What Does it Mean to Go Green?

Sunrise at Black Rock Forest

Going green is all the rage these days. People are becoming more aware of the environment, and that’s a good thing, but do we really understand what it means to go green?

Summer Sunset  on the Hudson

You may remember the climate-change march that took place in New York City in September, 2014. Hundreds of people marched through the streets to raise awareness about the environment. After the climate-change march, garbage left behind by the participants overflowed trash cans and spilled into the street. This made me think about how wanting to be environmentally friendly and actually helping the earth are two completely different things. Instead of just thinking “the environment is in danger, big companies are messing it up.” I started to think “the environment is in danger, and how can I help save it?”

View at Black Rock Forest

Helping the earth starts with awareness. Most people, like myself, are aware of the negative changes going on in earth’s atmosphere. Let’s use the knowledge we have, instead of denying climate change like the Koch Brothers and Exxon (ExxonMobil) do. Now that I’m aware of the environment, I try to consider how my actions can positively or negatively affect the earth.

Summer Sunrise

Humans have harmed the environment in countless ways. We’ve covered everything with pesticides, cut down forests, spewed greenhouse gases into the environment, filled our oceans with plastic, and polluted areas with nuclear waste. Now the arctic is warming, storms are brewing, and species are going extinct. If this keeps up the earth may become uninhabitable, at least for humans. It’s easy to blame all these problems on big corporations and dismiss them, but I think there are many steps all of us can take to become more green.

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Shaw Road

I started with becoming more aware of the waste I produce. Plastics don’t biodegrade well, so before I buy something covered in plastic, I question whether or not I really need it. I also started thinking about where the items I buy are coming from. Factories in poor countries where workers are forced to work in horrible conditions, don’t tend to have good environmental policies. When I can I try to buy less, or support eco-friendly companies. The key is not to be greenwashed, that is, tricked into buying products advertised as green that really aren’t.

Fall Sky

There are many other ways to help the environment too, such as using public transportation rather than driving, being energy efficient, buying sustainably produced food, recycling, and composting food waste. Demonstrations like the climate change march can sway world leaders into making better decisions, and that’s a great thing, but it’s not the only way we slow climate change. I found once I got into an environmentally healthy mindset I started to find more and more simple ways I could help the earth. If we all work together to change for the better, change will come. Here’s to saving the earth!

Winter on the Hudson