WARNING: May Contain Lethal Concentrations of Granola

This is quack greenery run amok: Wifey is downing copious amounts of Organic Raspberry Leaf Tea, as it helps prepare for child delivery. Nothing wrong with that. However, while brewing a batch I read the box, which claims to offset "our electricity use with 100% wind power". That's cute, really. It is actually an unfortunate bit of marketing that plays on the public's desire to exhibit good stewardship of the environment with some impossible to verify (at least for the average citizen) claims. Do they actually do this? Perhaps. More to the point, they make it seem as if giant trucks with combustion engines aren't distributing their shipments, and that grocery stores aren't cranking the air conditioning down to 70 degrees on sunny days while their product sits on shelves. Oh, and that consumers don't toss the box of tea they just bought into a plastic bag, and in turn throw the plastic bag into a vehicle that gets 14 miles to the gallon of gasoline. Even if this tea farm is making totally legitimate claims, which I doubt, it is truly a drop in the bucket. Until this organic, hippie-farmed tea is delivered via GPS-guided donkey in a cart right to my suburban door, I am not impressed.

The key is to take note that every action we take in today's society uses resources that must be marshaled against our insatiable thirst for consumption. Even turning on the computer to write this blog takes energy, and from firewood to pitch to hydro/wind power to whale blubber to coal to refined petroleum to atomic power to solar energy, mankind's history has revolved around the quest for more energy.