The Brockovich Report

Smell the freshly cut grass. It's the scent of green.

Hear each leaf whisper in the wind. It's the sound of green.

Feel the brush of the willow, the velvet of verdant moss under your bare feet. It's the touch of green.

I don't think it's an accident that green is the symbol and the name of the Green movement. It's the color signature of life. Instant recognition. The media person who coined the metaphor should have his name inscribed up there with the major media geniuses. What better to symbolize the environment and sustainability? And sustaining life--and a better quality of life--is what being green is all about.

The green movement is all about choice. Where we choose to live; how we choose to live. More importantly, it is a lifestyle philosophy. We Americans have that luxury that many other countries do not have: choice. After decades of conspicuous consumerism, how do we now choose to lessen our impact on the earth? The only way we can is to choose the "greener" options. And choose less. Waste less.

We can always choose to buy the item that is sustainable, like bamboo instead of Brazilian Rosewood, for example. Because bamboo grows fast and replaces itself, and Brazilian Rosewood is so rare they don't even import it any more. Or eating Wild Alaskan Salmon (who die when they spawn anyway) instead of slow growing Orange Roughy that can live to be 149 years old. Sometimes it is about buying less, or getting what is locally grown so it hasn't required significant transportation. But living green is not just about shopping.

It's about lifestyle choices--everything from riding public transportation to using organic produce to not using pesticides to creating a wildscape in your yard instead of a lawn to recycling instead of buying new. There's a deeper meaning beneath the action of choice. It is a philosophy of living life "naturally."

Instead of gossiping how some "green" movie star shows up in a gas guzzler, shouldn't we all be talking about groundwater contamination? Why aren't people pushing to get adequate funding for the EPA so that it isn't a failure? Where are the priorities? Without clean water there is no life. We can not live without it. It's time for all of us to make a lifestyle choice too: to write about something significant. Like clean water.

Being Green is not a trend. It's not a popular movement. It is an evolution. The philosophy not new. We've heard it at least three times. It's the philosophy of the Native Americans who lived lightly on the land. It's like the second coming of the hippies (or Sixties revenge if you prefer.) And now it's the science of "environmentalism." If it takes that triangulation to get the idea across that maybe we should waste not want not, then so be it. But whether it is couched in the terms of science, sixties or Native American mythology, the whole movement rises on a backbone of reverence for the earth, for the amazing biology that sustains us. It is amazing; and it is too frail for us to take for granted. We cannot afford for our children to drink water that gives them cancer. We cannot let the green movement fall to the wayside. We must choose Green while we have a choice.

Before it is too late.