Movement, Politics or Religion

I recently read a post on Douglas Garbe's blog that seems to have followed a bout of soul searching about his true reasons for being an "earth friendly green Realtor." By the time I read the post, there were already 93 responses. I would estimate that around 50% of the responses were supportive or in agreement with Douglas' reasoning and 50% were hostile towards his thinking.

Well, that got me thinking. The following is an excerpt from my comments on the post. I repeat it here in hopes of provoking more widespread consideration of the topic.

Ask yourself these questions:

By in large, we have not changed the way that we build houses since the end of WWII. What would it be like if the 600 million + automobiles that inhabit the planet today were 1945 Hudson's?

Humans have been building shelter for themselves and their loved ones since the beginning of time. To completely over-simplify the example, Eskimos built igloos and inhabitants of Sub-Saharan Africa built from mud and straw. Yet today we, especially in the United States, build vinyl sided boxes from Arizona to Maine. Does this make sense?

Are you comfortable knowing that your children, grandchildren, even you are probably going to sleep in a bed, surrounded by pieces of furniture, on a floor, under a roof, in a house all of which are most likely constructed of products that contain formaldehyde? Yes, that's the same stuff that the frogs you dissected in your high school biology class were floating in.

Did you know that the vinyl curtain that you just hung in your shower will weigh half as much in one year as it does today? It loses this weight through a process called off-gassing. Vinyl off-gasses toxins.

Do you have anything against saving money?

I know that these questions are vague and wide ranging. My point is simply this: You can dub the "movement" Green and call it political or pseudo-religious. You can agree or disagree with any or all of the comments on this page. Just do yourself a favor. Ask yourself some very common sense questions and become informed and educated before you form an opinion.