General Education Essay-Buying Green
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General Education Essay-Buying Green
From the first passage by Monica Hesse, she denotes that consuming green products does not improve the Environment. This is because she thinks that instead of helping the Environment, consuming green products worsens the situation. She claims that restoring products does no help the Environment. It instead increases environmental problems because when people restore products, they consume more and thus increase ecological problems. She says that the change is taking care of the Environment should start with the individual’s mentality so as to work.
If a person has not put their mentality to change their buying routine, then automatically, there is a problem, and no environment will be taken care of. Her reason is quite true because she says ‘let us never consider the organic option-not buying- because the new green consumer wants to consume, to be more celadon than emerald, in the right color family but muted without all the hand-me-down baby clothes and out of-date-carpet’ (Hesse, 2009). At some point, I would think that she is right. Furthermore, she points out that to be genuinely green means to buy less, not green, and thus individuals should buy less but maintain being organic.
Garrett, on the other hand, is contrary to Monica. Garrett believes that buying green products will improve the Environment. For her, reusing, recycling, and preserving products is the best way to improve the Environment. She even says that it’s really thrilling when you go out and replace everything (Shank, 2009). She even tells a story of how she and her husband wanted to get rid of a sofa that was chewed on by a dog. It was still useful because they could
still sit on it without falling. Garrett says, ‘The greenest products are the one we don’t buy. ‘She believes that her sofa is the greenest product. That is why she is torn between tossing it or just keeping it. This is unlike Monica, who does not believe in green products. Garrett then says that other circumstances you would reconsider give an example of a furnace and a refrigerator that is inefficiently functioning. They should be replaced. Garret and her husband get themselves a new sofa after making sure that the other one had a new owner.
From the two positions, I would vote for all of them, depending on the situation. For Garett’s case, I believe it’s right when she supports green products and says that the greenest products are the ones you do not buy. The fact that she gives her sofa another chance is enough to convince me. She made sure the sofa had a new home before she replaced it. Monica, on the other hand, does not want green products. She gives an example of the old carpet and baby clothes. I think she thinks that they should be reused instead of tossing them away and getting new ones. All this means that the ‘green’ products represent new products. However, depending on the current situation, where the majority of consumers are a crazy shopaholic and Lazy Environmentalist. Garrett’s position is more convincing since she encourages consumers to reutilize and preserve the products they buy as a way of improving the Environment since it is difficult to change consumer’s behavior.
References
Hesse, M. (2009). The Environment, edited by Louise I. Gerdes, Greenhaven Press, 2009. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Buying Green Products Is an Inadequate Environmental Remedy.
Shank, J. (2009). The Environment, edited by Louise I. Gerdes, Greenhaven Press, 2009. Buying Green Products Will Improve the Environment.