Don't Go There

As long as the Green Movement is about buying things, it will not . . . move. It will not go anywhere. It will not create change.

There are so many ways to be politically-correctly Green, and they all require buying the appropriate accouterment. Solar radios, solar hat fans, solar headlamps, solar lanterns. Cell phone chargers that you crank. Eco-thermal bamboo sleeping pads, Auto Flow composters, hemp or organic cotton jackets, pants, shirts, hats, socks, dresses, underwear, sheets, blankets, pillow cases. Reclaimed wood stacking tables, coffee tables, dining tables, bedside tables, chairs, bookcases. Hemp rugs, bamboo screens, quilts, shams, shoe racks. New! Teak Bath Set. New! Preserve toothbrushes and triple-blade shavers. New! Pangea Organics Ecocentric Bodycare.

Hey! Quit crabbing! The Pangea soap packaging is made from 100% post-consumer recycled newspaper that's embedded with edible, Italian sweet basil seeds and plantable in your garden. Do the seeds come from Italy?

Stand back and think about the thing that you're going to buy. What resources are necessary to make it? Who is making it, and how much are they getting paid? How did the thing get to you, or get into the store? How many miles has it traveled?

Why are so many consumer goods sold claiming to make the world a greener place? It reminds me of the folks who have good intentions of starting an exercise program. First, they have to buy the right running shoes, the running clothes, the gym membership, the Pilates DVD's, the right racket or club or gloves, or . . .

A case in point is the Prius. I'm really going to get in trouble now.

The Prius is powered by a battery that uses nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. The plant has destroyed the surrounding environment, and spewed sulpher dioxide over northern Ontario.

Once the nickel is mined and smelted, it travels to Europe, then to China, then to Japan, then to the United States, where it's put into the Prius.

Some claim that it takes fewer resources and energy to put a Hummer on the road: The Prius averages $3.25/mile to put on the road, and a Hummer costs $1.95/mile to get on the road, both vehicles in the course of their lifetime.

The Chevy Aveo gets better gas mileage than the Prius, and the Toyota Scion xB costs only $.48/per mile to get on the road. (Think of those dollars as resources and energy to build the thing, deliver it, buy it, and drive it.) (Thanks to "Crude Awakening" for these statistics. See , a "peak oil" awareness site.)

It could be I'm just jealous when I see other people driving around in their Priuses. I bought a Prius the second year that the cars were produced, but my daughter totalled it by driving through a big puddle--a REALLY BIG puddle.

Still, the Prius is not the answer. We buy the Prius, or the ethanol-powered vehicle, or even the electric vehicle, or the vehicle that runs on used vegetable oil, or the hydrogen-powered vehicle, because we want to keep driving around in a vehicle. We don't want things to change, and we want to pretend to ourselves that we are being green. We want the same convenience and independence that a vehicle gives us, even though it really gives us no independence, making us hugely dependent on oil and a piece of steel that sucks the life out of us because of insurance, repairs and replacement, not to mention the cost of gas now, and the cost of gas a year from now, and ten years from now, assuming there will be any gas ten years from now, or any earth, for that matter, if we keep buying things, green or not, and driving our hybrid vehicles around. (Watch out for that PUDDLE!)

Make do.
Don't drive.
Ride a bike.
Walk.
Or . . . just don't go there.

Olivia
Make Do