Coon Ridge Digest: Going green?

Greetings from the Ridge.
Face it, “Green” is the new hue. If you aren’t thinking, speaking, walking and acting green then you’re just not in the proper shade of fashion.
Some companies have posted “Think Green!” as their new corporate motto and dozens have now proclaimed themselves the makers of the green car, the green shopping bag, and the green home builder.
Our presidential candidates occasionally take breaks from their talk of war and recession to throw in a plug for all things greenish and even the Republican hopeful has grudgingly nailed a green plank onto the floorboards of his platform. Black may be basic, red the color of power, but green is fashionable. Green is cool.
Fuel efficiency magically became a status symbol once the price of gas zipped toward four bucks, hyper home insulation is now as trendy as last year’s Jacuzzi, organic now means “in,” and there are even websites designed to help you come up with a green wedding.
I must admit that I’m a failure at most of this. I take my cloth shopping bag to the grocery store then forget and leave it in the car, lit candles blow out in my living room when the wind is in the south, and when I tote my garbage out to the curb on Friday mornings I am simply in awe of how two old idiots could create so much refuse in a week’s time without a body being in either bag.
And I’ll add that the only difference between me and most folks is that I admit my failure.
The school-age generation has had the most ecological education of any group in our history, but if you sit in a high school parking lot in the morning you’ll see just how few students carpool their way to school. Never mind the fact that the bus runs right by each of their houses. How do they manage to pay for the fuel? Most teachers would tell you that they drop out of extra-
curricular activities, take a minimum wage job, and get angry at the school for infringing upon their gas-earning time with something so trivial as homework.
They’re not politically conscious like mom and dad, right? Think again, sweetheart. Is your street clogged with carpools and energy-conscious cars? Sit in the mall and watch the parade of plastic packaging march up and down the escalators.
I stood in line to pay for my fuel this week right behind a good old boy who was fuming at the gal behind the counter as if her daddy owned the Saudi Arabian oilfields. He blamed the attendant for the prices, blamed the government for the shortage of fuel, and blamed everyone east of Turkey for trying to bring America to its knees. When he pulled away from the gas pumps in his jacked-up four-wheel-drive 8-cylinder pickup he stepped on the gas and roared on up the road. His “green” had turned into a blue mist of gas fumes hanging in the air costing around six bucks.
If the truth were known, I’d guess that the only green we’re really concerned about is the green bearing the likenesses of Franklin, Jefferson, and the rest of the boys whose pictures figure prominently in our billfolds.
Last summer I cooked at a summer camp beside a dear old gal who’s spent about the last forty years on one diet or another. She made quite a deal of announcing her daily lunch – a little bag of celery, three carrot sticks, some lettuce, two unsalted crackers, and a can of tuna. Then she’d end the meal with the world’s largest Three Musketeers candy bar. She was running lean around three-quarters of the track then blowing it completely in the home stretch.
The nation’s fuel diet suffers from the same schizophrenia. Our piddling little carrot sticks and celery stocks don’t eat up calories, they simply make us think we’re doing some good. We’ve got to do more than change our belt size, we’ve got to adjust our diet. The White House recently announced great progress in that the sales of hybrid cars are “zooming.” The actual definition of “zoom” is three percent of the market. That’s a mighty low zoom, baby. You better duck.
Our carbon footprint can now be seen from outer space. We know the problem, we’re getting a handle on the solutions, but now we’ve got to ask ourselves if we’ve got the will – the nerve.
Green’s a nice color and it suits most folks well. But when green fades it becomes – well – yellow.
You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.