Why people can't go green

I am currently reading "Sleeping naked is green" by Vanessa Farquharson, a Toronto-based journalist who took on the challenge of doing one more green thing everyday for a year. It's not quite as radical as Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, but it gives me a good insight why some people have a hard time to act in a greener way.


I was wondering if I could get a list together like hers but lots of the things on her list already do not apply to me. Changing to recycled paper towels - there are no paper towels in my household. Switching to eco-friendly make up - I don't do make-up. Using tote bag - done that for many years, in fact the first thing I say to every cashier is 'I don't need your plastic bag'. The list goes on but let's stick to the tote bag. Apparently for lots of people that's like a big fashion faux pas, does not look cool, all tote bags are generally ugly, they don't show off the expensive label I just bought - that's a few of the issues Vanessa and her sister have with tote bags. Get over it, is all I can say. I don't care what's written on my tote bag, what its colour is or what other people think about it. That's just one of the problems that society has created for itself, we care too much about what other people think about us, that we have to maintain a certain image of ourselves, the latest advertisement campaign just told us we have to get this not that and so on. We are not going to safe this planet if we concentrate so much on ourselves! Any tote bag will do but do skip the plastic. I can't believe there's still supermarkets in Canada that do not charge for the plastic. 

Of course, the tote bag is only an example of where people have trouble to go green but in my opinion it's not a huge sacrifice. Now image these people had to get rid of their car. Let's face it cars in Canada are a bigger addiction to many than alcohol or other drugs. It's going to be a loooong therapy.