BS: The Green Thing

Subject: BS: The Green Thing
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 04 May 11 - 08:55 AM

So true!

In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bag because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the 'green thing' back in my day."

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

He was right, that generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, they returned their 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 they didn't have the green thing back in that customer's day.

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

But she was right. They didn't have the green thing in her day.

Back then, they washed the baby's diapers because they didn't have the throw-away kind. They 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, they didn't have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, they 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, not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for you.

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

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

But she's right, they didn't have the green thing back then.

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled their writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But they 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 rode the school bus instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they 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 the old folks were just because they didn't have the green thing back then?

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:49 AM

beautifully said, Dave

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: Bill D
Date: 04 May 11 - 10:57 AM

It is very nice and well said... but it does need quotes

Google

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 04 May 11 - 11:04 AM

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

Frankly, that's a lot of nonsense. The current generation of 'green thingers' will be found to applaud the "make do and mend" ethic that was common to their grandparent's generation.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 04 May 11 - 11:07 AM

Having said that, the parents of the youth of today have left their children with a quite appalling mess to clean up.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 May 11 - 11:59 AM

Good points, but there were a lot of non-green things going on back then which, thankfully, have become less prevalent: letting raw sewage run into rivers, polluting factories spewing great gobs of black smoke, and a few other things come to mind.

What we each have is NOW, today, this very moment in which we can choose to do our best. That can have an effect on every tomorrow.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: Donuel
Date: 04 May 11 - 12:11 PM

Uncle Dave
That is a real class A essay.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 May 11 - 01:42 PM

Here are few ways I can think of ways in which we waste scads:

1. The entire NASCAR industry

2. People speeding when they drive - doing 90 when the limit's 70.

3. The Blue Angels precision flying team

4. Business people flying here, flying there, when their business could be conducted on the phone.

5. Appliances which die after a year or two and can't be repaired. A waste of raw materials, of shipping, of packaging, of record-keeping, and finally, of landfill space.

6. The whole bottled-water thing (pointless, almost all the time.)

7. Movies which cost millions to make and promptly tank.

But what do people fuss about? A mentally-retarded kid reaching for the easy-to-use plastic bag.

Did you ever think what it must be like to handle all those groceries and deal with all those bags over and over, every working day?

How much energy is expended if a grocery worker gets carpal tunnel and needs surgery? I bet it uses up the equivalent of thousands of plastic bags. Not to mention the pain and the possible disability.

When they ask me "paper or plastic?" I say "Whatever's easier for you."
===============
In the 1970's, the environmental movement got derailed by trivia. (soda pop pull tabs, anyone?) Now it's happening again.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 May 11 - 02:07 PM

More Direct Link

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: gnu
Date: 04 May 11 - 02:10 PM

I reuse my plastic grocery bags and wouldn't think of using one of the green bags... very unsanitary.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: kendall
Date: 04 May 11 - 02:25 PM

Canvas shopping bags can be washed.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 04 May 11 - 02:28 PM

I was expecting to find a thread about absinthe (now legalised in France again, apparently)...

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 May 11 - 03:32 PM

I once worked for a company that closed its downtown office and transferred operations to a new office building far out in the suburbs. They bragged about how energy-efficient the new building was.

Never mind the fact that most employees now had to drive 6 more miles to work every day. And the buses didn't go there.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: Amos
Date: 04 May 11 - 03:49 PM

-- written by Jim Knowles for the San Leandro Times

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: gnu
Date: 04 May 11 - 03:58 PM

Kendall... plastic bags can be used many times and then recycled. I dunno the green "tag" on the difference but I'd say it's 51% for the plastic... just on accounta I don't like your tone. Hehehehehee.

I do use canvas and the "green heavy duty" plastic bags I have found in parking lots to tote other stuff around. The green ones are great for hauling firewood into the house.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 04 May 11 - 04:00 PM

Wow! From Ebbies link someone applauding the good old days that once were, and reminiscing about "hand smashed potato" that grandma used to make once upon a time long ago. Seriously? Hand mashed potato is a thing to be longed after like a great good thing of the past? I mash my potato by hand (same as my grandmother did), is there actually anyone who doesn't?

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 May 11 - 05:43 PM

My daughter has a potato-mashing attachment for her food processor.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: saulgoldie
Date: 04 May 11 - 06:51 PM

Unless one is a prodigious reader, "electronic books" are an environmental disaster. But even with recycled bottles and diapers, there are a shitload of environmental disasters that "my generation" and the ones before allowed to fester and grow. Transportation and climate control loom as the large ones.

Do we really "need" to take 2,000 pounds of metal, rubber and glass with us wherever we go? Do we really "need" the air wherever we are to be 72 degrees Farenheit? No, and no. But we do expect it.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: kendall
Date: 04 May 11 - 07:29 PM

We mash my potatoes by hand, always.Jacqui doesn't eat them.
My favorite restaurant has gone to processed potato and I hate it. Absolutely no taste at all. They even have lumps to make them more real, YUK.
At least the manager didn't try to tell me they were real. You can see the difference, stark white.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 05 May 11 - 08:09 AM

There is definitely a trend for getting back to make do and mend but one trailer about a forthcoming programme on the subject did make me laugh. It was a girl putting a modern slant on make do and mend turning jeans into customised shorts pocket and hem detail filed to look worn and rubbing a cheese grater down the leg to give a trendy distressed worn look. So there you are a make do and mend to look worn.......okay!

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: Charley Noble
Date: 05 May 11 - 08:20 AM

Amos-

Thanks for taking the trouble of tracking down the origin of this story to "Jim Knowles for the San Leandro Times."

I still sort my recyclables and then take them to the local transfer station where they all go into one huge container and then are taken somewhere else and re-separated again. If I drove an extra 60 miles I could drop them off at a transfer station that still has separate bins.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 05 May 11 - 08:22 AM

"My daughter has a potato-mashing attachment for her food processor."

Oh, don't get me started on those bally attachment things :)
I think there's an attachment for every day of the year on most processor type gizmos!
I've only ever used the main blade (for everything except coleslaw) and the grater attachment (for coleslaw). The rest of them go in the bin nowadays - mainly because I don't have the space to store as much useless clutter as I used to.

No, it's a hand masher for me all the way. In fact I use an old inherited so-called "vintage" one, still going strong from the 60's (maybe even the 50's) despite the fact that the green and yellow paint has all flaked away now (which is probably not such a band thing considering the sort of stuff they used to put in paint back then).

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: GUEST,lively
Date: 05 May 11 - 08:50 AM

"there were a lot of non-green things going on back then which, thankfully, have become less prevalent: letting raw sewage run into rivers, polluting factories spewing great gobs of black smoke, and a few other things come to mind."

It possibly depends on how far you are looking back. The piece posted above refers to "the previous generation". Assuming the guy at the checkout was in his twenties (a reasonable assumption?) then he's describing the ill advised consumerism of far more recent generations than those around during the industrial revolution. Not that I disagree with you, mind you. Much bad as well as good, has come from the industrial revolution. But it's excessive consumerism (which is I would say the heart of Capitalism) which is to blame for the majority of our environmental problems today - and that is a fairly recent trend en masse. Certainly the war/post-war ethic where things were built to last rather than to be casually upgraded and disposed of, and where people valued what they had and "mended" or "made do" where needed, is one that I bemoan the loss of more collectively today.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 06 May 11 - 02:02 AM

Assuming the senior female was in her eighties, and that the conversation took place recently, she was born no earlier than the later 1920s.

What were things like then? I can only speak for the UK working class, into which my parents were born.

Reasonable seewage treatment in most townas and all cities.
Almost everyone used public transport or pushbikes, or walked.
Clothes, except for the privileged, had to last for years, unless (women) made their own. Socks were darned and elbows patched.
Fresh produce was relatively locally produced (compared to today).
Energy was tremendously expensive, and very inefficiently used. Heating, and much cooking, used open coal fires, and usually only one room was heated.
Industry was utterly filthy and extremely irresponsible. Rivers were heavily polluted, inefficiently used coal fired boilers filled urban air with smoke and smog. Aberfan- style spoil heaps were ubiquitous. Land and aquifer pollution were the norm.
Money available for leisure was extremely limited. Entertainment was usually communal and often home- made.
Few people travelled further than the seaside town traditional for their community.

The conclusion has to be that they did the "green thing" on a personal basis, from necessity rather than conviction, and that industry and the state were actively opposed to it.

It's interesting that once people developed environmental consciousness, industry and the state promptly exported their jobs to China, where the conditions they prefer prevail. Big business loves waste.

Subject: RE: BS: The Green Thing
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 May 11 - 11:01 AM

I could quibble with one of the assertions in the original essay. He implies that modern TVs with "Montana"-sized screens use more energy than the old ones. I'd bet the opposite is true. The old TV and radio sets with their many vacuum tubes (valves, I think they call them in the UK) put out quite a lot of heat. The more heat produced, the more energy is being used. That's a good rule of thumb for comparing appliances of all kinds. My computer screen, for example, is quite cool, but then my laptop computer is a lot newer than my TV.

He leaves out a lot, too.

Fluorescent lights v. incandescent bulbs. The heat rule works there, too.

The house I am living (in Minnesota!) in had no insulation when it was built about 100 years ago, and no weatherstripping, but we have added a lot. As far as heating your house goes, the amount of heat that escapes through your windows, walls, and roof, plus the amount that goes up your chimney or down your drain, is a lot more significant than the temperature at which you set your thermostat. In the theoretical perfectly-insulated house, it wouldn't matter what the indoor temperature was.

The part that's hard to get a grip on is: how much energy was used in manufacturing and transporting the things we buy and eventually throw away?

I suppose we should count the food we eat. Nowadays a lot of people take for granted the fresh fruit and vegetables that are available year-round. How much fuel do you suppose is used to transport them to you from Mexico (or wherever they are grown)? When I was a kid, we ate canned green beans, canned peaches, and stewed prunes for at least 3 seasons of the year.

We take air travel for granted. My wife's uncle, a WWII veteran, recently visited Washington DC with a plane-load of other veterans. Would you believe it's the first time in his life he'd ever flown? As a sailor, he had traveled by train and by ship. In case you didn't know, it takes enormously more energy per passenger-mile to fly than to take a train, bus, or ship, and I think, even a car. I don't want to think about how much fuel a Black Hawk helicopter uses. I pay for them, although I don't use them.