“Being green is no longer just for granola-loving hippies.” Nope. It’s now for the trendy, “I watch Sex and the City, drive a hybrid SUV, eat organic edamame, and wear $500 hemp sandals” crowd.
I was watching “License to Grill” with my favorite black Canadian grillmeister Rob Rainford on Discovery Home this weekend and found that the channel will be changed to Planet Green soon. When I first heard of Planet Green, I thought it was going to be a new channel. I hope Rob’s show continues elsewhere. Anyway, I have a couple of comments on Planet Green…
They gave a few tips while advertising the new channel. “Ladies, conserve water by washing your hair every other day. Up-do’s are all the rage now!” “Men, conserve water by not shaving as often!” So, in other words, grow a beard and join the rest of us dirty-haired hippies. Not that I have a problem with any of that. I usually shave every 2-3 days (thanks to slow growth), but a shower is like my “On” switch. I don’t feel right unless I’ve done my whole morning shower ritual (including clean hair). It was just very odd that the first thing that came to my mind after hearing those tips was that being a hippie is now the trendy thing. And I hate trendy.
I also saw ads for a couple of new shows. Renovation Nation with This Old House alum Steve Thomas. If you’re going to renovate, why not be environmentally friendly and incorporate new technologies? Wa$ted is like a hippie boot camp game show. They come in and tell you how you’re killing the planet and wasting money, then show you how you could save money by doing more eco-friendly stuff (recycling, limiting electric/water usage, etc). After a month, they come back and see how well you did. The amount you saved over the month, they give you 12x (a year’s savings) in cash. I don’t like the hosts much, though. Greenovate, a commercial, “how can we make money off these hippies” show. As much as I dislike the idea, when I have to replace a light bulb, I’d like to know which CFL or LED bulb to get. Greensburg, a documentary on rebuilding Greensburg, KS after a tornado leveled the town. It’s a model for a sustainable, eco-friendly town. I saw something with Tom Bergeron, too. If they’re jumping the shark on “Green”, they might as well Evil Kneivel it, right?
As much as I hate how trendy the whole “Green” thing is, it will do some good things. Public buy-in means that more companies will do more eco-friendly things like add solar panels or green roofing. It also means that consumer-level products (such as solar power systems and CFLs/LEDs) will become less expensive. When the price difference between an incandescent bulb and a CFL bulb is negligible or adding a solar power system to your house will pay for itself within 5-10 years, the “Green” bandwagon will have proven its worth. Until then, I’m content walking beside it. Do what you can, when you can, I say. Not because of “global warming,” “carbon credits,” “melting ice caps,” or whatever, but because it just makes more sense to use energy that the sun is giving off (it’s going to give it off anyway, why not, right?) than to scrounge around for stuff on the planet to burn. It’s like a guy coming up and saying, “I’ll give you $3 right now for doing nothing, or I’ll give you $5 if you wash my car, but you’ll have to buy some soap.”

