Topic: Was the Older generation green?

[roy1]

 How Wasteful the Older Generation Was.....


In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that she should bring
her own grocery bag because plastic bags weren't good for the environment. The
woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in
my day."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. The former generation did not
care enough to save our environment." He was right...that generation didn't
have the green thing in its day.

Back then, they returned their milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to
the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized
and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really
were recycled. But they didn't have the green thing back in that customer's
day.

In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn't have an escalator in
every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn't
climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks. But
she was right. They didn't have the green thing in her day.

Back then, they washed the baby's diapers because they didn't have the
throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling
machine burning up 220 volts - wind and solar power really did dry the clothes.
Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always
brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right, they didn't have the green
thing back in her day.

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house - not a TV in every room.
And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief, not a screen the size
of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand
because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for you.

When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used a wadded up old
newspaper to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, they didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the
lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working
so they didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on
electricity. But she's right, they didn't have the green thing back then..

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty instead of using a cup or a
plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled their
writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor
blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the
blade got dull. But they didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to
school or rode the school bus instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi
service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of
sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn't need a computerized gadget
to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to
find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful the old folks were
just because they didn't have the green thing back then?

[MoMo]

Seen this before but it bears showing as it does show how much more wasteful we are than what we were...Larry

[BeSeeingYou]

While I understand the point that the post makes and it is pretty well done what is not mentioned is the fact that this older generation also dumped what toxic waste they produced wherever they felt like it.  Remember the Cuyahoga River catching fire, Lake Erie as a cesspool, and Love Canal.  Growing up as a kid in the sixties I remember how bad the air was and the littered landscape.  It's a lot cleaner now.  So declaring one generation greener is a bit more complicated.

[singedebile]

...yeah back then she would have thought being given a plastic bag to carry what her hands are easily capable of would be absurd .... the conversation would never have come up, she would have refused the bag

the same people that apparently recycled because it made sense "back in the day" are the same that demand plastic bags when they buy a can of soda

[faux fiddy]

Funny question, perhaps spamish as we've seen it, but it raises other questions.

I happened to be in the right place in Oregon to see a Ken Kesey statue unveiled, and well, it came along with a seminar in an English Department available to the public. One of the most relevant speakers was working on a graduate degree, I guess, and discussed the relationship of hipie to hillbilly, and older ways.

On a second thought the Amish and  to a lesser extent the Mennenites have maintained a lifestyle that is relatively carbon neutral if not better.  They can't use tech past a certain year. Cameras are not within that date, but monocular and binocular is.

A ford taurus (et,al.) is off limits for the date of the religeon, but the transmission of the same may not be. You can use the transmission to run a horse in circles and use the ford parts to grind corn, grain, saw or whatever you can hook up.  The  tech was pre civil war or so ...its amishish.

[faux fiddy]

Father's family has a property in Valparaiso IN that was a summer home. Dad's father was a carpenter. He never wanted to drive, rode the train to the cottage available back in the day, and to some extent today on the north shore.

Grampa Never used a car, thought it was a fad.  Never met him, by a just a few months. They say we'd have hit it off.

[tramp]

never thought we could hurt the enviroment till we did

[demon78]

Ok, I'm a little older than most of you, so I remember the War years growing up and not much was wasted, soap that was almost gone was put in a perforated tin can and wired to the sink faucet so that it could be used as dish washing soap when the hot water was turned on, my old man took a coil of metal tubing, I think it was copper and wound it around the exhaust manifold on his 35 Ford coupe, started the car with gas and by the time it had idled for a bit it warmed up the coil and the stove oil in it and he could burn stove oil in the car that way which was cheaper and easier to get than gas, the down side was that he had to clean the head and the manifolds more often than on straight gas, so more green I don't know I do know it was a way of surviving.
Bill the demon.

[faux fiddy]

Dad got a chevy at some time around 15 so I'm guessing '49 or earlier. Actually I think his first car wa a lincoln he split with his older brother who wasn't as mechanicly inclinew.

I think it turned into a deal where they quadrupled their ten bucks.

Yeah, the soap nubs got recycled into new soap was what the other gramma did prolly both.

[74cb750]

This tread refers to much older times than I remember.
I know when we were kids the city stopped people from burning their trash at home
and forced everyone to bring it to the dump to burn.
Result: all the pollution was more concentrated and made it
easier to clean up 20 years later. 

[Don R]

My Grandparents lived mostly on their garden,  they canned everything they grew, made their own noodles and froze them. Dad bought him a new 48' farmall cub tractor, it was still in use a few years ago. Grandma threw her banana peels and egg shells in the garden and also her dishwater. Old newspaper was mulch and when my cousin went to live with them grandma put a cloth over the cord to his record player so Grandpa wouldn't notice it was electric. They re-cycled and lived green before it even had a name.

[BeSeeingYou]

This tread refers to much older times than I remember.
I know when we were kids the city stopped people from burning their trash at home
and forced everyone to bring it to the dump to burn.
Result: all the pollution was more concentrated and made it
easier to clean up 20 years later. 

I had forgotten about the town dump.  That was where you would take all the stuff the trash collector did not pick up.  Appliances, old paint, tires, furniture, broken lawn mowers, etc....than they just buried it...all gone, no problem.

On my grandparent's farm what they could not burn was hauled off to the gravel pit, where someone had payed them to dig out a huge load of gravel years back.  So now it's just a big hole filled with water with junk all about.  Our pastime was finding all the bottles and jars , tossing them in the water and then throwing rocks at them until we hit and broke them.  I can still toss a rock with amazing accuracy.

[Don R]

When I was a kid the old cars were piling up and we were going to be drowning in them with no relief in sight. I guess solving that problem is why we don't make any new steel.

[Bluegreen]

This is also the generation that perfected consumerism, over packaging, DDT, and invented disposable everything (bic pens come to mind for some reason...).

 Watch those rose tinted glasses when looking back.

[Retro Rocket]

This is also the generation that perfected consumerism, over packaging, DDT, and invented disposable everything (bic pens come to mind for some reason...).

 Watch those rose tinted glasses when looking back.

Haven't learned much since then,  have we........and the current wave of greed won't help much either.....

[Bluegreen]

This is also the generation that perfected consumerism, over packaging, DDT, and invented disposable everything (bic pens come to mind for some reason...).

 Watch those rose tinted glasses when looking back.

Haven't learned much since then,  have we........and the current wave of greed won't help much either.....

It's kind of amazing when you take a step back and look at our history as a species. From a technological stand point we have learned so much, but from a human nature stand point nothing has really changed.

I agree with the current wave of greed, it's just a matter of when "current" is isn't it ?

Now?

The "Me Decade" 80's?

The "American Dream" unabashed consumerism of the 50's ?

The speculation of the 20's/early 30's that led to a world wide depression?

The First World War that led to millions of deaths over from colonial ambitions?

The industrial revolution that replaced humans with machines and at the same time turned them into machines?

Louis the 14th's court?

The Egyptians use of massive amounts of manpower to build edifices to themselves?

No, I really don't think we've learned a lot. We are a very greedy group. Each generation has just gone about it slightly differently.

[Spanner 1]

I've worked in 15,000 sq. foot houses with 2 adults and 2 kids living in 'em. Prolly 15 tons of cooling, 6 furnaces ( gas ) to heat it and a carbon footprint for each one of those people that would serve a hundred members of the human race in a lot of other cultures........ me and the Mrs. have actively been trying to reduce our 'footprint' for some years now as we are aware that it's not an entitlement but carbon 'greed'........ less is more !!!!!

[demon78]

Blue G remember though some of the things you mention were to solve worse problems( how many people died from Malaria for instance ) over packaging was to keep things from spoiling as quickly and yes I'm not disagreeing with you, we should have moved on, but part of the reason we have government is so that they can protect the citizenry from over the top responses from solution providers and it seems that the gov didn't live up to it's responsibility. Funny that.
Bill the demon.