How Green are We?

Welcome one and all to the kick-off of Green Limn where I investigate a variety of topics to try and understand what it means to be green, how to be green, and what notions out there are just a bunch of 'wash. Unfortunately, with the overuse of the term 'sustainability' one often is forced to oversimplify or simply under-digest the real meanings or solutions as to how to make the man-made environment function in a more cohesive manner. No promises here, but hopefully by illustrating some basic to complex concepts we can all at least feel a bit more informed if not wired to question the validity of something being sustainable or not. 

Let's start big. How about the US. Are we a green country? And if so, what does that really mean? Living in Europe, it's already easy to see that the US is far behind, but why is that? Well, simply scratching the surface it's easy to see that space is precious, energy is expensive, gas is not cheap, and recycling is a huge part of life. Right there, by cutting back on one's energy consumption, using public transit ( a car in Paris, are you nuts?), and making conscious decisions about what one throws away, you already have someone who appears 'green' to most. Some 'break-through' advances for some people, such as putting a recycling bin in their home/office is honestly second nature in other parts of the world. There really is no space to continue filling landfills, therefore, something else must be done. It really is hard to grasp comparisons between different nations and their ideas of green since each place has it's own circumstances and stories, but no one ever said it was a bad thing looking to your neighbor for successful tactics to hopefully implement on your own home turf. That is, as long as it's appropriate for your situation. Don't be that guy who simply puts solar panels on his roof that barely gets any sun just to feel better about himself. That's not green. That's just ignorant.

This thought of comparison was still intriguing, so sifting around a bit, I found a few sites ranking countries throughout the world for their greenness. According to Yale's Environmental Performance Index, the US ranked 49th out of 123 countries for 2012. Yikes.

You can find another fun ranking system at Greendex where you can calculate how 'green' your lifestyle is and compare this to countries around the world (it really is an apples to oranges kind of comparison, but hey, it may be something fun to chat about around the water cooler...do offices even have those anymore?....) Ironically, my score came up the same as France. Coincidence?

It's hard to really compare such huge entities to each other so let's zoom in a bit. I was curious to then see how our not-so-great world-wide-ranking US does amongst itself. According to the Green Town's Guide you can see the ratings given to each state and in what area they shine (or don't shine at all). Below gives the criteria used to rate each state, and by the looks of this list, this seems like a fair enough assessment with about 2/5 of our nation at the head of the game (ranking of 3-4). Not bad, but could be much much better. Take it for what you will, because like country to country, each state has it's own circumstances compared to it's neighbor. But hey, at least this sight sheds some light onto what each state is doing individually, and if anything, the info makes a fun graphic. Who knows, if not for the education factor, this could at least  be the next flooring pattern for some carpet rep to come brag about ..... "and we call this sample, 'Waves of Grain, to make a perfect compliment to our Summer Harvest Collection..." for any of you designers out there who've attended these kinds of lunch-and-learns, you know exactly what I'm talking about. We all get it, carpet is only so exciting, but enough with the wacked-out names (and for all you carpet reps out there, I do mean this all in jest. Some of those wacky names really make my day. )

Ratings based on the following criteria:

Air Quality
Water Quality
Recycling Rate
Green Businesses
Renewable Energy Usage
LEED Buildings
Emissions Rate Per Capita
Energy and Water Consumption Per Capita
Waste Generation Per Capita

The 50 States rated on their greenness
( Low = 0 to High = 4)