no impact, zero footprint, carbon neutral… nonsense..
May 7th, 2009Everyone has heard of no impact, zero footprint and carbon neutral - but do you have any idea what that means? It doesn’t mean buying recycled paper, or products in recycled packaging, or hybrid automobiles.
It means making due with what you have, not purchasing something new if at all possible. Purchasing something ‘new’ means raw materials, pollution, and sometimes throwing something perfectly useful into a landfill.
This is a difficult concept to swallow for most. Why? Because most do not see the impact of their lifestyle on the environment - myself included. The secondary problem is the economy - it’s based on consumption, which means not purchasing is not contributing.
So… what do you do?
May 7th, 2009 at 9:27 am
I’m sure at some point the environmental cost of buying something new outweighs the cost of “making do” with what you already have. Doesn’t it? Is it better to buy a new fuel-efficient, zero-emission electric car or keep your old gas-guzzling clunker that burns oil and spews blue smoke everywhere?
I just made exactly that choice with my lawnmower - replace “car” with “lawnmower”. I made do last summer, but the blue haze hanging over my lawn each time I cut the grass didn’t seem very carbon neutral to me.
May 15th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
[…] In a previous post discussing carbon neutral, Peter raised a valid question about the replacement of old technology with new technology, knowing that new technology will have a lesser net effect on the environment (and your wallet). […]