Greenwashing

Many of us like to talk the talk, but how many of us walk the talk? Are companies any different? The CEO’s and bosses of large and small companies usually have to answer to their shareholders, employees and others, like their husbands wives and kids. They have been taught that they are supposed to earn the most dollars from the sale of their products. If they don’t society will shun them, and make them outcasts. People in the U.S. are brought up from the earliest times of their youth to make dollars. If they don’t, no one will love them or theyt will be considered losers. 

So is it any surprise that a company will do whatever it can to make more money? Will any of us pay a company just to be good citizens? Can our society find it within themselves to fight against the staus quo?

We can complain all we want about “greenwashing” but it won’t do any good until people start to really pay attention to what they buy and from whom.

There are people out there selling things that are not greenwashed, they are not easy to find but you can. Also it never hurts to let the manufacturer of your favorite product to know how you feel. It’s not easy and is usually a vain effort, but at least you can say you gave it your best.

Consumption

Consumption, Spring 2013, Philipp Wickey

U.S. citizens consume far more than they need to. People change their clothes every day, eat more than their bodies need, use single serving containers, and work more and more hours to buy more and more stuff. It’s sickening to see the thousands of pounds of packaging that gets thrown “away.” Take walk along any road and start to look at how many plastic bottles, cigarette lighters, bottle caps, and plastic bags are out there. People treat the Earth like a fucking garbage dump.

I watched a movie trailer last night called “Midway,” it’s about an island 2,000 miles from any other land where birds go to birth and raise their offspring. They are feeding the chics theses pieces of plastic. The filmmaker films the actual graphic images of the birds dying from human junk. It’s incredibly painful. Although I have known about the subject for years, it never ceases to cause me a great deal of heartache. Today I nearly beat the shit out of some kid for throwing his cigarette butt on the ground. It makes me physically sick to witness that sort of behavior.

As for our insatiable consumption, I do not understand it. I cannot fathom how people think they need more and more. Millions of people get out of bed and go to jobs they hate to prostitute their bodies and minds for someone else to get wealthier from their labor. These workers get told “you can be rich to!” What a bunch of bullshit. Quit thinking about your selfish little life. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.