Example: the gift shop at St. Clare’s Hospital has started to sell paper gift products made out of elephant dung. If they were selling this line of products as a novelty item the story would not have even caught my attention. However, the article couldn’t pass up the opportunity to claim that this was part of the “Go Green” movement. Now wait a second. How is shipping paper products from India going green? Sure, elephant dung is a renewable resource, and some of the money raised by these products goes toward conservation efforts. But these benefits seem quite minuscule and are easily negated by the cost of shipping and packaging.

Now, I have no real problem with these products. As a Catholic I also agree that human beings have the responsibility to care for Creation. After all, Creation is a sign of God’s love and care for us. My problem is with the constant touting of “Go Green” for small, insignificant and even silly acts. There seems to be very little effort to engage in intelligent environmental stewardship.

There are exceptions, of course. Hybrid cars make a lot of sense to me (totally electric cars that rely on coal-produced electricity make less sense). I have also written about true innovations that show the kind of thinking that could really make difference. These examples of “Going Smart” are worthy of emulation. “Go Green” propaganda make my eyes roll.