Jim Huston: The meaning of green

Jim Huston

“Green” is a term that means many things to many people. For many in the green industry, it represents not only what we do but also who we are. It isn’t just a moniker for plants or vegetation. It can be a way of life that encompasses most everything outdoors – hardscape, irrigation, lawn fertilization, ad infinitum.

To others, green means ecologically or environmentally “friendly.” Though rare, some take this to such an extreme that you might refer to them as “eco-terrorists.” Then there are those who equate the term “green” with life itself. Still others see green as a label that identifies the very goal of free enterprise. Green is money. Greed isn’t necessarily good but green is. On the negative side, there is “the green mile” and the movie so named starring Tom Hanks. Who would want to walk the green mile?

You could go on and on, nuancing and morphing words in an attempt to explain the various definitions of this one term. Because green is so often infused with our morals, ethics and values, it is not a neutral term – a mere descriptor. In addition, it’s not a static term. It seems to be evolving (some might say devolving), almost on a daily basis. What green meant 10 or 20 years ago isn’t necessarily what it means today. So it would appear that understanding the context of the term green is crucial if we are to understand what green means.

Back to the future.
Where I grew up, in rural Pennsylvania in the 1950s, my family didn’t have city water. We had a flatbed truck with a large tank on it and we hauled our water from a local spring and poured it into a cistern behind our home. My aunts and uncles did the same. We had rain barrels that collected water from summer storms.

Our garden was huge and we all worked it. Most of what we ate was organic. All of us pitched in when it was time to can such items as beets, peaches, pears, string beans, cherries – fruit and nut trees speckled our property. We bought live chickens and butchered (or should I say processed) them at home. My parents, aunts and uncles were all pretty self-sufficient, and we recycled just about everything. However, somewhere along the way, we lost most of this. Fortunately, many of us are going forward by going back to our roots.

Conclusion.
What green means may vary somewhat from person to person or group to group. However, put in its proper context, there does seem to be some consensus. In the extreme, it is preservation. The cosmos isn’t here just to be looked at and not touched. Conservation seems the better description of what we should be about. You could call it enlightened consumption or good stewardship, if you will. But you have to be careful not to demonize and label a particular behavior or practice as degrading too quickly.

Practices and behaviors change often even if they do not change quickly. Just because a particular vehicle only gets 10 or 20 miles per gallon doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing. (How many readers of Lawn & Landscape drive a truck that gets 12 or fewer mpg? This isn’t bad. It’s what is – today. Tomorrow will be different and probably better) A vehicle that gets 50 mpg isn’t necessarily a good thing if it is unsafe to drive.

We are not necessarily dealing with absolutes here. Murder, or taking a life without just cause, is always wrong. It’s an absolute concept. Green isn’t like that. It has to be viewed in relation to its context.

You could say that green is a state of mind – a combination of morals, ethics, values and practices that we share and that encourage us to use all of our resources (material and spiritual) for the purpose of creating a more beautiful, yet more functional, world while doing so with a minimal amount of waste and/or abuse. Some would simply call this common sense. 

JIM HUSTON runs J.R. Huston Consulting, a green industry consulting firm. See www.jrhuston.biz; mail jhuston@giemedia.com.