About ten years ago we lived across the street from a cathedral which had a lovely evergreen bush/tree in its side yard. We could see it from our apartment windows. Every day a diminutive lady would walk down the street, carefully place her shopping bags on the lawn, and walk up to the tree. She talked to it for a few minutes and seemed to listen for the tree’s responses. Then she would embrace it, placing her cocked head on its branches, like a child who hugs a loving parent. A few more words between them, and then she picked up her bags and went on her way. It was amusing to us as we speculated about the content of the conversation. She was an icon of a phrase which was becoming more and more popular in the media at that time; she was a tree hugger. Among many who used that term, it was a derogatory term for a wacko who was out of touch with reality. In spite of what I am about to say about tree huggers and the green revolution, I suspect there was some truth to her situation. But in her heart, I also suspect she knew something I didn’t know…that humans and plants have a unique relationship in this crazy, mixed-up world. Her innocence was probably a key to being able to be sensitive to that relationship better than I was. Maybe…just maybe…she was apologizing to the tree for the horrendous pollution we humans were dumping into the air on that street, choking the tree in its attempt to survive and thrive. If so, she was brilliant.
In that era before the 21st century came rushing into existence, the thought that a person had a green orientation meant that they were a little out of touch with society. They were seen by many, if not most, as being occupied by concepts that were unrealistic and unattainable. The Green Party was a German political movement that had no American legs under it. It was seen as being like the Anti-Masonic Party, or the Know-Nothing Party. Every now and then someone would make a little headway at being elected to a local or state office on the Green Party, but it was rare and considered kooky.
Remember, I’m talking about just ten or twelve years ago.
Today it is impossible to pick up an advertising pamphlet, a newspaper (remember them?), or turn on a television without seeing advertisements for hundreds and hundreds of major companies who claim a green connection. What was kooky is now common sense and embraceable, just like that green tree in the cathedral yard. Recycling is a term which needed printed instructions back then; it is a normal part of household and business management in 2010.
In 1970 American scientist, Dr. Norman E. Borlaug won the Nobel Prize for his work with wheat and its impact on the agricultural industry in Mexico. His work laid the foundation for serious consideration of the need for us to think globally about agriculture and our interdependence with nations experiencing famine. Even then, however, his ideas were seen by many as radical and out of touch with reality.
Today a product cannot be marketed in this country without a green application. Automobiles and trucks are manufactured with imposed and intentional green limitations and capabilities. Clothing, food, and even toys are scrutinized for their green implications. A political candidate cannot possibly experience election without a carefully-worded green platform. Huge transformations have taken place in education, with environmental science at the top of the curriculum ladder from elementary schools to doctoral programs at the finest universities in our country. Most people consider the future of green industry to be the realm in which employment will find its way back to a healthier level.
The most fascinating feature of the Green Revolution, however, is the fact that people are thinking green without a great deal of provocation. We still have a long way to go before a green agenda is universal, but it is, by far, one of the major issues on the minds of the great bulk of the population in this country.
You don’t have to hug trees and speak to them personally in order to be green conscious in 2010. But if you do so you are less likely to be considered a kook. Well, maybe….
Photo credit: tree hugger
