What does green mean?

This is not what is usually meant when those two words are put together. It’s sort of the guerrilla aspect of using alternative fuel for transportation (green) before and until the law catches up with you ($). So these are two sides of green that clue into the fact that there are far more than two sides.

Good to know.

But this instance also alludes to being able to go green from a dead-stop; off-the-shelf enabling technology or in this case, a jerry-rigged Jiffy Lube ( Riggy Lube?). In gerneral, we are far, far off base from being able to walk into one of the Big Box home improvement stores and buy a wind-mill kit or a do-it-your-self solar panel set-up. It’s a huge opportunity that still going wanting, as of this weekend. Stop trying to come up with yer exotic financial instruments to fleece the lowlanders and come up with something for them to use.

Now that would be green. But, that’s what I thought.

Okay, so I’ll admit that this whole endeavor was predicated on there being sufficient time remaining to wrestle and explore the question of what green means without the instantaneous digression into crisis mode.

But perhaps not.

There are connections between our habits and their consequences. The prattling on about how we are doing this and that to appear to ourselves and each other to be more ecologically conscious changes somewhat against the backdrop of mass food riots. Or does it? Does the moment one breaks through to the other happen only when the first rock shatters the eco-designer handbag window display at Barney’s? That barrier, that dimension being crossed into is one we can easily imagine; yet our ability to intercede on our own behalf and create new illusions of well-being and good-doing is at least as powerful as the rumblings at the door. These are capably lithe and mischievous, forgivable because they are required. Ah, here the unpacking begins.

Mis-labeled post number one. This is what I meant to talk about.

A very smart interview with Van Jones on the link between anti-poverty programs and green ecological stimulus initiatives:

“As we move toward a sustainable economy, if we do not take care to minimize the pain and maximize the gain for the poor, they will join forces with the polluters to derail the green revolution.”

Preach it.

Though obviously we can emphasize either word. Take a look at some recent ones. This is serious business. @#&! Again that problem with emphasis.

http://www.vanityfair.com/

http://www.elle.com/

http://www.barneys.com/b/browse/category.s?categoryId=744740

This is in no way meant to be an exhaustive list, merely a cursor to the question, our R d’E:

What does Green Mean?

Yes, the first day of the rest of your blog happens to be April 15? Come on… these ideas don’t come from nowhere. Will you believe in coincidence? Can we permit the actuality of ends and beginnings to coexist with the idea that there can be context and meaning to saving and conserving and recycling? Well, what about waiting, considering, pondering implications and consequences without being stifled by them; is this green? The seeming paradox – of at once letting go of something and grasping it more fully, without falling victim to the edgy marketing that we pass off as normal until we’re up to our necks and breathing becomes labored and our attentions dull –  is elemental to understanding the question of the day, the query of the year-y, the risque feeler of of the era, What does Green mean?

We’re going to call in the experts and break it down, lift up the skirt of what it means to be green and try to get everybody to look, and see.