GOING GREEN

Going Green

Going Green

Introduction

One of the central dilemmas of “going green” is that although it means lower costs in the long run—at least on the societal level—on the short-term, individual level, it can be a significant increase in expense, depending on how much one is spending already.

The gains of being more environmentally friendly may not be experienced right away by the individual consumer. Using a professional car wash that reduces its water usage, reclaims it, and treats it, rather than releasing harmful chemicals into the environment the way washing one's car at home does, achieves a definite good. However, the effect on the actor is minimal. The real effect is felt when everyone switches to green professional car washes, and even then some of the good achieved is distributed to entities never involved in the action—the fish and other wildlife who are spared the effects of chemicals in their ecosystem. Although green philosophy perceives a good shared by humankind when the environment is spared from harm, it is difficult for the individual actor to experience and appreciate that good (Brower & Warren, 1999).

The effect of one's actions on collective consequences, and one's participation in those consequences regardless of one's actions, is relevant because there is a dollar value associated with these actions. Furthermore, that dollar value can be complicated. When the cost of gasoline is high enough, the extra initial cost of a more fuel-efficient vehicle—or one that does not use gasoline at all—can seem less expensive, even if one does not quite believe the car will “pay for itself” through its fuel savings.

The Cost of Going Green

The green movement is sometimes criticized for downplaying the cost of going green, and it is perhaps a valid concern. Just as food movements have sometimes acted unaware of the difficulty of a working-class family negotiating not only its food budget but also the effect on that budget of the time constraints of working parents and the need to appease children whose tastes are affected by what they eat at school and at friends' homes, so too did the early environmentalism movement sometimes pay too little attention to the financial effect of environmentally responsible behavior. Recycling was an easy win because wartime rationing had conditioned people for it, and the gains were obvious and short-term. Switching to energy-saving light bulbs is fairly easy to convince people to do, because of their longevity and the obvious long-term savings. Reducing water usage is more difficult, particularly given how low water bills tend to be relative to other utilities—a change in behavior may amount to only a few dollars a month, and those few dollars may seem like a more-than-reasonable price for longer showers and a well-watered lawn. Even water conservation is only asking for a behavioral change, however, and perhaps the expense of a low-pressure showerhead. Asking people to spend money on going green has historically been difficult (Radcliffe, 2002).

The Environmental Defense Fund claimed in 2009 that the climate change problem could be solved at ...