I'm disappointed in you.  The cheapest flat screen they had?  Were not some other criteria important?  The most energy efficient? The most recyclable? The most long-lasting?  The "greenest?"

Perhaps this was a question for Umbra. But even I can understand that the status-seeking male suddenly finding himself sans remote might just panic and willy nilly buy the first 20" flat screen that falls to hand, rather than wait for the advice of an environmental columnist.  Especially a female one!  <g>

Are "Organic Sugar Frosted Mini-Wheats" for real, or did you make that up? I assume it is for real, and that ad execs are clear-thinking realists (i.e., that we're not very bright).

It may be less surprising since I don't live in the US, but it occurred to me the other day that I no longer own a single manufactured product made in the US. I think the last things were a pair of levis that wore out in the mid-1990s, and a pair of Ikelite underwater strobes that never really worked. (I use Japanese strobes now.) A few items (mostly clothing, things like running shoes) branded by US companies, but all manufactured abroad, mostly in Asia.  The only things I own that come from the US are books (recycled trees).

To the extent that this becomes true even for people living in the US, the "enviromental friendliness" of industrial products that biodiversivist talks about becomes largely a matter of other countries' environments and their governments' regulations.

It also implies, among other things, that we should not become too self-satisfied because problems related to industry-based air and water pollution and  solid waste disposal appear to be improving slightly (or getting worse less rapidly) in the US.

Consumers of wide-screen TVs, running shoes, toasters and "organic sugar-frosted super wheat thins" in the US export polluting processes and the pollution itself to Asia, along with the companies and equipment that have  moved from places like Ohio and Indiana to Shenyang and Wuhan over the past 20 years.

That won't save us. The carbon emissions, mercury and sulfur - all the so-called "invisible exports" from China that can now reach across the Pacific to the US West Coast and the rest of the world is not just China's pollution. It's also ours.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/13/content_567...
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=5058
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=7590

Robert Delfs

Kaela,

Your intuition cuts like a knife.

Mr. Delfs

Your mind, she is like a steel trap. And yes, those commercials for organic sugar frosted mini-wheats and the soap being used to clean penguins are for real, and I agree, we are for the most part a bunch of idiots. It is the hand we have been dealt and we must do the best we can with it. I tried to find video clips of both commercials but came up short.

Dave,

How big is yours (if that's not getting too personal)? Don't tell me you don't have one (a TV).

Patrick,

You might try contacting our family friend through her blog if you are serious about looking for an English teaching job.

Deardancer3,

This post should bring you up to date:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/9/8/82015/17778

I live in Seattle and there is an electric bike store a few miles from my house. I made my own with a kit from the Internet.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com