How Green is my McMansion? Or, Is Green the New Black?
Posted
June 2, 2008 at
12:27 pm by
Kymberly
Does anyone have an ETA on when Green’s 15 minutes of fame will be over recycled, because I am so damn over it already.
Yeah, I said it.
I love the Earth as much as the next person. I taught the kids to recycle. We separate our plastics. I even hang laundry out to dry. My husband drives a car the size of a pudding cup on wheels (to the never ending detriment of his perceived masculinity). Trust me, we do our part.
Yet, the eco-friendly conservation movement of the moment feels less about saving Mother Earth and more about the next major public relations buzz word. Is Green the new black? Suddenly and seemingly overnight everything from McMansions to toilet bowl cleaning products have “gone green.” From major Corporations jumping on the bandwagon (A hybrid SUV and Clorox has gone green now? Spare me). Or ways to drum up new business in a flagging housing and construction industry - “you should completely renovate your perfectly lovely home to the new eco-friendly way. Sure it will cost 4x what it should but you’ll save $17.50 per year on your electric bill. Maybe … “
Cunning little electric cars (with a limited geographic range), mass-transit, and bicycling are all touted as the obvious solution to our transportation needs as we travel the Yellow Brick Road to our zero-carbon-footprint utopia.
Nevermind that only a small fraction of the U.S. population even has access to public transportation or roadways that would be safe and reasonable for people to actually use bicycling for anything more than recreation. Can you imagine putting your 2.3 kids on the back of your bike to run them to the pediatrician? Grocery store? Soccer practice? ( “okay lessee here we’ll balance your gym bag on the handlebars and …” In areas not served by even basic cable television because it isn’t cost effective to run wire on existing poles ”all the way out there,” it seems unlikely that any mass transit authority is going to start making tracks to, well, lay tracks.
Look, I recycle. I don’t litter. I try to be careful but no, I won’t be putting those butt-ugly energy efficient $9 a pop lightbulbs in my chandeliers any time soon. Not to mention (did someone say pop?) that they tend to overheat and melt the covers in some enclosed light fixtures. Are housefires eco-friendly now too?
“Green” as a trend (and annoyingly, a verb) feels no different than a marketing ploy from a host of industries suddenly “greening” conventional products to serve a public that still wants it all — but now wants to feel good about it, too. And that’s a Mother of a problem indeed.
So how about it? Does a “green” label influence you in any meaningful way? Are you significantly changing your eco-ways for the better? The worse? Or do you plan to just keep on truckin’?
Tags: conservation, eco-friendly, electric-cars, environmental-friendly, Green, green-products, marketing, mass-transit |
13 Responses to “How Green is my McMansion? Or, Is Green the New Black?”
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately in an effort to remove commercial messages, irrelevancies, excessive foul language, racist/sexist/hateful comments, spoofed/cloaked IPs and/or personal attacks and will be edited/deleted at our discretion. Thank you for your patience.
1. Allison G. said:
June 2, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
I agree. While it’s great to do good things for the environment, I do feel like “green is the new black”. Like it’s a trend. Keeping up with the Joneses now involves comparing which hybrid car gets better mileage, which organic produce comes from the most eco-friendly company and so on. The Joneses will always have better shit than you. Dammit!
I was invited to a party for a friend having a baby. I thought it was a baby shower but was informed by the host that it wasn’t, but rather a “celebrating her new body” party and the baby shower is next month.
“Shit. Too late to cancel” I thought.
“Oh yeah. And she’s totally green. Please no gift bags, wrapping paper, or greeting cards.”
So I got her a 100% recycled plastic cosmetic bag, stuffed with a Burt’s Bees “Plant a Flower To Save Bees” gift set. And I put it all in one of those new reusable grocery bags, rather than a gift bag.
One problem, though. The Burt’s Bees stuff came packaged in (gasp) plastic, and the gift was met with a cranky, pregnant, raised eyebrow.
Almost makes me want to rent a Hummer to drive to the river and dump some trash and used motor oil downstream. Just kidding.
2. Busy Mom said:
June 2, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
I think I love you.
3. Rita said:
June 2, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
I try, but like everything else, it’s a compromise. I’m sure I’m better than some and worse than others. I do use the fluorescent light bulbs, as our old ones burn out. I recycle. I try to cluster my driving trips so to save gas. I re-use baggies and prefer to use reusable and previously used containers (like plastic cottage cheese, salsa, and parmesan cheese tubs–which I don’t microwave and just swish in lukewarm water with a little soap).
But… I drive my minivan the .25 mile to pick up my daughter after school every day, because the timing doesn’t work well with my son getting home for me to walk. I get new paper bags at the grocery store every trip (for my Tidy Cat scoopable litter), and so on.
4. Tracy said:
June 2, 2008 @ 8:55 pm
I will keep on trucking, in my um truck, that we just bought. Give me gas numbnumbnum.
5. Kymberly Foster Seabolt said:
June 2, 2008 @ 9:26 pm
;)[/quote]
Too funny and too true!
6. Grandma frm Ks. said:
June 2, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
[quote comment="167792"]I will keep on trucking, in my um truck, that we just bought. Give me gas numbnumbnum.[/quote]
I agree with you, at my age it’s ” who gives a fat rats —” I’m not wasteful, and I re-use but not changing a whole lot, I’ll leave it to the younger generation.
7. july mom said:
June 3, 2008 @ 11:17 am
OMG, I so heart you. I am sick to death of “go green.” I was semi-green (like a nice minty color) before green was cool, but now, ack, it’s so freaking annoying. I recycle, I don’t litter, and I have reusable bags, which is great and I wish everyone would do, but for the love of all that’s holy, stop crammming it down my throat. It’s even permeated every freaking home improvement show on HGTV. WE GET IT! Reduce, reuse, recycle: good. Stop all the propaganda already and just let me enjoy my home makeover shows. Also, I hate those compact florescent bulbs. They are ugly and give off an unnatural and weird light. No one looks good in the glow of a compact florescent.
8. IP staff said:
June 3, 2008 @ 11:41 am
Today’s The Parental is Political column takes a look at a related topic — the questionable practice of “carbon offsets”.
9. Jessica said:
June 3, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
Only because I live in fear of tornadoes and supposedly global warming is contributing to them, do I deligently throw plastic into our recycle bin - but I’m certainly no Recycle Michael.
I’m tired of green too. It’s just so Hollywood right now. Next year it’ll be water quality or squirrel preservation.
10. Grandma frm Ks. said:
June 3, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
Well Recycle Michael, (ROFLMBO) I’ll wait ayear and go for squirrel preservation. You are good, now see everybody why she is the writer? Still LOL
11. Deltasierra said:
June 3, 2008 @ 11:12 pm
AMEN to this post!
I got a B.S. in Environmental Science (heheh), and there are a few issues I wish people would address, but I’m NOT a proponent of global warming, and I HATEHATEHATE those [expletive considered] compact flourescents! (Although I will use them in sockets that eat regular incandescents by the month.)
I recycle, I donate, I worry about landfills. But I also know that many of these “green” fixes are shooting us in our collective feet: We can’t drill and refine our own oil, because of environmental regulations and hangups; ethanol (which is inferior and worse for emissions) is destroying our agricultural economy; those [expletive strongly thought] compact flourescents are more harmful to dispose of than incandescents; you can’t do anything for bleach and detergent to make it better for groundwater and septic systems.
This “green” movement is driving me batty. And I agree about the commercials on HGTV. Get back to “Househunters” and no one gets hurt!
12. Kadi said:
June 4, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
The new Clorox line sucks. I tried it, paid more money for it, got crappy results. Green sucks in this case.
I have had a woman chew me a new butt hole over driving a 15 passenger van. Excuse me for shoving my 7 kids into a clown car run on corn oil…I like my space and the ability to buckle all seven car seats. Bite me.
Saving the earth is a losing battle. Don’t get me wrong, we should still fight the battle. But big companies should not aim to profit from feeding off of people’s fear and over zealous attitudes about hugging every tree. It is just wrong.
Green will never be the new black, it’s just not slimming enough
13. Kris said:
June 7, 2008 @ 9:24 am
I’m all about recycling and being ‘green’, but if I hear ‘carbon footprint’ one more time….
It’s cool to be green these days and its weird.There are plenty of people who have been doing the same things for years before the green trend.