Talking About Green

Maybe it was reading Thomas Friedman’s “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” that put me into my current environmental funk. All the great green tips I’ve written about for the past year in my newspaper column now seem more like symbolic gestures—insignificant to tackle the huge environmental problems we’ve created.

Sure, I’m recycling more than half of what comes into our home, bought some compact fluorescent bulbs, started a compost pile, and almost always remember to carry a canvas bag into the store instead of walking out with plastic ones.

But that’s not enough. And do recent polls really find voters losing interest in global warming? Guess that’s what stimulus packages with more digits than we can get our minds around do to our thought processes. Everything seems so looming and out of control. Too big to tackle?

Are most folks still looking at environmental concerns as elitist? Or having a higher cost than they can bear–especially right now? A $7000 solar panel on my roof or paying my mortgage? A Prius or a used car?

I’m sure that Friedman didn’t intend for me to mope around after reading about global warming near crisis mode, a flat earth (his term for a rapidly growing middle class that will consume more and more energy), and overpopulation of a planet without sufficient food and water resources.

Does Obama’s “clean energy” plan (did he drop the word green due to its overuse?) that was announced today have a chance of success? Can a humongous weatherization program (making 2.5 million homes and three-fourths of our federal buildings more energy efficient) put that big of a dent in our country’s energy use? That’s a LOT of insulation and caulking!

Can our government really develop the “coordinated set of policies, tax incentives and disincentives, and regulations that would stimulate the marketplace” that Friedman says we need to spur the innovations we need for clean renewable energy?

Meanwhile, we everyday folks can alter our lifestyles in ways that aren’t painful. Government needs to take the initiative to offer the tax incentives and tax breaks to break our dependency on foreign oil. However, we can overcome our “nature deficiency disorder” and recognize just how vulnerable our planet is right now, and educate ourselves–and our children–about what BIGGER green steps we can take RIGHT NOW.