HOW GREEN (January 14, 2008)
Leafing through one of the local newspapers this morning I spotted a hefty article purporting that many avowed greens are much less green than they pretend to be. They travel by air too often, they have cars that guzzle too much, they live in houses that consume too much energy for heating and cooling, and so on. I did not read the article, of course, but I nonetheless captured enough of it from the title and a few bold quotes set in colorful boxes to see that greenery had already made it as a religion of sorts. Now it has sprouted its zealots, too, who are eager to point their fingers at all those who are not green enough. Or at least not as green as they would like us to believe in our innocence. And who better to accost than the leaders of the new church themselves, by name. It does not take too much imagination to see this curse spreading far and wide as climate change takes its hold. As in any proper religion, it only helps that no-one can be sure how green one really is. Or what greenery is, to begin with.