About Going “Green”…

I don’t want to be a naysayer about everything, but you know it’s not a NEW concept this “Going GREEN” thing!!! When I was a kid, we took our cans and bottles to the dump and recycled them…this was WAY back in the 70’s. Maybe my Dad and we kids were ahead of our time, go figure. We used to love this Saturday foray to the dump and the fun of tossing the bottles into the giant bins, releasing our teen angst at the smashing of the glass. I think recycling is a great idea, it’s just not new. Even before that people used to return bottles to the milk man and soda companies.

We also grew up with natural wood floors, not wall-to-wall carpeting, so we didn’t have to worry about recycled carpeting. It also wasn’t sooo tres chic to have to pick out the wood floors, they were just there, in your house when you got there.

Today as I drove by a Starbucks I was outraged to see a line of about 6 cars waiting for their coffee at the drive-up window. I wonder how many people too lazy to get out of their cars and walk into the store were “Greenies” but didn’t mind being so hypocritical to not realize that burning their gas in their big gas-guzzling SUV’s while waiting on their fat-asses was so obnoxious!

I wonder when it became so damn important to be “hydrated” that we all walk around like a bunch of babies with our bottles. Can’t we drink some water before we leave a place and when we get there. It wouldn’t be so necessary to worry about making the “plant” bottles that suck, if we didn’t make the millions, nay billions of unnecessary bottles that the companies like Nestles and Coke love because they’re making a fortune on the stupid “sheeple” who follow any new trend we’re told.

If you are going to work out or are in the heat of the Arizona summer I can see carrying a bottle of water, but really, people get a grip! Sitting in your own living room, get a glass of water!

I’m not totally against being sensible to protect Mother Earth, don’t get me wrong, I just hate be preached to and forced to do things that are ass backwards when things that DO make sense aren’t being done.

Take Arizona for one. Why aren’t ALL new buildings incorporating solar panels on the roofs? We have about 350 days of hot sunshine why not take advantage of it? Oh, it’s too expensive and not efficient enough? It’s efficient enough to sell to the person, but not include on building sites when first building them, hmmm, something doesn’t sound right to me. It hasn’t improved much in efficiency  in 15 yrs….why? No one wants to put money in research & development….maybe this would be a place for our government to put their money instead of saving an endangered bug, or some of their other research programs that are ridiculous. This is a very worthwhile cause everybody could agree upon, except the Power companies, again, hmmm. Makes you think.

How about not treading on other people’s freedoms. As far as I know, cigarettes are still legal. When people are smoking in the great outdoors, I think people should give smokers a break. Until they are made illegal, which will probably never happen, just like alcohol, there are so few joys in people’s lives let it go. If that’s what people enjoy, let ’em have at it. If it bothers you, walk away. Smokers have already been made to feel like lepers, if an area has an ashtray, those people are permitted to smoke, if you don’t like it, don’t do the wave your hand thing, move. Smokers aren’t looking to bother you, they are within THEIR rights. You get more poisonous fumes from people leaving their car running, to run in the store to get a coffee with the air-conditioner running to keep it cool than you do from second-hand smoke. So calm down. You can stop it at your front door by not allowing anyone to smoke in your home, but there are bigger problems than cigarettes in the great outdoors.

I guess that’s enough snarky opinions for today…

(C) Written by Evelyn Garone 4/2011