Green is good, but how do we RE-educate others about BULLSHIT GREEN!

[DirtDawg]

I am really pissed, because the schools are teaching loads of bullshit again to the kids.

The focus lately has been Green Living.

Guess what!

Most of what they are instilling into our impressionable young children is total bullshit. 

Yes, per unit of heat exchange, electrical microwave cooking of fresh (grown a few feet away) vegetables and some meats (again, local!!) is a savings in carbon exchange over standard gas or electric heated ranges .....




..... but NOT when you buy prepackaged (one third packaging, two thirds product by weight - if you're lucky, FFS!!) convenience foods, which have been over-processed by massively inefficient mass production factories, mass marketed through mass media to the mass advertised coupon mass market for the food-on-the-go-for-a-busy-SUV-driving-soccer-mom mass market and then mass transported, enmasse to every mass marketer market in the fucking country, FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111




How the fuck can we RE-educate our children after their being subjected to this kind of nonsense. The "Wholey Gray-all" of the teachings my kids are tested on is to "Grab EASY stuff and stick it in the Microwave" to save the planet.









Any suggestions to help the kids rise above the BS they are being taught on this particular issue are welcome.

[Parts]

I cringe when my daughter whose 8 comes home with these "facts"  my sons are older and I have taught them to be skeptical.  Your right though it's not just the kids though I have met many adults who have fallen for the green monster.  I actually sell real green products  but some of the stuff they sell as green is bullshit and the facts they give just as bad.

[DirtDawg]

I cringe when my daughter whose 8 comes home with these "facts"  my sons are older and I have taught them to be skeptical.  Your right though it's not just the kids though I have met many adults who have fallen for the green monster.  I actually sell real green products  but some of the stuff they sell as green is bullshit and the facts they give just as bad.

Unfortunately mine are seven and nine, so they still soak up everything to which they are exposed.

My horror is from the past months, when they have accepted everything at face-value, because I have trained them to trust their teachers. "Trusted Adults,"  "Safe Places" and all that ...

Trust is an issue with young ones, but thinking for oneself must rule.

It is tough being a "teacher."

[Callaway]

My husband and I try to teach our daughter to think for herself, but her teachers' ideas definitely have a lot of influence on her.  For example, neither my husband nor I are vegetarians, and she complains every time she sees us eat meat.  I think that those ideas probably originated with some of her teachers. 

We did teach her to microwave convenience foods like Easy Mac, but that's because we see the microwave as less likely to hurt her than the stove or oven.

[DirtDawg]

My husband and I try to teach our daughter to think for herself, but her teachers' ideas definitely have a lot of influence on her.  For example, neither my husband nor I are vegetarians, and she complains every time she sees us eat meat.  I think that those ideas probably originated with some of her teachers. 

We did teach her to microwave convenience foods like Easy Mac, but that's because we see the microwave as less likely to hurt her than the stove or oven.

Hmmm, I started the other direction. I made them aware of the dangers of the stove, long before they were allowed to touch the microwave.
I see the electric range as more a danger to the house than the microwave and for a long time I was very worried about one of them starting a fire, just playing around.

There's no way to make the range safe, so I gave them a respect for it. I actually started a grease fire for each of them, so they could see how easy it could be to burn down the house.
I see the microwave as being a "more dangerous to a kid," appliance because they could easily overheat something and there may be no outward sign of how hot an item could be inside, while something too hot to touch on the range is often steaming.



Anyway, it is the thinking that Easy Mac is green and will save our planet if we use it, that I want to combat. They are just not able to think globally, yet. I need some pointers to help get them there.

[GalileoAce]

I think the best bet is to totally screw the planet, then we won't have any planet to worry about, even with false education. :: nods ::

[Pyraxis]

The trouble I had with the "green living" propaganda taught in my grade school had less to do with incorrect information than the attitude with which it was taught. Around 4th-5th grade we had dolphins and otters and oil spills shoved down our throats until, without comprehending any of the valid issues behind it, I reacted to any mention of environmentalism with "blech, get it away from me". Environmentalism was what the good little girls parroted in order to please the teachers. My knee-jerk disgust with it lasted long beyond the point where I should have started thinking for myself, even though my parents taught me early to make my own judgments.

A small example of the way in which we were implicitly taught that environmentalism was stupid, while they probably thought they were instilling its importance: one of the highlights of the year was the halloween class decoration contest. One year we spent weeks skipping recess to prepare everything from a cardboard box haunted house with a kid inside running puppets in the windows, to dozens of unique paper pumpkins. The next year we were told that our class would not be participating in the contest because decorations were not environmentally friendly. If protecting the environment means only taking away fun, and not any kind of thrill of encountering the wild, what kid is going to adopt it, and for what reasons?

I don't know how to teach kids to think except by encouraging it when they do, even if they're disagreeing with you. Long term I think what's needed is the spread of the idea that environmentalism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive. I guess shorter term would be more money/resources for education, to call in better quality teachers who'd let less misinformation get through. For me, rising above the BS took finding some of the inherent value of places not overrun by humans. That started at a church camp I went to when I was young, first with parents and then alone. It was reinforced through my love of fantasy, because I wanted there to still be places left on Earth to have adventures. It took a hit when I got into capitalist philosophy, and then swung back when I acknowledged the need for balance.

[GalileoAce]

Well there we go. Propaganda. You're not going to to much education from propaganda.

[SovaNu]

i heard that hybrids are worse than hummers.

[Phlexor]

The corporate world grabs the latest trend and then markets it to everyone. They are trying to sell you a feeling, and they will lie cheat and steal to get it into your hands and your money into their pockets.

They know you are going to try and figure out real green from fake green and they are going to make it as hard as possible to do.

[ApotheosisIV]

I never learnt much in school - they are more to do with brain-washing and indoctrination rather than education.
I read somewhere that if I turned all appliances off at the mains rather than leaving the little red standby light on, then I could save £300 per year. I don't know where they get these figures from, I don't believe it.

I don't know about any suggestions to improve the situation.

[Christopher McCandless]

I love the mobile phone charger myth:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/

[Parts]

I never learnt much in school - they are more to do with brain-washing and indoctrination rather than education.
I read somewhere that if I turned all appliances off at the mains rather than leaving the little red standby light on, then I could save £300 per year. I don't know where they get these figures from, I don't believe it.

I don't know about any suggestions to improve the situation.

I'm sure you'd save some but not 300 pounds

[DirtDawg]

There are "instant On"  functions built into many types of appliances, especially televisions, computer monitors, some audio gear, coffee makers that preheat the water, etc, all of which consume quite a bit of power as they keep the devices "ready to go."  Timers on these types of appliances (including water heaters, air conditioning) make more sense than leaving them on for the life of the equipment.
Most other things only power a small electronic clock or simply an LED to making finding the "On" switch easier.

DC chargers for cell phones, MP3 players, cameras or other portable devices which are plugged in do not consume an appreciable amount of power, until you plug in the device to re-charge the batteries. Most of these things have high-tech batteries, which require "Smart Chargers,"  which stop the current flow once the battery is charged, too.

Admittedly, having billions of these little clocks and LED things all draining our planet of energy probably speeds up something, but these scientist people, draining grant money from our tax bases, need to think more in terms of immediate re-thinking of all our energy systems, not just prolonging the status quo.

[El]

It's a 'popular' issue lots of people are getting on the bandwagon for.  I don't know what to believe and what not to because I haven't looked much into it.

And I agree with DD- one crisis at a time, please.  Yes, we need to think long-term, but if you totally neglect what's happening now, you fuck the long-term, too.