We all want to go green, be eco-friendly and be happy about it. The only hitch is that we live in a world which makes it difficult for us.
Read on the comments and laments of so many people we have come across. While some have been lip-servicing, some have made us to sit up, think, and do something about it.
- I go shopping for groceries and end up coming home with handful of plastic bags. Not that I wanted them, but I do not have a choice.
- I remember my grandmother shopping with a cloth bag in hand. It looked so un-cool then. On that note, it still does.
- I hate to use public transport. They are so crowded and dirty.
- I just can’t do with one car. Not when there are so many eye catching beauties within my reach.
- I would love to go to a virgin forest… where no man has gone before.
- I love stuff that come with great packaging. It makes me pick it up right off the shelves. What the heck, it comes in plastic and aluminum. What do you expect me to do?
- I want my kid to be eco-friendly but… the best toys I have come across for children – are made of plastic. What do you expect me to do about it?
- OK! I will take my bicycle to work. Please ensure that I don’t choke myself to death by the time I reach there.
- These genetically modified tomatoes look so Yummmm!
- It is not mine, but the Government’s role to clean up this mess.
- I am a cleanliness freak. My detergent shelf is stocked with the best scrubbers, abrasives, cans, and lot more. I give a damn if the contents are toxic to the environment.
- Mosquito nets are such a hassle to use. I have the latest mosquito repellents in use. My health and by baby’s health is far more important to me.
- I do go to church every Sunday for the world now looks a lot more like the revelations.
- Is it wrong to indulge in pleasure, once in a while?
- How can I survive without animal-tested cosmetics and leather in my wardrobe? I feel so left out when I meet my peers.
- About the cosmetics, I would want a safe and well trialed product before it reaches my skin.
- If you don’t give me a dust bin, how can I not litter?
- The last thing I want is to be shunned down by my peers – for being so, ugh, grandmotherly.
- Yeah, I wasted a glass of milk today. You want me to put it back in the cow?
- It was so romantic to receive a thousand long stemmed roses on our thousandth day of our wedding.
- Isn’t so amazing to see the Jumeria Island in Dubai coming up on sea? Man can indeed conquer nature.
- What wrong did I do that I face these unprecedented power cuts, reduced water supply, higher than high gasoline prices, and so much misery. Why do I have to bear the brunt of others actions?
- I am a non-vegetarian since I was a toddler. I still like to eat food that way. You want me to give it up just because of the environmental fad? Hugh!
- Don’t blame me for answering my nature call in public. If you don’t give me a toilet in public place, where do I urinate?
- In office, I need to print. I know I am using precious paper. I know the toner inks are not that ecologically great. I know the paper is not made the ecological way. It is not in my hands and I am powerless. What do you want me to do?
- Online money has been a boon. But I have been suffering from more thefts and frauds.
- Do I worry about making money and providing livelihood or extinction of some god-damned insects?
- I want a car that won’t give bad emissions, leave lesser carbon footprints and blah blah. Do you have any – within my reach?
- Now, where do I dump all the plastic that I have painstakingly been collecting since so long?
- I live in an apartment where I can do nothing with kitchen waste recycling. I feel miserable.
- So what wrong with air travel, especially when it is affordable?
- My carbon footprints? You go and ask those in the so-called developed nations to answer first.
- Why should I stop having children because the world is over populated? Demand-Supply economics is none of my business. It’s none of your business to ask me to do something about it either.
- When it comes to entertainment, I am doing my conscientious bit. I vacation only at the eco-friendly resorts and forest lodges. It is none of my concern that I am adding up to the crowd that alters the ecology there.
- How can I go to the office restroom to wash my coffee mug every time I have a coffee? I would rather use those disposable paper mugs and be done with it.
- WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY? Oh! I have to wear green dress to the office today, write a slogan on how I am going to preserve the environment and possibly win a prize for that. My desk needs to be decorated too – in green color. We are going to have speeches and presentations on preserving the environment, where we will be served hot snacks in disposable plastic plates and coffee in the throw-away mugs.
We have a Zen saying
“If you do not understand something, it does not change anything
If you understand something, it does not change anthing”
Change occurs only by doing, by concrete action.
We all say we want to be green,understand and comment on so many issues and sign so may petitions and opinion polls. How many of us do something about it starting with ourselves, our homes, our way of life?