Get your Global Warming off me you damn dirty Gore-illa

Global Warming is a crock. I'm not talking about greenhouse gas emissions or depletion of the ozone layer or any of the now-irrefutable scientific crap going on in our giant spheric ecosystem. We as a race have really messed up the environment, in the years since that gloriously self-dooming Industrial Revolution (or, as I call it, Fuckfest 1837). As a tumor on the globe, we've gone from benign to malignant in under 200 years. Impressive, no?

No, I'm talking about that good ol' grassroots, haven't-showered-since-Christmas, natty-haired, ganja-smoking, Birkenstocked hippie catchphrase: "Green." Peace signs, hemp and funk have gone from supporting a sensible civil rights movement to supporting whatever against-the-corporate-grain BS a bunch of forestry and philo majors dream up in a purple-haze basement off Higgins. When did every Joe Plumber/Horticulturalist start caring about the environment? And when did that concern spread to politicians like Gore, who saw his loss in the '00 election as a sign that he was destined for Christ-ier things? If you ask me, the day the kind folks on Capitol Hill start falling inline behind a guy who lost to Dubbya should come with a fluttering red flad. No blue and white. Just red.

The idea that humanity could completely destroy an entire planet is nothing short of conceited. We are, after all, talking about an interstellar rock that has survived ice-ages, asteroid strikes, mass extinctions, you name it. Is Earth even slightly a picture of what it once was? Certainly not. The Rocky Mountains haven't always been there. The Great Barrier Reef has not always been there. Put simply, "our" planet has survived a lot worse than Volkswagen and Ford. No matter what we do, the planet will continue to spin and, as evidenced by our relatively recent appearance, give birth to new forms of life.

No, the "Save the Planet" spirit behind the word green is a front. What we mean is "Save our way of life on the Planet." Are we willing to turn back the clock to the Dark Ages, exist in smaller numbers in fewer places consuming fewer precious resources? No. Has the dude in flannel at the brewery arguing about why you should use a different kind of light bulb ever argued for population control? Doubtful. The steps taken in going green limit our impact on the environment, but they don't halt it completely. Low-flow toilets are still toilets. Hybrid cars are still cars.

We're greedily preserving our own way of life, modifying our conveniences to hit less hard the raw elements we once contended with. And that's a noble enough pursuit. Penguins, pandas and polar bears can certainly use our help in making it a few more decades. But who knows? Perhaps the destruction of environment brought about by human ingenuity will trigger another alteration in the planet's character. Perhaps we're the catalyst for next change. But going green doesn't protect the planet because the planet doesn't need protecting. It's our comfortable, modernized way of life that does. Stop hiding behind "Save the Planet" and be honest. You just want to drive your Prius to Starbucks for a double-shot skinny latte and some lounge music brought to you by Dreads-R-Us.