Watch where you step – environmentally that is

I really have to do more reading on carbon neutrality and the “movement toward green.”  I am concerned how we tend to create constructs designed to modify the human behavior of others but not our own.

 

It seems that much of all this consists of criticism of the conduct of major businesses in the economy, suggesting what appear to be easy, but expensive, answers for them and for the rest of society, and taking no personal responsibility for what we each contribute.

 

Take the computer giant Dell Inc. which announced this past summer that it had become “carbon neutral” in its quest to be “the greenest technological company on the planet”.  Wall Street Journal article.   In determining it “carbon footprint” Dell counts the electrical energy it uses in its offices and factories and the fuel used for its business flights, but it doesn’t include what is used by its suppliers when they make computer parts, the fuel used to ship computers, or the electricity we all use to run them.  The math is staggering: Dell counts 490,085 tons of emissions but does not count the other 10,000,000 (million) tons.

 

This is another example of how many things don’t count – when we know what we want the answer to be.

 

But this is not really Dell’s fault.  We are the ones who use the energy and fail to control our own behaviors of consumption.  We also fail to think and trust our own good judgment.

 

A few years back, when the push was on for recycling in a big way, I watched someone in their kitchen as they rinsed out each aluminum can before putting it out.  She informed me that it was required by the local town to avoid nuisances (flies, smell, etc.) associated with storing the cans.  Water is the basic element essential for human life.  It is estimated that in about 17 years, more than half the world’s population will be facing a crisis from lack of potable water.  Yet we rinse out cans 2 or 3 times, wasting water equivalent to the volume of liquid which was originally packaged in the can, so we can recycle aluminum.

 

Do not ever let ”political packaging” cloud your human judgment and common sense.  Do not accept slogans – challenge assumptions.  Throw the aluminum cans out without turning on the facet – and turn off the TV, sound system and lights when no one is in the room.  After you are done reading this, turn off the computer and do not leave it on all night.

 

Michael D’Angelo