Maya T Forrester’s Weblog

I’ve been experiencing blogger’s block these past few days, but I think that I’ve finally gotten over it. Watching the news is starting to consume my life…again. I’ve always been a news junky, and I love CNN, but I haven’t been spending much time in front of the tube lately. So this morning, waaaaaaaaaay before the crack of dawn, I decided to use my insomnia for good – sigh* so I watched the news. The good thing is that I wasn’t depressed at the end of my unscheduled brainwashing. However, I learned that the global food crisis and this “Going Green” craze are more intertwined than I originally thought, and this got me thinking about a lot of other stuff.

Of course Going Green is expensive! If we examine the costs of environmentally-friendly products and goods versus environmentally-unfriendly products (for lack of a better term), the price difference will make anyone queasy. From hybrid cars to recycled paper, you name it, chances are that going green will initially cut a sizable hole into a middle-class family’s budget. And how long does it take for one to break even after investing life-savings and cashing out a 401k to support Green? I HAVE NO IDEA. So here’s the dilemma: Do we starve and contribute to sustaining the environment, or do we continue to burn holes into the ozone layer and contribute to global warming? That’s quite a toss-up…I think that maybe if I was on my deathbed I wouldn’t bother myself with such things.

The real issue is that in striving for oil-independence, some countries have been investing in ethanol production. Buuuuut, in the great U.S. of A they’re using corn, which in turn drives up the cost of corn and exacerbates the scarcity issue. In Germany, they don’t use “food” to make natural gas, but there’s a problem here. In this land of car lovers, people aren’t willing to wreck their precious vehicles by using a fuel that their cars weren’t built to accommodate. Simply put, as hard as times are and as little incentives there are, Joe Blow isn’t going to buy a new car just so that he can use natural gas. Then there’s the obvious issue that consumers are absorbing the transportation costs associated with high oil prices, and are therefore paying more for food.

So, I can either eat my food or put it in my gas tank, but if I opt to eat my food, I’m also paying through my nose to have it shipped to the store. Maybe I’m overcomplicating this conundrum, but I’m sure there’s a simple viable solution and the market will adjust…eventually.

I know I’m critical, but in closing this and every other critical blog, I have to put an objective spin on my opinion. People need incentives, especially when there is significant inconvenience associated with whatever it is that needs to be done. However, over the years, we (humans) have become a gluttonous, wasteful race with absolutely no sense of priority. We’ve allowed consumerism to dictate our lives and we’ve become masters of creating need. I think that before we try to seek out ways in which people can feed their demands at a possibly lower cost, we need to carefully examine ALL our habits and learn to live within our means.