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That green thing
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mat-ty



Joined: 07 Jul 2007
Posts: 7850

PostPosted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 8:27 pm    Post subject: That green thing Reply with quote

I thought this was pretty funny. I personally am all for taking care of mother earth, maybe that's why we all love windsurfing so much, no noise , no exhaust fumes.


Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own shopping 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 cashier 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, pop 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. 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 in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every shop 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 nappies 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 county of Yorkshire. 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 post, 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 petrol 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 water from a fountain or a tap when we were thirsty instead of demanding a plastic bottle flown in from another country. We accepted that a lot of food was seasonal and didn’t expect that to be bucked by flying it thousands of air miles around the world. We actually cooked food that didn’t come out of a packet, tin or plastic wrap and we could even wash our own vegetables and chop our own salad.
But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the tram or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mothers 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 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza 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 to another selfish older person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart-ass young person.
Remember: Don't make old people mad. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.




PS - Help the environment and don't print this email unless you really need to!
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rigitrite



Joined: 19 Sep 2007
Posts: 520
Location: Kansas City

PostPosted: Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In WWII we recycled EVERYTHING. We didn't just conserve, we rationed! This country was gung-ho green in ways that even the most liberal anti-development hippy democrat could only dream of!!! I fail to understand why we can't do that again....actually, I fail to understand why our leaders are too spineless to ask some sacrifice on the part of our lazy, bloated, SUV-drivin' populace.*


*I submit that 99.9% of iwindsurf is neither lazy, bloated, or drives an SUV. And that we all recycle with a zeal that would make Al Gore giggle like a school-girl.

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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The point is that society is becoming more throwaway than before, which is a regrettable trend.
We are presently cleaning up hundreds of Superfund and other waste dumps. Thirty years ago a river in New Jersey caught fire it was so polluted.The air in many cities is improving even with double the population.
When I was a kid in the fifties the highways were a thousand mile long trash dump.
After WW2 we poisoned the groundwater in many communities. It remains so until today despite trillions in taxes we have had to spend to clean up the mess we made in the good old days.
Where are forests from my childhood? We clear cut them to extract 10 percent of the lumber.Where is my grandpas farm? The fine black topsoil washed into a polluted river after he allowed them to raze his forest. The river filled up and now it floods his pasture making it useless for farming.
All the millions of tons of DDT and other poisons......
Perhaps that was the part the kid was talking about.
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pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

keycocker wrote:
Thirty years ago a river in New Jersey caught fire it was so polluted.

Interesting. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio did the same thing...

But everything you said is spot-on.
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keycocker



Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Cuyahoga wasn't the first waterway to catch fire in the good old days.The famous fire in 69 wasn't even the first time the Cuyahoga had caught fire.I watched them put out the one in New Jersey.They had to dump tons of chemicals in the river and then spent years cleaning them out.
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rigitrite



Joined: 19 Sep 2007
Posts: 520
Location: Kansas City

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dane is correct about the various rivers catching on fire as well as other points. I think it's important to remember that mother earth could care less about the human race. She hardly needs "our help" to survive. Environmentalism should be 100% self motivated, since this is the only planet we have to survive on....there will be no colonizing the moon, mars, or other worlds. I vote we take care of the place and not continue to eff it up with such abandon.
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pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

keycocker wrote:
The famous fire in 69 wasn't even the first time the Cuyahoga had caught fire.I watched them put out the one in New Jersey.

Yes, I think I read that the Cuyahoga burned three or four times, usually burning docks at the same time.

It's amazing what lack of regulations do to our environment -- and yet a certain segment of our society today argues that we should have no regulations, because businesses will self-police.

Yeah, right. Sure they will. Even GE got its ass in deep doo-doo for dumping PCBs in the Housatonic River. And you'd think that GE would be an upstanding citizen, fully aware of environmental sensitivities. But, nooooo......

It's all about the bucks, nothing more.

And I should have realized that New Jersey would have its own flammable rivers...
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rigitrite



Joined: 19 Sep 2007
Posts: 520
Location: Kansas City

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The last fire on the Cuyahoga got the ball rolling for the clean water & clean air acts: two of the most unquestionably successful pieces of legislation ever enacted by congress. Our short attention spans do not correctly recall how bad pollution was in the 60's & 70's.
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pueno



Joined: 03 Mar 2007
Posts: 2807

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 6:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

rigitrite wrote:
The last fire on the Cuyahoga got the ball rolling for the clean water & clean air acts: two of the most unquestionably successful pieces of legislation ever enacted by congress. Our short attention spans do not correctly recall how bad pollution was in the 60's & 70's.

Most intelligent, thinking people agree with you. A certain segment of our political spectrum does not agree. They want regulations lifted so business can do as they wish -- such as dumping toxic oily waste directly into our waterways.
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swchandler



Joined: 08 Nov 1993
Posts: 10588

PostPosted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In these times where business can be viewed as tough and expensive, it's an important point for us to not take our eyes off the focus. Business activities can involve dealing with some pretty unhealthy stuff, both for us and the environment. In my view, it's a very unwise point to reduce regulations for specious reasons. While regulations certainly make business more challenging, regulations actually stimulate innovation and development, and that means jobs and the potential for long term profit.

If you want to protect the environment and get ahead, investment in our future better guarantees our leadership role as everything plays out over time. Going back to older less responsible standards might improve short term profits for the 1%, but that doesn't put us in the forefront internationally, or help protect our environment.
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