By: Megan Irwin
Last week my editor found this response to my story "Waterlogged" which ran as part of our Earth Day-inspired "Green Fatigue" series in April.
Though I personally expected a backlash from most members of the conservation community, surprisingly we got relatively little hate thrown our way after we gave eco-trendiness the finger.
Meredith Simonds, a blogger at Greenlight News, linked to above, is a strong conservationalist -- but she got it:
"Last month this cover caught my eye, and I knew I'd be blogging about it. Not because it pissed me off, but because I sympathized....Frankly, sometimes I get sick of myself."
The entire series was a disgusted reaction to eco-trendiness, making the point that if we want to make a dent in any of our current environmental problems, it's going to take a lot more than a cute canvass shoping bag or a Prius. I don't think this is a particularly offensive argument. We could all use a little more common sense when it comes to "going green." (Ugh. It pains me to even type such an overused phrase.)
Simonds paid special attention to my story on water rights and conservation in Arizona, and honed in on what I saw as the central problem this state: metropolitan areas have so much water they don't know what to do with it while places like Strawberry will most certainly run dry before the summer ends.
