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Bryan,As you have explained it, there is no downside. IMO, we all have an obligation to be good stewards of our resources and the environment. What I object to is all the "going green" hype. I find it to be a total turn off regardless of the product or service. I travel a lot for business and I am sick & tired of hotels where I'm paying $200-$350/night for a hotel room requiring me to put a card on the bed if I want the sheets changed or throwing towels on the floor if I want fresh towels when they clean the room, all because they are trying to be "green." When a company leads with the "going green" line I tend to assume that their product may not perform as well as a company that promotes performance, price, construction first, and then BTW, we operate in an environmentally responsible manner too.
I convinced her that I need to change a 36" CRT TV with a 60" LED to save energy and earth. Now I just have to come up with a justification to get rid of the old ones. There is one with a little corner crack and ....
How do you suggest a company or we the people get the word out to change our destructive behavior or cut back on resources if not with hyping it up to others???What would it feel like to live in harmony with nature? To live in a world that embraces those type of positive change, where compassion for everything and every method of doing so takes precedence over money and convenience? How would we grow our food, produce what we want & need and educate the young?How can we turn a vision of a future like this into the mission that guides our lives today, so it can shape the world of tomorrow?Besides personal action... HYPE IT UP! And corporations have more power than individuals, making that type of action even more important to the masses!Americans are apathetic enough. It takes decades of hype and repetition to get the right thoughts into peoples heads to do their part and to participate in this change... Apart from action and hype I don't know what else to do.
I think Laura is saying buy more GIK.
We obviously have significantly different views here and I'm willing to bet there is nothing I will say that will change your view, nor is anthing you might say that will change mine. I clearly don't see as much of a need to change as you do. I do not believe our behavior is destructive to the environment and I certainly don't believe we need to cut back on our use of resources. As someone who has worked in the resource industries for more than 30 years I can assure you that we are not running out of resources. The more we look, the more we find. As we develop new technologies and new exploration techniques we continue to find more and more and more resources, and will do so in the future. The use of resources by the developed world is not the problem. I know for a fact that since the beginning of industrial revolution in America, the air has never been cleaner, the water has never been cleaner and our care and stewardship of the land and environment has never been better than it is today. We are more efficient in our use of resources and we have adopted less wasteful practices. We have learned to be good stewards of our resources and to use them for our benefit and hopefully the benefit of the undeveloped world. I do not believe the problem is our behavior or use of resources, it is poverty, especially in the undeveloped world. Poverty, not development, is the worst polluter of the environment. We would do far more for improving the global environment by exporting our knowledge, technologies and values to the undeveloped world than cutting back on resources. Using our knowledge and wealth to bring electricity and clean water to the undeveloped world will do more to eliminate poverty and improve the global environment than anything we do in the western, developed world. Rather than cutting back, I believe we should develop and use resources to raise the standard of living in the undeveloped world.I know what it feels like to live in harmony with nature because I am living in harmony with God and very much at peace. What I fear most besides unsustainable national debt are the lies of the green movement. Fortunately, I believe Americans, Canadians and Europeans are waking up to the fact that the key to a sustainable world is raising the global standard of living by responsible development and use of our natural resources to create new wealth, bring the benefits of the western developed world to the undeveloped world, use our resources to create economic opportunity and eliminate poverty, and to lower the cost of energy, goods and services.
I do not believe the problem is our behavior or use of resources, it is poverty, especially in the undeveloped world. Poverty, not development, is the worst polluter of the environment.
We obviously have significantly different views here and I'm willing to bet there is nothing I will say that will change your view, nor is anthing you might say that will change mine. I clearly don't see as much of a need to change as you do.
But the point I was trying to make was that philosophical or issue based marketing is a very useful tool in informing people that they do have, in fact, choices; and that among the many reasons to choose a particular product or service - the environment can be included in a thoughtful decision making process of one product over another - at the same time as analyzing performance. IMO what might be called hype can be looked at as consumer based education (or raising awareness) through marketing for products that have beneficial externalities.
The terms for it with regard to helping in the elimination of poverty are ‘fair trade’ and/or ‘community sourced’. It’s been quite successfully used to bring living wages and fair prices that actually begin to raise standards of living in the developing world and to create those economic opportunities that are so needed. This only works if folks know there’s a choice -- hence the marketing aspect of these sister philosophies. Obviously, in either case, if it’s b.s. it’s b.s. and thats a whole other story. Of course, it’s our responsibility to do our research and not just blindly follow.
Anytime someone can be better informed of the indirect costs and/or benefits of their consumer choices, it’s a good thing in my book. So I still give kudos to the GIK guys! Jason
