Library Lines

“It ain’t easy being green” May 9, 2008

Week of May 6, 2008
by Carolyn Hesselink

Do you remember Kermit the Frog’s musical lament, “It ain’t easy being green”?
It seems that this color in all our crayon boxes has transformed its meaning from conjuring up a garden or a lawn to that of an environmental statement. Those designers, fixer-uppers, and homebuyers who believe we should recycle and reuse, frequently host the Home & Garden television channel’s programs, in fact, HGTV is raffling off a house built with the official designation of a “green house.”
I used to think a green house was a place where you kept exotic plants; an artificial atmosphere created to sustain the life of cold-sensitive flowers, shrubs, vines, and even palm trees. Now that meaning has been greatly enlarged to cover the world of human ecology; of treading lightly on the earth by wise use of our resources. Take a look at the Diane McDilda book, “The Everything Green Living Book: Easy Ways to Conserve Energy, Protect Your Family’s Health, and Help Save the Environment.”
John Elkington’s 1990 book “The Green Consumer,” encouraged readers to change their thinking about what products they used, where the products came from, or how their manufacture affected the resources of our planet. Just like a snowball gathering more snow as it rolls down the hill, so is our understanding of how our daily decisions can help or hurt the environment.
The movement to voluntarily recycle cardboard, newspapers, plastic, and glass has become profitable for many companies as innovative uses for these products are put on the market. There are now recycled glass countertops that have the look of granite, and park benches made of recycled tires.
You know becoming a “green” society is of great interest when the editors of the Complete Idiot’s guides publish “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Saving the Environment.” Browse through the six volume set of the “Macmillan Encyclopedia of the Environment,” or “The National Audubon Society Almanac of the Environment: the Ecology of Everyday Life.”
What’s your part in all this? Well, we who work at your libraries encourage you to bring your own bags to carry your materials home, and we work every day to repair and keep in good condition the books on tape, the DVDs, the large print and regular print books we have to loan. When you take good care of the items you check out, that means that others will have the opportunity to reuse those items, too. We also encourage you to donate to the libraries or the Friends of the Library groups your hardly used books, paperbacks, and audio items. Often we find a donated item will fill a missing title in a series of books, or will replace a book or DVD that’s been checked out so many times it is unusable. Sad to say, some of our items are checked out, and we are unable to get them back, so donations can make a big difference.
You have probably heard of his efforts on behalf of environmental issues, but read his book for yourself and make up your own mind. Whom am I referring to? None other than once political front-runner Al Gore and his 1992 book, “Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit.”
If you’d rather enjoy Kermit, then Sebring Library has the 12-book set of “Jim Henson’s Muppet Stories,” ready to loan and read.
FAST FACT: Kermit’s song “Being Green” was sung at Jim Henson’s funeral by his biggest muppet, Big Bird.