Going Green: A Truly Visionary Concept, And The Most Annoyingly Overused Phrase Of 2007 38050

Although we can???t always shake the nasty habit of writing in the royal we, occasionally one of our editors decides to shake off the cloak of anonymity to write a short, pithy statement long, rambling diatribe about a topic of their choice. Today, Debbie Newman is that editor.

Recently, CNN producer David Doss informed sexually ambiguous anchorperson Anderson Cooper that the network’s highly lauded miniseries “Planet in Peril” would most likely become a regular feature on AC360. Cooper’s angry (and, presumably, unfiltered) response? He groaned, ???Jesus Christ! We really need to solve this whole environmental thing quickly, because I really don???t want to do it again.???

Naturally, I sprung into action, making light of Cooper’s apparent hypocrisy with the help of a superfluous, but well-timed Sesame Street reference (”Kermit was right, it ain’t easy being green!”) and denouncing him for wanting to see “this whole tiresome ’save the planet crusade’ to come to an end.” Afterwards, I mentally wrote the man an apology. It read something like:

“Dear Coop. I know exactly how you feel! (About the environment, I mean, not about all those persistent rumors questioning your sexual orientation). Friends?” Not surprisingly, I never heard back.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of conserving our planet’s natural resources, phasing out the use of coal fired power plants and all the rest of that “save the environment” crap. In fact, I’ll have you know that, in my own emotionally detached way, I truly am concerned about the long-term effects of global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer and the melting of the polar ice caps—particularly the latter, since it applies to impossibly cute polar bear cubs just like the one German animal rights’ activists are petitioning to kill. It’s just all the alarmist statistics (Fact: “Worldwide water use is doubling every 20 years ??? twice the rate of population growth”) and scary predictions are, well, kind of a downer. You know, much along the same lines as Darfur, the New York Yankees and the U.S.’ occupation of Iraq.

Sure it’s important to think about all those things from time to time, but does it really have to be so all-consuming? Why must environmentalists—like most individuals who work full-time at non-profit organizations, and Jewish mothers—be so proficient in the art of passive aggressive discourse? The aforementioned being a technique invariably used to make the rest of us experience the sudden onset of guilt or general inadequacy, as in the following example.