I haven’t settled on the exact purpose of my blog, but here is an eco-thought (the first to appear on this blog). I actually wrote this a month ago and got it approved for publishing on this ‘green’ weblog. The president of the organization seemed like an enthusiastic man but the rest of them, … anyway, I decided to put it up here instead. For you to read.
TITLE: (I’ve renamed it Thought 1)
Rising cost of oil hasn’t been accompanied solely by an increase in food prices. It’s brought us the green revolution. Everywhere, Americans are going “green.” It’s on TV – news and documentaries on the changing climate. It’s on the streets – we’re starting to see more scooters, bikes, and hybrid cars. And it’s fashion: logo tee-shirts, organic cotton, and canvas shopping bags. While the “green” is a hopeful sign, I say “green” and not anything else because – well, it’s catchy. It’s what we love to say these days.
Why is the green movement a mere fad for much of our society? For so many Americans, environmental consciousness is a business trend, a fashion trend, or just a new hobby that makes us feel better about ourselves. In considering the next step for all of us, we could gain from taking a good look around at other cultures.
Take Japan for instance. (What, Japan? They’re in the top five for the biggest global-warming polluters!) Yes. It’s a developed country just as guilty as us, from the total emissions point of view. But since as long as they can remember, the natural environment has been a part of core values and beliefs. Recycling is a part of their life style, dating back to the late seventeenth century, when the city of Edo (now Tokyo) took pride in significantly cleaner streets compared to in London or Paris at that time. The secret was a total recycle and reuse system, which reduced the amount of waste. Scrap merchants bought everything – not just paper and fabrics, but even ashes and melted candle wax were collected, and recycled.
Avoiding wastefulness has become a sort of a passion for the modern day Japanese, it seems. A few years ago the city of Kamikatsu in the southern region declared a goal of “zero-waste” by 2020. That is, they vowed to produce not a single kilo of garbage, by having residents sort their waste into 34 different categories. The city doesn’t have garbage trucks, and almost every home has a composting mechanism. In 1999, 67 kg of trash per person was taken to the incinerating station every year; by 2002, 27kg. To the people of Kamikatsu, this is no fad – “green” was never a trend. It’s about being a responsible citizen.
Environmentally sensible lifestyle has been the way of life in many other cultures, developed and developing. Most always, sustainability or the effort to achieve it rose out of simple necessity – the societies had little natural resources, and they had to make it last.
When will America experience such a total shift in people’s mentality about the environment? When will we finally put the environment at the top of our priorities, and smoothly and permanently incorporate green ways into the American ways?
