A nation gone green

“It doesn’t matter who gets the credit as long as the job gets done.”

Someone told me either Harry Truman or Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, but Bartlett’s Quotations does not confirm it.

Go back with me to the 1980s. We were beginning to realize that if we continued using and abusing our planet at the rate we were, there would be precious little to leave to our children and their children.

As with later environmental concerns, Americans found themselves too often divided and staring each other down, tree-huggers and defenders of the spotted owl on this side, and on the other, those who declared that clear-cutting forests and rerouting rivers were not only harmless but obligatory for humans to subdue the earth.

This time around it is global warming: the softening of glaciers, the possible demise of polar bears, and the disappearance of amphibians. Scientists pretty well accept this premise to be true, and just may start working on a solution.

Voices began to be raised in defense of the natural world and a group of us here in Fayette County, Georgia, met to see what we could do.

I know I’ll fail to give credit where it is due if I start naming names, but I’m going to name two: Phil Jones and Caroline Price. Phil was a pilot, now retired, with a sense of the dramatic. He loved to use pompous phrases like, “I submit to you that….”

Caroline put her principles to work chiefly by giving years of service to Peachtree City as chair of the Planning Commission and a member of City Council. She now works for the U.S. State Department and recently left Munich, Germany, for a new assignment in Mexico.

Anyhow, I got to thinking about Caroline and Phil and others when the new “Green” movement fired up, with people listing ways to save the Earth and posting directions for reducing our dependence on fossil fuel. There are even websites on how to plan a green wedding and much discussion about reducing emissions.

Don’t think for a moment I’m disparaging going green. I’ll back just about anything that’s good for tadpoles. It’s just that writers of all these lists and hints look like they’ve invented the wheel, when for years Phil and Caroline and several dozen other advocates earnestly sought ways to save the planet. Some of our ideas took root and have become part of the passing scene.

My editor gave us a tiny corner in the newspaper in which we ran a “hint of the week” for environmental suggestions like: Direct your air conditioner’s runoff to the base of a tree or shrub to water your landscape without using drinking water. Fill your gas tank in the morning when cooler temperatures allow less evaporation. There are two sides to every sheet of paper. Use both.

When our tree-huggers needed a name, Caroline thought of ECO: The Environmental Concerns Organization. No, not very dramatic, but it was eye-catching. I made sure the slightest effort got newsprint and some of our ideas began to stick.

Which?

My favorite is the boardwalk in the wetlands formed by Flat Creek, accessible by golf cart path. You’ve probably strolled its wooden surface and wondered how it came to be. I believe Caroline got a federal grant for it, and we hovered over its progress as it grew. The daily encounter with snakes did not thrill the construction workers, but the goal was to promote good relations between wildlife and squealing children.

If you think it looks unkempt, it does. The idea is to keep it as natural as possible, and if a tree falls, it is allowed to lie there so the rotting bark collects bugs on which animals feed.

When you visit the boardwalk, note that there is a stretch of about 15 feet that looks like gray wood, on the stretch between the path and the amphitheater. The material is recycled plastics – mostly drink bottles – and was intended to compare the longevity of plastic and wooden planks. Both have proved successful; we’ll check back in 50 years and report to you then. Unfortunately, the cost was astronomical.

Maybe we’re doing better this time. But sometimes even we tree-huggers slip.

Recently we were in a pancake place, out of town. I was ingesting the loaded potatoes and eggs already on my plate, when our server apologized for the pancakes being late. I told her I couldn’t eat pancakes too, and preferred not to pay for them.

She said they were already in the computer and she couldn’t take them off, so when she offered to box them for me to take home, I waved one of those petty “whatever” waves the occasion warranted, and went on eating.

At the appropriate time, the server brought the check and a bag larger than a paper grocery bag. “What’s this?” I asked. “Your pancakes, ma’am,” she said with a sweet smile.

The bag was a shiny plastic with the company’s logo on both sides, a warning not to keep food for more than an hour or so above 41 degrees Fahrenheit. It had two plastic straps for a handle and in the bottom was a sturdy plastic plate, 10 inches across, with a clear plastic cover.

In the plate: two six-inch pancakes I didn’t even want.