How is the "Green" Industry in your area?

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MattinSTL

MattinSTL

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I'm just curious how the whole green movement is panning out where you live? In Saint Louis it's not doing so hot (pun intended).

I've shot about 200 hours of footage to promote all sorts of green causes... I've never been PAID for most of it... and in the end it would be WAY easier to make a documentary AGAINST it rather then for it.

I wouldn't want to discourage anybody from "going green"... but if I figure out the best message... I've got enough stuff to do a werner herzog doc that would just make the green movement in Saint Louis look about as sad as the grizzly man story. I've even got the main character already shot and covered.

So now I'm sitting on this hard drive full of footage... realizing that I'll probably never get paid... and I'm trying to decide what I want to do with it.

We have what WOULD have been... some spectacular "green" communities in the area... and pretty much ALL of them are failures. There are a few really cool green homes with families in them... and everything seems to have worked out... but there's a ton of opportunities waiting to be picked up... and nobody is doing that. It seems like no corporation... or investors... really care about it. I've been thinking that this could be a compelling story... and it got me to wondering how the green thing is working out in your part of the world?

Keep in mind that STL is nothing like the coasts... there are a lot of simple minded people here... and not that many progressive thinkers. So if you're in Cali or the Northwest... then obviously you aren't going to get this... but for the rest of you... how's it going where YOU are?

I'm talking everything... the shopping bags, fuel options, housing starts... hybrids... the works. Is the green thing taking hold or was it a fad? (which would be the underlying question, should I do this doc)
 
It is not that big here in the Baltimore area. One or two stores here have gotten rid of the plastic bags and blah blah blah. You can always dump that footage onto one of those "green" hard drives they have out now. Then toss it in a landfill since it is completely biodegradable.
 
Really close to my house there's a big green community... with nobody in it. It's a bunch of condo units that were to have 6 condos per unit... I walked in them when they were being built... and the floor plans were AWESOME... but none of the units have ever been finished... there's just a bunch of gigantic, unfinished, (now gray and rotting) structures filling a field.

There's another community that I shot some stuff for... that was to have about 280 homes in it... that one is a long way from my house... but I wonder if there's a single foundation in yet?

It just strikes me funny that locally anyway... there's so many people that talk about it, but so few that put their money where their mouth is. Even the local companies that advertise so much about going green... aren't really spending anything to actually GO green... they're spending way more advertising what they did... then the cost of the change itself.

I'm sure that being burned from clients is making me want to do this... but I think it would be easy to make a video to expose this crap. I'm not calling "going green" crap... I'm calling all the phony sh*t crap. There are a lot of people, and companies... that want the social benefits of appearing to care, while actually doing very little differently.

I've been in meetings where somebody makes a big point of not getting a straw with their beverage... and the next day we have a meeting with the same group and everybody's got a bottled water... and for that matter... a water bottle stays in a landfill forever... so now that's a trend in advertising... well... what about a glass beer bottle? That doesn't? Let's all feel good and save the planet, but don't touch my beer.

I feel like I could be writing for Andy Rooney.
 
I think it might be time for an eye exam. At first glance, I thought the title of this thread was "How is the "Green" Industry in your arse?". :shocked:

That said, this thread has the potential to become political. You know it. I know it. And the American people know it. ;)
 
I live just east of Denver, and we sometimes have to go up to Boulder, which prides itself on being "green". Mostly I find what you found Matt. There are a few hardcore people, but most do it for show, or when it's convenient. I was once in this really hippie-style-tofu-serving-patchoulie-smelling place that was totally selling the vibe. On my way to the rest room I saw the kitchen trash, full of plastic bottles and other recyclables.

Also wated to add that, although I am all for renewable energy and going green, it's not always as simple as they say. For example corn-based biodiesel arguably contributes to pollution more than it helps. Corn does not absorb fertilizer as well as some other crops, so there is more runoff, which goes back into the ground water. Recycling can be a good idea, but often times our output of petroleum to recycle a plastic bottle is greater than if we had just made a new one.

Not saying we shouldn't solve these problems, or continue down that path. Just pointing out it's not always a simple matter.
 
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Green over here is pretty weird sometimes.

That "SuperZeroEnergy" Housing area they build here was a desaster.
Poeple where freezing to death in winter and sweat in summer.

The "state of the art" solar water panels did not deliver enough warm water to shower (letting alone, enough for the heating) during the cold season.

Same with the "new Super Effective thin Layer Photovoltaic Solar-Panels" - you can´t hardly run a fridge, a TV and a computer the same time of them during 80% of the year.

After the first year poeple tried to sell the houses - but the drama was alread known.
So they tried to fix it here and there but in the end hooked it up to the normal grid and installed oil heating.

What poeple pisses off is the new "Green Zones".
If you live in one and don´t have enough money to buy a brand new low emission car, you are not allowed anymore to drive to your own house. You have to park the car somewhere out there and take the bus.

Frank
 
I do want to stress that I hope this doesn't become an anti-green thread. That's not my intention. So I appreciate the comments regarding the facts in your area.

That's what I want to know about. I'm still listed on green sites as a green supporter, etc. I'm on the board of a local green effort, but lately I've been discouraged by the lack of any real commitment by all the companies (and some people) that are so vocal about it.

So I wondered if it was just me... and Saint Louis... or how it's going elsewhere.
 
In Hoboken, there are a number of new "green" condo buildings going up. I don't know what this means or how they classify themselves as green. I suspect that it is purely a marketing ploy, but maybe I am wrong.

I always use my Chico bags when I go shopping, but the local stores don't exactly encourage this (I get a whopping $.04 discount on my groceries). I rarely see anyone else doing the same thing. Now in Manhattan, there are places like Whole Foods Markets that have dispensed with plastic bags - but if you're shopping there, you probably are already aware of the green movement, so it's a bit like preaching to the choir.
 
I'm working for green client right now (as in, writing their Christmas, sorry, Holiday Catalog). It's called Current Energy and they've been decently smart about what they're doing. They're ostensibly an energy efficiency company with residential and commercial divisions. The commercial side is what really makes them their money. They can go into a place and fit (or redo) all of their systems with monitors and controls that will lower their energy usage 30-50%. They do all of the Starbucks and Wendy's in town. On the residential side, they sell and install high-SEER hvac systems and similar equipment, and have a couple of retail locations where they pimp CFL's and solar battery chargers and Segways. They basically have a retail presence so the commercial folks will have heard of them when called upon. And while they tout "green," they (meaning me at the moment) couch their message in a "save money while saving the earth" spiel.

Beyond them, I read a lot about stuff going on down here, but I don't really see it happening. At least we have curbside recycling -- and we don't even have to separate our stuff. Also, I'm doing my part by being unemployed and working from home.

I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that people would love to be green. They just want someone to do it for them, and they're not going to pay much of a premium for it.
 
there is almost nothing being done where i live. we've had curbside recycling for years, but most people don't use it.

your documentary idea could be very interesting. you could present in such a way that shows how going green is a good thing, but that these companies aren't following through. exposing the hypocrisy and making people aware of the problem is the first step towards changing it.

my only concern is that it could have the unintended effect of turning people away from going green if they see it as a scam.
 
I try to reuse any plastic bags or just carry items in my backpack.

Make sure there isn't any lights on in my apartment when I'm not there, in fact there is nothing on in my apartment, make sure everything is off, TV, DVD player, PS3, Cable box, heat, lights, and that's not because I'm trying to save the planet, it's because it's common sense, I don't want to have to pay for something I'm not using.

Use the transit system which runs entirely off of electricty (sometime diesel buses) and again, there's no need for me to own a car in a city with adequate transit, again not to mention the cost of gas, insurance, car payments, repairs....etc. 70.00 a month for transit and that can get me anywhere in the city pretty much as fast a car can, and transit is paid for by my company.

All of the electricty is from hydro power. Summertime roughly 15.00 a month. Winter, the max is around 35.00 a month.

Me and a few of my buddies rented this cabin in the summer close to Whistler that was run entirely from a hydro electric generator, completly off the grid, the owner basically explained to us before hand, that if were not using something, make sure it is off (which again is common sense), after two days of just using the power like we normally would, watching TV and what not, when we left he mentioned to us that we hardly made a dent in the batteries, which I thought was pretty cool considering we just used like we normally would. Since they also live on the property there house is also powered the same way. Really cool place and awesome people.

As anyone seen Les Stroud's Off The Grid? Really cool 90 minute doc that shows him converting an old farmhouse and going completely off the grid. A lot of that stuff cost a lot of money up front but in the long term it would save you money.

Again, most of that stuff is common sense, I'd say the reason I'm "Green" is because I'm cheap.
 
JConnors said:
Use the transit system which runs entirely off of electricty (sometime diesel buses) and again, there's no need for me to own a car in a city with adequate transit, again not to mention the cost of gas, insurance, car payments, repairs....etc. 70.00 a month for transit and that can get me anywhere in the city pretty much as fast a car can, and transit is paid for by my company.

All of the electricty is from hydro power. Summertime roughly 15.00 a month. Winter, the max is around 35.00 a month.
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only $15 a month in the summer? that's it, i'm moving.
 
Like Terry said, let's watch ourselves. A lot of it DOES have to do with the money. For example, it is not that nobody wants to by "green" cars, it's that Americans can't AFFORD to buy brand new cars (especially when they cost more than NON-green cars) Here where I live it is not a big deal. Most people in the mountain area are more concerned with when deer season starts than they are with how much CO2 their '65 Chevy gives off. :D
 
Over here in MI, I hear more and more about "green" facilities and lifestyles. I haven't heard of any housing developments. I just shot a video for a new gym that was certified green based on waste management, energy efficiency and sustainable design.

In an article from April 2008:
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, managed to get her Green Collar Jobs Initiative included in the 2009 budget resolution passed by the Senate on March 14. May it survive the House-Senate negotiations to iron out budget bill differences.
Much of the initiative appears tailor-made for Michigan.

The $2.7 billion package includes$1 billion in loans for retooling factories to build "the next generation of vehicles."

In that same vein, there also is $250 million available for loans and grants to support advanced battery research and development. Better batteries are the holy grail of electric car development.

Block grants totaling $1.15 billion would help local communities use energy more efficiently. Bay City, for example, is pondering a conversion to LED street lights.
The list goes on, with $100 million to retrain workers for renewable energy, high tech and new-age automobile jobs, and $200 million for biofuels storage and transportation.

Late last month, Stabenow made the mid-Michigan rounds, stopping to marvel at the $1.5 billion expansion at Hemlock Semiconductor Corp., which makes one-third of the world's polycrystalline silicone, the raw material for solar panels and computer chips.
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Ann Arbor in particular has a strong hippie-green-natural contingent of people. I'm not super into it, (I eat local organic foods whenever possible) but I definitely know LOTS of people who abide by a mostly natural lifestyle and strive to make as little waste as possible in their daily lives. Once you get away from the college towns though, I would doubt there is as strong a push for going green. People get comfortable and don't want to change the routine if it's inconvenient for them– no matter what the cost. :(

A video that I'm working on soon for a career magazine is actually going to focus on the green industry, and include interviews with professors and managers on the subject of careers in that field. It won't be complete for a few months but if it's any good I'll throw a link up to it...
 
Going green has been knocked off the charts by the economic crisis. It's become a forgotten step child. Falling gas pump prices haven't helped either. Kinda sad.
 
I have some complaints about the green movement, and I'll keep them to myself, except for one griping one. I will not allow residents of LA, NYC, and other overcrowded cities to lecture me on how to preserve the environment. It just isn't going to happen. Let's face it people: cities of several million people are inherently destructive to the environment. Solutions like local food production will never work for LA, NYC, etc.

For the rest of my complaints, I'll just resort to quoting Carlin -- a brilliant man and a fierce independent:

We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these ___ people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the ___ planet?

I'm getting tired of that ____. Tired of that ____. I'm tired of ____ Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a ____ about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are ____. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!

We're going away. Pack your ____, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

You wanna know how the planet's doing? Ask those people at Pompeii, who are frozen into position from volcanic ash, how the planet's doing. You wanna know if the planet's all right, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble, if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. Or how about those people in Kilowaia, Hawaii, who built their homes right next to an active volcano, and then wonder why they have lava in the living room.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, 'cause that's what it does. It's a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new pardigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, "Why are we here?" Plastic...____.

So, the plastic is here, our job is done, we can be phased out now. And I think that's begun. Don't you think that's already started? I think, to be fair, the planet sees us as a mild threat. Something to be dealt with. And the planet can defend itself in an organized, collective way, the way a beehive or an ant colony can. A collective defense mechanism. The planet will think of something. What would you do if you were the planet? How would you defend yourself against this troublesome, pesky species? Let's see... Viruses. Viruses might be good. They seem vulnerable to viruses. And, uh...viruses are tricky, always mutating and forming new strains whenever a vaccine is developed. Perhaps, this first virus could be one that compromises the immune system of these creatures. Perhaps a human immunodeficiency virus, making them vulnerable to all sorts of other diseases and infections that might come along. And maybe it could be spread sexually, making them a little reluctant to engage in the act of reproduction.

Well, that's a poetic note. And it's a start. And I can dream, can't I? See I don't worry about the little things: bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we're part of a greater wisdom than we will ever understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. The Big Electron...whoooa. Whoooa. Whoooa. It doesn't punish, it doesn't reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while."

I would recycle. It's not a question of work, it's a question of money. I'd have to use a private trash collection company to recycle everything -- glass, plastic, paper, electronics. That's $60 a month I don't have. It would be arrogant to suggest spending an extra $60 a month to get rid of goods that are costing me more in the first place. Especially if China is kicking out 20x more pollution than any country in the history of the world; but what are you going to do? Liberal college students need their iPhones (made in China) to download the Obama app to connect with local undecided voters (:laugh:).
 
While I love Carlin... I think there are probably a lot of people on both sides of this issue that misunderstand the phrase "save the planet"... BOTH SIDES have people that don't understand the real scientific hypothesis vs. a catch phrase.

Some morons may think we're destroying the rock itself, but the term "save the planet" is more akin to a community... living in a house, with people who are causing destruction within that house... and eventually the asbestos in the ceiling, poisons in the air, and chemicals in the food will catch up with all who live in this house... so... if somebody says "save this house"... I think everybody knows that the house will still be standing long after people living in the house will have gone extinct.

I heard a cool Charleton Heston speech about the earth and it's life cycles... through eons of time and change... and yes, this is true... the earth absolutely WILL endure far beyond anything we could ever do to it... but the movement is really more about all of OUR quality of life for as long as the human race sustains... "save the planet" is really about "increase the odds that human-kind will endure far into the future instead of eventually having the world so f*cked up that nobody can last through the thousands of years that it takes the earth to clean itself naturally"... but that's too long to put on a t-shirt.
 
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