Green Washed

Green washing is a term that is used for a campaign to make consumers believe that a company and/or its products are enviormentaly friendly. It is also used to discribe the push to use certain products and or techniques to create a sense of security in the people that they are making their lives enviormentally friendly.

There for being green washed is a term describing people who have been fooled by these ad campaigns.  One of my favorites is the people who put everything that can be recycled including all types of plastic, cardboard and metals into there recycling bin expecting that the local sanitation department seperates them out and recycles 100% of all items put into them.  In truth most sanitation departments only recycle bottles, glass jars and bottles, corigated cardboard, tin cans and aluminum.  All other plastic and cardboards are tossed into the landfill.

Many of the suggestions for living green include build houses with hardwood floors (they last longer and don't hardly need replaced, use press wood  boards, or wall materials made out of pressed cardboard.  These ideas seem logical as hardwood does last pretty much the whole life of the house, but consider the fact that most hardwood trees take a hundred years to mature to harvest age it doesn't seem so green.  pressed board seeming logical as it is made from sawdust and glue, and is the use of a by product of sawmills.  Consider the fact that the sawdust is coming from new wood products created from cutting the raw tree into lumber not recycled wood or discarded wood.
Well there is no argument against the pressed cardboard walling material right?  Wrong, on the average the pressed cardboard wall material only contains 20% recycled cardboard the other 80% is newly manufactured cardboard.

It is difficult to be green when the government allows companies to advertise their products as made of recycled material as long as it contains 20% of recycled materials. So, in truth only products that boldly state that they are made of 100% recycled material are truely green. 

In reguards to household chemical products they can be advertised as enviormentally safe if they have no imediate eviorment impact.  There are products that are advertised as enviormentally safe that if they get into a water supply are poisonous.
Am I greenwashed? probably to some extent just becuase haven't discovered the flaw in logic to a green product I use.

War

Image by scylla & charybdis via Flickr

War
Throughout history man has waged war with neighboring tribes, states and countries for the sake of expansion, or to settle disputes that were unable to be settled in negotiations. Our history is riddled with war. All through history they have evolved tactically and strategically. However, my disdain of war comes from modern warfare.
In the past war has been horrific and brutal this is what brings the warring factions together to negotiate peace or the surrender of one faction. In modern war people have got civil. Rules of engagement have changed to the point that there is little to no true horrors of war to be spoken of. True people die but the world has come to want it to be civil so that those that die are soldiers. The civilian populist just goes about normal life with their only concern of the war being the sons and daughters who are soldiers. This idea sits wrong with me.
The ideas involved in modern warfare remind me of an old Star Trek show where Captain Kirk and the Enterprise encounter two warring planets that had been at war for centuries. The worlds considered themselves civilized and conducted the war cleanly. All attacks where computer generated and the casualties were lined up before an incinerator where they were expected to just step in and accept they were casualties of war. The Idea sounds ridiculous however that is the direction that modern war is headed.
War was and is meant to be wage against a whole group of people, when you wage war against governments and exclude the people it governs you are looking at waging a never ending war. There was only two reasons that the attacks on 9/11 were taken so harshly by the United States was that it was on U.S. soil and that the attack was so horrific as war is meant to be. The sheltered lives of the United States people could not comprehend or grasp the ideals of open warfare waged by Bin Ladden. It may have been via terrorist acts but it was still that of open war.
War is to be waged on the entirety of the people whom the country region etcetera that war is waged against. The only real exception is civil war and it is still waged against those who support the government. The only difference is that civil war can split communities, and even families, as the support or opposition to a single areas government is of personal opinion.
Until war returns to the state it was intended to be, the world will continue in constant turmoil trying to bring resolution to problems that true war would resolve in a short amount of time.