Green Has Gone Mainstream -- Is that so bad?

Besides the Irish (which I am in part), this week I am asking myself, what is really green? Green has become such a buzz word, everyone's using it (including me.) I know people who are critical of the overuse of the word. My own feathers get ruffled when a 'green' builder calls their homes green but leaves out basics such as building homes south facing and designing in such a way which uses passive solar energy to help naturally heat/cool the house. But, details on green building is for a later post.

Today I'm really thinking about the spectrum of 'green' which exists. Personally, I'm thrilled after 20 years of working in the environmental field and my first hand-washed re-used plastic bag 15 yrs ago - that green has gone mainstream. To think that recycling is now a regular household word and practice, that more people know about the benefits of CFL lightbulbs, and more and more people are waking up to their personal impact on the earth, I'd say we are making progress.

I think about this as I work on two concurrent writing projects along the lines of sustainability. One about a local "green" business, and the other on how Corporations are advancing their sustainability initiatives and their bottom line. A year ago I felt very conflicted about local vs. corporate. Today, I look around and when I hear that Baxter Healthcare, my first employer out of undergrad school, is the leading pharmaceutical industry on sustainability, I can't help but chuckle about the coincidence.

I am in no way a doomsdayer. I don't think we are at the "no-turning back" point yet. But I do think the BP Oil Spill and other events in the world are forcing us, especially Americans, to reassess our "Business as Usual" attitude. Besides freelance writing I also teach on-line environmental studies courses. Embedded somewhere in a comment I read recently about the Obama Administration's Energy Agenda, I read the words 'Net Zero Energy Buildings'. NOW that's GREEN! I could only hope some day that New York State (or say, Saratoga Springs City Council) would require all new buildings be built as Net Zero Energy buildings.

Friends who work in the building industry say they would love to do it, but the materials cost to do it are cost-prohibitive. And I believe them. That's why this demand and buzz around Going Green is really necessary. Because to get to Net Zero Building requirements, it's going to take customers asking for it, citizens requesting it from politicians, politicians providing tax incentives to do it, and business responding. And believe it or not, the smart forward thinking businesses, especially large corporations, know they need to move in that direction.

So, I say, Keep going green. In the meantime, I'm going to keep gardening and try to get on my bike more because when it comes right down to it, though I love my internationally-made clothes and computers, I know the most sustainable living is local living........