When possible, I like to catch episodes of Dirty Jobs on The Discovery Channel. For those of you who haven't seen it, the basic premise is that Mike Rowe goes around the country meeting people with dirty jobs and then doing the job along side them for a while. It's fascinating, and you definitely meet a lot of frugal people. It's amazing how one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Mike Rowe has a blog, and I found this recent entry very interesting. Titled "
Don't Forget To Turn Off The Lights & Shut The Door On Your Way Out," Mike responds to a question asking him what he thinks of the green movement. It's a very well thought out answer and it really resonates with me.
He discusses how going "green" has become a fashionable movement, and discusses how he was raised in a family where wastefulness wasn't tolerated. I especially liked this paragraph:
"My Dad wasn't green. He just enjoyed getting by with less. And that attitude mentality translated into an overall sensibility of conservation. Today, I am conservative in most things. I believe it's better to make more than you spend, and save more than you think you'll need. I don't care for conspicuous consumption, and believe the biggest problem facing this country is our endless sense of expectation and entitlement and personal debt."
I hadn't really thought of the link between personal debt (financial wastefulness in many cases) and pollution, but I think Mike Rowe hits the nail on the head. We are, unfortunately, a country of conspicuous consumption. And while turning off the lights and using less energy is good for the environment and also good for our pocketbooks, will we really be able to keep it up? Sure, some of us will. But eventually, something new will overtake the green movement, and the majority of people will forget. Or perhaps the green movement will continue, but not in the way of recycling and turning off the air conditioner, but in buying new "green" household items to show our friends just how environmentally friendly we truly are.
I really recommend you read this entire blog post. It really resonated with me.
