Bio Bag blues: reframing "green"
dillon klepetar '08 -- guest columnist

"The solutions that the green movement has brought forward are disconnected from the magnitude of the problem."

So you’ve read the science and finally confronted the fact that global warming is real, human activity is causing it, and that the effects of climate change on the planet will be devastating. Now what? Going green seems like the most plausible recourse but before you jump in, there are some things you’ll need to be leery of. “Green” is a lofty idea being popularized and sold in our society. As you navigate the environmental movement, be cautious of what gets labeled as green and what is actually ecologically sound.

My skepticism of the term “green” first came when St. Michael’s began its composting program through the hard work of Green Up SMC. Composting on campus is a major stride, and it would not have been possible without strong student advocacy. But a qualm of mine remains—the Bio Bag. The buckets for the program came complete with Bio Bags, a compostable version of petroleum-based plastic bags. At first glance, “green bags” seemed like a reasonable alternative to plastic. But I stepped back and thought about it. I compost at home and I don’t use bags at all. You’re telling me that we’re going to use “green” bags simply because they’re green and not because we actually require them to compost? As a society, and as a movement, we have created green alternatives that are outright unnecessary in some cases.

Bio Bags are made with corn so you can imagine the amount of energy it takes to transform a fresh corn cob into a bag. Secondly, the bags are manufactured in Norway so whatever corn is used to produce the bags must be transported to the factory, and then has to be shipped here to the states via ship or plane in cardboard packaging. Now you see why what seemed to be a green choice is actually environmentally-damaging and that the most earth-friendly way to compost is by using no bags at all. This case is especially disheartening when I see a group so ardent about changing their lifestyles for the environment and then being fed a distorted concept of “green.” Corn could be best used for food, not fuel and certainly not for more bags.

Antonio Pomerleau gave St. Michael’s a $1,000,000 donation which will be used to build an Alumni Center across Route 15. The president and others have assured me that the building will be LEED-certified, a “green” designation. All the environmentalists on campus should be cheering for a victory right? I’m not cheering. We don’t need an Alumni Center and having an unnecessary building LEED-certified is a disgrace to the spirit of the LEED designation altogether. We may be using sustainable building materials and so fourth, but at bottom, the greenest thing to do would be to thank Pomerleau for his donation and offer alumni access to the many perfectly functional buildings that we already have on campus.

Recently my aunt gave me a book. It’s called The Green Book. She claims that it’s the first of its kind and that it is truly genuine because Oprah featured it on her show (a note to the reader: Oprah gives out cars on her show). Anyway, the book includes a series of one-page testimonies given by celebrities on how they're each “going green.” It seems that the only way the majority of Americans will do anything progressive is if celebrities endorse an idea. Regardless, in this book, and in many other facets of popular culture, we’ve framed green as everything but. I think my aunt likes the book because it made “green” living easy—she drives even more than she used to and is certain that refillable pens are going to stop climate change.

In the “green” book, Dale Earnhardt Jr. speaks about the importance of recycling, and about how his former sponsor (Budweiser) is the largest aluminum recycler in the United States. This is a guy who spends his weekends driving 500-mile-long circles in a hardly fuel-efficient vehicle. And he’s telling us about how green he is? Recycling is great, don’t get me wrong (although reducing and reusing are more effective), but how can we possibly convince ourselves that we’re “doing our part” when there are obvious inconsistencies in our behavior. Earnhardt’s line of thinking might go something like this, “I recycle, so now I can spew as much carbon into the air as my little heart desires.” We all need to be cautious of justifying our entire lifestyles by doing only certain things greenly. If you’ve gone “green” but your lifestyle hasn’t been overhauled, then put this “green” book down and pick up Jim Merkel’s, Radical Simplicity.

I have friends that have replaced their incandescent bulbs with energy-saving CFLs. “Look at me”, they say, “I’m going green, right?” Not necessarily. CFLs may be a good start to a greener lifestyle but they certainly don’t qualify you to drive to North Campus next time instead of taking the shuttle. We have created a culture which says one little green move is enough. If CFLs were going to prevent an environmental cataclysm, I wouldn’t be writing this article; it’s going to take more, much more. People say to me “Dillon, you expect too much of people…baby steps, baby steps.” This is GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE, reversing climate change is not the work of babies. There is no way that small steps will carry us far enough in the limited time period we have to act.

The solutions that the green movement has brought forward are disconnected from the magnitude of the problem. One pamphlet asked me to buy a car with better gas mileage. I don’t own a car. I don’t need a car. Buying a fuel-efficient vehicle is not a solution and neither is driving 55 mph on the highway. The solution is driving less and preferably, not at all. We have framed green as simply buying the technology to maintain the same lifestyles that created climate change. The hybrid car, the electric lawnmower, the napkins made from recycled paper; all of these things would be perfect if it was absolutely necessary to drive everywhere or to have a well-manicured lawn or to use napkins at every meal. The solution is giving up the car and finding new ways to get around with less impact. The solution is replacing your monoculture lawn with a permaculture garden in order to eat locally. And napkins, really? That’s what shirt sleeves are for!

Let’s be honest with ourselves…we face an insurmountable challenge that will eventually affect every living thing on the planet. If we are serious and dedicated about living a green lifestyle, then we must be critical of ourselves and critical of the way “green” has been portrayed in our society. We need to make radical, and sometimes sacrificial, changes at a rapid rate in order for the environment to recover. Putting a bumper sticker on our car does but little. The earth is a resilient entity; if we give it some breathing room, we just may avoid our collision with nature.

In case you were wondering, I’m guilty too.