Going green

Ok, yesterday it was a balmy 67 degrees. People were sitting outside eating their lunch and you had to wear sunglasses. Tomorrow it’s going to snow. Yes that’s right, snow.

This freak weather is really scary. I watched Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ a few weeks ago and it really got me worried.

Americans are not really very eco-friendly. OK, that’s probably a generalisation but in my experience being green in NY means celebrating the national day of drunkenness (St Patrick’s Day). They drive everywhere, get on a plane at the drop of a hat and all the lights in Time Square must use up enough energy to light a whole town for a year.

I was watching the news yesterday and there was a piece about light bulbs. If every American switched to using eco friendly light bulbs the amount of energy saved is phenomenal (they also save you money too). It’s a no brainer right? Wrong, it seems that some Americans don’t want to switch because the bulbs “look funny” (yes that is a direct quote from a woman being interviewed). I screamed at the TV when she said that causing my boyfriend to ask me if I was OK.

Our apartment has the worse lighting system ever. We have three lamps (without eco friendly bulbs) and no main light. This means that you have to have all three lamps and the light in the hallway on in order to get enough to light to read (and it’s still too dark). My eyesight has gotten worse since I moved here because I have to sit right underneath a lamp to see the words on the page. Same goes for the bedroom – three lamps and no overhead light. Hello, wouldn’t it have been simpler to install a main overhead light?

And then there’s the supermarket. They have these plastic bags which say “new stronger style, no need to double bag”. So, what do the cashiers do? Yep, they double bag. I get so exasperated having to say every time “no it’s OK, I don’t need TWO bags”.

And how about the fact that here in our apartment block we can’t recycle glass? Or the fact that everything has twice as much packaging as it really needs?

I’m not saying that Americans are the only people to not embrace being green but when I hear them complaining about the weather I really want to scream.

Being green isn’t really optional anymore and I think that a lot of people still don’t understand that it doesn’t mean you are a long haired hippy, it just means you want to preserve our planet for future generations.

There, rant over