Guenny wrote:
"Green" means something that creates as little of a carbon footprint as possible, and is usually in relation to something else, ie x is greener than y.
When the hell did "carbon footprint" become not just a nutty extension of environmentalism, or even a part of environmentalism, but is now the defining characteristic? "Green" simply means any product or activity that is good for the environment. It's specifically in reference to the idea of organic growing things being "green" compared to stuff made via industrial activity. You're free to think that lowering carbon footprint helps make something green, but it's not even remotely close to the definition of green. That's just a crazy redefinition to fit a single current issue (and a pretty crappy one to boot).
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I don't know if cotton could be considered "green" to any other cloth fiber plant.
I just found it strange that someone would think of one plant as being a "green alternative" to another. They're both plants. They're both quite similar plants in fact (cotton having nettles as well). The only thing that makes cotton less green is that it's easier to make into fibers suitable for making clothes out of and thus it's used more often in ultimately industrial processes. There's nothing stopping you from growing cotton in a completely "green" fashion, and you'd presumably get much more value out of it as a crop than growing stinging nettles. It's not the plants that make it green, but how much the plant is used by industry.
Wave a magic wand and make stinging nettles the plant used by the clothing industry, and it will become the less green option. It's not about the plant, so if we're debating which to grow in a small environment like this one, we should stick to the one that will be more productive and easier to harvest.
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Things like hemp, bamboo, etc, are easier to grow and much more sustainable (require less water, pesticides, fuel, etc). Polyester is "green", because instead of putting plastic into landfills we are reusing it in a creative and effective way.
Silk and wool, well, these come from live animals and with silk many die in the process. I supposed that would make wool more sustainable, but I'd bet herds of alpaca create a bigger carbon footprint than silkworm larvae.
Silk and wool, well, these come from live animals and with silk many die in the process. I supposed that would make wool more sustainable, but I'd bet herds of alpaca create a bigger carbon footprint than silkworm larvae.
Honestly? I think you're responding to cherry picked information telling you which products are green and which aren't, in a completely inconsistent manner (except perhaps which industries lobbied the right politicians to get onto a list). Really? Polyester is green because we're recycling plastic? Other things are green because of water consumption? Yet others based on animal use? You really don't see how patchwork the results are?
I could probably come up with a reason why *any* product or process can be considered green. If we're going with such inconsistent terminology, that is. It really is a meaningless word IMO. May have meant something once, but today the label "green" has more value and weight than whatever actually makes something green.