Green power

Hoho, sweet. My electric company's trying to persuade customers to pay a bit extra to switch to renewable power sources; apparently I use so little that the extra for me will be almost nothing. Yay!

Unnatural organic

Don't look now, but there goes an organic cabbage wrapped in plastic. As its pesticide- and synthetic-fertilizer-supported brethren were not.

The hypocrisy and oxymoronic-ness of some parties who promote and/or sell organic foods astounds me. Packaging is only one of the aspects where the ridiculous may be found. In the past I've also bought Roundy's organic free-range eggs from Copps that came in a TRIPLE-layered plastic carton, unlike normal eggs that come in recycled cardboard. Are these free-range hens calcium-deficient, that their eggs must be sold in armour?

Another example of packaging madness committed by a store involves Whole Foods itself. I bought fresh salmon burgers from them and observed the counter worker wrap them in something that looked like newspaper, just like in the wet markets back home. Only it turned out to be not newspaper going into a second career, but the same plastic-coated paper normal groceries use, but printed with a fake newspaper design in an incredibly lame attempt to look retro. There goeth the holy and virtuous Whole Foods, wasting energy and ink - not that the cosmetic is going to make shoppers in 21st century Wisconsin feel like they're in 1900s Boston.

A couple of years ago when Wal-Mart announced that it was going to carry organic goods, environmentalists on Treehugger and other websites sneered at this rather than acknowledging it was a step in the right direction. Granted, Wal-Mart is well-known for unethical practices, but at least it's making healthier food available to ordinary consumers, in addition to forcing some of its suppliers to be more environmentally friendly. I've quite happy that the Wisconsin chain where I usually shop, has organic veggies at prices not much more than regular (although I can't say the same for their eggs).

The sort of snobbery displayed by the people mentioned above outrages me. Guess what, wankers: organic farming is NOT going to save the world UNLESS it can be made affordable and accessible to ordinary people with pressing demands on their time and money. Not just a) the wealthy elite for whom environmentalism is a fashion and b) the true hardcore environmentalists who are willing to sacrifice a normal lifestyle to be AGAP (As Green As Possible).

According to my boss, Whole Foods is nicknamed "Whole Check" because that's what it takes to do your shopping there. Screw them and their seven-dollar squashes, I'm getting my organic stuff from Copps.

Greasy palms

(This is all from stuff printed in The Star which is virtually an MCA party organ, by the way. I'm quite disgusted at how they fawned over Chua Soi Lek after he resigned after being caught dicking around. "Brave and decisive" my foot! He didn't have a choice!)
I think we've got a bit of a contradiction -

• Regulation of companies growing palm oil sucks,
• Deforestation, and draining of peatlands is making Indonesian biodiesel decidedly NOT carbon-neutral or environmentally friendly,
• The industry causes an annual cloud of smoke and other airborne crap, known as "the haze" to fall on Malaysia,
• And to cap it all, we've got a shortage of cooking oil to the point where it's been smuggled out of the country

- and the gov't STILL wants to increase biodiesel production, with the industry in the state it's in?