The Great Depression, Green, and Today
The buzzword today is depression. As the world’s economy slides because of widespread greed and wastefulness, the dreaded phrase Great Depression is being splashed around the media. Many of our grandparents and great grandparents remember the Great Depression. Often we laughed at them for saving every plastic bag or jelly jar for some use. Their attics are often bursting with clothing, broken things, and other ends. It is not hording; they are practicing green thinking.
Economic downturn force us to realize resources are limited and often expensive. It forces us to be creative with items that we used to throw away and buy anew. Our grandparents and great-grandparents found uses for broken bits and new life for old things. Tattered old jeans become blankets or rugs. Broken tables are cut down and turn into stools. Torn cloths become crazy quilts or just cleaning rags. Green is just better and creative use of materials. More importantly, green saves money.
We do not need new and shiny things when an item with just a little bit of work can serve the same purpose. Our current economic problems are just a result of spending beyond our means for things we really did not need in the first place. The real green movement has always been about saving money by not thoughtlessly throwing things away. the green movement is more about going back to basics than about CO2 emissions and other grand reaching agendas.
Green starts with each of us. Depressions are hard, but they are green as well. Little things like cutting back on needless consumption and finding better uses for what we used to throw away all help. Also gardening is one of the best green solutions that saves money. During the Great Depression many families had gardens. During this downturn we need to do the same to ease the tension on our budgets. This also cuts back on CO2 emissions because less produce will need to be transported.
In short, we need to become more local. We should grow food and buy locally. We should consider an item for different uses before just tossing it away. We can also reduce our garbage bills by throwing less away. Recycling can also return a little pocket change. Start collecting soda cans as you walk the dog; they will add up when you take them in for recycling.
Our problems today are of our own making. We have spent too much for too little in real value. Prices are inflated beyond real value. Let’s just go back to basics and stay there. Less consumption is key to financial and ecological stability.
Think before you buy. Think before you throw away. Think before you flush or needlessly run water. Green is just thinking about how to use or conserve resources in imaginative ways. Often, what is imaginative is nothing more than a little common sense and getting back to basics.
Eco Echo
The web is bulging with sites toting as being eco or green. Many are just commercial arms for companies. Yes, Bio-Reach does seek to increase sales of BioLet toilets. However, as Web Administrator, I always wanted to make that plain while still providing useful and somewhat interesting articles that deal with a wider range of topics. I like to think that transparency is what sets BioLet apart from our competitors. Many of them “sponsor” a separate website and disguise it as an unbiased information source. We want to be different so that is why this blog is a part of biolet.com. If we ever sponsor a separate information site, I will do all that I can to be certain that sponsorship is clear and will strive to insure the information is as unbiased as possible in this biased commercialized landscape.
——————Ok, enough of the disclaimers and explanations: —————————
Green is everywhere but just how much of it is really green or just being posed as green by advertisers? How much eco is just an echo of the original sentiment?
Eco is a grass roots movement that has been adopted by companies. While that is good, and excellent to expand a grass roots individual and even hippie idea, it can get a little distorted. Many green products are not so green when you consider the energy and resources used to manufacture and transport them to your local grocer. Often, these products do little better than white vinegar (which does very well for cleaning). The sentiment is a bit lost to companies it seems; although many are doing well with greening their everyday operations. If manufacturers really understood the green movement, they would open smaller more sustainable manufacturing plants near their markets to reduce transport and provide employment for the local communities instead of having a few huge centralized manufacturing plants and trucking the product across the nation.
For eco not to be just an echo, we need to go back to more ‘mom and pop’ type businesses. Local business is much greener than larger businesses just because they reduce transportation of products and workers. They also have a greater stake in the health of the local environment and community.
The eco sentiment, as I touched on in the disclaimer, is being lost among the commercialization of the internet. In fact, I view the extreme commercialization as a festering rot. Don’t get me wrong. Advertising has its place; it is, afterall, a part of my job. However, there doesn’t need to be so damn much of it! I fear for all the little companies and bloggers and websites that offer excellent eco advice and articles that are buried because they do not pay for advertising positions. The grass roots movement is slowly being choked out by the behemoth oak keeping the sun away. If people cannot find the small excellent articles and information that are out on the net, it is worse than if the articles were not posted in the first place. No readership can be discouraging for an upcoming eco-vangelist with good ideas.
Often, green products cannot make up for the production and transportation costs within their lifetime. Bottled water, no matter how green they claim to be is one of the prime examples. Luckily, I can say that BioLet toilets are able to make up for the transportation and production CO2 emissions over their lifetime. The emissions and other costs of water treatment are phenomonal!
Just keep these ideas in mind as you search and shop for green products. Find out if the product is truly green after all the costs of manufacturing and transport are considered. Consider if your local community sees any benefit from your purchase of the product.
If we are not careful, we may not be able to hear the eco shout over the echo.
Read the directions!
We have all done it. We buy a nice expensive product and fiddle with it until we are frustrated and call up customer service and complain only to be referred to the product’s directions for the solution. Unfortunately, we do the same with our planet.
You have heard the saying “life does not come with instructions.“ That is flat out wrong. Life does come with instructions; we just don’t read them just like how we don’t read product instructions. The instructions of life are history and science. Just look at how often the same mistakes are repeated because we don’t learn from our grandparents and our history books! This is especially true with the environment.
We are in a unique point in history where we are beginning to read Earth’s instruction manual and discover just how our ecosystems work in more depth that what was possible in the past. However, outside the scientists and the environmentally conscience, we are not really reading those instructions. The basic instructions are actually very simple and could be called common sense, but we really do not live by them.
Humans are a unique animal because we are the only species who are truly gardeners. We impact the environment to a larger extent than any other species that has existed before us. Technology is the extension of our role as gardeners. The only problem is we are not reading the Earth’s directions. We cultivate the earth to match our wants and needs, which is not a bad thing at all. But, because we are failing to read the instruction manual we are starting to see what happens when we exploit the Garden instead of cultivating and sustaining it: deforestation, global warming, starvation, ecosystem collapse, and a host of other problems.
So what does this instruction manual contain? Earth’s directions are actually very simple. Each major rule leads into the other and all hang off the first rule.
1. Keep population well under the maximum the ecosystem can healthily sustain.
2. Live off the Earth’s interest and not Earth’s principle.
3. Return all that you use to the natural cycle.
The first rule is the most important. Studies have shown that overpopulation is the chief cause of disease, starvation, and environmental destruction. Currently, the world is too heavily populated. We are, sadly, becoming garden pests instead of gardeners. Education and resource allocation is key to solving this rule violation. The poorer a person is the more children they have. So we need to encourage economic growth in poor countries ( in a green manner ) in order to reduce population growth. Abstinence and birth control eduction is also key. Both are necessary for a balanced and proven reduction in population and disease growth.
The second rule is an extension of the first. Less population means less resources being consumed. We need to live on the interest of the planet. In other words, everything we use needs to be completely sustainable and replaceable. Deforestation, slash and burn farming, and other principle cutting methods need to be stopped. The Earth is a bank account and over draft fees are harsh.
The final basic rule just builds off the other 2 rules. In order to live on interest we must return part or all the resources we used back to the account when we do draw from the principle. Ways of doing this would be to use biodegradable plastics, renewable energy, plant trees, compost, and water conservation.
Earth’s directions are simple aren’t they? Of course, DOING them is not so simple. Currently we are fiddling around with our most precious possession without reading the directions. The stickler is we do not have a customer service helpline to direct us to the instruction manual when things go severely wrong. It takes each of us to read what science is learning about Earth’s directions, and what we have learned from history.
Life does come with directions. We only need to read them.
So read your science and history books and get gardening!