Last night we were having a conversation with some friends. They talked of building a new home, a 'green' home, and by this morning, I knew that I could not stomach this conversation without adding my two-cents worth.
Building a 'green' home? Come on ~ that's an absolute oxymoron! Isn't 'green' supposed to encompass all things environmentally friendly? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. If that is the case, building a home has to be the least environmentally friendly of anything that I can think of. Let's think about this, shall we:
-we tear down trees that have been growing for a hundred years or so, thus taking away animal homes for deer, wildlife, birds, and bugs, not to mention the natural oxygen that the trees give off for clean air
-we then buy new products, not recycled products to build this said 'green' home, products like wood from trees, you know, like the ones we just tore down.
-again, we install all new products in our home, products that are big and expensive and will again end up in a landfill.
But in the end, we pitch in a solar light or two and install an energy-saving furnace and a few recycled pieces of art and it's green. Nevermind that the forest will never grow back, nevermind that the animals just lost their rightful home simply because we couldn't find a suitable home from the thousands and thousands of available homes in our area right now. Yet we spend all of our time washing out our tuna fish containers and milk cartons for the recycle bin. We carry cloth bags into Kroger instead of using more and more plastic bags. We even wash out our little ziploc bags to reuse. But, after all of this, we simply tear down a forest to build a home. Green?
We've looked at land to build a house before, so I'm talking to myself here too. I just found it ironic that the new thing in homes is 'green' homes.
I feel better. Thanks for listening to my rant.
3 comments:
Good point! You could tell your friends (and anyone else for that matter) that if they really want to be green, they can just buy our house. It's even in Green Township!
Preach it, sister!
All this "green" business annoys the crap out of me because it's just a fad...When Hollywood and politics move on to something else it won't matter anymore...We have a responsibility to care for the Earth that God gave us and that should just be what we do. It shouldn't be a big show or something people do to fit in with the Joneses or for the production of more useless junk that promotes "going green" but will just end up in the landfill.
Thanks for listening to MY rant. :)
My house is 150+ years old, you can't get more green than that. Think of all of the houses that weren't built because of it. I say if your truly green you will buy 90% of your stuff used like I do.
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