So there is no confusion, I'm going to start by saying that I'm not at all advocating to change behavior. I think it is a great thing that our culture is slowly but surely embracing environmentalism, and I commend anyone who is motivated enough to make any change, small or large. I'm not criticizing action. All I am criticizing is the way some things are described, and the words we use when talking about the environment.
What I'm tired of hearing, are products, services, and actions that are advertised as "good for the environment," when clearly they aren't. Most of the time they are just less bad. At the top of my list is clean coal. "Clean" coal is a misnomer, it should be called "less dirty" coal. A clean coal power plant is still generating pollution. Pollution is bad for the environment. Therefore, clean coal plants are bad for the environment. Don't get me wrong, they are a much better alternative to traditional coal plants. And choosing to pollute less is better than polluting more. But it is still pollution, and it is still bad for the environment. Advertise it as better for the environment, and I'll be first in line to agree. But don't call it good for the environment when it clearly isn't.
Along the same lines, we have cars that get really good gas mileage. My neon is one of them, getting 35+ MPG. Someone told me the other day that they were glad I was driving a car that was good for the environment. Please stop telling me this, when I know that driving my car, or any polluting car, is NOT GOOD for the environment. It's better than driving a Hummer, but it is still polluting.
I'm even going to take this a step further. Things that have zero impact on the environment should not be called good for the environment either. Riding a bike to work is a perfect example. This is neither good nor bad for the environment. It has no impact. Another example would be solar power. If you have a solar powered home, that's a great thing. I applaud you. But it's not good for the environment, it's just not bad for the environment.
Examples of things that are good for the environment: Planting a tree, picking up litter, cleaning a river.
Examples of things that are neutral for the environment: refraining from watering/mowing your lawn on Ozone Action days, "paperless" office, re-usable canvas bags for grocery shopping
Examples of things that are bad for the environment: Hydro-power dams, carpooling, low-flow toilets/showers.
To put this another way, imagine an idyllic world with zero pollution. Now imagine that world was filled with cars that get 40 MPG, solar, hydro, and clean coal power plants, and reliable public transportation in every city. When you add these things, the idyllic world gradually becomes polluted. Granted, it is polluted at a slower rate than if it were filled with 8 lane highways filled with SUV'S and gas/oil/coal plants provided all the energy, but that's not the point. The point is that it is still being polluted. They aren't good, they're just less bad.
Let me state again: I am not against anything that helps the environment. I'm not calling for people to stop doing these things, only to say what it is that they are doing correctly. All I am asking is to say what you mean, and mean what you say.
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9 comments:
After reading this post I get the feeling that this is something that really has been getting at you for awhile. I can picture us now back in our Shaw Hall dorm room watching TV, and a commercial coming on about clean coal power plants being good for the environment and you flipping out and shooting the dart gun repeatedly at the TV. Oh, and me laughing at how upset and riled up you were getting.
As far as what you said, I suppose you could make the arguement (we like to be argumentative, right?) that something like riding a bike indirectly good for the environment. Because you ride a bike, you are not riding a car, therefore you are not creating pollution. The absense of pollution is better than pollution, right? Kind of like zero being greater than a negative number, to be a mathematical dork. So it would seem that riding a bike is indirectly good for the environment.
In the same breath, planting a tree could be indirectly bad for the environment I suppose. If you plant a tree in a lot that will eventually become a subdivision of houses, is it worth planting a tree only to have the smog of tree cutters and log trucks come to take it down?
I guess my point is it's all how you look at it. If you were going to ride your bike to work no matter what, than you are not doing any good or harm to the environment. If you plant a tree in an area that will not be developed, you are more than likely doing some good for the environment.
Allllll that being said, I don't think I'm as opinionated about the subject as you, but the whole clean coal being good for the environment sticks out as being a little bothersome in my mind. As does your annecdote of your Neon being good for the environment. That irks me a little.
But again, not as much as you apparently =).
That's exactly my point. Riding your bike to work is BETTER for the environment, not GOOD for the environment. There is a difference.
Let me elaborate on the math analogy. Let's say that we give pollution a scale, 0 being no pollution and 100 being absolute pollution.
We can then give a number to indicate the amount of pollution.
Good for the environmnet would be anything that lowers that number. Neutral would be anything that keeps it the same. Bad for the environment would be anything that adds to the number.
We agree that adding a 0(riding bike) is definitely BETTER than adding 10(driving a car) But the number doesn't go down when you add 0 either. It's not good or bad, it's neutral.
As for the tree example. The tree itself subtracts the amount of pollution, it's good for the environment. The loggers and trucks add to the number, they are bad for the environment. It IS possible to create scenarios where the net effect of adding the plusses and minuses together is bad for the environment, but that doesn't change trees being good or trucks being bad.
Well I feel like you missed my point now.
Perhaps I had poor word choice, with better/good. I understand what you are saying about the riding a bike being better and not good, I get that. What I was trying to say was how one interprets what is "better" and what is "good" determines how something affects the environment.
You say that riding a bike is not good for the environment because it has no environmental impact. Yes, it's better than riding in a car. The bike itself is not doing any good for the environment, but the person riding the bike is doing the good. By not creating pollution, they are not adding to the pollution number, which is good. The bike, therefore, is indirectly good for the environment.
I know you will argue that adding no pollution to the environment does not constitute being good, but again I argue it's all how you look at it. I believe that adding no pollution to an enviroment already full of pollution is a good thing.
Tree example. Again, because the tree is cut down, and the minuses outweigh the pluses, the tree is indirectly bad for the environment. If the tree wasn't there, the trucks wouldn't have been there. No trucks, no smog and such. Again, the absense of pollution is good in my view.
The statement "Not polluting the environment is a good thing." and the the statement "Riding a bike is not good for the environment." are using different definitions of the word "good". If that's your point, then I agree.
My point:
The absense of pollution created by a person is good for the environment. The person is the one doing the good though.
Things like a bike can be indirectly good, as it can not be good (only better) for the environment on its own. It takes a person to do the good, making the bike the tool necessary for the good to happen.
My point is that the absence of pollution created by a person is NOT good for the environment -unless you are talking about good in the moral, right/wrong sense of the word "good."
Otherwise, I think you should use the word "better."
Creating an absence of pollution seems the same to me as "adding zero." Creating an absense of pollution is the same (same in a quantitative sense, not moral sense) as sitting on the couch doing nothing.
...only if that person sitting on the couch is sitting on the couch in place of polluting. If he was going to sit on the couch no matter what, then yeah, it's not good.
I still like the word "good" however, not just in a moral, right/wrong sense. Just how I feel. Agree to disagree.
"Riding a bike to work is a perfect example. This is neither good nor bad for the environment. It has no impact."
But, if you chose to ride a bike instead of driving your car, wouldn't this be good for the environment?
"Examples of things that are neutral for the environment"
I think those examples minimize our impact on the environment. I wouldn't say those are neutral.
The whole point of my rant is basically the difference between the word "good" and the word "better."
Riding a bike is BETTER for the environment than driving a car. If you don't like better, you can say "more good than"
To me, being "good" for the environment requires proactively helping the environment. Either adding something constructive to the environment, or removing something destructive from the environment.
The act of riding a bike in itself does no harm, but neither does it do good. In itself, the act of riding a bike is neutral.
When you replace something bad for the environment with something neutral for the environment, that is a good thing. But that doesn't mean that bike riding in itself is good for the environment. Bike riding can only be considered good in relation to somthing worse.
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