Are You Confusing "Greener" with "Green?"

There's certainly no shortage of so-called green information out there these days. Advice for "going green" or "saving the planet" or some combination of the two seem to be around every corner, in every magazine, and all over the internet. While more information is certainly better than less, when it comes to actions we can take to lessen our collective and individual footprints, it can be hard to digest and triage all that info. In short: We're all in danger of confusing "greener" with "green."

This might seem like an inconsequential difference -- a trivial distinction; after all, more information leads to more action, right? Well, maybe, but it's a big world, and we all only have so much bandwidth to not only absorb information, but take that information from just knowing it to doing something about it. Nobody can do everything. And, given the scale of the problems we face -- a warming globe, vanishing freshwater, a badly damaged food system -- and the ticking clock that we have to keep an eye on as we fight the problems, it's critical that we, as individuals and as a society, stay focused on the information and actions that really make a game-changing impact. We have to concentrate on the thing that'll help us move the needle: "green."

What does that mean, really? Given the parade of cliches about various ideas to save the planet, and notions of how to go green, that are coming from all angles, it's easy to get confused, or even hoodwinked, by the things that get trumpeted the loudest, and repeated with the highest frequency. Add that to the fact that much of the advice is at least partly true -- many of the things that you hear about "going green" and so forth aren't wrong. So, in addition to the question you have to ask about whether the information you receive is right or wrong, you have to be able to decide how right it is, and how much actual impact might result. Most greener stuff is good, but it doesn't hold a candle to green. It's a jungle out there.

So, all that said, let's get down to business: What is "greener" vs. "green?" I'll give you three examples:

Recycling is greener; cradle-to-cradle, zero-waste design is green.

If you, or your parents, or anybody else you knew was around in the 1970's, you've heard this more times than you can count: Reduce, reuse, recycle. It's a fine mantra, but we tend to focus on the last bit as a concrete activity. When you put something in the recycling bin, you know (in theory, at least) that it's not going the same place your garbage is, and that it'll get re-made into something new. Ahh, feels good, right?

Wrong. Yeah, recycling is generally not bad for the environment -- in fact, but, with few exceptins, it's just a prolonged path to the landfill. Paper, plastic, and other commonly recycled materials (glass is a notable exception) can only be recycled a limited number of times, which is to say, that piece of paper or plastic bag in your recycling bin will only come back a couple of times before it has been rendered useless, and will have to be discarded. Glass, the exception noted above, can be recycled pretty much indefinitely, but it takes an awful lot of energy to melt glass down to the point where any impurities can be removed, and the glass can be re-blown, so it's not an option without drawbacks.

The point is this: Recycling is okay, and you shouldn't stop doing it, but it's not the height of green life. True sustainability -- where our stuff never has to go "away" -- can only be achieved with an altered cycle that does not involve trash or recycling. Think about how much less work you'd personally have to do if you never had to take out the trash, or haul the recycling to the curb; everything would be designed for longevity, and you could either pass it on or turn it in to something more useful when you were done with it. Composting is a great example of this; nature recycles everything, and we should, too.

Hybrid cars are greener; bicycling is green.

The hybrid car has become the poster child for the green movement for many people, and for good reason; the more efficient hybrids are more than twice as fuel efficient than the average car. It's a great example of the fusion of ingenuity and technology, and smart design and practicality, but it ain't green. Hybrids still use an internal combustion engine that burns a non-renewable fossil fuel that we know we are going to run out of, spew smog-forming and carbon emissions, and take hundreds of components and thousands of pounds of raw materials to put together and operate. They're a way better option than traditional gas guzzlers, but we can do better.

Bicycles, on the other hand, are the most efficient vehicles known to this world; the reason that the "green" option in this scenario isn't a four-wheeler is that nobody has invented a "green" car (yet). When we're all tooling around in electric cars built with non-toxic batteries and charged up with 100 percent renewable power (not the 50 percent coal power our country currently uses) generated from smart grids and the solar panels, wind turbines, and the like at our own houses, then we'll be getting somewhere; until then, bicycles are the green way to go. That isn't to say that you can't proudly pilot your Prius, but don't kid yourself: You aren't saving the planet; you're just harming it more slowly than most of the rest of us. Sometimes, greener is the best we can do, but that doesn't mean we have to settle for it.

Grass-fed beef is greener; not eating meat is green.

If you've read much about the industrial food system that dominates the mainstream grocery stores and restaurants in this country, you know that the average cow's life is disgusting and painful. They're made to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of other cows, in piles on their own excrement so deep that knee-high boots won't keep it all out, eating a diet that makes them so sick that they have to be pumped full of antibiotics just to survive the weeks they'll live until they're unceremoniously slaughtered. Yuck.

Grass-fed, pasture-raised beef, on the other hand, get to eat something -- grass -- that their ruminating stomachs have evolved to handle. Though it can be hard to tell for sure unless you have visited the farm where they live (something which we should all do at some point) and have a personal relationship with your farmer, they tend to live much healthier, less stressful lives. And while that's healthier for you, too, it just makes that a greener option, not green.

The truth of it is that meat -- and beef, especially -- is just an inefficient food source. It takes between 2500 gallons and 5000 gallons of water to raise a pound of beef, for example, grass-fed or not. Cows are big animals and it takes a lot of resources to make them that way. And that's just the inputs -- cow farts and manure are a big-time source for methane, which is 1000 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas; it's so bad that Denmark is considering a tax on farmers' greenhouse gas emissions from all those cow farts.

The green side of this equation, then, is to cut the cows out of the equation altogether. From the extra water required to the extra methane spewed into the atmosphere, a vegetarian diet will save an entire ton -- that's 2000 pounds -- of carbon emissions per year; it's a big, big difference. And, while eating a vegetarian diet is not impact-free, certainly, it fits much more closely with our natural planetary and biological systems. Michael Pollan is on to something when he says: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

What does all this mean? First of all, green is the goal, the thing that we're working toward each day. This isn't meant to be a diatribe against these "greener" steps, or an indictment of those who are doing them. Greener is good; what isn't so good is when we get lulled into thinking that they're enough. That brings me to the next takeaway: Green is hard, and that's okay. We're facing big problems, and we need big changes to create the fast solutions that we need to solve the climate crisis. Consider this greener vs. green meme an aspiration, not a condemnation. We all want to improve our general well-being, so keep green in mind as something to aim for, rather than settling for green enough for now. It's a moving target, so don't get confused by all the different messages, and use the target to keep you moving toward green.