Hi! Thanks for visiting the Green Elephant blog! All the posts here are written 100% by me– Sherri Hitz– with the goal of giving you the inside scoop on big environmental problems. I know this stuff inside and out because I spent a LOT of time studying it (BS in Biology with a Chemistry minor, Master of Oceanography… and even an MS in Brain and Cognitive Sciences) AND teaching it over the past 15 years.
So, why Green Elephant? It’s the environmental problem we have that is SO obvious and SO huge that it seems it would be impossible to ignore, but that’s just it: admitting you are destroying your very own planet is scary, but the alternative is worse. We cannot ignore this Green Elephant any longer… but where do we start? (I vote for the trunk, myself.) =:-O
Well, I start with this blog (and, ideally, a whole new kind of global eco movement… a girl has to hope, right?!). I actually had a bit of an “eco-piphany” recently, after spending YEARS reading all the bad eco-news and thinking the situation was just hopeless. But then, out of the blue, I have this eco-piphany:
You and I are not the root cause of most of our environmental problems!
I mean, how many of you spent the day hacking down ancient forests in Canada? Or dumping chicken feces into the Chesapeake Bay? Using child labor to harvest cacao? Anyone…? Obviously, these problems are not caused by the direct actions of individuals: they are caused by large-scale operations of environmentally irresponsible companies… who get their money from us.
Every dollar you spend is a vote that says “Keep doing what you’re doing.
Here’s some money to help.”
Got the sniffles? If you buy Kleenex, you just helped Kimberly-Clark chop down ancient boreal forests in Canada (which means you’ve also enhanced our rate of global warming)…
Think chicken is a great, lean option for your South Beach diet? If it’s from Tyson or Perdue, you just helped pollute the Chesapeake Bay or some other unsuspecting aquatic ecosystem…
Gotta have a little chocolate after dinner? [Me too.] But if it’s from Nestle’s, you just helped put a little kid to work on a cacao plantation…
See what I mean about depressing? But the solution is simple: no money = no way to damage the environment. But, you are thinking, I want to buy tissues and chickens and chocolate! Right? Thankfully, we have reached the point in the green movement where there are LOTS of green companies doing things right. So, I won’t leave you with just a bunch of bad news and nothing to do about it. You will know who NOT to buy from, as well as who TO buy from… so you can help solve environmental problems every time you shop!
I am hopeful that, together (now, you stop that: no singing “Kumbaya”… gosh, you people are really getting mushy on me already!), we can turn one Green Elephant (the big “green problem”) into another: a big, unstoppable eco-positive consumer force. Now, who wants to do some shopping? 
