No its not Tom. Yes there was waste and stupidity around the climate and arrogance (when they were told that it had happened before) but there wasn't anything in that post that wasn't true and wouldn't be good for the world today. Glass is hard to find even when the plastic is toxic. Mowing the lawn gasless, is still a good activity as is putting your back into things. We have the potential to be better today but plastic should be reused and dumping should have as good a green impulse as the Aztecs did in 1514. Bullshit is also useful for fertilizer and if its grass feed it can sit in the sun for a year and what's left is better for diapers than anything you can buy, once the toxins are gone.
REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Walker Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:00 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Being Green Then and Now Cute but false and misleading. In 1930 Kenneth Burke wrote a lovely satire, published in the New Republic titled "Waste, the Future of Prosperity". "The Tragedy of Waste" was the title of a 1925 book by Stuart Chase. Both of these dealt with the prodigious environmental destruction wrought in the name of economic prosperity. Anyone ever hear of the dust bowl or the great fire of 1910? People would do better to read Burke's satire than to dream up fairy tales like "Being Green Then and Now." "Cute" bullshit is still bullshit. On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 6:39 PM, Arthur Cordell <[email protected]> wrote: Subject: Being Green Then and Now Being Green Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days." The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations." She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property, (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then. We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day. Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day. Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state ofMontana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then. We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then. Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint. But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then? Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person... We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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