Symptoms of Green Fatigue

It seems that much of the United States is coming down with a severe case of Green Fatigue. And this has absolutely nothing to do with military garb.

Causes are the result of reading too many magazines, listening to too much network news and engulfing yourself in the Sunday paper.

Symptoms include disbelief, annoyance and a shift to the Republican Party.

With this issue, we are just as big a part of the problem and far from anything resembling a solution. Of course, Green Fatigue is a condition that develops when overloaded with stories and information revolving around environmental projects, issues and eco-friendly do-gooders.

It’s all about the Green Lifestyle. It’s led by liberals—many of whom reside in Boulder County, we believe—who love to sip lattés and brag about their quirky Priuses.

Every media outlet is spending valuable resources and space on issues that are green, catering to those who love to think they are green. Forgive us for the hypocrisy of telling others it’s good to be a conservationist while spewing out thousands of pages of ink-dotted paper.

There is a reason for all this.

There is green in green, or more eloquently put, there’s a whole lot of moola in covering the fight against global warming.

We are as guilty as anyone in pushing this propaganda.

Telling potential clients that we are Going Green this month means a higher likelihood of them wanting to spend money pushing their eco-friendly products and services on our pages.

Businesses like to promote their greenness just as much as everyday folks.
It all seems like overkill, having to read about this garbage day in and day out (or is it recycling?).

Maybe it is.

But at the end of the day, there’s good reason to jump on the enviro-buzzed bandwagon and further saturate yourself with information about going green—especially the five people we profile this month, starting on page 45—beyond making for a compelling cover and issue.

The world is getting more crowded, our resources are becoming more finite and air a little less pure. Whether you subscribe to popular scientific belief that humans are in fact a major contributor to greenhouse gases and glacier melting, you should subscribe to the belief that conserving resources, recycling, driving fuel-efficient cars and being stewards to the environment is the right thing to do.

We are hooked on foreign oil (not a good thing, see Iraq), strapped for cash after filling our oversized SUVs full of gas (no groceries this week), constantly complaining about the summer heat (and mild winters and pine beetles), and always stuck in traffic (love I-25 at 8:30 in the morning).

So I make no apologies for shoving a tree-hugging agenda down your throat just like most every other magazine, newspaper and broadcast news show.

I do my best to be green through telecommuting, buying wind power offsets for my drafty home and flushing the toilet only when it smells.

Heck, as I pound on this keyboard, I am wearing green underpants (and by green, I mean biodegradable, non-bleached, made from organic cotton from plants not harmed in any way during the process).
That’s not actually true, but it got you picturing me in boxers, didn’t it?