MARCH 19, 2009

EI: How Green Are You?

A couple of years ago, I went to The Green House exhibit when it was in town at the National Building Museum, and I walked away with so many new ideas about what I could do to help take care of our planet (besides tearing down our house). My husband and I recycle everything that we can – including our cardboard toilet paper holders - but the reality is that living in an old(er) house means things aren’t as green as I would like them to be. I’m always looking for new ways to educate myself and become more aware of ways to be “greener,” which is why I appreciated No. 10 on Time’s “Ten Ideas Changing the World Right Now” list: Ecological Intelligence (”EI”). Using the premise that “intention” is easier than “action” when becoming environmentally conscious, Time gives the following example about deciding to buy a 100% organic cotton tee:

[T]hat green label doesn’t tell the whole story — like the fact that even organic cotton requires more than 2,640 gal. (10,000 L) of water to grow enough fiber for one T shirt. Or the possibility that the T shirt may have been dyed using harsh industrial chemicals, which can pollute local groundwater. If you knew all that, would you still consider the T shirt green? Would you still buy it?

Time’s answer to the questions is that we are “ill equipped” to actually resolve this issue, because the debate over what is or isn’t green is difficult to answer because “our ability to make complex products with complex supply chains [outpaces] our ability to comprehend the consequences…[and] nothing in evolution has prepared us to understand the cumulative impact” of our choices on the planet.

The idea behind “EI” is that we need to think ecologically – considering not only our carbon footprints, but also our “social and biological footprints” so that we can understand “the global environmental consequences of our choices.” To help us along in this effort, Good Guide is an excellent website that provides us with a source for “health, environmental, and social impacts of products in your home.” Information on over 60,000 products is at your fingertips – through the website or via an iPhone app, you can discover exactly what Good Guide believes is the best “First Food” for your baby (a tie between Gerber’s carrots, green beans, and sweet potatoes, if you must know!) or what is really in that so-called green household cleaner that you’re using. In a world where information is in abundance, but analysis of that information is not, it’s hard not to get excited about sites like Good Guide that do the difficult work for you, allowing a better answer to (quite literally) come to mind.

If I had an iPhone, there’s no doubt I’d download the Good Guide application to enhance my ecological intelligence. What about you? Have you figured out what your EI is, and is Good Guide something that you would use in your daily life?