going GREEN?

so in regards to all this hype about going green and saving the environment, i decided to write my 2 cents about this matter...

within the past 2-3 yrs... going 'green' has become a fad... in the 70s, if you were in support of the green party and was an environmentalist, they call you a hippie. Nowdays, if you shop organically grown food, recycle and drive a hybrid, they call you someone whose 'green'.

now, i'm not an environmentalist... sometimes i forget to recycle, i don't normally buy organic food, and i don't go out of my way to pick up garbage on the streets... i guess the only 'green' thigns i have or do is that i drive a fuel efficient car (only b/c i had no choice in getting it), i started riding my bike to places (b/c i want to exercise) and i use a SIGG (alluminum) water bottle.

but by no means i'm wasteful. I always finish all the food that's on my plate (can't let it go to waste), i don't usually buy bottled water (only b/c i hate buying water), and i try hard to remember to recycle.

one guy that's pretty 'green' is my favourite artist jack johnson.

he's got that laid back surfer presence combine w/ some pretty chill songs and a value of family, community and the environment... pretty cool guy huh?

not too long ago, my fiancee and i had went to his concert near barrie to see him live... this was my second jack johnson concert.

w/ all the hype around his new environmentalist non-profit organization called 'all at once', i've heard alot about how he tours in a veggie oil bus, tells the venues to recycle, hires caterers that buys locally grown organic food... this guy is pretty green.

but any trend that blows up quickly and becomes popular... i'm always skeptical of...

we got companies from toyota to wal-mart going 'green'....

w/ this skepticism, i went to the concert... only to find out that jack johnson's concert... was not that different then the previous concerts that i've been to (venue, food, pricing, atmosphere,'green' wise)...

i saw water bottles everywhere (even though they had water re-filling stations, which i didn't see any of them). water bottles in vendors and on the ground (after the show). The food was the same greesy overprice food ($5-7 for hot dogs to a slice of pizza). Although there was one vendor out of 20 + vendors, was vegetarian and organic... the food options were dominated by pizzavilles and greese n' more greese (although i quite enjoyed my greesy poutine).

the atmosphere was a mix... i saw some families at the back (who were pretty laid back), but kelly and i were surrounded w/ pot heads that kept pushing us to keep moving forward towards the stage... i tell you after 5 hrs of waiting, 3 hrs of watching pretty lame bands... by the time jack johnson came on... i was pretty exhausted.

don't get me wrong, the show was amazing! he played most of my favourite songs at the begining which lifted my spirits up, but by the end of the set, i just wanted to get outa there to beat the crowd... needless to say, we left the show before the last song (which i never do at concerts, especially not jack johnson)...

so what did i learn from this experience?

i learned that, no matter how hard people try to go 'green', things will still remain the same unless we change the very cause of what's effecting the environment.... our life style.

There are roughly about 600 million cars in this world..... that's crazy in terms of thinking about how much one car can produce CO2 emissions.

In toronto alone there are about 100 million plastic bottles that end up wasted in the city... and only 65% gets recycled... the rest goes into our land... which will take thousands of years to decompose or they get burnt which the harmful fume goes into our eco system.

as you obviously know, there are endless factors that effects the environment, planes, ships, hydro, electricity, cities, manufactoring industry, lumber industry, etc...

these mass production and mass consumption of capitalism had crippled our environment and i believe that the earth's life is being shortened by the second.

in my opinion, we as people need to learn to live more simply. we need to get rid of the belief of 'more is better', instead we need to learn to live with less. we as consumers need to be aware of the evil that goes on behind these products and learn to live without the things that everyone else seems to have.

why can't a household have 1 car instead of 2?

why do we have to pump AC so high in buildings that i have to wear a sweater inside?

why do we buy bottled water instead of drinking tap water (by the way, dasani and aquafina drinkers, they're owned by coca-cola and pepsi and they just put filtered tap waters from Vancouver, Calgary, Mississauga and Brampton. how bout that, they use our tax money to fill up their water and sell it to our asses for $1.50, sounds like a scam if you ask me).


we need to learn to live without the luxuries of this society has to offer, and live a simple life in order to battle this issue. I believe that as Christians, we need to be more aware of where our money's going and also take care of this beautiful land God had given to us. Remember, the kingdom coming looks more like heaven coming to earth then 'us' going to heaven. when all is said and done, God will make all things new, there will be a new heaven and new earth... let's take well care of the land that's been a blessing to all of us.

before i close...

what if people had put the same type of focus into ending poverty in our world instead on the environment.... i wonder how many lives we could save with this kind of attention we're giving just to go 'GREEN'...