What is green?

The fragile earth crowd never ceases to humor me with their outlandish and worthless ideas for saving the planet. Most of these people live by the mantra “If it makes you feel good, it is good.” And they often make judgments about nature the same way: “If it makes you feel bad in your heart, then it is bad for the environment. Science and reality are rarely referenced. For those of you who know a little about Myers-Briggs, you can already tell that I am not one of those “touchy feely” personality types.

I thought it would be interesting to look at what kind of judgments people make when they try to look smart by using only their feelings. There are consequences when you unhinge your mind from your emotions!

Without getting too detailed, there are building standards that determine how “green” a building can be. For the most part, if you buy all your materials locally, no matter what they are, the building will be certified as green. For some reason, these standards automatically give a green light to bamboo. Environnmentalists love bamboo plantations. They are environmentally responsible forest management, rapidly renewable (ready for harvest in 5 to 10 years), and a source of income for struggling Asian farmers.

Contrast that with the hideous "biological desert" known as a pine plantation (below) that environmentalists loathe. Pine plantations are supposedly killing wildlife, songbirds, and the planet. Maybe we should change them to bamboo for wildlife and the environment?

Somehow, in the green battles raging in newspapers and magazines (made with paper, from wood) wood has become non-green as a building product. Mainly driven by the public’s irrational fear of clear cuts in planted forests. Believe it or not, there are still people today who think that a tree never grows back after it has been cut. The same people often claim to believe in evolution, yet somehow that process ceases whenever a tree is cut with a chainsaw. Here is a picture of clearcut. Does it make you feel bad?

Here is a plantation ten to fifteen years later. Are you feeling better yet?

But here is where environmentalists get weird, err, if that makes any sense. They claim that steel and aluminum are better for the environment than using wood from trees. You have to have coal to process iron ore. Below is a picture of an iron ore mine and a coal mining operation. Yeah, I can see why environmentalists would rather have that than the pine plantation (sarcasm). Aluminum looks much the same, except that it takes huge amounts of electricity to process aluminum ore, or recycle aluminum, so you are still going to need that coal mine.

Not that I have any issues with coal or steel. I am rather fond of automobiles and electricity. Next time, we’ll talk about how cow farts are killing the planet, but deer, turkey, skunk, wolf, and bear flatulence smell like wildflowers.