Green Daily

Business has stepped up to the plate too, shilling hybrid SUVs and dog poo composters to a receptive audience, and enhancing green suspicion among savvy consumers who wonder what's real and what's just marketing. I mean, what makes a cracker eco-friendly, anyway?

Not only is the sheer volume of information confusing, it's often contradictory. Is it better to eat local organic meat or factory farmed soybeans from 1000 miles away? Buy a new Prius or a used Civic? Drink your wine from boxes or bottles?

And that's a real problem. People around the planet are increasingly accustomed to being inundated with 24/7stimuli on a variety of media from billboards to mobile phones, and we've mostly learened to deal with it. However, when presented with an array of conflicting options, and with the fate of the planet apparently at stake, it's tempting to ignore the whole mad mess and go looking for an endangered iguana burger packaged in bisphenol-a laden plastic.

Faced with focus groups indicating an audience increasingly disinclined to jump through complex mental hoops for their enviro-cred, green organizations are looking to simplify their messaging. Greenpeace, for example, has moved to unite disparate environmental concerns such as nuclear power and deforestation by discussing them under the overall umbrella of climate change, rather than as unrelated issues with each one requiring a masters degree in physics or environmental chemistry.

So what do those of us on the receiving end of all this data do? How do we keep ourselves interested in and aware of what's going on earth-wise without driving ourselves crazy trying to figure out what's true, what's best, and what really matters?

Well, firstly, the problems of the planet aren't going to go away, and sticking our heads in the ground or devising frat-boy crap like Carbon Belch Day won't save our globally warmed butts from the environmental crisis we've created. There's a reason why there's so much information out there; people are justifiably concerned.

Secondly, take a deep breath and remember, as Max Ehrmann said in his famous Desiderata, that you are a child of the universe and have a right to be here. And once your hippie moment has passed, don't worry so much about the subtleties of saving the planet. Some actions are obviously better than others - for example, walking instead of driving whenever possible, avoiding eating anything endangered, and of course reducing, reusing, and recycling. The things we do don't always have to be the best, they just have to be better than what we're doing now.

So bring on the noise. We can live with it.