

Green Guilt


Confession:  I suffer from an acute case of well-deserved green guilt.  I write this not in my professional capacity, or as an advocate for a better business climate, but as a person with three young boys, a giant drafty house, and a gas-hogging suv.  I love polar bears, and in my youth I spent hours testing groundwater for the presence of acid rain in my neighborhood with my “Johnny Horizon” nature kit.  I even once did a science project demonstrating how acid rain impedes plant growth by growing two seedlings, one watered with tap water and the other with “acid rain”.  I honestly don’t remember how I acquired the acid rain, or whether I took the chlorine and flouride in the tap water into account, but you get my point.  I care about the environment.  The problem is, it is really hard to do everything right and have a job and run a house and raise three kids. 

I am committed to getting a hybrid vehicle.  When my truck is beyond repair, and I can afford one, and I have some confidence that it will not be immediately replaced by something even more efficient, and, oh yeah, when they make one that I can fit three boys and a great dane into at the same time.  I have toyed with the idea of getting a horse and keeping it in my carriage house, but I think that they frown upon any pet bigger than a great dane in the City of Troy.  Plus I don’t know if the Business Council would be amenable to having a horse fertilizing the parking area all day long. 

Then there is the issue of my house.  It is an historic house, once the home of the Governor of New York (more than 100 years ago) and also once covered in asbestos roofing material and aluminum siding.  I spent a fortune removing the asbestos and disposing of it properly– despite the assertion by well-meaning friends that if I did it myself, I could just throw the asbestos out with the garbage.  Then I spent another pile of borrowed money removing the architecturally inappropriate siding, and was thrilled to find very little damage to the clapboards and the stickwork.  I did not realize until this past winter that I also removed whatever insulation the siding provided.  I am not solely responsible for global warming, but the atmosphere around my house is noticeably warmer, prompting me to consider planting decorative plants around the perimeter that otherwise would not survive the colder climate.  So, now I have to insulate, but what with?  Fiberglass makes me itch,  but where would I find enough organic cotton batting to insulate my house?  Is it even fire retardant?  I am paralyzed to inaction because I don’t know what the right choice is.  Somehow pumping the walls of my house full of foam that miraculously fills the spaces and then hardens seems environmentally incorrect.  What is it made of?  I need more information. 

Then there is the daily task that makes me feel the worst.  Making lunches.  Paper bags– I have killed an entire forest packing three lunches a day during the school year.  I would use lunch boxes, but I have heard that some have lead in them, and the ripstop ones keep getting lost.  The tension that I feel putting snacks and sandwiches into plastic baggies is palpable, I feel so guilty using all that wasteful packaging.  I occasionally use foil, based upon my belief (of forgotten origin) that plastic is bad to put food in.  I am not sure if foil is worse than plastic, but it can’t be good.  Paper napkins just compound my feelings of being a hopeless polluter.  How big is my daily carbon footprint?  Is that even related to plastic bags?  Are plastic sandwich containers just as bad as plastic wrap?  What I really need is a source for hemp lunch bags, bamboo sandwich and snack containers, or else I might just lose my mind.  Does anyone know a therapist specializing in green guilt? 

Categories: General
Heather Briccetti

3 Responses

  1. Brian Nearing says:

    Great points, Heather. Our society, which has been shaped in an era of cheap energy, has many day-to-day issues to consider now that environmental impacts are better understood.

    I’m reading a book _ “You Can Prevent Global Warming” _ that gives people some useful, practical tips on how to treat energy as the precious commodity it has always been. Individual action, when combined with collective action, is what is needed to turn things around, and help leave a healing planet for your boys.

    No one can pull a 180 on this stuff all at once, but gradual changes adopted over time will accumulate, and when multiplied across socities world-wide, can have real positive impact.

    Here is a link to follow to learn more about the book…

  2. Karen says:

    I am not blind to the fact that there is lots of research that simply has not yet been done, but from what I’ve read, there are some plastics that are safer than others, at least as far as leaching BPA is concerned. If you find plastics with recycling numbers 1, 2, 4 or 5 on them, they should not contain BPA. I wouldn’t microwave anything in them, but I do use Tupperware or Gladware to pack my kids’ lunches. It cuts down on the waste to use Tupperware, and research has not (yet) shown them to be unsafe.

  3. Derek Wall says:

    Well I would dump the SUV! But guilt and therapy are no good, we need policy change, waste should be recycled by local government for example and investment put into rail so people like you with good intentions can be helped to be greener.

    Having said that if you insulate you save cash, if you get rid of te SUv you save cash, if you grow more food in your garden you save…

    Worm bins are a good fun way of reducing waste…but hey the big changes are political.

    If you know any one in the UK pass them on this