Being Green

[Perkele!]

In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

 

The woman apologized to her and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

 

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."

 

He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

 

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

 

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

 

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

 

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

 

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

 

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.

 

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.

 

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

 

Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

 

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

 

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

 

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

 

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

 

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.

 

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

 

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

[billrquimby]

Reminds me of my growing up in Yuma, except there was no television at all in our home before I left for college in 1954. A television station had started broadcasting a couple of years earlier, but I didn't know anyone who owned a TV. When I got to Tucson that September, my future wife's family had one and I got addicted to watching the roller derbies, American Bandstand and the Hit Parade.

 

Bill Quimby

[Pine Donkey]

I love it!

[TEAM JESUS]

Your topic is awesome. Kids today will not take any resposability for anything but blame everyone. It was not that the older generation did not care, They did not know. Today, this new generation is too extreme and have no common sense about anything. Thy are just puppets. Again, great post. You forgot to mention all the battery operated toys. How almost everything you bought was American made.

[BeardownAZ]

Cashier may have been well intentioned but she needs to worry alittle more about doing her job and a little less of about harassing a older, wiser generation of people with a bunch of liberal green bs. Your rebuttal to it all was very good by the way!

[BigMoqui]

This is laughable. So because you guys didn't have tech. you guys were green right? Ever read a book called "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson? The most polluting generation our planet has ever seen, EVER! With that said, do my generation, or the kids growing up now do their part or as much as they should? No. But do we all, across all social, ethnic, gender, and age gaps do what we need to be doing to save our planet. heck no. It sounds like the clerk was out of line but you seem to have a very selective memory.

[BeardownAZ]

There is a certain amount of reasoning to cleaning up after yourself and not laying waste to everything around you but alot of this green stuff is taken out of hand. As long as we walk this Earth we are going to have a impact and it isnt always going to be good. Besides have you ever been overseas and see how much other countries pollute ? And none of them care either. Al Gore was a big pusher on this green movement. He should of been shut up along time ago. He was making around $150,000.00 per appearance to spread his green ideas. He cares so much about the enviroment he turns a profit out of it.

[Non-Typical Solutions]

This is laughable. So because you guys didn't have tech. you guys were green right? Ever read a book called "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson? The most polluting generation our planet has ever seen, EVER! With that said, do my generation, or the kids growing up now do their part or as much as they should? No. But do we all, across all social, ethnic, gender, and age gaps do what we need to be doing to save our planet. heck no. It sounds like the clerk was out of line but you seem to have a very selective memory.

 

 

Haven't read Silent Spring, so which generation exactly does Ms. Carson claim is the most polluting. Spare me the read???

 

I remember reading about Jane Fonda taking a shower with a water saver and a 5 gallon bucket in there to catch the extra to flush the toilet with. We used to use the water from the washing machine(Gray water) to water our garden but that is too toxic for the environment so they shut that down.

 

One more green for ya, go check out the 500,000 acre black spot up on the mountain, a direct result of people trying to save the planet from our polluting ways......and don't forget, everybodys poop goes somewhere

[BigMoqui]

This is laughable. So because you guys didn't have tech. you guys were green right? Ever read a book called "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson? The most polluting generation our planet has ever seen, EVER! With that said, do my generation, or the kids growing up now do their part or as much as they should? No. But do we all, across all social, ethnic, gender, and age gaps do what we need to be doing to save our planet. heck no. It sounds like the clerk was out of line but you seem to have a very selective memory.

 

 

Haven't read Silent Spring, so which generation exactly does Ms. Carson claim is the most polluting. Spare me the read???

 

I remember reading about Jane Fonda taking a shower with a water saver and a 5 gallon bucket in there to catch the extra to flush the toilet with. We used to use the water from the washing machine(Gray water) to water our garden but that is too toxic for the environment so they shut that down.

 

One more green for ya, go check out the 500,000 acre black spot up on the mountain, a direct result of people trying to save the planet from our polluting ways......and don't forget, everybodys poop goes somewhere

She didn't claim that, as she wrote the book in the late 50's early 60's. I claim it, but I should have been clear. The comment about growing nations such as China polluting more than us is true. They are doing what we did before all the laws regulating this kind of behavior were enacted. I'm not trying to come off as a tree hugger. It's just the way you wrote that up made it sound like you guys were the original conservationists, and everything was so green back then, but I will say that the original concept of recycling comes from hard working people that know the value of a dollar and the goods that can be bought with it. But this was out of necessity, not from any inherrent notion of environmentalism. Don't want to pick any fights, but this post seemed a little misguided. Guess we all have our own perception. Oh ya and the comment "spare me the read" you ought to read it. It is in it's umpteenth printing and celebrates it's 50 yr anny this year. Do you like bald eaagles, or prerigrine falcons, stream side habitat and all of the animals that go with it? I do, and I'm glad she wrote the book, becuase it wasn't just the future of these species she helped, most importantly it was us. We were literally poisoning ourselves to death post WW2 and studies and books like hers brought a voice to this. The downside is these studies would eventually lead to the rise in envirowackos that we have today. Respect all your guys opinion thats why I like this site, can have a discourse without it resulting in personal attacks. I feel a little more educated about your generations view point and I hope you came away with the same.

[billrquimby]

Big Moqui:

 

As someone from the generation you’ve knocked, let me say that I read “Silent Spring” when it first came out in 1962. That’s a half century ago, so forgive me when I say what little I remember about Carlson’s book was that it attacked the widespread use of DDT because of its effect on the eggs of certain birds (especially bald eagles) and that the book eventually led to President Richard Nixon's executive order banning that pesticide and the launch of the so-called “environmental movement.”

 

There were plenty of critics of her conclusions at the time, and there still are. I don’t know enough about pesticides to comment, but I do know that DDT was being used everywhere to control mosquitoes and other insects that feed on humans and carry diseases such as malaria. I also remember being covered with the stuff on one of my many high-school jobs whenever I rode in the hopper of a cropduster’s Stearman biplane to and from the farms in the Gila and Welton/Mohawk valleys to “flag the rows” being dusted.

 

I also remember that every “mojado” the U.S. Border Patrol picked up was regularly dusted with DDT before being sent home.

 

I also remember that Carlson was not alone in her concern about the excesses of those times. David Brower (then director of the Sierra Club) was talking about overpopulation of “spaceship earth.” Other concerned people, including sportsmen's groups, were voicing concern and building support for legislation to protect endangered species, wilderness and our other natural resources.

 

Unfortunately, some of the support groups that feed on such legislation today have lost sight of the original goals of those landmark laws.

 

Neither Brower nor Carlson were whacko environmentalists, but the downside of the movement they both inspired soon got out of hand. It led to dozens of organizations using phony science and preying on emotions of the uninformed to collect funds from well-meaning people, as well as groups that deserve the terrorist label the Department of Justice has given them. It also led to the present "green movement, "much of which would be hilarious if so many people did not believe every cockeyed proposal it generates. Just one case in point was the actress who claimed the planet could survive only if everyone were limited to just one square of toilet tissue per bowel movement!

 

There is an upside, though. Our rivers and air are cleaner and fewer species of wildlife are on the brink of extinction than when I enrolled at the UA in September 1954.

 

What I lament is that, within my lifetime, the broad public perception of hunters and anglers has gone from revered conservationists to our being viewed as everything from anachronisms to downright threats to the world's wildlife.

 

With luck I won’t live to see our tradition legislatively eliminated, which it surely will be if we cannot stop the steady decline in our numbers.

 

Bill Quimby

[markgann]

Bill I grew up in Yuma and I remember those trucks driving in the neighborhoods spraying mosquitoes.

[Perkele!]

It wasn't my intention to stir up the pot, well at least not this time.

 

I have no scientific data to back this but in spite of the environmentally flawed cars we drove, I believe we had a smaller carbon footprint when me and my generation was growing up. I grew up with only one channel of TV, and it was black and white. Nonetheless, the cattle still farted as much as they do today and created the same amount of ozone depletion they are creating today, perhaps back in those days they weren't emitting as much antibiotic fumes.

 

As far as Jane Fonda is concerned, she's the reason I don't drink Pepsi or buy any Pepsico products. Enough said.

[Rag Horn]

“Going green” is a marketing campaign that plays on the pathos of the uninformed. Market research shows that Americans buy and feel better about products that have a “going green” label more than they buy the products that do not. There is no true definition of what “going green” means or standards to which a product must meet in order to get labeled as a green product.

The clean water act on 1972 defines what clean water is. Therefore any company claiming to sell clean water must meet the standards outlined in the legislature. Bottling companies have moved to selling “pure” water. Why? Because there is no definition or standards to meet selling “pure” water as there is selling clean water.

I say all that to say all this. Just because we have labels that say “going green” does not mean we are saving the planet. Just because my laundry detergent says it’s a “greener kind of clean” does not mean I am helping the environment. It means the laundry detergent people along with everyone else pushing products knows what to put on a label to sell products. As soon going green is not the cool thing to do the labels will disappear.

Do not be fooled by what “our” generation is doing to save the planet it is not as much as what you would hope.

[DesertBull]

[youngbuck]

I've never seen that video or heard of Rand Paul before. Thanks for the link DB.