Green is the Color of Money

This post contains outdated information. I only remove harmful content and try to keep old posts visible — even if they're embarrassing. I want to look back and see my growth over the years, and don't want to hide it from others. Thanks for considering this as you read. (comment or contact me to request an update about its subject matter)

The environmentalist movement may be full of morons and hippies, but there are some merits to caring about the environment. [2025: 😩 JFC, this is gonna be a slog, isn’t it] My biggest concern in my own life and the lives of my family and friends is Quality of Life. Having a safe, healthy place to live is absolutely paramount in one’s quality of life.

Comic How To Be Happy by Shannon Wheeler. Two characters talking, one is giving the other advice about maintaining balance in life. Work and Play. Mind, Body, and Spirit. Family, Relationships, Love, Dreams. As they say this, the concepts they're told to balance pile up on their body, which is forced to contort in increasingly absurd ways before collapsing entirely beneath a pile of words as the advice-giver exclaims Perfect!

I am an average 26 year old man. I have an average office job and make average money. I have an average apartment with my long-term girlfriend who nags me about marrying her. It’s about as normal as it gets. If a fringe section of the population decides to live ‘off the grid’ and poop in a bucket to use later as fertilizer, that’s good for them, but it won’t save the environment in a meaningful way. The only way to make the country (and later the world) a better place to live is to make healthy choices easier, faster, and more profitable. No one will deny that gasoline-driven cars suck, but electric and hybrid vehicles are either not available or too expensive for most people. If electric cars were cheaper than gas guzzlers everyone would have one. And if everyone has one, you see real change.

You’ll hear arguments from people saying that each person should do their part. Every little bit counts. Are you doing your part? Are you making decisions that will actually spread the wisdom of being green? Or are you just doing things that will make you feel better about yourself?


The Earth Will Live

Let’s not be silly. We are not trying to save the Earth. We are trying to save the human race. The Earth will live. The Earth has been here for billions of years. Billions of species have grown, lived, and gone extinct. Losing panda bears to extinction is not going to be the thing that ends the world.

What I look for is efficiency. I want to get long-term gains from one-time costs. For example: installing quality insulation in your home for a one-time cost will do the job of several hundreds of dollars of heating and cooling for the foreseeable future. The same can be said for wind and solar power. There is no good reason not to invest in these technologies if you have the ability.

The planet can fend for itself. I just want a better life for myself, my friends, my family, and my pets. That better life includes healthy food, clean air and water, and a safe immediate environment. And I want everyone to be able to have these things without being rich.


Food Costs

Organic food and produce was awesome a couple years ago. Now it seems like the same old crap can just slap an organic sticker on itself with no repercussions. The biggest thing I miss about living in Mesa (Arizona) was all the local food stores and restaurants. We had Sprouts right down the street which had some of the best vegetables and fruits I’ve ever had. We had Flancer’s across the street from my work, who had the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten (and some pretty awesome pizza) all made with local organic produce. We even had Joe’s Farm Grill which was a hamburger stand on a farm that produced its own ingredients. All of these places were reasonably priced and had amazing-tasting food.

CounterThink cartoon shows someone grocery shopping looking at a display of three different kinds of apples. Organic Apples for $2.99 per pound are organically grown in Australia, transported here by burning fossil fuels. Conventional applies for $1.50 per pound are grown in the U.S. using undocumented migrant labor and dangerous pesticides. Bargain apples for 79 cents per pound are grown in South America using slave labor, contaminated soil, and neurotoxic pesticides banned in the U.S. The caption: Remember you vote with your dollars. What you buy is what you encourage.

Now I live in a more metropolitan area near Las Vegas. Henderson and Green Valley are awesome suburbs with some decent places to eat and buy groceries, but nothing like Mesa and Gilbert had in Arizona. We have Whole Foods, which has similar stuff as Sprouts did only lower quality and double price. We have a Cheese and Wine store that I really like if I’m in the mood to live luxuriously. We have Lee’s Liquor which has the most awesome selection of imported and microbrew beers I’ve ever seen. We have Todd’s Unique Dining which is always an amazing treat. They have a different menu every day and all of it is produced with the freshest high quality ingredients (many local) at a premium price. These places are great, but they’re all expensive as hell.

Healthy Food

Why is it so expensive to get fresh, healthy food that tastes good? Why can I buy a greasy cheeseburger at McDonald’s for 99 cents, but I can’t even buy those ingredients at the supermarket for that cheap? Because the government subsidizes shitty food. McDonald’s Cheeseburgers have animal shit in them. I don’t mean that as a general term like “I’m doing stupid shit”, they have literal shit in their meat.

Slowpoke cartoon diagrams Class War in the 21st Century (a food perspective). A looping cycle is demonstrated: 1. Corrupt Republicans gut environmental laws, increasing pollution. 2. Food gets contaminated with harmful chemicals. 3. Informed shoppers buy organic to avoid poisoning selves. 4. Right-wing partisan writes snarky book casting progressives as the new upper class driven by status. 5. Demonizing liberal elites becomes Republican party strategy. 6. People vote Republican because they're no fancy-pants elite liberal. Then the cycle repeats as an audience of the richest 1% laughs.

Have you ever wondered why the rich are always the ones who are physically fit and beautiful? Part of it may be plastic surgery, but it is also due in large part to them being the ones who can afford healthy food. When I’m unemployed I can only eat ramen, noodles with pesto sauce, hamburgers, or bratwursts. These are all home-made items that can be made cheaply, but they are still more expensive than a meal at Del Taco.

The only way I’ve found to lose weight and eat food that doesn’t taste like it was made in one of those little play-dough factories is to cook it myself. I can see every ingredient that goes into my meals and decide exactly how healthy I want to eat. I can also be assured that my hamburger has the right fat content (and has no shit in it) by watching my butcher grind it with my own eyes.

Organic doesn’t mean anything anymore. The only way to get good fresh food is to get local produce and eat at restaurants that use local ingredients. Local means the food is fresh, it doesn’t travel across the country to get your plate, and it isn’t produced in some factory with minimum quality ingredients to meet regulations. All of these things mean it can be relatively cheap, too. Find those local markets and spend your money there. Support your local businesses instead of going to national chains. I’d rather spend $5 at In-N-Out Burger to get a burger that uses local produce (and tastes better) than spend $4 at Burger King any day.

CounterThink cartoon The Plan for the Global Food Supply. Irradiate everything. Remove the nutrition. Inject toxic chemicals (colors, preservatives, sweeteners, MSG). The result: a line of sick, malnourished, and disabled people wait for a pharmaceutical salesman to sell them drugs.
[2025: their definition of “toxic chemicals” is suspect]

Anyone who is interested in how the food industry works should check out Food, Inc. (Netflix link) (Amazon link). It is a documentary about the Food business in America that will inform you where your food comes from and how to find the best places to eat and shop. It also contains some information that will make you think about the politics of food.


Air & Carbon

I couldn’t give two shits if my ‘carbon footprint’ was reduced. I would just like the air to not stink like fumes everywhere I go. The gas guzzlers flying down the freeway next to me belch out smog that flows into the vents in my car and irritates my lungs. I once drove through LA on my way to a game industry conference in Northern California and I was sick for the whole day from the 1 hour I spent driving through LA. I don’t know how those people can live there. It smells horrible, it made Kati’s asthma flare up, and I — a perfectly healthy slightly overweight man — got physically sick without leaving my car.

Illustration of a person traversing a polluted landscape wearing a mask with a tube connected to a backpack with a small tree inside.

Who lives near these highways and factories that spew garbage into our air? Poor people. Most poor people don’t have health insurance. Most poor people can’t afford a healthy diet for themselves and their kids. As a humanitarian, you should care about these people. They don’t have a choice except to endure these unhealthy environments.

Air pollution causes several health problems for anyone around it. In areas where there are higher rates of pollution in the air, more children develop allergies and asthma. Air pollution has been said to cause meningitis and encephalitis. These are factors that affect us today. These are the reasons I care about my environment.


Noise Pollution

Slowpoke comic Noise War. It started with cellphone dipwads, a loud person on their cell phone on a bus says Yea, I'm having my inverted nipple extruded today! Noise canceling headphones ensued. But in this age of advanced ringtones, 4-wheelers, and fat tailpipes, it's only a matter of time before we see (list): Mini personal leaf blowers to clear crumbs off seats. Plexiglass bubbles added over our heads to add to the anti-noise ensemble. Parents can no longer hear their kids above the din, so they use baby amplifiers. People resort to full-body suits made of sound-dampening eggshell foam, on top of everything else.

I want a Hydrogen car. They are basically electric cars that hold their charge using hydrogen. They emit nothing but clean water. Why do I want one of these cars? Because I’m too lazy to stop for gas and I like clean air and quiet.

We have been focused on making our technology smaller, more efficient, and have less carbon emissions, but I think the next step should be quieter. Nothing pollutes my apartment worse than when someone rolls by on their obnoxious Harley-Davidson which serves no purpose (over a quieter motorcycle brand) beyond being loud and obnoxious. I had to go to a NASCAR race in Phoenix a couple years ago when I was working for 93.3 KDKB (Everything That Rocks! – I have to say that… heh) and the noise alone was enough to give me an incredible headache.

(CW: includes the f-slur repeatedly)

Eeeeeeeeeeeee

In my apartment, I have all of my electronics in my living room: my tv, stereo, video games, my PC and its components, everything. The only thing in my bedroom that plugs in is my tiny alarm clock. When I turn off all my toys and go to bed at night I sometimes just listen to all the white noise and all the buzzing in my ears. When I lay in a quiet room and listen to it all it makes me wonder how I haven’t gone deaf over the years. The world around us is infested with technology. As much as I love every bit of that technology, it all makes noise.

2025: My passionate pursuit of noise pollution reform makes even more sense after realizing my autism situation.

Ever since I moved all of the electronics out of my bedroom, I have stopped getting stress nosebleeds almost entirely, which was a problem I’ve had since childhood. I’ve had fewer headaches and feel far more rested when I wake up in the morning. I credit this entirely to the reduction in noise.

Savage Chickens comic People I Hate (part 1 of 427). An alarm beeps at 2:00 am. A chicken wing smacks it to turn it off. The chicken character sits up in bed and cheerfully states Ah two AM! Time to ride my motorcycle through quiet residential areas!

As I listen to the ever-present high pitched ringing in my ears, I am reminded of my noise canceling headphones that I use whenever I take a flight (thanks Uncle Rob!). If you get on an airplane and flick the Noise Canceling switch off for a few seconds with your music turned very low, you will be amazed how incredibly loud the inside of the plane is. If you don’t wear these headphones, you become desensitized to all that sound because it is so constant. I wonder how much of that noise we filter out in our everyday lives and the damaging effects it must have.

I was brought up from a very young age by an audiophile father who always taught my brother and I to value our hearing. He would make sure we didn’t play our headphones too loud or stand too close to the speakers at concerts. One of my dad’s favorite bands, The Who, has bragged about being “the loudest band in the world” too, so don’t judge him by the volume on his headphones. My dad’s an old school rocker.


Global Warming

Global Warming is a heavily debated topic, but to me it is an unimportant topic. If you tell someone that the average temperature in Alaska has gone up by 4 degrees in the last 50 years, they will not care much. I certainly don’t. If you tell them that 100 years from now, New York City will be under water, that may sound scary and interest more people, but I’ll be dead by then and my kids probably won’t live there anyway.

2025: I wasn’t 100% off having kids yet in 2010, but I was pretty close.

Cartoon depicts a climate summit where a presentation lists: energy independence, preserve rainforests, sustainability, green jobs, livable cities, renewables, clean water, clean air, healthy children. An angry man stands up in the crowd and asks What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?

The fact of the matter is: if you shut down a factory in your town and replace it with a cleaner and more efficient source, you will immediately improve your quality of life. If you start eating healthier local produce instead of going to the Olive Garden you will immediately improve your quality of life. If you encourage (don’t be a dick of course) your neighbors to get electric cars, you will immediately improve your quality of life. You don’t have to wait 50 years. You don’t have to think about your hypothetical great-grandchildren. You can think about how you live right now.

That is how you inspire people to change. You show them immediate rewards for their actions and then tell them that we have a bonus down the line as well.


Changing Laws to Live Better

Illustration depicts a landscape of tree stumps saying I sure wish there was another fiber to use for paper and building panels besides these irreplaceable trees! A fallow farmland says I sure wish there was some crop we could grow to save our irreplaceable farmland from development. Meanwhile a hemp plant sadly stands held against the wall with a high gate and barbed wire.

Legalizing hemp and marijuana production in the U.S. would create a huge boom in farming the incredibly useful plant. Some of the side effects of this legislation would be very helpful for the environment.

Only 1 acre of hemp is said to produce more oxygen than 25 acres of current forest.

Alan D. Bryan

Check out The Union (Netflix Link) (Amazon Link) for more information about the history and science of hemp and marijuana.

CounterThink cartoon Energy Crisis Solved! Four wind turbines stand across from a U.S. Senate podium with a speaker wagging his finger angrily. An arrow points to his mouth as an endless supply of hot air.

Creating a smarter power grid would make the electricity we gain — whether from current methods or future ones — get to our homes and businesses intact. Using the current structure of our antiquated power grid, more than 40% of the power we work so hard to produce is lost. We can have all the electric and hydrogen cars we want, but it won’t matter if we’re burning coal at 60% efficiency to charge the damn things.

Electricity is more expensive every couple months too (or so my power company keeps telling me in my mail), so making it more efficient will reduce cost and consumption. It’d be nice to have a summer without any blackouts too of course.


Your Part

If you want to improve your quality of life and that of those around you, focus your energy and money on making it an everyday thing to fix the environment. Buy products from businesses that don’t produce pollution. Vote for legislation that taxes polluters and subsidizes more conscious practices. You don’t have to unplug your electronics, quit your job and start a farm somewhere. You don’t have to convert your car to ethanol with a special adapter. You don’t have to go vegan.

Cartoon shows a smug-looking man driving a Prius. Look at me! I drive a Prius. I'm destroying the planet at a slower rate than you are.

You may not be anyone important on the national scale, like a politician or a celebrity, but you do have power in your paycheck. Make sure your money, your votes, and your positive words go to the right places. It’s really easy. You just have to learn what you’re buying before you buy it.


2025 Update

Okay, this wasn’t as bad as I feared from its opening paragraph. Luckily, I don’t think I was ever a climate change denier, even when I was a contrarian libertarian blowhard. I wrote this before I knew how common these concepts were outside the deep red desert states I lived in for all those years:

I still believe our individual choices have minimal impact compared to the huge corporations producing all the waste, shipping everything using fossil fuels, etc. That said, I still live my values for their own sake:

  • car-free (since 2016)
  • vasectomy
  • shopping local and small whenever possible
  • recycling and composting
  • buying and donating used goods
  • never once used cryptocurrency
  • Avoiding AI (I quit after a couple weeks)

Many of these actions are more of a boycott of blight corporations I can’t stand than any altruistic thing, but it hasn’t hurt my self esteem either.

  1. I miss Sprouts and Flancers. There’s Whole Foods in my area too, but like you said I like Sprouts better.

    One day when I start making money again I hope to make better lifestyle choices. Even if I don’t agree with veganism for example, I still think it’s important to care about our impact on other people– and animals. I eat meat, but I don’t defend it. The People Eating Tasty Animals shtick doesn’t get the same chuckle out of me as it used to, but I’m fine with people trying to have a sense of humor.

    1. There is nothing wrong with eating meat. The main arguments against it are:

      1.) Anti-Agriculture: a ridiculous notion that we can somehow affordably feed the 300 million people in the U.S. without having large quantities of food being produced constantly. A better solution to the methane and other waste materials from the farms to create energy or other uses.

      2.) Anti-Shipping: I agree that large industrial farms are a problem. I wish that every city had its own local farms producing the food they need. This is why I love local produce. I would also love it if Urban Agriculture was taken a bit more seriously.

  2. The biggest challenge I have as a blogger is getting my readers to make comments (rather than e-mail me directly!) so I’d better practice what I preach!.

    I remember 40 years ago (yikes!) how environmentalism was such a big thing and then it lost momentum and now it’s returned. I absolutely believe much more needs to be done to protect the planet but I don’t think companies are necessarily sincere in their concern when I see all of the “green” products out there (especially in grocery stores). It’s just a way to reel in more dollars.

    By the way, delighted that you still have your headphones!

    1. Green is a marketing scheme. If you do a small amount of research, you can tell who’s full of shit.

      It goes back to one of my personal philosophies:
      “If it’s an advertisement, it’s bull.”

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