Green Options

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Simran Sethi and Sarah Smarsh are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things.They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post. Here’s the low-down on how we’re quenching our thirst.

We’ve been seduced by the beverage industry into believing only they can quench our thirst with colored, caffeinated, vitaminized, electrolyted water. We have become so parched that we can’t walk down the street without toting a single-use plastic bottle touting the magical effects of its water source.

Apparently, Kabbalah Water will heal us and Bling Water will define us. At the Bling H20 website, Bling Water “creator” Kevin Boyd describes noticing on Hollywood studio lots that “you could tell a lot about a person by the bottled water they carried.” First of all, didn’t god create water? Secondly, the water is bottled in Dandridge, Tennessee - since when is Southern Tennessee a spring of L.A. status? Yes, Dandrige’s water ranks very highly on EPA’s water quality index, but why are we spending so much money ($40 for Bling’s “Go Green” 750ml bottle) on cross-continental water instead of cleaning up our local waterways? Tinseltown’s water is so polluted with run-off and industrial contamination that perhaps water by way of Tennessee does make sense.

Here’s what the less blingy among us do:

If you have visited Planet Save for any length of time you will no doubt have seen me talk about the increasing amount of ‘dead zones’ cropping up across our planets watery surface. In particular, the Gulf of Mexico is home to what is believed to be the largest dead zone in the world: an area larger than Rhode Island that is almost totally devoid of oxygen in the water.

This particular dead zone has formed, in part, thanks to farm runoff that has made its way down the Mississippi River, all the way from Iowa and Wisconsin. Chemicals used on the farms are washed in to local waterways, which all eventually end in the Mississippi which thus makes its way down and out past New Orleans in to the Gulf of Mexico.

For many people, the world exists as a separate, objective whole to be exploited or polluted without any expense at the personal level. If anything, people wall themselves from the consequences of their actions.

Take for example, people dump trash everywhere without a trifle to the conscience. Or big corporate engage in activities aimed at boosting bottom lines without concern of damage inflicted to the earth.

The idea that the earth is an objectively existing place, separate from ourselves lies at the very heart of the environmental challenges that we face.

You know, I really tried! My editor asked me to make sure that I wasn’t too negative or pessimistic, and I tried for a whole week. But it all come crashing down on me this past Saturday, and there is nothing to do at the moment then to revert to my natural disposition.

Ecological Debt Day

But there is due cause as well, and not just a trend of over 15 years of such negativity

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