I am probably going to catch hell for this post. In the interest of that, I am going to put up my disclaimer like I did with the Abortion post.
Disclaimer: I am talking about our environment today. If you don’t want to know how I feel about it, you should stop reading now. If you keep reading and you don’t agree with me and you can tell me your opinion in a non-combative manner, I welcome that. If you can’t and you feel you might tear apart me or my readers who have a different opinion than you, let’s just agree to disagree and move on to tomorrow’s post where we can all be friends again. I really do want to hear other people’s opinions though.
I know we need to worry about the environment. I know it is important to our planet to reduce, reuse and recycle. I don’t deny that it is an important issue. And I try to do my best to follow those suggestions.
But. You knew there was a but, didn’t you? I am tired of getting it shoved down my throat by the media, the celebrities and now, we even have to be subjected to the rhetoric while we are watching our prime time television. If you watch NBC for any of your evening programming, you know that this week they have been doing Green Week: Green is Universal. (What a nice tie in with their corporate ownership, don’t you think?) As part of that, all of their evening programming has some sort of “going green” things that they are doing or some sort of “green” message that they are giving us.
Like I said, I try to reduce (okay, I am probably not as good at this aspect than I am at the others), reuse and recycle. However, I drive an SUV and when I hear those celebrities (Gweneth Paltrow comes to mind) say bad things about people who drive SUVs and the gas they are consuming and the pollution that they create, I just want to scream. For one thing, how do they justify their travel in limousines? Surely those types of vehicles aren’t gas efficient. Although, in researching for this post (yes, sometimes I do research for my posts, I wish I could be a real reporter so I could get paid for this lol) I saw that now they make hybrid limousines, so maybe all those green celebrities just threw away their gas guzzling limousines so they could get hybrid replacements. Oh, wait, that wouldn’t be very green, either.
I have an SUV so that I can pull a camper so I can go out and have fun with my family. I don’t drive it to be the biggest car on the road. I don’t drive it to be better than the Jones’. Some might say, “Get a hybrid SUV” or “Get a different car to drive everyday”. Well, yeah, if I was rich, I would certainly do that. But, I’m not. I can’t afford to go out and buy a brand new hybrid SUV. Maybe in a few years when you can get one that is used, I probably will. I am always a little behind on car technology because I can’t afford or don’t want to buy brand new. As far as getting another car to drive everyday, I can’t afford that either. By the time you figure paying for the actual car and adding the insurance, it’s too much. I know that eventually the costs would equalize, but I can’t afford the “right now” costs.
I know it is important to be made aware of this issue, but I think it is counterproductive to constantly nag on us about it. It’s just like when you are telling your kids something over and over, eventually they stop listening. I’m starting to tune it out. Maybe others are, too. That can’t be good for the cause.
Ah-men sis-tah!
I always thought bottled water and juices were good for me(otherwise I wouldn’t drink nearly enough!)I faithfully put my plastics in the recycling bins like I was told, and NOW they have decided that all that plastic isn’t good for the environment!
I have recycled newpaper in my town, only to find out that it is going into the same trucks as my garbage!Are my township workers dumpster diving to sort it out? I HIGHLY DOUBT IT!
When celebrities get involved as the ‘face’ of a cause I tune it out. It always seems to be a ploy to get their own faces plastered everywhere.I was already sick to death hearing about Angelina Jolie adopting everyone with a pulse before Madonna is suddenly in another country doing the same thing!I can’t stand seeing the shows where the stars are sitting in the jungles with gorillas going on about extinction- and then what? What has changed? What has truly been done- except that another show is on TV?
I can think of two off the top my head that ‘walk the walk’ and that would be Ed Begley Jr and Leonardo DiCaprio. Ed turns me off with his “Beat you over the head earnestness” but Leo puts the facts out there and a possible solution and makes it feel like it’s YOUR choice.
Nice post,Shel!
LOL — I felt that way about pink, but never got around to saying anything about it. and it’s for a good cause and all. I have noticed all the green things on NBC ads when I’m on the elliptical — they’ve got a TV in the fitness room and it’s always on channel 7 for some reason — sound off, though, so all I see is David Schwimmer wearing green and Al Gore and green logos and is there something wrong with the set?
Hi! (long time lurker, first time commenter)
Celebrities think too highly of their own opinions and personally I with they’d all shut up.
Yes, I love the planet; and I do my part – I also believe, as George Carlin said: Mother Earth can shake all of us off anytime she’s ready. She’ll kill us all and start over.
If we weren’t driving SUVs they’d be yelling at us about the damaging effects of cow farts.
It’s always something….b-)
The only way the Earth will be clean and ‘unabused’ is if WE aren’t here.
That said, I am far more concerned with the uncontrolled emissions/pollution from the industry in other countries that don’t have Air quality regulations, etc. than I am about most of the crap our media throws at us. Pollution-wise, Americans can’t compare to our less restrictive neighbors, and their citizens are suffering.
Like you, I recently discovered by ‘recyclables’ that I so diligently collected were being placed in a landfill.
I was irate to say the least.
Okay, I’m done.
I am the same way. I feel that saving the environment is important, however shoving it down my throat every damn second of every damn day is not going to get me to do anything other than ignore it. I, too, drive a SUV, it is old and it is paid for. What? I am supposed to change my budget because some rich celebrity says I should? Um, no. It just isn’t gonna happen. Eventually we all will find a happy medium. I hope.
The environment has always been one of my special causes, and like you Shelli, I try to do everything I can, but living with little or no impact on the earth (the goal) is very expensive. I wish they would have funneled all the money they spent on “green” advertising into making hybrid cars less expensive so more people could have them. Remember when they tried to blame our hairspray for the holes in the ozone?
Ok – this comment is totally off topic, but…
Will the polar bears be back as your masthead for winter?
Wander–Hallelujah! lol
MM–I agree with you on Leo. He really does walk the walk and he isn’t preachy about it. I think that when they make judgments about other people’s choices or are preachy about it, that’s when it is like listening to nails on a chalkboard to me.
Uisce–I was worried about how you would see this post. I know it is an important cause to you. It isn’t the cause that I am against, it is the way that they beat us to death with it.
Special K–Hey! Thanks for de-lurking!
I agree with the other planet thing, and not just about pollution. Having traveled to another country this past year and having seen how they do things differently (mostly air travel) in a lot of areas scare me to death. I try not to think about it a lot though or I would go crazy! Wait, I am already. :-\”
muttprincess–I hope that we do. It’s just like every other story they beat to death (Anna Nicole Smith & Brittany Spears come to mind), I am sick of hearing about it.
Kat–Yeah and then we all switched to pump hairspray. I don’t think it made much difference. Now they are saying that ethanol isn’t the long term feasible solution either. So what’s going to happen to all those hybrids that run on ethanol when they decide to switch to something else?
Peggy–ROFLMAO. I don’t think that the polar bears will be back. Too many bad memories with them. lol I probably will find something else wintery, though.
Now an off topic question from me…For my acronym replacer (a plugin that when you hover over a person’s name or word on the blog, typically the words have a little dotted line under them, then it defines that person or word) is it okay if I label you Peggy1? Then your definition will be “my number one lurker”. lol If that’s okay with you.
I’m touched! (or is that tetched?)
I’m #1 – I’m #1 – I’m #1 :d/
Wait a minute! That’s not the smiley I requested.
It’s supposed to be this one: :d/
Ok – it did the wrong one again.
I give up. It was supposed to be the one doing the “#1 happy dance”.
SUV Gweneth’s private jet
Talk amongst yourselves . . . [-(