Tag: green

  • What $4.05 gas means to Romeo

    gas goes up againNothing. If it doesn’t change how you use your car, $4.05 gas means nothing to you.

    I had this thought as I picked up a cup of coffee this morning at a local gas station and watched people belly up to the pump to offload some cash. I actually hope it hits $5 or $7 per gallon soon. Why? We need to change, that’s why. 

    Yesterday I decided to ride my bike to the library. Its only a couple of miles and its perfectly flat getting over there. I had the time and it was a nice morning so I figured, why not? Our town has a great trail system and even the main road, Van Dyke, has a bike lane to use.

    But a funny thing happened as I was riding. I got flicked off a lot. People slowed down to yell out the window at me. One man even intentionally drove up behind me as I rode down the bike lane and honked at me… angrily telling me I don’t have a right to the road. (Newsflash, it’s legal) It was sad. Because at the same time I was observing something fundamentally wrong with our town: A bunch of fat, angry people yacking on their phones as they drive around… alone. Almost every car had a single passenger… even monster SUVs and minivans. All empty.

    Gas is only going to get more expensive. It crossed $130/barrel this week and it will only be a few days until those prices are reflected at the pump. 

    So what should you do? It’s pretty simple. You should drive less. You should ask your boss if you can alter your job hours to carpool with a coworker. Next time you move, move somewhere close to your work. You should inflate your bike tires and ride around town instead of driving everywhere. You should walk a little more. Maybe you have two cars and you could get by with only one? Maybe your kids need to carpool to soccer? Maybe you should just tell their coach to move practice to your neighborhood instead of a county away? In short. Stop the insanity! 

    We are the reason gas is $4.05 and not $1.79 or less, stop whining and change. I think the government should tax gas more and oil companies should get richer until angry, fat, cell phone happy Americans change their behavior.

    What do you think? How could you change your driving behavior? What’s it going to take before you actually change your gas guzzling behavior?

  • Strange Green Bedfellows

    GreenIn Christian circles it is en vogue to be green.

    It won’t be long before the first Bible with a low carbon footprint is on the market. And more and more churches are considering ways that they can lower their churches energy loads with LED and other low wattage uses. For that, I celebrate. I think churches should be on the cutting edge of technology and limiting waste.

    And yet, this pull towards all things green brings with it some odd bedfellows. While green may be hip, it still carries the same baggage from the far left. You know, the types that throw paint on fur coat wearing ladies in New York City, the people who chase fishing boats with Greenpeace ships, the type who blow up cars at dealerships just to prove a point, the type that fight the building of a life-saving overpass in order to protect a rare sponge, and the type that take to trees to protect trees and call trespassing in the name of the tree OK.

    As Christians sort out how to be both green and redeemed, they have a whole new slough of stuff to sort through. Enter Toni Vernelli.

    Toni chose to have a child aborted and was later sterilized to save the environment.  That’s right… she murdered an unborn human being in the name of green.

    While some might think it strange to celebrate the reversal of nature and denial of motherhood, Toni relishes her decision with an almost religious zeal.

    “Having children is selfish. It’s all about maintaining your genetic line at the expense of the planet,” says Toni, 35.

    “Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.”

    While most parents view their children as the ultimate miracle of nature, Toni seems to see them as a sinister threat to the future. Story

    Let’s call this what it is. This lady is deranged. Her logic isn’t logical. It makes no difference what epistemology you run it through… she is messed up. This is why I think there should be a deliniation somewhere between “practical green” and “radical green.”

    See, I’m all in favor of encouraging people to buy better cars and turn off lights. I’m even in favor of making it easy and giving people tax credits to swap light bulbs and put in more efficient heating/cooling systems. I’m even in favor of people getting solar systems and wind power and whatever else we can do to lessen our dependency on fossil fuels in favor of more sustainable energy sources. I’m in favor of all that. These are practical green things. But I stand against radical antisocial behavior.

    So I ask my Christian friends. How far into “green” is far enough? And how do we delimit the radicals in order to keep the good in being green?