It's the Green Thing Again

I did a post about a year ago about how I am liking the idea of being green. I have several reasons for this, and it's not political. My husband always goes off on how all the bad news is a farce, etc. I don't think it is, but oh well.

I don't like all the waste. Simple as that. Here is a little littany of that:

I don't like that when I open a child's toy out of a box, I have more paperboard, plastic and wires than the volume of the toy itself. When I was a kid, you bought a toy off the shelf, with no packaging. What happened to that? Watch old movies of kids purchasing toys at Christmas time, no packaging.

I don't like that all this waste just sits in landfills and doesn't break down. I don't mind using things that I know in less than my lifetime will look like earth. I do mind that all the plastic bags I get at the grocery store will live beyond my grandchildren.

I don't like that back in the eighties we, as consumers, were told those same plastic bags would save trees. I am more mad at myself for believing that pile of hooey. Trees are a renewable resource. Plastic bags are permanent.

I know plastic has a place in our ecosystem, but wasting plastic so it's easier to carry things to my car. It's wasteful and pointless. Plus, I hate them because they hold nothing, split easily, cut into my fingers, and are a pain to recycle when you get home.

I do like the idea of using reusable grocery bags. You know the fabric ones that everyone is selling now. I have a few, and I need to get a few more and keep them in our cars. I like those a lot.

I like that my company finally heard our complaints and is now stopping the use of styrofoam packing peanuts. What a nightmare that was! They are now using air pockets, which I know are housed in plastic. But what is worse than plastic? Styrofoam. I have been doing my business for eight years. how much packing peanuts I have gone through alone makes me feel guilty. In my feeble defense, I have a guy that I give all my peanuts to who runs an ebay business, so he reuses them, but where do they end up after that? My great grandchildren will let me know. The packing peanuts will still be around then.

I heard a political commercial yesterday that made me just want to scream it repeatedly off the top of the highest building in my city. Goes something like this "XXX years ago, a proposal to generate wave energy off the Pacific coast was in place. Environmental group ABC shut it down. YYY years ago, a proposal to use windpower to generate energy was shut down by CDE environmental group." And it listed about five different very effective petroleum fuel alternatives that I have been interested in seeing offered to the consumer. Interesting huh? I do agree with my husband on this one point. Environmentalists are not always the Birkenstock wearing, dread locks showing, tie dyed tshirted person. They are high powered, with lots of money and swing in politics. Yet, they shoot their own cause in the foot by fighting the very things that can further their cause. It's absolutely maddening.

Why am I more and more concerned? It's an election year, and the war is still raging. I have said it before, and I'll say it again. It is a war about oil. We cannot have dictators ruling the world's petroleum supply, and they do.

I have always said this, but not blogged it. The Middle East has the rest of the world by the neck. Just picture them holding the US's back against the wall with their hands over our Adam's apple. Why? Because they absolutely dictate our dependency on oil, and how much we pay for it.

I saw a headline in a political magazine back in May, and basically it was saying that the main guy (sorry, I don't remember his name, the rest of the headline just about made me choke) who decides the production of oil in the Middle East was quoted as saying "We will increase productions when the market warrants it." Of course all Americans are screaming, "Hello!"

But we forget. Look at it from their point of view. They have us by the neck, they have got us by our economy. I would be a fool if I didn't for one minute realize the powers that be in the Middle East realize that they can have one of the biggest transfers of wealth from Western Culture to the Middle East just in oil alone. And it's not going to be negotiated at the table of politics. It will be negotiated by the choke hold they have on us for oil. We need oil, they got it. One way to "get" America, cripple our economy. I think we can all agree, it's happening.

So, why do I want drilling in Alaska? Why do I want solar panels on my house? Why do I compost? Why do I want alternative fuel sources?

Because I love America. I don't want the great economic system, freedoms, and opportunities that we take for granted to be done. If me using no more plastic bags, etc. can help that, I am all for it.