You gotta love hippies. I don't mean the drug taking sexaholics from the 60's. I am going to use the word HIPPY here as a derogatory term meaning "environmentalist idiot wHo has no Idea of how to save the world from environmental disaster but desPite that Preconceived notion he tries hard to do it anYway". See, it's an acronym.
HIPPYs are idiots because they don't do their homework. They hear from other hippies that the world is under attack from corporations who make money from killing seals and burning down old-growth forests and will buy anything with a green logo on it.
I am going to say one thing here. I like being alive. I like the idea of having a planet for us to live on. That is why I hate HIPPYs and other such nuts.
Here are my three biggest hippy complaints, but believe me, the list goes on.
First of all is recycling. Paper or Plastic? Take your pick, neither is bad for the environment, despite what HIPPY's tell you. We'll start with paper.
Paper comes from trees, and in order to make it we have to kill trees, and that's bad for the environment. So, in order to save trees, especially those old-growth forests with owly-birds and others we need to recycle our paper and use it again. Right? WRONG! First of all, (I guess if this were an outline it would be A. 1. a. ) paper comes from paper-farms. That's right. In this country all the paper that you get that isn't recycled comes from a designated area that grows trees specifically for the use of being turned into paper, and then when that tree is cut down, another is planted right behind it. Why do we do that? BECAUSE IT'S SMART BUSINESS! and good for the environment. Paper companies would go out of business fast without paper farms because they'd run out of trees.
A. 1. b. Recycling paper is not as good as you think. Paper will naturally biodegrade and become part of the environment again. But, when you recycle it, you have to do some pretty hazardous things that are all bad for the environment. There's the sorting, the shipping (fuel costs), the de-inking chemicals, and everything else. When it comes out the other end, you've caused more damage to the environment through fuel, chemicals and general inefficiency than if you'd just cut down another tree.
The alternative to this is to use less paper. Fax less and e-mail more. Use both sides of the paper, and don't waste
A. 2 a Plastics. Wow, plastics. Plastics don't degrade, they take fuel to use, animals choke on them. Plastics must be horrible for the environment, right? Wrong again. Plastics are lightweight, meaning they take less fuel to transport and less energy to carry, 100% recyclable (remember what I said about recycling paper? ya, do the opposite for this one) and best of all, it's CHEAP.
I read an article (there I'm giving myself credibility unless I follow with the phrase "in the Landover Baptist Review, the Onion, or New York Times) in the Boston Globe (credibility established) that plastics are under attack in Seattle, that oh so eco-friendly place on that west coast. There are taxes on plastic bags and an outright ban on other plastic materials. This is ridiculous. Even though plastic is made with petrolium, it takes less fuel and oil to make a plastic bottle than a glass one. The problem with plastics is that nobody recycles them ( >_> ). Sometimes HIPPY's will accuse red states but the fact is only 12% of plastics consumed are recycled (76% of all statistics are made up on the spot. want to know if this is one? do some research) and I'm fairly certain that there are more than 3 blue states so I think everyone on all sides of the politcal spectrum are to blame (I say all sides because there is no such thing as two points of view, but that is a blog for another day.) Plastics are our friend. When we use them in planes, they help fuel efficiency. They exist in beds, phones, cars, computers, bottles, everywhere. They are affordable, durable, safe, and light. The problem is, when you're done with them, throw them out.
Wow, this is going on for a while. Ok, class dismissed. Your homework for today is to buy Season two of Penn and Teller's Bullshit and watch the episode on recycling. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying don't do it blindly. The moral of the story today is know your shit before you join the next protest.
Tune in next time I feel like blogging for whatever I feel like blogging. But if I ever feel like going on with this topic, the other two points I was going to make were about hybrid cars and nuclear power vs wind power vs coal.
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2 comments:
Do your homework on plastics sweetie. It's true, they are in everything. But safe? No way. They contain lots of chemicals like pthalates and BpA, which are no fun at all. It's about more than just CO2 emissions, it's a matter of human health too.
Point taken with the HIPPY thing, but its unfair to lump all environmentalists into the same category. Take your own advice and do some research (and not just watching Penn and Teller's bullshit, although that is a great show).
As any environmentalist will tell you, the point is not just to recycle, but the 3 r's in total: REDUCE, REUSE and if you must recycle. The problem all run into is that this inevitably leads to living a non-consumerist/materialist kind of lifestyle (you know, like what Jesus and Buddha and most spiritual leaders advocate), which if lived truly is pretty hard to reconcile with living in the real world (as in not living on an organic farm/commune/chaining yourself to a tree).
Please call me sometime and I'd be happy to talk to you about the hippy causes I'm engaged in and why I think they're worthwhile, as well as the ones I've been engaged in in the past which are really just a waste of time.
xoxo Abriel
Also, just for shits and giggles you should read the omnivore's dilemma. I know you don't read non-fiction books, but really, please, read this one.
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