Thought this was worth sharing.
Inspired by Ginger who forgot about Earth Hour, I replied to her post:
“Meh. Don’t feel bad about forgetting about Earth Hour.
If you are GENERALLY eco-friendly, then it’s worth more than just turning out lights for one hour.
Everyone should be thinking about conserving energy, using less heat and electricity instead of doing it just one hour a year.”
Don’t get it twisted – Earth Hour was cool!
You could really see just how much of a drastic drop it was to just turn off a couple of lights and keep only the basics that you need on.
Very cool stuff.
It really irks me when people say “I participated in Earth Hour! That’s good enough for me!“, and then they go and waste water while brushing their teeth, crank the heat up until you’re in a bikini sweating on the couch, and turn on all the lights in the house without nary a thought about their energy consumption.
And sure, they have to pay for all of it in the end out of their pocket and they’ll take the hit in the wallet, but that isn’t the point. It’s the two-facedness of it that bothers me.
If you are an energy hog, eco-unfriendly kind of person, then don’t try and preach to ME that you’re green just because you participated in Earth Hour.
One hour. In a whole year. In other words, you thought about the Earth for a 0.000114155% of a year.
At least just say the truth — you sort of give a half-assed try and feel guilty once a year for an hour.
That, I can swallow.
Or, better yet, don’t say anything at all.
It is also not totally lost on me that it’s just a symbolic hour to tell us “Look at how much we could potentially save in energy if we all work together“! *hands out cupcakes, cookies and hearts*
Look that’s a nice sentiment, but without actual changes in people’s behaviour (bit by bit, not all at once), it’s sort of a pointless sentiment.
Just something to most of us feel good for about an hour that we’re being conscious about the Earth, when in our everyday lives we live like energy hogs.
I’m not trying to to say that anyone who isn’t a hippie that shuns all cars (even a Prius), bikes everywhere, grows their own veggies, throws out all their chemicals, make their own soap and wears only clothes and makeup dyed with vegetable dyes are the ones who TRULY care about the environment.
That’s just stupid.
In some cases, I do want to say for the record that I think SOME Prius owners DO fall into this neglectful, faux-green category by justifying buying a brand new, more expensive car, and claiming they are greener than a tomatillo.
What some of those owners may not have considered is that truly green people try to avoid owning a car altogether, and would have:
- bought a second hand or used car
- used public transportation
- biked to work
- carpooled
- moved closer to their work (if possible) so they could walk, bike or carpool
As for me, I am trying to be as eco-friendly as possible, but not to the detriment of my lifestyle of what I’m used to. I just want to substitute in better options for what I normally use.
That’s right, I said it.
I’m not going to be making my own soap any time soon (I find the process time consuming and a bit dangerous from what I’ve read about it), but I am going to consider growing my own vegetables for example.
But at least I’m telling the truth instead of making others feel bad for not going as far as I am, or experimenting with different, greener methods of living, the way I am such as with water only washing instead of shampoo.
All I’m asking is that people shouldn’t brag about participating in Earth Hour, or buying a NEW expensive Prius when you aren’t even really thinking about the environment 99% of the time to avoid using unfriendly chemicals or trying to cut back on your plastic bag use (granted, if you have a dog… I cannot think of any other alternatives to pick up canine poop).
I hate empty promises without any actual action to back up your words.
And if you were one of those few who participated in Earth Hour, bought a Prius for the specific reason of reducing your carbon footprint AND are eco-conscious on a daily basis then ignore this post entirely. 
HOW DOES THIS TIE INTO FINANCE?
Simple.
Don’t say you don’t have any money and then go out and blow $350 on a bag you couldn’t afford.
I don’t ever say (now) that I don’t have any cash to do anything because I’m out of debt, and I have the cash to buy what I want (up to a certain limit). (Besides, it’d be beyond rude for me to whine about not having money when I do (even my name changed to Fabulously “Broke” because I wanted to keep the “FB” initials).
Not only that, I find it strange to be proud of being cash-poor, broke, overdrawn, maxed out and generally penniless working paycheque to paycheque.
Maybe it’s just a mechanism for people to nervously deal with what they know is a hot financial mess.
But it seems like people seem to use that as a sort of excuse like: “Hahah.. I can’t afford ANYTHING, but Imma go buy this new Macbook Pro anyway and put it on credit because.. damn, girl, I’ll never get enough money to buy it in cash, so what’s the point? We’re all in debt, forever at some point or another!!!!! ROFLAMAO”.
Or to put it in a real life perspective Dog got a direct question asked by colleagues about how much money she pays in student loans every month when in fact she pays $0 now because she cleared her crazy amount of debt! (WOO HOO!)
Instead, she ended up lying about it and said that she pays $1100 in student loans each month because she felt uncomfortable and didn’t want to come off as preachy and better-than-thou.
Even though I wouldn’t have lied about my finances if someone had asked (I am damn proud of having cleared that debt!), I understand why she did it.
The worst part of that story for me is not her lying (which is what everyone is focusing on it seems), it’s how everyone is okay having the mindset that debt is a way of life, and being debt-free is something to be shunned because you aren’t like 90% of Americans who carry credit card or student debt.
Make choices about your money, take control of it instead of having money control YOU and be proud of what you end up buying, because you bought it consciously.
You want that $350 bag?
Badly?
Find a way to cut your budget and save the cash to buy it instead of just whining about how you have no money since you’re going on vacation next month, and how the only way you’re going to get that bag is on credit.
I’ve blogged about how everybody* has money and about the fact that most people HAVE money (with a couple of exceptions), they’re just not willing to cut back and do something to cease their cash-poor whining.
Just like Earth Hour, a little deprivation of a bag or turning off lights for an hour, it’s all fruitless if you don’t really change your behaviour at the core and start backing up what you’re pretending to preach.
So Ginger, don’t feel bad about missing Earth Hour. Seriously.
What other person would go out and spend close to $50 on cute re-usable RuMe bags if they weren’t eco-conscious to begin with?
OTHER RESOURCES
Revanche did a better post (well, it’s written better), called “Are we smug bastards?“, as a comment to this post.
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