Am I Green Enough Yet?

The sage of puppetry, Kermit the Frog, first sang It Ain't Easy Being Green in 1970. He referred to struggles of identity against social definition, among other things. Kermit has been singing the song at a very different level since "green" became a magic word, signifying a friendly and responsive approach to the earth and its environment. This discussion touches on greenness as it relates to environmental godliness in our marketplace.

What's green today? Oh, anything, and almost everything. If your packaging is made from a proportion of recycled materials, you qualify for an honorable mention. If your product uses less energy than other products used for the same purpose, you're our guy. A manual egg beater qualifies handsomely by that standard (now that one mentions it, not a bad idea). Made from recycled materials? Come on down. Prescient to the end, Jennifer Saunders and her Absolutely Fabulous mob had it right years ago. Here's a youtube link to the episode Morocco from series 1.
The opening five minutes are a wonderful rebuttal to all marketing tactics based on greenness.

It takes more than a sticker on the package to make a product environmentally responsible, is the point here. And it takes a bit of thought on the consumer's part to weigh one's motives in purchasing a "green" product. Will it be worth its weight in energy savings? Or do I want one anyway and look, it's green, so wrap it up! There are real standards formulated by real environmentalists to help you choose wisely on important purchases, and they seldom get it wrong. Consider this site, the U.S. Dept. of Energy guide to Energy Star products. Note that the site limits itself to actual energy consumption, and also limits itself to products that consume a considerable portion of your total energy bill. And, if you're not yawning yet, here's a site that helps you calculate on your own how green a product really is.

We dare not expose our necks so far as to rate "environmentally friendly" furniture, cleaning products, electric space heaters, and so on. Caveat emptor, enough said. When claims exceed common sense, and when the ads urge you to support the green movement by making a certain purchase, clamp your purse/wallet firmly under your arm and lie down until the feeling passes. If we take some great advice from Pete Townshend and "smile and grin at the change all around" us, we won't get fooled again.