To the many expressions involving the colour green, we can add “green fatigue.”
It refers to a backlash against going green, a weariness imposed by the barrage of urgings to save the planet, conserve energy and to reduce, reuse and recycle as we raise our collective environmental consciousness.
Though support for the conservation cause remains strong, according to surveys, people with green fatigue question whether new, purportedly ‘greener’ products are all they’re cracked up to be, and whether individual efforts to help save the planet can really make a difference.
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One of the things that colours their skepticism is green washing, the practice by some companies of falsely labelling products as greener than they are as a way to gain market share. Green as a gimmick, in other words.
Going green, being guilted into greenness, and all the other green stuff above, were topics of a workshop last week at the National Agri-Marketing Association conference.
The focus was on corporate greenness, but as I took notes with a recycled pen supplied by Fleishman Hillard (brown recycled paper tube and clip that looks like part of a popsicle stick,) I pondered what farmers, the original and perennial recyclers and protectors of the environment, would make of green fatigue.
My guess is that they will never grow weary of recycling because it’s part of their work ethic, economics and livelihood. Such things as using manure as fertilizer, refurbishing equipment and recycling the old for new purposes is no more than common sense and perhaps even necessity.
Ever reused twine? Nails? Wire? Wood? Buckets? Have you conserved soil? Sequestered carbon? Made do with stuff on hand instead of making a trip to town? Bought something at a farm auction or stored stuff that might one day be useful?
I rest my case.
Of course this doesn’t suggest that western Canadian farmers and ranchers should be complacent about their environmental efforts and responsibilities. On the contrary, they are probably at least as concerned about environmental health as any other consumer and resident of planet Earth.
But the point is that they are seldom given full credit for the work they do in feeding the planet, conserving the soil and caring for land and animals.
Is it easy being green? Some efforts are easier than others. But to quote a lesser-known stanza of Kermit the Frog’s famous song, “when green is all there is to be, it could make you wonder why.
“Green is the colour of spring, and green can be cool and friendly-like, and green can be big like a mountain or important like a river or tall like a tree.”
