The difficulty in being Green

Parents can often be heard saying to their kids 'you are who you hang out with.' Meaning, if little Timmy consorts with the smart kids, he too will be smart. The same mantra seems to apply to being green.  Consistent eco-friendly living often depends on what the people around you are doing.

If you live in a place like San Francisco, it can be very easy to fall into a pattern of doing things the 'green way.' After all, the society and law pushes for a greener way of life. Want to skip the $6 Golden Gate bridge toll on your way to work every day? Buy a 'clean air vehicle'  that runs on electricity, propane, or compressed natural gas.   San Franciscans who drive a clean air car have the option to save up to ($6 x 5 days x 4 weeks x 12 months) nearly $1500 dollars a year in bridge tolls.  And for those who don't want to drive at all, the San Francisco public transit system is extensive and can take you nearly anywhere you want.

San Francisco also recently passed the most comprehensive (and aggressive) recycling program in the country in order to completely halt the use of landfills by 2020. This new law requires that every business and residence utilize three color-coded bins for trash, recycling and compost. Citizens who don't comply with the ordinance will face fines of up to $500. Some San Franciscans have complained about this recent mandatory green action, however, most people realize it's better policy for the city as a whole.

Beyond the law, people in San Francisco simply have a greener way of doing things.  For example, if an out-of-towner (lets say from LA) were to throw their McDonald's trash bag onto the sidewalk, they would very likely be mobbed by a crowd of grungy ex-hippies, Prius-driving web 2.0 yuppies  and marathon running vegans.  It may sound like a scene from a Woody Allen flick, but in reality, people of all types fall into the San Francisco's collective consciousness of 'being green.'

Drive down the Pacific Coast Highway a ways (about 12 hours on the slow, windy road) and you will reach the polar opposite as far as eco-friendly living. Southern California is notorious for having the worst pollution in the country. The American Lung Association recently gave out the shameful honor for 'most polluted city' to Bakersfield, CA. It's amazing and horrifying to fly into LA and see the black 'haze' hanging over the city like a diseased ocean fog.

Just as it's easy to be green in San Francisco, it is fairly difficult to achieve eco-friendly standards in LA. Public transit is nearly non-existent in the sprawling metropolis:  most commuters zip to work in their gas-guzzling vehicles via the complex maze of Los Angeles highways. If someone decided to take public transit, they would need to make a large sacrifice in time and efficiency.

LA is also a major port of industry for agriculture and oil, prompting 18-wheelers to occupy the highways and ocean tankers to fill the harbors. If these major industry hot-spots were  simply 'turned off' the city and state would take a major economic hit.

It's not that Los Angelenians (or Bakerfield-ites) are polluters in general or hate being green.  However, they are living in a social, industrial, and economic environment that makes green-living a monumentally more difficult task. Sure, there are pockets of light (such as Santa Monica), but collectively Southern California is in the dark as far as shaping up their eco-standards.

So the question is: how can an individual living in such a place make the effort to be green, if everyone else around them is doing something else? One solution is for a person to target one aspect of their lifestyle that could be modified to be greener and work at it.

Driving to work on the 110 five days a week? Stay home during the weekend and spend some time in your neighborhood, whether it be West Hollywood or Inglewood. Are you a techy who upgrades their hardware every two weeks? Responsibly dispose of your used hardware, whether it be used networking equipment or LCD monitors. There are various recycling and reuse options that you can find online.

Keeping up with the little things and building on them might make you the exception to 'you are who you hang out with.'