Filed under: J840 Week 2, Society + Media | Tags: anthropomorphosis, cement shoes, environment, green, green noise, laissez-faire, sysiphus
I hate to think about it. When I try to figure out what is and isn’t green today, it makes me feel like I’m trying to run a marathon in green cement shoes. The top half of me is going a million miles an hours, the bottom half is stuck, and I get worn out in about a minute and a half.
Thoreau didn’t help. Sequestered away from society at the 
edge of Walden Pond, he wasn’t really relevant or inspiring. Gore, Carson and Lehrer/Friedman made me feel like I was Sysiphus. Barbie Bcause - seriously? Wrong on so many levels. For me, Williams hit the nail on the head with Green Noise. If you try to think below the surface of a lot of the environmental reasoning, so many questions bubble up so quickly, all I want to do is put the lid back on the pot so it doesn’t boil over. I want to be green and do the right thing. Just don’t make me think so hard.
But the assignment IS to think about it, so here goes. First, green is not a state of being. Defining yourself as green or not green is a weird kind of reverse anthropomorphosis. Instead of attributing human characteristics to nature, we attribute the characteristics of nature to humans. Rather, green is a set of actions and behaviors that we choose or refuse to engage in that have a beneficial effect on the environment. By repeating actions and behavior, you establish a green lifstyle. An un-green lifestyle would be deliberately making choices that hurt the environment. Most of us aren’t like that. Rather, I think we fall into a third category - laissez-faire green. As long as it’s convenient and inexpensive, green is easy. Seems awfully shallow, but perfectionism easily becomes an excuse.
So what’s the way forward? Well Sysiphus has some pretty broad shoulders from rolling his rock up the hill for eternity. Perhaps the green Sysiphus’s of the world can carry us until we can trade our cement shoes for green sneakers to run the race.
Cindy Olsen
Filed under: J840 Week 2 | Tags: allergens, asthma, carpool, clean air, emissions, ground-level ozone, lawn mower, Ozone Alert
Not for Assignment
Being an asthma sufferer, I am constantly reminded of the significance of clean air. Aggravated by allergens such as dust and pollen, asthma makes normal activities – such as exercise – extremely difficult. If you’re curious about how asthma feels, tightly cinch a belt around your chest and go for a run.
In addition to the allergens, when it gets hot outside, I have another thing to worry about. Just yesterday, I received an email announcing that an orange Ozone Alert had been issued for Greater Kansas City, which meant that the amount of ground-level ozone was considered “unhealthy,” particularly for people with respiratory or cardiac problems. Ground-level ozone forms when emissions from cars, lawn mowers, etc. combine with heat and sunlight. This, in turn, makes it difficult for your lungs to absorb oxygen.
Smog over Los Angeles
In addition to being harmful to humans, ground-level ozone interferes with the ability of plants to produce and store food so that growth, reproduction, and overall plant health are compromised. Ozone weakens sensitive plants and makes them more vulnerable to disease and pests.
So, what can we do to help reduce ozone pollution? I found a few interesting tips and facts on the web:
- According to the Mid-American Regional Council (MARC) Air Quality website: If every person in Greater Kansas City drove one less mile per week, in one month, the air we breathe would have 35,574 fewer pounds of smog-forming pollutants. You can carpool or use public transit to cut down on number of miles traveled.
- In one hour, a gas-powered push lawn mower emits as much pollution as driving a newer car 140 miles! Avoid mowing on days when ozone is at an unhealthy level.
For more tips, check out MARC’s website: http://www.marc.org/Environment/airQ/faqs.htm
For daily updates on local air quality, you can follow airqkc on Twitter: http://twitter.com/airqkc
~ Pauline Horton
Filed under: J840 Week 2, Society + Media | Tags: "reduce, environment, green, recycle, reuse
Green is Survival
For me, “Green” represents a variety of ideas; the vibrant, violent green of the Rhineland-Phalz area as spring explodes after a long winter; the theme of my girl-friend, Andi’s, life (if it ain’t green, it just ain’t); and the Debbie Meyer Green Bags® I store my garden’s produce in.
Green combined with the word planet describes a course of action, a mission, a focus, a goal. When I think of it in this way, green becomes essential. Green is what will provide breathable air and edible food for us, our children, and their children. If man is to survive, the planet must be sustained. If we are to sustain the planet, we have to learn to live green.
Light green, medium green or a green so dark and earthy that it appears brown, there are varied shades of green. Does the shade matter? I suppose it can, but rather than get hung up on how green someone is, let’s applaud the intent behind the action.
Man Leaves His Mark
Too often when we eat we do so out of plastic, glass, metal, or paper containers. The planet that voluntarily sustains us is slowly being choked to death by these containers.
Our appetites will eventually kill the planet that sustains us if we do not act.
The typical lifestyle is not green, but a bottomless void of immoderation. We are enamored with our man-made conveniences. The needs of our planet, the soil, the air and all life between the two, now require a man-made green. Our ecosystem is a closed-loop that requires the inhabitants of planet earth to participate in the maintenance of all life within that loop. We have to work together to make green happen, if we don’t we can only blame ourselves as the planet fails and dies.
The only items requiring recycling are man-made; the Green-up will have to be man-made also.
Green IS Survival
Angela Jones
