The Big Environmental Lie

There is a big environmental lie that is being perpetrated against olderer generations.  This lie supposes that older generations are responsible for the environmental situation that the world finds itself in today, and that our children and our grandchildren are paying for it.  The fact of the matter is, it really is a lie.

The real perpetrators of this environmental disaster that has led to climate change and many other environmental phenomenon are the corporations that have unethically mined and taken resources, dumped waste product, spewed waste materials into our lakes, rivers and our atmosphere, and convinced us that we need to buy cheap disposable procucts on an ever increasing basis.

Here is an exerpt from an online story that might help explain this position to you.

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.  The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded. "That's our problem today.  Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -- our generation didn't have the "green thing" in her day.  The older lady went on to explain; back them, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store.  The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so they could use the same bottles over and ovder.  So, they really were recyled.

But, we didn't really have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stored bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things.  Most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books.  This was to ensure that public property (the school books provided for us by the school) were not defaced by our scribblings.  Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But, we didn't really have the "green thing" back in our day.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building.  We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300 horsepower machine every time we had to go to blocks.

But, we didn't really have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the disposable kind.  We dried clothes on a line, not in an enery gobbling maching burning up 220 volts.  Wind and solar power really did dry our clothed back then.  Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers and sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But, we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV or radio in the house, not a TV in every room, and the TV had a small screen (the size of a handkerchief if you remember them), not a screen the size of Montana.  In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.  When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.  Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn, we used a push mower that ran on human power.  When we exercised we did not go to a health club and use machines such as treadmills that operate on electricity.

But, we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.  We refilled pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull, and the razors were usually made of metal not plastic.

But, we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school, or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing."  We had one or two electrical outlets in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances, and we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But, we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day, and weren't we so much better off for it?