Gay and Green
In my state, New Jersey, we have the option to pay more for our electricity. Why on earth would anyone pay more for already-expensive energy? Because the providers offer service from 100% renewable sources, like wind, solar and small hydro (i.e., not huge life-killing dams). Out of several choices, the one I use is Green Mountain Energy Company.
How much more does it cost in NJ? It has just gone up from 0.9 cents extra per kilowatt hour to 1.3 cents. Since last month my household used 744 kilowatt hours, that’s an extra $9.67 on top of a regular $92 bill. Since we just decorated the outside with Christmas lights (yes, we’re early birds) and in December we’ll have the Christmas tree up, it will soon be a lot more than that!
Obviously I’m paying more than I have to for electricity, and on this site we’re all about being smart and frugal. So how do I justify it to myself? Two ways.
One, sometimes doing the right thing costs more. I’m one of those who would rather pay more for coffee grown by people paid a living wage, than corporate coffee sold at the cheapest possible price, when that price means destroying the lives of people in the so-called Third World. I think it’s incredibly dangerous if we love our money so much we’re willing to have people suffer for it.
But the second reason is less self-righteous, and more practical. In the short term, buying energy only from renewable resources is obviously more expensive. But a strong argument can be made that in the long term, it’s actually cheaper to go green.
Fossil fuels are clearly responsible, at least in part, for global warming, no matter what the shills at Exxon Mobil might be paid to say to the contrary. Destroying our environment will eventually be incredibly costly. Surely it’s cheaper to pay some money up front, than to pay later for catastrophe after catastrophe because we’ve thrown our planet into disarray.
I suspect more than most people, those of us in the LGBT community understand long-term thinking. Our struggle for civil rights and social acceptance isn’t an overnight deal. It’s a project that has already taken generations, and will take generations more. Likewise, movements like organic farming, renewable energy, and universal healthcare are going to require investments beyond our own personal pocketbooks and even our own time horizon.
The rainbow flag is one of the most widely used symbols for our LGBT community, but for me, the brightest color on the flag is green.
We do something similar but not fancy like this. Think indi, word of mouth culture jamming. Some of these posts on Queercents I have problems with but this post was something I’d have on my site. Give credit when credit is due. The only friendly criticism I would offer one Buddhist to another is too make sure to think more about buying free trade coffee. The consumer solution is limited because the implication is that is alright to have unfree trade coffee production be the norm. Free trade can become product enhancement for Starbucks and work against the rising of consumer anger at the whole coffee system from production to marketing to consumption. The fundamental question is whether free trade should be add on or the industry standard. Charity is spending a few dollers, justice entails challanging our whole consciousness and awareness of the violence that fuels production and consumer demand (desire). Starbucks is still very much up to its dirty tricks. http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/2006/10/26/ethiopian-coffee-farmers-fight-starbucks-for-more-bucks/
This is my fav. quote from the post–
“The rainbow flag is one of the most widely used symbols for our LGBT community, but for me, the brightest color on the flag is green.”
Great post in total, well said.