Experiences 📍

Every day it seems like the marketers are thinking of new products that can give a good green-wash, and sell as a premium, especially around the occasion of Vladimir Lenin’s birthday, popularly known as Earth Day. It’s actually pretty ironic that the capitalists of the world have taken Vladimir Lenin birthday’s to sell marked-up “green” products. Market-specialization does mean you can charge a higher price.

The best way to live green is to buy nothing. Every material item you buy has an environmental impact. The question should always be when shopping — do I really need this item?

A person smarter then me once said, “Nothing becomes obsolete faster then the future.” Futuristic technologies often become obsolete quickly, as do many of the trendy green-products whose use often doesn’t live up to the hype. Sure, energy efficiency standards are necessary to create a floor for products and spur innovation, but much that is hyped as green technology rarely lives up to it’s promise. If something where to save a lot of energy, or have superior environmental performance, why isn’t it used already?

I often thought, farmers and sportsmen are some of the greenest people out there. If you spend a lot of time in the field and the forest, you learn a lot about nature. Hunters spent countless hours peering down from their tree stands, observing the world around them. Farmers know the cost of food waste firsthand, they work tireless hours to produce the raw materials that turned into food. People who live off-grid know how much energy really costs — especially when their battery voltage starts dropping. Country boys who burn their own trash, know exactly how noxious some of the materials are they consume every day.

The greenest thing you can do on Earth Day, is spend no money. Stay off of Amazon, away from the stores. Go for a walk to a nearby nature preserve or park, spend some time observing nature. Go fishing, go hiking! If you can walk to work and your destination, that’s even better, but if you have to hop a bus going that way, it’s better then driving. Don’t by into commercialism crap this Earth Day.