Another Reason For Individual Responsibility
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Whether you like him or hate him, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has had a decent record when it comes to environmental issues. But even the Mayor of New York must yield to constituents over environmental bills and the cost to business owners. Mayor Bloomberg had a plan in the works that would require all buildings over 50,000 square feet to undergo energy audits. The audits would determine what changes needed to be made to the buildings, and the building owners would have to foot the bill to make those changes happen. The plan was very aggressive. The plan was actually pretty good considering that the city budget would not take a huge hit. The financial responsibility would fall heavily on the building OWNERS.
Well as reported in the New York Times on Dec. 4th, the Mayor has backed down on this aggressive plan because the building owners say that the project would be too costly to them. Hmmmm. Too costly?В These building owners own buildings in one of the highest markets in America. They say, revisit this in five years when we are out of the recession. Hello, in five years the utility savings alone will have the renovations paid for. But I digress.
This is just another example of why we have to take responsibility individually every day for the decisions we make. The government and big business put money first and the safety and health of the public second. Now I am not saying that they are doing nothing. Changes are made when it does not drastically affect their bottom line or when health issues become problematic. But people with billions of dollars should not complain about taking a hit when it comes to improving their impact on the environment.
The decisions we make every day influences the government, big business and the environment. Too often we blindly make decisions that on the surface may be good for the environment, but in reality we only allow big business and government to play on our emotions.В Prime example of this would be bottled water. We are all concerned about the safety of the water we drink. Before you could blink your eyes, companies were beginning to place bottled water on our grocery shelves. And we bought the bottled water up like it was the best thing since sliced bread. Now what do we have? More energy being used to produce yet another product, half of which ends up in landfills. And the water is not much better than tap water most of us have.
Even the decisions we make everyday about where we choose to do business and where we work affect our environment. Small business owners and residential renters lease properties from building owners. As renters and lessors, we should be inquiring about the environmental impact the dwelling we are leasing with our money has. We should work with building owners to bring buildings and apartment dwellings into being more eco-friendly. If the owners refuse to make logical and cost effective changes, we have the ability to take our business and money elsewhere.
Now I realize that our economy is bad, and people are suffering through financial difficulties. But even in this time of financial struggle, we must make better decisions that affect not only today but our tomorrows. The more we lessen our overall carbon footprint and pay attention to our worldview impact, the more apt big business and the government will respond. How many billions of dollars have been spent by all the different companies that now make bottled water. Imagine if bottled water never existed and all that money went to cleaning and protecting our natural water resources. Imagine if the people renting those buildings in New York decided to find other places to move their businesses and homes. Empty buildings don’t make money.
There is another side to the individual responsibility as well. When the general public creates a market for a consumable product, the general public must take responsibility in ensuring that the product does not adversely affect the environment. Taking a look back at bottled water: When we created the need for the bottled water, we should have taken the initiative to recycle all bottles and hold manufacturers to a higher environmental standard. The sad fact is that we as a society did not. Real change starts at home. Real change begins with you and me. Our decisions can determine many things. Our decisions affect more than just us. Our decisions affect the world in which we live.
Another small article you might find interesting:
Other Interesting Articles
{Words To Live By}: The Value Of The Environment by Steve McAllister
Modern Hippie Mag
December 12, 2009
Tags: aggressive plan, apartment, apartments, billions of dollars, bottled water, business and the environment, city budget, constituents, energy audits, environmental issues, financial responsibility, health issues, mayor bloomberg, mayor michael bloomberg, mayor of new york, michael bloomberg, new york city mayor, new york times, prime example, recession, renovations, square feet Posted in: Thoughts From Ken
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Cell Phone Recycling | The Green Apartment Blog - December 14, 2009
[...] visiting! I mentioned in an earlier post on The Green Apartment Blog that we are going to have to step up as individuals to create change. I came across this article on Green Planet. Seems that folks want “money” to recycle [...]
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