Not Becoming an Eco Snob

Let’s face it. I’ve been bitten by the green bug. It’s why I’m (hopefully) going back to grad school—more on that soon. It’s why I do all the annoying things I do around the house to Conservative Boy (thanks for the moniker, Chops). It’s why I think “green” most of the day at work—fortunately, a lot of the time, it’s allowed.

But there’s a fine line between being an eco fan and an eco snob, as I was reminded of in a post on the topic in Treehugger today (titled, fittingly, “Enough Pious Eco-Snobbery”).

I want to make steps to consume less, conserve more, and all that good stuff in my own life. And I want to tell people why it’s important to go green. (Hint: It’s about more than the environment—it’s also about your health, the health of future generations, your pocketbook, and slew of other things.)

At the same time, I don’t want to be preachy or judgmental or come off as someone who looks down her nose at people who aren't "going green." Because it’s not like that at all.

(Side note: Check out these fake Prius ads, which poke fun at the holier-than-thou image of Prius drivers by showing them doing morally reprehensible things. Funny stuff.)

Anyhow, back to the topic at hand. It’s certainly not a competition to see who can be greenest. I admire the steps other people have taken that I haven’t taken yet. It compels me to want to do more. And I admit that I’m far from living a totally eco-friendly life at this point. I make mistakes—as Conservative Boy quickly reminded me when I accidentally left a light on in the closet the other day. (So wasteful, he said disdainfully, then reminded me how often I get after him for leaving lights on. I deserved that, by the way. If you’re going to dish it you have to learn how to take it. But we’re all human and even the greenest among us sometimes forgets to unplug the toaster. No eco-pariahs here, please.)

I don’t want to be one of those people who walks into someone’s house and judges them because they’re not using organic produce or they haven’t taken steps to improve the energy efficiency of their home. Rather, I want to show people how easy it really is to reduce their negative impact on the environment—and that it doesn’t have to involve prancing around in organic cotton jeans or installing composting toilets. I want to make going green a real, honest-to-god good move that anyone can do, not something for an elite few who have the time, the money, and the knowledge to do it right.