Captain Planet Takes you Green Shopping

No later than last weekend, the annual Alpha Gamma Sigma(AGS) Club's State Conference was in Ontario, California where I was lucky enough to attend as a part of the Diablo Valley College Chapter. AGS is a state-wide honor's society that fund raises, serves the community, distributes scholarships to members, provides guest speakers with valuable knowledge, and so much more. During the conference, we were able to select from numerous workshops which varied from salsa dancing to leadership skills to even...green shopping! Yes, you heard it right and you guessed right. That was the workshop I attended in hopes of obtaining beneficial information that you, the reader, are about to learn from.

Our guest speaker, Deborah Page, began the workshop by presenting a video called, "The Story of Stuff" by Annie Leonard which provides interesting methods of seeing our world's consumption issue. She argues that we are currently living "a linear system in a finite planet" with steps consisting of extraction to production to distribution to consumption and finally to disposal. This way of living, Leonard believes, should be modified by pulling out the disposal step, and thus linking consumption back to extraction to create a circular cycle that will be beneficial to the maintenance of our Earth.

You may watch Leonard's factual and fascinating video here:


In addition to the video, Deborah Page displayed a powerpoint with facts about our Earth's current, weak state due to the pollution from over-consumption such as how 3% of the water on Earth is fresh, but 2% is locked in icebergs; therefore, oly 1% water is left for us to drink, and we're currently polluting it!

Furthermore, Page expressed how humans have been experiencing a need to buy ever since World War II when President Eisenhower stated that our "economy's ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods". Crazy, right? Page also advised us to check out an environmentally-conscious movie named "Affluenza" which translates to meaning an addiction from suffering of what we don't have. In other words, the WANT over NEED effect that's overwhelmed our Earth's resources, landfills, oceans, air, and so on.

Before we the end of our workshop with Mrs. Page, she produced us with a sheet noting "Tips for Beating Affluenza" which included:

1. Before you buy, ask yourself:
Do I need it? Do I want to clean it? Could I borrow it from a friend, neighbor, family member? Could I substitute something I already have for it? Were the resources used earth-friendly? How many hours of work will I need to pay for it?

2. Avoid the mall. Go hiking or play ball with the kids instead.

3. Figure out what public transportation can save you (time, money for gas and parking, peace of mind).

4. Become an advertising critic. Don't be sucked in by efforts to make you feel inadequate so you'll buy more stuff you don't need.

For the rest of the tips, Click Here.

Being able to attend a conference that has no direct work toward aiding the environment, and yet still felt the need to hold a workshop dealing with such an important topic as green shopping truly amazed me and brought about new, eye-opening information I wasn't aware of before. This just goes to show how our Earth's global warming epidemic has influenced people to truly learn what they can do to help out because the first step to a cleaner, healthier planet is education.

Peace&Love, Everyone.
-Dr. Green T


Works Cited:
"The Bug Stops Here." Tips for Beating Affluenza. PBS. 1 May 2009. http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/treat/tips.html.