It’s All About the GREEN: Looking Beyond the Emerald Haze

Last week, the world paused to celebrate Earth Day, a day to offer special recognition to Mother Earth, the nurturer of all.  And everyone took part.  In our campus pub, I even chugged an organic beer in her honor.

A week later, as we’ve returned to normalcy, Mother Earth has been relegated back to the realm of invisibility while another holiday, Mother’s Day, rapidly approaches.

While daydreaming in the Babson library—when I should have been working on a paper–I noticed some startling similarities between the two.

Both holidays highlight thankless and under-appreciated roles.  Mothers offer us their love, support, and affection.  Mother Nature offers us her land, sea, and harvest.

Both days are marked by silly sales, promotions, freebies, and endless specials.

And both holidays support the notion that one day of appreciation and doting is suffice for an entire year of abuse.

But just like you wouldn’t degrade your mother 364 days a year and expect one day of pampering to negate one another, a year of neglect and abuse of our Earth cannot be erased by one day of appreciation.

And that is why Earth Day has been expanded to Earth Week.

Jokes aside, most would quickly kick me off my wobbling soapbox by arguing that the Green Revolution has begun.

Green is IN.

It has grown from the screams and rants of college treehuggers and hippies to a mainstream vogue.

Products made from eco-friendly materials are being donned by the elite.

Companies are realizing the value and profit that can be wheedled from the masses by merely declaring themselves as green-conscious or by heralding the methods adopted to label themselves “green-friendly.”

If this keeps up, being green will no longer be a differentiator.  More and more companies seeking a piece of this rapidly growing pie will erode the value of the words “eco-friendly.”

I digress.

Many argue that trendy or not, this Green Movement is good.

As long as it ultimately brings awareness and benefit to the environment, all is well, right?

I would argue differently.

To explain, let’s return to the Mother’s Day and Earth Day comparison.

Earlier in this post, I griped about the lack of appreciation show to both mothers and Mother Earth outside of its delegated day.

Let’s say, that isn’t the case.  You treat your mother right.  You buy her things.  Send her the occasional phone call and obligatory visit.  On the surface, you seem to be the ideal child.  But, what if it’s all an illusion, a production, a performance—something done simply for appearances?

What if we delved beyond the surface and discovered that when your mother needed money for groceries, you refused, despite the stacks of money laying in your bank account, simply gaining interest, money that could be easily and should be offered to her, if only out of courtesy and love.

But no one knows this.  On the surface, you are the ideal son or daughter.

This is what the Green Trend is doing.  On the surface, it seems to be aiding.  It makes people feel good to wear the eco-friendly bags, and to announce their occasional recycling.  It makes them  feel conscientious.

Yet, Mother Earth is still rapidly wasting away.

I ask you, what real change has been done since the inception of Earth Day to help our planet?  The government refuses to adopt policies that would actually aid Mother Earth and save her from destruction.  People, myself included, refuse to adopt real change to change her deadly course.

I would even argue that the Green Trend causes more harm than aid.

It distorts the truth about our mistreatment of Mother Earth.  It allows companies and humans alike to hide behind little, often insignificant purchases and small, trivial changes.

This is more dangerous than not acting at all for instead of  recognizing our role in her destruction, we trick ourselves into believing that an occasional good deed is more than enough.

For those that argue that everyone must start with baby steps and that these current green trends are merely the first stages of a more conscientious society, I say baby steps are fine, but eventually one must learn to actually walk.  If the government and the powers that be don’t stress the importance of moving to the next stage of responsibility, we we still be clueless and crawling when Mother Earth takes her final breath.

Until next time. . .