Categories: The Green Room

Do you suffer from green fatigue? (The symptoms)

Are you tired of reading doomsday articles about how the world is going to…

by Alex Shimo on Monday, January 12, 2009 6:02pm - 15 Comments

Are you tired of reading doomsday articles about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket? Are you annoyed by the “greener than thou” attitudes of people who eat granola, wear hemp trousers and lecture you on Who Killed The Electric Car? Are you infuriated when your compost bag bursting on the way to the green bin spilling rotten garbage all over your lawn? Do you long to set fire to the mountains of plastic garbage bags you have collected under your sink in a massive explosion of noxious fumes? Do you secretly long for climate change to hurry up so we can enjoy lengthy, hot summers where there is nothing but drought?

If you answer yes to one more more of the above, you may suffer from green fatigue.

This modern day, post-Gore syndrome is the subject of numerous articles explaining the symptoms and what to do about it. The Seattle Times recommended the eco-friendly site, www.theidealbite.com, as a way of counter-acting the condition, which is a little like recommending more mercury to a person suffering from Minamata Disease. The New York Times defined the condition as “urgent, vexing, and sometimes contradictory information played at too high a volume for too long.” To turn down the volume on the cacophony of persistent environmental information, it recommended the web site www.simplesteps.org, which breaks down what you can do to help the planet into bite size chunks of information according to how much time you have, whether its a minute, a morning or a month.

One reason for green fatigue is that it’s difficult to know how much is enough. If you change the lightbulbs to fluorescents, should you cut down on your flights as well? If you become a locovore, and only eat locally-grown food, should you also start to grow your own food, like Michael Pollan advocates? And what about today’s news that Googling harms the planet? How are we supposed to deal with that?

Having written a book on cutting down your carbon footprint, I would recommend you ignore the latest figures on the environmental cost of Google, and continue using the Internet. We live in an information economy and if you stop using the web, you’re going to end up shooting yourself in the foot. The best way to tackle green fatigue is to go Green Lite. Take a break from it all and go for a drive. If you still feel fatigued by tomorrow, I suggest you read more tips from this site.

Tags: climate change, green fatigue

More by Alex Shimo

sf

Gotta say, that Google story is complete madness. I’d like to see a story about how much extra energy is required to build a hybrid car. Then we would be able to tell if they are really green.

But really, I think green fatigue started when energy use became an environmental target.

Energy is life, it powers everything and anything. Energy is the lifeblood of modern society. To label it as harmful is madness. The fact that we now have governments ads telling us to stop using energy is crazy. Why don’t they just ask us to return to living in caves.

Doing google searches, or using energy in any other way – that is not harmful, that is innovation, and that is progress.

wayne moores

sf, Al Gore and others have become fabulously weathy telling outright lies, peddling snake oil, while living in a mansion that sucks up more power than some subdivivions. People like him and Sukuzi have bought into their own fearmogering and will never admit they are wrong as they would be outed as fools and charlitans. Don’t expect any helpful suggestions from them. Besides they are making a fine living off the whole scam. Kyoto doesn’t even address pollutants that are killing people right now. They don’t care as they are too busy with their heroic effort to “save the world”. Far easier to rant and rave(and make millions) about something that might happen 100 years from now. Pretty hard to disprove that as none of us will be here. Fortunately, big Al just slipped up, said the entire ice pack will be gone in five years. I hope to be here long enough to watch him try to backpeddle out of that whooper. Since the Earth has gone into another cooling period for the last ten years i’m not buying beachfront property on Baffin Island just yet.
SAB

Just to be clear – are you arguing that burning coal, oil, natural gas – is a good thing?

wayne

Ah Yes! The old story of unintended consequences. Imagibne if all we drove electric cars that would fix the atmosphere – oh wait a sec what are we going to do with all the batteries that end up being more toxic than the petroleum molecules – Oh I know Hydrogen .. wait sec any methof producing hydrogen will impact the earth in ways we can not even imagine – same old story around and around we go – as Jack Nicholson says = we live we die and the wheels of the bus go around and around.

wayne moores

The whole electric car debate shows how easily a lot of people can be scammed. Most of these people never think it though as to how the power is generated that comes out of the outlet to power the car. It would be fine if it all came from hydro but it does not. Most viable hydro resourses have been tapped into except for the Upper Churchill Falls in Labrador. The North American power grid runs close to capacity now. How in God’s name could we transfer the entire transportation infrastucture to run on electricity. It would bring down the entire electric grid. The only way this would be possible would be by going on a massive building spree of coal fired generating plants like China has done or build many nuclear plants, both unaccepable to the enviro-fanatics. Not even mentioning the massive amounts of power and resourses it would take to recycle or otherwise deal with huge batteries that weigh in the neigbourhood of 500 lbs. The small batteries in conventional cars are a big headace now.

SAB

Wrong.

The bulk of electric car charging would occur at off peak times which means it could largely achieved by using Nuclear Power. The grid is busting at the seams at 4PM on a hot day in the summer – in the middle of the night there is excess capacity.

http://macleans.ca kc

Oh god! Can eco-psychiatrists be far behind?
darcymeyers

Common sense has to enter the equation. We need pragmatists in environmentalism, not doom spreaders who try to scare us into action. People given solid information are usually capable and willing to making more responsible choices.

Critical Reasoning

A perfect example of an environmental pragmatist is Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace who found himself ostracized from many of his fellow travellers when he started to advocate nuclear power as the only realistic way of weaning ourselves off carbon for power generation.

darcymeyers

Critical….I have read a lot of Moore’s writings and positions. I may not agree with him entirely, but he takes a very pragmatic approach and refuses to use fear-mongering to institute change.
And people call him “eco-judas” because he decided to use reason and pragmatism to bring about change.
cheers

http://macleans.ca kc

There is more than a little debate here on the coast as to whether Moore is pragmatist or sell-out. I’ve friends who were at the heart of trying to establish some protection for the area that became known as “the great bear rain-forest” who have no kind words for the kind of pragmatisim he advocated.

ml johnstone

Ok guys, just carry on as usual and kill more kids and people on the roads and in the streets. Someone will invent a better gasmask,protective body suit and ear muffs for me, THE PEDSTRIAN.
brian hunt

RE: Green Fatigue….or rather perhaps…..the Green is Fatigued …….. by us.

Did anyone ever hear the saying “worrying about the pennies while the quarters roll by?”

I just retired as an Environmental Planner after 30 years in the business and nobody seems to want to face the key issue ….the “quarter” …..if you like.

I hate to tell everybody, if you hadn’t noticed, but the pennies are the little things we as homosapiens can try to do to cut down our impact on the planet. All the things that we’ve all read about over the years; the light bulbs, the gas efficient cars, the pollution controls for land water and air in our legislation, the various recycling streams that have been implemented etc.

The issue that would represent the “quarter” is population growth and it has blithely rolled right by us and is now irretrievable..

The fact is, that since John Kennedy was innaugurated in 1960 or so, the planet’s population has doubled in size: 3 billion to over 6 billion people.

Read Meadows Randers and Meadows third edition to their original book. Look at the sheer mathematics of exponential growth. These numbers and trends were something I learned in first year at University in Ecology 101.

It was alarming to me then. I went on to exchange my Volkswagon van and long hair for a sedan, short hair and a tie.

I did my 30 years trying to work in aid of environmental issues. I’m damn happy to be out of the business .Everybody is now panicking over something that should have been entirely evident a long long long time ago to a lot more people. However, human nature being what it is we dont; do anything until it starts to have an immediate affect on the “me” in us.

We are in a condition of “overshoot.” right now by 1.2

ie/ we need 1.2 planet earths right now if things are to remain in the same overall level of environmental degradation that we’ve got them to.

The above-mentioned authors set out about 12 different “correction” scenarios for what is likely inexorably going to happen in the next 50 to 100 years. We are at 6.6 billion people now. They figure we’ll go down to somewhere between 1 and 2 billion either in steps or in a series of population crashes. I cant remember whether they postulated the social consequences or not, but it should be evident that with these reductions, there will be the attendant social strife and yes wars over the remaining resources.

The numbers add up something like this:

In 2000 years or so, the mass of mankind will equal the mass of the planet earth.

In 5000 years or so, the mass of mankind will equal the known mass of the universe.

It’ll be kinda tough to say at that point: “Would you please pass the butter?”

I’ve been to the pyramids and looked back in awe of that civilization and their works still left here 5000 years later.

Personally I’d rather go sailing and forget about what I couldn’t possibly achieve…..well I don’t have any children so perhaps I did more than my bit and should have been a shoe salesman instead of fighting a preordained losing battle.

Actually….I just sold my house and I AM going sailing! So I’m off to find an ocean and a sailboat. If I’m ever asked what I did when I was working I’d like to think I’d have the sense to say: “I was a shoe salesman.”

Cheers

….and

“Thanks for all the fish” *

Brian

*(A line I quite like from the end of “Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”)

ps/ now to go look for a Volkswagon van and grow my hair long……I gave up on the necessity of ties a couple of decades ago.
wayne moores

Brian, some very good points. I have often asked a similar question in regards to Canada and it’s immigration policy. The eco-fanatics lead by Suzuki keep screaming we should reduce our “hot air” to 30% below 1990 levels. How were are supposed to do this I am not sure. It sure wouldn’t happen if we all live the lifestyles of Big Al and Suzuki. Imploding the economy is the only way I can think of. And it sure as hell isn’t going to happen with current immigration policies. How many people have fludded into this country since 1990? Do they expect all these people ,mostly from tropical climates, are coming here to freeze in the dark? Since 1990 Canada’s population has risen from apx. 30 million to 33 million. All through immigration. Canada’s population has would have actually declined except for this fact. This is the elephant in the room(or inconvienient truth, if you will) that no one wants to talk about. If Canada is serious about meeting Kyoto targets we will have to end all immigration in this country immediately, and let’s face it , that will never happen. The same loonies who are screaming that we are eco-criminals would then be screaming we are racists or worse. Any, enjoy the sailboat, or VW micobus, as George Carlin said, the planet’s doin’ just fine, seen a lot worse than us and will still be here after were gone, just a new paradim, Earth+plastic.
brian hunt

Wayne, you have a discerning eye.

We’re idiots to think that this can all continue to go on AND we can all have economic growth and prosperity.

Some of my MOST difficult encounters were with the NIMBY’s who used the environment to veil their own self-interest.

People who are NIMBY’s AND NOTES* probably have a point that is more centred on environmental concerns.

But never-the-less, everybody wants their children to go to school, have clothes and groceries and hospitals and roads and public transport and jobs to work at after they’re done school…and they want their children to be able to have children.

….an so it has been …and so it will be.

Somehow I knew that George Carlin quote would come to the fore. Good call. I don’t know whether I was the originator of the term “eco-terrorist” but I do know I was at the leading edge of it’s inception.

When the economy slowed down I thought I’d never sell the house and go sailing…so I applied for an advertised job of “Manager of Sustainable Environment” at a coastal area.

I got teleconference interviewed.

I was never so panicky in my life!

Thankfully, the house is sold and I’m on my way slowly to one of our oceans..

They’ll never find me.

*NOTEs: Not Over There Either

Question: What do you do with your mail when you’re at sea? I told the post office to tell everybody I was dead because there didn’t seem to be an appropriate box to fill out on the change of address form.