TGIF: the latest fasion

TGIF: Think Green, It's Friday!

It has been a while since the last TGIF; things have gone wildly out of the normal range of occurances in my life.

Fridays I will post something to do with the green theme, with a special focus on green + art. I also post finds to do with the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), new policies in government or industry, eco-friendly appliances and vehicles... anything green!



Well if you may have noticed, green has become all the rage. Think green, buy organic or local (or both?), offset your carbon footprint, stop using plastic bags... it can be alternately a source of confusion, annoyance, personal problems, identity crises, causing many, especially older companies, to find themselves at-odds with a suddenly over-concerned consumer culture. Some embrace it, even to the point of false or questionable claims, while others are oblivious, or, worse, in a position they are unable to do anything about.

Oh my. Canada is quite bad. Worse, even, than the US.

The question is, what really is this new movement? Children of the Earth, trying to minimize our effect on Mother Nature? Doomsayers, fearmongering for profitable market flux or favourable power shifts? Scientists and the savvy who've known for a while and are tired with the status quo?

Please send in your thoughts or questions for discussion because that's what makes this so much better!


What kinds of things are 'green'? A friend of mine put it into perspective with these terms:

1. Impact of producing
2. Impact of using the product
3. Long-term impact of product (such as reusability and recyclability)

Claims by companies hoping to garner popularity by claims of the first sort usually involve using cleaner, alternative power, such as wind energy, offsetting the carbon footprint, using recycled materials or generally a lower impact from production.

The second is "what impact will the product have in its lifetime?" Benefits of this kind include lower power consumption for appliances, fewer chemical by-products or emissions (especially for cars). Frankly, in some product types, the greenest products are simply less evil than all the other products.

The third has a lot to do with product life. Does it have a short or a long service life? After one person uses it as they wish, can they pass it on to someone else? Will it stay in the junkyard, taking over 100 years to decompose? If it is recyclable, what is the impact of recycling?



When purchasing a product, or even when evaluating companies and their (sometimes) misleading claims, it is important to consider these aspects and how important they are.
I am sure that some models already exist, but... I wanted to make my own. (And I forgot about the vast resource of the internet)

I just made it up on the spur of the moment, let me know what else should be in there, especially since my brain has shut down for the night.

I think I may spend some time researching the existing models, but it's not necessary; I am not working on a project. Also, this is not yet an application becuase I would need not only specific values, conversion values to units for scoring, but also to determine the weight of each quality for the overall score value.

Random:
http://carbonfund.org/
http://www.greenerchoices.org/home.cfm