Posted by
Jonathan Veal on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 2:00:00 PM
We have been bombarded by ads that tell us it is our moral duty to go green. To protect the planet from ourselves and from, gasp, carbon. Even in the light of a recent cold snap over the last two years, environmental extremists continue with almost religious fervor. They tell us that “climate change,” as they call cold weather is a symptom of global warming. Seeing we as humans produce only three percent of carbon emissions, short of destroying every living animal on the planet, there is not much we can do to affect the climate. However we are told to buy the most expensive cars to protect Mother Nature. (My spell check just reminded me to capitalize Nature) Even though they cost more than they are worth, people feel good about buying these cars. Even when they were the size of sardine cans. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-environment. I think the environment is something worth preserving. But not to the point of shooting ourselves in the foot. For instance the “Metro.” The brain-dead idea from Los Angeles. “Why use cars,” they said. “You can just use mass transit to get to work”. One problem, people didn’t want to ride the metro. For some reason people didn’t like the idea of spending extra time to have the Metro drop them off in the middle of LA and then walking for another 20 minutes to work. Voter at least had the sense to vote down a measure this last year that would have made a mass transit system from LA to Sacramento.
My point is, environmentalism is becoming a religion. Any scientist who is not convinced the end is here for the world’s polar bears is reviled in the same category as a holocaust denier. I am willing to go green as long as it can save me money and keep my family from losing our business. For instance when Arrowhead water announced it’s bottles will now implode at the slightest touch because they have gone green and saved plastic. (And coincidently saved 33% on plastic costs.) People have replaced God with Nature. (with an uppercase N) And are willing to inconvenience themselves to feel better about it. That is the inconvenient truth. As for me, I will go green when it actually helps the world.