I Don’t Want To Go green!

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Go Green! Has become one of the biggest buzzwords in business, school, and frankly just about every industry and institution in the world. For myself it’s daily that I find something on the web, TV, or radio telling the world that we’re destroying our environment, wasting natural resources, and that global warming is at the tipping point of no return. Honestly, most of these advertisements are right but there are those occasional ‘greenwashing’ ads (the act of deliberately deceiving customers about the environmental practices of their company or green aspects of their products) that leave a bad taste in consumers’ mouths. However, in the midst of all this commotion, there’s an overwhelming amount of people who just don’t care. Why is that? Is the problem too big? Is it the “just yell fire” situation, or do they think someone else will fix the problem?
 
We want Instant Gratification

Even if we have to shell out the bucks, a large mass of the American population wants instant gratification, which sadly the production of quick, cheep and instantly pleasing products or services are hardly environmentally friendly. From all of the interviews that I’ve conducted for Microsoft Hohm, there’s always a chuckle about the suggestion on replacing your refrigerator, since for many it will have a payback period of 62 years. I have to admit that it’s a little bit out there; however, this reaction is just an example of the American desire for instant gratification. Anything we can do to reduce our footprint is valuable and makes a difference. Even though it is comical for a fridge to have a payback of 62 years, we have to change out thought process to the bigger picture. What would happen if everyone changed out their fridge to a more energy efficient fridge in America? With a third of the energy consumption coming from residential and commercial buildings it might make people rethink how important it is to make changes even at the micro level – the places where you are not going to have instant gratification.

Easy to hide the dirt

This one is up for debate, but personally I believe that one of the reasons why people avoid going green is due to the fact that there is no personal responsibility that is enforced. I’m not talking about rules, regulations, or a cap and trade for residential homes, but I’m talking about the anonymity of consumption information that individuals and organizations can hide behind. Right now the amount of energy that people, companies, and organizations consume is private, hence letting them hide the dirt. Simply stated, it’s easy to deny something when no one can prove you otherwise. This conversation about anonymity isn’t new and is a continuing problem throughout the web. Check out Seth Godin’s blog The problem with anonymous. This post briefly goes through the many problems that anonymity creates online and in life in general.

It’s not my problem!

Individualism, curse or a blessing? Individualism is one of our nation’s strongest components to free thought, pushing the limits, and innovation; however, it’s very easy to use this card to defend one’s actions. Conserving energy at home needs to be done by everyone. It’s not just the government’s or the utilities’ problem to come up with rules, regulations, and solutions on how individuals consume energy. Everything starts at home, and when facing this issues everyone needs to understand that we’re all connected! Our actions as a whole will decide the fate for our future generations.

So there’s a couple reasons why people might not want to go green. What are your thoughts? Share some of the barriers that you face when you’re trying to make a environmentally conscious decision. If we don’t start putting these problems and concerns on the table, how are we going to fix them?

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