Why These Guys Are Not Working In A Real Business
You start to get a sense of why green reporters might not make it in the actual value-creation world when you read stuff like this. Is it really possible that someone is so pareto challenged that in a bid to make the world a cleaner place, they focus on ... excercise balls? It is utterly unsurprising after reading this that when Bjorn Lomberg approaches environmental improvement from a prioritization perspective (ie where can we get the biggest improvement bang for the least bucks), greenies look at him like he is from Mars (or worse, Hades).
Nobrainer:
One of my personal favorites, 7 Ways to Reduce Your Shampoo Use.
March 31, 2009, 8:41 pmScott Wiggins:
My sense is that if Cameron Scott had to get up at 4:00 A.M. to hang drywall for ten bucks an hour he might be looking at the world differently. Our young people are way way out of touch with certain realities of life. Chinese, Indian, and Mexican immigrants are taking their jobs by the millions...Our next generations will need to get real about making a living because it will likely be extremely difficult to maintain our standards of living given the mentioned dislocation of jobs coupled with coming inflation and devaluation of the dollar...I would recommend that those in soft majors switch to career paths that have a future. And, if you are not an academic and are merely wasting your parents dollars, then man up or woman up and get out into the workforce and learn a trade, find a mentor or apprenticeship and learn how to support yourself and your family...Finally, there is an old saying that wealth is lost in the third generation. Meaning, that the creators of businesses are only partially successful passing on the concepts of wealth creation and maintenance to their children. By the third generation, the businesses have usually failed and the money is gone. We as a nation have reached this point as the post WWII prosperity is rapidly disappearing as the current generation have no idea what they have, how to maintain it, or how to get it back when its gone...Scott Cameron's writing about possible phthalates on pilates balls is a pathetic waste of oxygen and brain function...
April 1, 2009, 4:46 pmDavid Smith:
"The Thin Green Line"? "Dispatches from the Environmental Battlefield"?
The comparison by reference to James Jones' novel about combat on Guadalcanal (The Thin Red Line) and suggesting that this foolishness represents something significant enough to be represented as a "battlefield" is so profoundly offensive I'm stuck for a way to express it without profanity.
I agree with Mr. Wiggins that young Mr. Scott and his ilk need a short course in reality.
April 3, 2009, 6:45 amAllen:
It depends on what the purpose of the writing is. If the writer is focused on environmental issues and looking at the issue of greenwashing, especially on a local level, this is the sort of thing they should be looking at. Now if they're going off advocating this as a problem and saying it needs to be addressed, then this is a waste of time. On first read I didn't get the sense that this writer was saying this is a problem, let alone one that needs to be addressed right now.
Now overall, I do find the issue annoyingly banal. But I think you're getting your undies in a bunch over the wrong righter. YOu're correct overall, this just wasn't the article to point out.
April 5, 2009, 12:42 pm