Walking the Walk (or Driving the Car!)
According to a large sign posted at the entrance to a left coast high school, it was ‘Ride Your Bike to School Day’. It was a way for students to show that they could walk the walk as well as talk the talk on all things environmental as they celebrate Earth Day this year. Alas, the student parking lot today was overflowing with cars as usual and a quick spin around the school turned up only three bicycles on the campus. By this stage in their schooling, these students have had years of liberal indoctrination in the American madrasas. Most of them can parrot back all the environmental talking points, but when it comes right down to doing something about it, they really don’t want to give up anything for the cause. This is truly a classic example of liberal hypocrisy.
Going Green Is Nothing New
The young folks today think they invented recycling, fuel conservation and environmentally friendly products. At the risk of alienating the many fine young readers of our blog, I feel compelled to point out that those who came after the baby boomers could more aptly be labeled the ‘throw away’ generation, rather than Gen X, Gen Y, Millennials or what have you. Rather than trying to fix it, they throw away everything from clothes to food to marriages at the first sign of wear, without even giving it a second thought. Many of you have seen the following narrative by an anonymous author which has been circulating on the internet for several years. It illustrates this point so well, that it bears repeating. Happy Earth Day!
Anyone See the Irony?
The Green Thing
At the cash register of the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own shopping bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.”
The cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations. You didn’t have the green thing.”
She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycling. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every shop and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.
But that young lady is right. 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, not a screen the size of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. 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 post, we used wrapped up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she’s right. We didn’t have the green thing back then.
We drank water from a tap when we were thirsty instead of demanding a plastic bottle flown in from another country. We accepted that a lot of food was seasonal and didn’t expect that to be trucked in or flown thousands of air miles. We actually cooked food that didn’t come out of a packet, tin or plastic wrap and we could even wash our own vegetables and chop our own salad.
But we didn’t have the green thing back then.
Back then, city people took the tram or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mothers into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet 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 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?