It's the Environment, Stupid!

All this political hype of the last few weeks has me sick of hearing about the environment. Everybody now feels obligated to mention it in speeches. One particular phase of note is "energy independence." I guess that started with W's State of the Union several years ago but now it's a mandatory mention in any stump speech. I give credit to gas prices. I also hear a lot about drilling. Masses of people demanding, or at least strongly supporting, drilling. It seems like a non-issue. Drilling is going to happen and not much will change, but today the house voted to ease the ban on offshore drilling (and without a new president). Of course those tree-hugging Democrats still left the best prospects off limits and snuck in legislation to investigate sources of energy other than oil. Now tell me, how is that gonna reduce our dependence on oil?.

Getting away from all of the politics and the ubiquitous discussion of issues I still find myself inundated with the environment. It's like the environment is all around me. Green is the new 'zero carbs' in a world where I have to take the bus, rapidly renew things, and shut off lights. Even in chocolate you can find the green marketing trying to move product that was probably shipped to the point of consumption from more than 1,000 miles away.

Lauren and I recently went to Serenbe for an anniversary weekend of relaxation, but everywhere we looked we ran into groups of recycling locavores. This place was half farm, half art fair and all green. For the sake of our psyches I can only hope the fervor of their Earth-friendliness is not sustainable.

This type of constant messaging on the greenness of things is getting to some people. It could drive us all crazy soon. Take for instance the video below. The woman in the video probably saw a Brita commercial on tv, heard how much energy goes into bottled water, read the words "metal oxide salt" somewhere, considered fears of shifting water supplies from "global warming" and was trying to put it all together with the latest news on BPA.



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