Living the American Green

An article in the NY Times today was so cool that I almost forgot to drink the second half of my coffee. It discusses Earth Class Mail, a service that accepts your mail for you, scans it, and sends it to you via email. You can then pick which to shred and recycle, and which to get sent on to your real mailbox. Dang. The future hath come. If you’re like me folks, you hate the mail. It never comes on time, the small keys are really hard to fit into the 45-year-old mailbox provided by my negligent landlord, papercuts abound, and then I lose everything of importance once I get it all upstairs. I know- this list of of complaints is ridiculous and petty. I’m not saying I’m going to immediately jump on the Earth Class Mail bandwagon, I’m just saying it’s a good idea. Plus, on the enviro end, it ensures that more people are recycling their junk mail. Now, we just need to find a way to eliminate paper mail altogether, so that our e-mail inbox replaces our snailmail slots, and the stacks of endless L.L. Bean and Oriental Trading catalogs in the dumps can soon become a thing of the past.

Straight up, this might be a gloating entry.  Obama got round to announcing all of his “green team” of eco-cabinet members this week, and it is pretty sweet.  We’re huge fans of Steven Chu, who has his noggin screwed on straighter then ’bout anyone else.  He realizes that production of more energy, no matter what the type or what the relative cleanliness, the big battle will be with energy conservation.  We’re simply going to have to figure out how to use less then we currently do, and Chu is about getting us in that direction.

Even better, the appointment of Chu symbolizes a new White House policy when it comes to science: you know… Pro… facts:

“My administration will value science,” Obama said, in what sounded like a pointed reference to his predecessor. “We will make decisions based on facts.”

Obama went on to describe combating global warming as “a leading priority of my presidency and a defining test of our time.”

We’re so happy we could cry.  God only knows why these things need to be said, but we are happy that they are!

We realize we are a few days late to this story, which in the world of the Internets is forever, but you’ve really got to see this marketing moonshot: It’s the clean coal Christmas Carolers!  That’s right, these cute lil tykes are taking to your Internet web-waves to take Jesus’ name in about as much vain as we think we’ve ever seen!  These guys are actually so absurd that we can’t even get fired up about the greenwashing attempt.

Unfortunately, in the two days since we discovered the Clean Coal Chorus, the America’s Power crew that threw them up have taken them back down, so all we have to remember them is the lovely picture here and the set of comments on the America’s Power site.  Man, PR spin is so saccharine over there that it leaves us feeling almost bad for mocking the poor little coal-dudes.

Oh, and guys?  Know your audience.  The interwebs seem to be a place where people value at least the illusion of authenticity and cool when they select what goes viral.

If you want to see the animated singing version there’s also this delightful snark-out with Rachel Maddow that lets you in on the action even as she totally puts our level of liberal scorn to shame.  Watch it not so much for the interview (which just re-makes the point about “clean” coal) but for the live action Coal Caroling team in action.

We aren’t the first to say this, but who the hell LIKES these dudes?  They are changing the words in xmas carols, but not in a particularly amusing way, and it really feels sort of… well… dirty to hear “O Holy Night” re-tuned like that.  Not to cast sweeping generalization nets, but aren’t the folks who would dig that chintz also be the folks to be pissed off that our lord and savior is now a coal-man?  Or are we missing something?

Also… oh god, please no more Christmas Carols.  Please.  p..  please….

Google's first picture defining green was a Toshiba ad

Curiously pondering in my Ikea Poang tonight, I used the Google search engine tool (I am not quick to use the term “googled,” for fear of reprisal from an unnamed second party), entering the word “green.” First, we get ‘ol faithful, Wikipedia. It jumps to the practical definition: “a color, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570-nm.” Next, we get ‘ol really annoying, the U.S. Green Party. They do their humdrummin on the Green political organizational movement. And third, before some beautiful Google Images of “green,” we have “The Green Guide.” Tips and tools for living the “green” lifestyle and following the politics of “green.” Available on NewsStands. So you can read about green products you can buy on disposable paper. And then trash it.

So there we have it; the internet has spoken. “Green” is still, first and foremost, a color. But second, “green” is not envy, it’s not the color of money, and it’s not the color of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s eyes.  No- second, “green” is the environmental movement, and – a close third- “green” is the commercial representation of the environmental movement. Is there anything capitalism can’t take over?

Not that we agree with this across the board, but it certanitly does make a compelling point about the one thing that we thought we could control on a capitalist world: purchasing power. 

Ok, so… we’ve given it a lot of thought.  And we are willing to accept that Clean Coal would be a pretty cool option.  It’s not that we’ve read a lot about the technology, or that there is any scientific reason to expect Coal to BE cleaner…. but check out this factory walk through that we found!  We’re in!

(seriously guys.  We need a lot more evidence before the LtAG crew has any buy in at all in this Clean Coal crap.  Are there any Pro Clean Coal facts that we haven’t found?)

So, there I am today, sorting through my recycling like a good yuppie, when this crosses my path.  Damn it!  It’s really hard to get your righteous recycle high of the day when it turns out that all that junk is going to sit in a warehouse and then, maybe, get shoved in a landfill.  And the worst part is, I don’t even have anyone concrete to blame: when the economy goes south, it makes sense that people have less interest in buying things like truckloads of recycled tin.  It’s not like guilt is ever all that useful a reflex anyway, (my personal problems with using guilt as a motivational tool are well documented) but now, do I have to feel doubly guilty because I might not even have a good back up guilt-release valve for my wasteful habits?  Bummer, man.   You definitely get the feeling that a lot of effort has gone into training Americans to think about recycling, and if this sort of crash makes it into the public mind, a lot of that good work will be out the window.   I can hear the backlash recycling is a scam meme starting now.  Shhhh…. if you listen, you can actually hear the apathy congealing!

The article does say that many cities and municipalities have not stopped collecting recycling: it’s still getting picked up, so at some point someone might want it.  But if capitalism has taught us anything, having huge amounts of a resource sitting around isn’t going to do great things for the price.  And if the price keeps dropping, who’s going to bother to collect?  I do love the silver lining at the end of the piece tho: a kicker about school children and writing letters over recess.  Heartwarming!  Bring on the water-skiing squirrel!

It almost is enough to make me not want to bother sorting out all the plastic tops from the pile of Thai food deliveries I’ve gotten this week.  Mmmmm.  Thai food.

The Internet is a very interesting place.  We base our net worth as bloggers/thinkers on-line by the number of people who are reading us.  But, then we realize, at times, that the people reading might not be useful, thoughtful, or interested in having the same discussions we are.  What we’re going to do today is throw up a comment that appeared recently on one of our posts.  The Bold parts are, of course, commentary added.

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I’m all in for the tote bag as a concept. It’s a great item- it’s perfect for toting things. And you don’t have to throw it away once you’re done- it’s what we here at LtAG call “reusable.” So why does it seem that the greater metropolitan area sees it necessary to buy a new tote bag, or reusable mesh shopping bag, with each grocery store visit?  Is it the fashion aspect?  Does the green of Whole Foods clash with Tuesday’s outfit? That can’t be it…we hope.

Food stores now have racks of both fabric and plastic bags for customers to choose from, multiplying bag waste in two. Now, I’m sure we don’t throw out all our unused tote bags once we get them home- they line our closets like the plastic bags line our dumpsters.  But eventually, I fear our lovely little canvas carries will have a similar fate to our wasteful plastic compatriot.  So this is my call to arms: let’s all try a little harder to, once we invest in this ingenious little carrying friend, remember to bring it around with us once in a while. And hey, if you’re just getting a few things at the corner store- think about losing the bag altogether- that milk jug has a handle for a reason!

Come on guys: it’s only $18 Billion.  Basically Chump Change, compared to what AIG fools are getting.  And the CEO is even offering to not take a salary!  Come on… and they are so CUTE!  and PATHETIC! You just want to rub their bellies and snuggle up and…

But, just in case you all have forgotten how we got to this situation… here’s the CEO of GM, not but a few months ago, looking pretty un-repentant to our ears.

Video’s like this should be played directly in front of congress before they decide one way or the other.  We mean, it’s not like there’s a smoking gun here, more of a general reticence to admit failure.  Shooting themselves in the foot again and again by claiming that they “can’t” make efficient cars.

The kids call that “Plaxico-ing” yourself.