lights, the colours, the presents and the joy. I like the feeling of the holidays and I love the fact that some traditions of spending are still sticking around.

I makes me wonder though, can I still be an environmentalist even though I am buying into the "evil-consumerism of Kris Kringle?" (I'm quoting a fellow student from an environmental studies course)

I will be honest, I add to the problem of over-consumption. I currently work in retail at The Gap, a chain which embodies "the corporation." Everything there is run to make profit and drive up stock prices in order to gain investors. All decisions are consciously made to grab a larger piece of the clothing market. I help people spend needlessly almost everyday and it is even worse during the holidays (Boxing Day alone you make about 100k). So, by spending myself, and helping others spend, am I essentially contradicting everything for which I stand. Have a become a Fake Green?

This is the balance I try to strike with environmentalists, both anti and extreme. Is it necessary to completely let go of economy and stop shopping, building and investing in order to save our environment? After some consideration (again, just some), I do not believe that it would be healthy for humans to stop consuming, even if it is needless. Undeniably, there is some sort of pleasure we derive from buying things and I do not intend to stop it. To be honest, I do not think the holidays would be the holidays if there was no corporate involvement whatsoever (as religious involvement is long gone). If we consume less during the rest of the year, is a spike in spending during the holidays justified? Even better, is there a way we can curb the externalities of our holiday consumption. Is that...practical?

For instance, gift wrapping can go, or can easily be minimized. So often we see disposable bags that are built to last a nuclear bomb (here's looking at you Abercrombie), and the amount of tissue paper stuffed into said bags and into the boxes held within the bags is probably sufficient to fund the paper needs to a nearby school. Wrapping paper also is questionable, as most people know what they are getting (because they ask for it on a list) and who gets what really is a surprise when all the presents are piled under the tree. Do you really know which present is yours? Many people also buy gift cards this time of year, and even though it consumes plastic, the cards can be reused. Unfortunately, most chains decide to throw the cards out after they have been emptied as the designs on them are constantly changing.

By reducing side-effects like these, can we help curb the problems caused by our holiday consumption; or is it impractical, impossible, and ineffective? Even though this may cause some conflict in morals, I for one, am willing to try these steps because I do love my holiday consumption.

Topic 8- Environmental Martyrs

2007-11-12T11:51:00.000-08:00

I have recently been contemplating the concept of Environmental Martyrism, a situation in which people have to feel like they are giving up a large part of their life, almost painstakingly so, in order to help the environment.

I have a problem with this idea. Mainly, I do not think it gives people the right idea of what environmentalism is, and how one should approach it. I might too soft in this area, but again, I do not think that people will change their lifestyle if it is too painful, or if it seems to painful. By going out in public and announcing how much you are giving to save the environment and declaring how much welfare you are losing in order to help fight global warming (or whatever the cause might be), it essentially turns people off to the whole idea.

It has hard to go deep into this topic without sounding too bitter, but I truly believe that aiding the environment, if it is a true priority will not be too painful, or require large sacrifices. By incorporating the very ideals of improving environmental quality into our daily lifestyle, it shift without too much trouble.

Topic 7 - Plastic Bags

2007-09-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

Recently, my school bookstore decided to hand out "environmentally-friendly, green, and resuable" bags. For added effect, they made the bags the colour green and decided to do a bad imitation of Macy's (the words "big green bag" were printed on the side). At first I commended the effort, but when the bag became more of a trend than anything else, I realized that though the initiave was admirable, the follow through was disasterous.

Providing reusable bags is only use if people choose to reuse the bags. Contrary to the very name of the bag, the bookstore decided to give everyone one of these green bags regardless of whether the person had already preivously purchased books at the bookstore. Essentially, they were giving you a thicker, more expensive nylon bag instead of the regular plastic ones. A bunch of people on campus now have about two to three of these green bags which have now dissapeared from being in use (as fads here last about a week) and occasionally pop up in a grocery store.

The logic behind these bags astounds me and I do not understand why they did not instead, promote or give an incentive for students to use their backpacks instead of consuming even more. Gift certificates to local university-funded coffee shops or even bamboo bookmarks would have been a better alternative.

This is a glaring example of being IMPRATICALLY green. Trying to go out of your way to be environmentally-friendly with poor follow through and an even poorer result.

Topic 6- Ten years ago...

2007-08-31T18:24:00.000-07:00

I hate to hop onto the bandwagon, but...

Ten years ago, both my parents, after coming home from work, informed me that Princess Diana had died. They told me that her memorial service would be televised and that if I wished, I could join them in watching it. Till this day, I remember both my Mom and I crying; obviously, we did not know her personally, but there always something about her that made her special.

I think about it now, and I realized why I was so sad: it was because I truly admired her.

She spoke out and she made her mark on the world. She had values, dug her heels into the ground, and protected them at all costs. Some say she was a humanitarian, a princess for the people and not for the monarchy. I was way too young at the time to figure out politics, so to me, she was just a princess of action, someone who could be a role model for anyone.

At risk of sounding over-dramatic and preachy. I summarize her 10 year memorial as such:

Even after a decade, people still remember her, and celebrate her. She was a woman of action, one who was not afraid to defend her morals through logic, reason and positive action. She showed strength and believed in people and for that, she is loved.

I write this because she spoke out, and I someday hope to be just as loud.

Topic 5- FLICK OFF

2007-08-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

Aside from the controversy over the logo for this campaign, I am fairly attracted to its ideals. They argue that ten years from now, it will be too late to do anything about global warming. Instead of just pushing scary prophesies in people's faces, they instead decide to explain the condition of the environment simply. They outline six causes behind climate change and show specific, real examples of how changing environments can affect different species.

What I like most about this campaign is how they suggest the public should change. They suggest simple steps: turning off your lights, shutting off your computer, not idling your car, and the list goes on. All their suggestins are practical and require minimal changes in the public's everyday lives. To me, it's a positive way to go about change. As I have stated before, if the change is too big, people will refuse to do it

In addition, there is no pharmaseutical company to be seen in their list of sponsors. In fact, most of their sponsors are companies and media outlets which speak mostly towards youth and can understand how to access the lives of younger people and hopefully make a change. There are few profits to be made, and hopefully, they are truly doing this out of hope for the future environment.

Check out the site here: FLICK OFF

Oh, and best of all, it's Canadian.

Topic 4- The Gap and the Green

2007-08-09T22:17:00.000-07:00

The other day, my manager walked up to me and asked what the store could do to reduce energy consumption. My mind quickly flashed to one thing: lighting. In short, the Gap uses a ridiculous amount of lighting. There are lights above the walls, there are lights in the ceiling, there are potlights in the fitting rooms, there are lights behind mirrors, there are more potlights in front of windows, there are spotlights in the windows and there are spotlights in random locations around to store. I personally, wanted to remove some of this lighting because though it may add that little special something when it comes to merchandising, it unnecessarily sucks up a lot of extra energy.

Unforunately, he replied that lighting is controlled by the supplier and not the company itself.

This made me think. Should the comapny not, if it wishes to be more environmentally friendly, demand that it's supplier create more energy efficient lighting? Is it necessary to have the air conditioning on so cold that employees have to wear long sleeves during the summer season? Can paper usage be reduced by emailing or using newsprint?

It still astonds me how sometimes companies can find it so hard to find ways to reduce their energy consumption. Yes, it make the shopping experience a little less comfortable, but I imagine that the public will have to eventually get used to these new environments. Should a shopper want to shop in a store that costs a lot to the run, then these expenses should be reflected in the product pricing. Sometimes, it might take a little sacrifice to make a big impact.

In the end, we decided that reminding employees to turn off the staff bathroom light, and turning off the down escalator during opening and close would be suffice in making the Gap environmentally friendly...

We still have quite the ways to go.

Topic 3- Happy Feet

2007-07-30T22:08:00.000-07:00

I recently watched Happy Feet (I know, I am way behind the times) and after sitting through two hours of CG'd penguins, I realized that it the only movie I had actually enjoyed in a while. It brought together many of my favourite things: environmentalism, music, and cute animals, in a way no other movie (here's looking at you Surf's Up) has ever been able to accomplish. Essentially, I loved that the movie was able to humanize the fears which animals experience during times of quick and intense environmental change.

I have no doubt that Happy Feet was made with an adult audience in mind; the movie focused more on issues involved with distrupting ecosystems than on developing a fairly-tale-esque storyline. Random interludes of song and dance were inserted to lighten the mood every now and then. At the very begining, we are introduced to a population of Emperor Penguins who, much like human society, have constructed a set of rules which stem from old principles. All penguins must sing in order to find a single partner and the two are to mate and produce an egg. After the mating season, the female penguin is the leave for the fishing season, while the males warm the eggs through the harsh winter. When spring arrives, the eggs hatch into baby penguins who all must then learn to sing and repeat the life cycle. Of course when a misfit, Mumble (who can dance, but not sing), is born into the crowd, the elders go crazy and blame the penguin for the famine and eventually banish him from the iceberg(?).

The beginning of the film is very important to me because it is here, that I feel the movie connects with most humans. As a society with set structures and rules, we fear what is abnormal. We like to do things the way they have always been done and we take any small change as a threat or our survival as a species. We understand why these penguins are scared of the misfit; he is different, and because he is different, he will bring an end to all.

The rest of the film then focuses on how foriegn objects which are familiar to us (such as a crane, or a freighter), can be horribly frightening to wildlife. We see that factories and machinery, which we leave behind after production, can still afflict fear through oil spills, water pollution and litter hazards. Of course, we have to find out what is causing famine amongst the penguin population and the terror turns out to be over-fishing; huge nets are tossed into the water and pull out whatever they catch. Often times, other animals are pulled up along with the fish and die due to lack of water and suffocation. However, since they are not useful in the market, the carcasses are tossed back into the ocean as waste with no regard for life whatsoever.

I guess what astounds me about this movie, is how it manages to belittle the social concerns of the human population. We too often consider society the cornerstone of our survival, that we forget that without a postive and livable environment, we would all be dead. Similarly, these penguins, being too concerned with a misfit, were blind to the tactile, fully tangile, problems which were threatening their survival using ignorance as their only excuse. The answer, what needs to be done, stares these penguins right in the face, but they are too busy picking over useless things to notice it.

I have trouble trying to explain all the feelings this movie has stirred up inside of me, but it sums up to something like this:

There is no use in aruging about social definitions or trying to dictate what is normal, if there is no place for a society to survive. There is no use in rallying up in huge protests to protect things which will not exist if our habitats become barren and unviable. Fighting over the miniscule details of what marriage is and where are taxes go and who can pray who who are essentially meaningless when there are larger matters at hand. Our environment is detriorating rapidly and unless we make a concious effort to place our Earth as a high priority, which club gets government funding will not matter.

During the whole movie, the animals repeatedly say that we, the aliens, are smarter than they. True, we might be more complex in thought, but I would say no smarter.

Snapshot- Wilting Flowers

2007-07-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I hate working because I miss things like this:

I completely missed all the blooms this year in my area and now I am left with wilting flowers. I am lucky I even got this shot because when I took my camera out today, everything was already wilted. Boo-urns!

Topic 2- Death and the Environment

2007-07-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

I recently had to attend a funeral where the body was not cremated as it was on open-casket funeral. After seeing the body, pale and unmoving, I was reminded that we, as humans, are simply organisms on a biological and ecological level. Scientifically, we are not special beings; we share the same rights and needs for survival as any other organisms on the planet. Additionally, we should not think ourselves higher than any other organism.

Each day as a society, we consume and produce waste rapidly all in hopes of creating products and services that will satisfy our needs to survive, but more importantly, items that accompany our wants. We create faster cars which guzzle more gas, we waste more products as we try to keep up with the latest trends, and we litter incessantly as we become even more of an indoors society. Though when we die, everything we've consumed and created to become a "better" person does not matter, because we all die in the same way, we lose our lives and decompose along with everything we have thrown away.

It is just funny to me, how we all up the same way, deteriorating with all the things which we deem useless when we are alive.

Topic 1- Plastic Bags

2007-07-27T22:56:00.001-07:00

Working in retail, I am very often exposed to the phrase that everyone has been using lately: "Oh, I don't need the bag." I personally, have been trying to avoid taking plastic bags for a while and find that even though it is a small step, it will hopefully be of some significance in the long-run.

Whether or not it does make a difference, this slowly spreading trend of people carrying reusable bags (honestly, some girls carry purses the size of bowling bags) makes me very happy. It is nice to see people becoming conscious about their activities and try to make their life more environmentally friendly. It still astounds me sometimes how many bags are wasted in grocery stores. I understand that people need to carry their groceries, but putting two items in each bag, is a bit of a waste. I agree slightly with the bag policy of No Frills and Food Basics; in order to cut down on store costs they make customers pay for plastic bags. Even though the cost is fairly low (10 cents a bag), it does keep the customer conscious of his/her decisions by placing a sense of cost in their mind.

One concern of mine though, is the demand for garbage bags. Now, I am not suggesting that we simply throw our trash on the floor, but in my house, we use plastic bags from the grocery store as garbage bags; believe it or not, we never actually purchase garbage bags. I have yet to investigate which plastic is more environmentally friendly (i.e., more easily biodegradable), but I do know that by using grocery bags, the amount of trash my family produces is substantially reduced. It really is an issue of size. When we see the size of the grocery bag, we are less inclined to fill it up because when it is filled up, one of us has to take it outside.

Essentially, it is our laziness which helps us reduce our waste in the end.

Snapshot- A Little Home in Suburbia 1

2007-07-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

Things like this make me happy:

It might be a bit hard to see, but hidden in a tree of human-created suburbia...

...it seems some non-humans have made their home...

I'm going to follow this bird-family; more photos to come.

Practical Green 1

2007-07-23T18:09:00.001-07:00

I often wonder what is "satisfactory" in terms of being environmentally friendly. One side of me considers giving everything up when I am older in order to move to a more rural locale. Here, I would be completely (or mostly) self-sufficient. It would mean growing all my own food, relying mostly on walking/biking for transportation and reducing my energy consumption to lighting as I would attempt to cook by using gas or natural fire.

However, I often wonder if all this is really necessary. Without doubt, my consumption would be reduced significantly if I choose this route, but the practicality of the situation is what really gets me. I understand that we should definitely reduce our need to consume and waste without thought, but I am a strong believer in balancing the environment with human-created economy. Essentially, I believe, along with thousands of other people, the easiest way to save the planet is to integrate environmentally-friendly practices into our everyday activities; Practical Green, if you will.

This idea is by no means new, and has been enforced perhaps as separate ideas over and over again. Here are some ideas which I agree with and require fairly small changes to my lifestyle.
(More will be added in future posts)

Change how you travel
Carpooling and public transportation are great ways to travel long distances. If we could use either method from Monday to Friday to get to and from their work place, then the amount of unnecessary fumes we pump into the air everyday could be greatly reduced. Of course this does not apply to everyone; some places are impossible to get to by public transportation, but if those who can make this change easily simply choose to follows this idea, then it would make a difference. Remember, even if you hate being in a carpool, you could always offer to lead one if you like to drive.

In terms of shopping trips we make for groceries or other necessities, one idea would be to reduce these to weekly events. Make lists and plan the time once a week to drive out and run all your errands. Not only will this again reduced pollutants, but it would reduce the amount of stress we would endure on the streets and in time management.

Simple things as these can help greatly reduce the amount of traffic on the streets and make traveling on the roads a little less tedious; also, the Earth will thank us for it.

Why? - An Introduction -

2007-07-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

Why am I starting this blog?
I've had my fair share of blogs. I used to write down every single detail about each event that happened to me every single day. After that, I had (and still have) a blog on which I mainly posted complaints and shared some pointless, yet highly comical stories. Then I had facebook, which I would not really consider a blog, but I was allowed to and did share a lot of stories on that site.
I am starting this blog, or journal, or thought-page, or whatever you want to call it because I felt the need to create something that matters to me. I felt the need to create a place where I can gather my thoughts about an issue that carries a lot of weight in my mind: the environment. It a little piece of space where I can talk about issues that other refuse to listen or even speak about.

Why Green?
I choose Green, simply because it matters to me. It scares me that one day in the future, nature as we see it today, will be completely different. There are too many things that I hold precious in the living world around me, human or not, that to lose them all would be devastating. Each and every day, I think about matters of the environment which concern me, worry me, and make me terribly anxious.

I am in no way, an extremist. I will not, in the foreseeable future, ever chain myself to a forest being cut down for paper, nor will I ever lay down front of bulldozers waiting to pave over swamps to build a mall. I choose a quieter approach. I believe that through education and living by example, small chances can be made daily to accumulate to a greater whole. Some may call this an idealistic approach, and therefore, seriously flawed, but society tends to resist large changes. Perhaps then smaller changes will over time, have a larger effect.

Why now?
Environmental issues have been around forever, and I have been worried about nature for quite sometime. I had always refused to do something about it however, because I thought it was a hassle. It required what I thought would be large changes in me, and as a result, I would have to answer to large questions from everyone I knew. Over time though, I realized that my decision to change and help the environment bit by bit was completely a person one. If people asked questions, I could answer if I wanted to and then I could take that chance to inform them of my beliefs and see if it will what they believe. A place to gather my own thoughts, so that they are more organized to communicate to inquiring minds then became almost necessary, and so the time is now.

...and so begins my defense of Green