Better Living Through Paranoia - Part I

It’s not easy being not green.
The cool kids will all tell you that the environment is where it’s at. Anybody who’s anybody is crusading against pollution and global warming, all while saving the endangered Fijian mountain frog from extinction and protecting the rainforest.
Yawn.
I work with a bunch of these hand-wringers. One dude is constantly harping about the melting polar ice caps, postulating that in the very near future the entire eastern seaboard will be Deep Six’d. However, in the same breath, he also speculates that the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation of the ocean’s warm current will lead to a new ice age and force us all to migrate to the Southern Hemisphere.
Hogwash.
Then a couple weeks ago when I was still sick, I caught another girl digging through the wastebasket in my office because she knows I drink plastic water bottles and she wanted to recycle them. This trash can was overflowing with all my snotty Kleenexes and germy germs. When I pointed this out to her, she merely shrugged and said it was worth it for the environment.
So I sneezed on her in indignation.
This eco-talk dominates the conversation here in our break room. Forest fires, mudslides, hurricanes, tsunamis, erosion, greenhouse effect, the ozone, the writer’s strike. All these are blamed on me not reducing my environmental footprint. Because I don’t have solar panels or windmills at my house, I’m single-handedly sending the biosphere to its doom.
However, because they’re choosing paper over plastic, plugging in their cars and hugging panda bears, they are modern day messiahs - bringing hope and clean air to the masses. It’s all pretension, ostentation and haughty affectation.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for doing my part. When bio-fuel becomes a practicable option, I’ll choose it at the pump. I drive an SUV because it’s the best thing for my family. Not my first choice, but you can’t haul a week’s worth of groceries, two dogs or a sheet of drywall in a Smart Car. I separate the recycling when I remember to. Most times I turn the lights off when I leave a room. I only litter out of necessity.
But don’t lord it over me that you sip your latte out of cup made from recycled toilet paper while you carpool. I don’t want to hear about your biodegradable underwear or your Arbor Day celebration plans.
This whole ‘green revolution’ is a trend. It makes you feel better about yourself. That’s why it’s popular. And that’s fine. I can think of worse fads. But in reality, so few people actually practice conservation that the aggregate effect of those who do won’t make a difference. For every American driving a hybrid, there are ten thousand tribesmen in Africa poaching elephants.
For thousands of years this planet has sustained itself without us playing patty-cake with it. Smog, pollution, overuse of nonrenewable resources – these are all bad things. But if you believe the same scientist that are forecasting extinction level events, they also say that the earth has experienced dozens of warming and cooling trends throughout its history. I think maybe we’re underestimating the survival ability of a planet that’s proven itself pretty hardy over the years.
But more than likely we’re just overestimating ourselves.