I am periodically called "Mr. Green," mostly by telemarketers or people who don't hear me correctly when I say my last name. I have never been called an environmentalist, though I am in favor of doing whatever we can to protect our land, sea, and air.
Over the past year or so, "Going Green" has become the big thing. Car companies like Honda are touting how they are the greenest car company in America-and it has nothing to do with the color of their vehicles. Much of it is marketing, of course.
NBC featured "green programming" this year, with pro-environment messages during commercial breaks and a green peacock as a logo. Cities are banning the use of plastic bags in grocery stores; pest control companies are offering non-chemical alternatives to killing bugs and rodents; even Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent recent days promising to make global warming a top priority if he is elected president. I don't know what party platform papers his speech writers were reading.
People are talking about "reducing their carbon footprint," which either means buying smaller shoes or reducing the impact that human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gasses produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide. I think it's the latter.
When Hollister Disposal started offering recycling bins a few years back, I was skeptical that I could fill up the bin every week. It was so much easier to throw away my box of cereal after I had eaten the last Golden Graham. Why would I keep a plastic milk carton separate from the rest of the trash? Junk mail was meant to be thrown away, as the name implies, not recycled.
But it turns out that it wasn't too difficult to go green, at least in terms of recycling.
It's easy to put junk mail in the bin. I feel guilty if I accidentally throw away a bottle or crumple up a paper and toss it in the trash. I don't know how much difference my efforts make, but going green - even a little bit - is worth the effort.
Speaking of recycling, my grandma - as I'm sure is the case with many people who are in their 80s - is highly skilled at stretching out the life of the items she purchases. She grew up in the lean times after The Depression and during World War II, when rationing was a way of life - not a way for yuppies to feel less guilty about driving an SUV.
After dinner, many people throw away the leftovers if they don't feel like taking the time to wrap them up and store them in the fridge. Not my grandma. If she cooks it and it isn't eaten that day, it will be put away for later use.
She cans her own vegetables and dries her own fruit. She bakes cobblers and makes stew. She has her items put in plastic bags at the store, but she doesn't throw the bags away. They work perfectly for sending freshly-picked apples home with the grandkids.
We can learn a lot from her generation. They weren't guilty tree-huggers (tree-hugging is fine, by the way, if that's what you're into. We all need hugs.) They were survivors who modified their way of life in order to stretch every dollar.
They recycled out of necessity, probably caring little about their carbon footprint. They drove massive cars that consumed lots of cheap gasoline. But they fought for that way of life, at home and abroad, and made the past 50 years the most prosperous in history.
I hope we can recycle a bit of their ingenuity as we face global warming (at least in Hollister this week), a recession, an ongoing war, higher oil prices, and a horrible season by the San Francisco Giants.
They may not have cared about their carbon footprint, but we can learn a lot by following in their footsteps.
Adam Breen Adam Breen teaches journalism at San Benito High School. He is former editor of The Free Lance.
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