"Environmentalism is a broad philosophy and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the state of the environment. Environmentalism and environmental concerns are often represented by the color green."
This evolving movement is every where you go now. If you asked John Doe when did this movement start, depending on his age you would get one of two answers. If Mr. Doe is 40 yrs. or older, then he would tell you it started in the 60's and 70's. If John is less than 30 yrs. old, then he would tell you something like "Al Gore, EPA, etc."
Although there isn't a precise date for the origin of this movement, it started way before the 60's. Theodore Roosevelt was one of the very first vocal advocates for conservation, here in America. That's right; much of the ideology that comes from Environmentalism is shared by Conservationism. These camps have their differences, but have similar fundamental ideas. In 1910, Teddy gave a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas where he discussed conservation. He was a propionate of the discreet use of natural resources. He also successfully secured around 230 million acres of American soil for national forests, parks, and monument.
I'm very cautious when I hear "Green", "Eco-Friendly", or "Environmentally Safe". I don't care what company it is or what they're selling, it's all about an Angle; Profitability. This means that any one can make gains off a Trendy Topic. My capitalistic sense applauses them while my conservation side digs past the initial cover. No matter what someone is selling it's all about timing and marketing. Now is the time to market Green products and services, instead of the 80's.
This post is to make the audience more self aware of the techniques companies will pursue to exploit this movement. If a company can make a simple positive environmental change to an existing product or service, they'll implement that change (no matter how small the change) and Slap on that Ole' Eco-Friendly label. Don't get me wrong, some companies are really achieving milestones and making an impact on the environment. But for every company that exceeds the standards, who knows how many are taking advantage of their successes?
These CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp) light bulbs are environmentally, sort of. Let's toss around some figures, guys like to see results. According to the Census Bureau, in the good old US of A we have about 129,969,653 households. Assuming that half of these households use CFL light bulbs this puts us at 64,984,827 households. According to Popular Mechanics, the average household has 45 light bulbs. If half of these light bulbs are CFL lights that puts our overall consumption around 1.5 million lights. The average life span on these little efficient guys is close to 5 years. Each CFL contains about 4mg of Mercury. That means that every five years, Americans are putting approximately 132,000 pounds of Mercury into our soils. That means this is going into our ground water through leaching. This is multi-dimensional issue. Wildlife will drink that water and so will we.
The last quick topic that needs to be addressed, Green vehicles. Even when we get to the point of self sufficient vehicles, they will still be made by those same Coal fired plants that so many fight against. It's what made America so Great, the industrial age. Those same Coal fired plants will charge these new eco friendly cars. I heard a report that the new rechargeable cars, when charging, use as much energy as a house.
When the power goes out or a natural disaster occurs, you can always count on those primitive methods of fuel to survive.
Just something things to think about.
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