Blue calls boolsheet on some greenies
Here's an interesting news story about how people who have "gone green" tend to be more likely to lie, cheat, and steal.
It's an interesting, if small study, but, like many diet studies, people tend to interprate it wrong way 'round.
It's not that being green made these folks more likely to lie, cheat, or steal, it's the type of green person they chose for the study.
Going green, being environmentally aware, lessening one's carbon footprint, whatever you want to call it, in the popular sense, is expensive.
How many of us can afford to buy a Prius? How many of us can afford to buy only organic clothing or feed our families only food purchased from Trader Joe's?
The flaw in the study is this: some folks who go green do it because they can and because it raises their status amongst their peers and makes them feel worthwhile and good about themselves, NOT because they give a rat's arse about the bloody planet.
A good number of people who go green (this was a study amongst college students at Berkley for Cthulhu's sake!) are the overindulged children of well-to-do parents. Of course they lie, cheat, and steal! They are possessed of an overweening sense of entitlement. They have never wanted for the slightest thing and have never been told "no!". If they want a Prius, daddy buys them one. They spend ridiculous wodges of dosh on special organic hemp totes with some cute saying on it to be their organically friendly non-plastic grocery bags (mine are mismatched totes gleaned from the thrift store).
The young, rightious mothers spend hours in their 200k + homes scouring the internet for the perfect special organic unbleached diapers (with special covers, and special fasteners) and then get the perfect laundry to wash them for them (all for insane amounts of money!) rather that bicycling down to the local Target, buying a pack of pre-folds, and *gasp* washing them themselves in that $1000 special green water-miser industrial sized washing machine (with matching dryer that gets used daily).
These people are bogus. They couldn't care less about Earth, just about gratifying themselves with the appearence of virtue. They've all got sore arms from patting themselves on the back on how "environmentally concious" they are, yet, if you look carefully at their lifestyles, they're abusing the environment just as much - or more - as everyone else.
They need to study the truely hard core, old school, thrifty people (like me), the folks to whom waste is anathema. We are the ones who are helping the environment. We refuse to buy retail unless we absolutely can't find it used, we repair and reuse so that nothing goes to waste, we make sure that nothing gets thrown out unless we've wrung the last bit of use out of it. We are the ones who cook from scratch, reheat leftovers, toss rinds and peels in our compost heap, and drag THEIR perfectly good (organic! green!) items out of the dumpster for our own use.
So we're 'greener' but are we less likely to lie, cheat, or steal? I dunno. I'm willing to be in a study! What about you?
