Thank You For Polluting

Michigan is not a green state. I hate to break it to the environmental community out there but it never will be. Its residents aren't so much clueless as they are indifferent. They don't care. I have witnessed so many drivers sling fast food bags out the window as they drive down the road that it's commonplace. And on their part, it's effortless. As easy as tossing a cigarette butt out the window. The state has made it really easy for residents to pick up after themselves, especially in Southeast Michigan where many communities offer curbside recycling with liberal content guidelines. All alcohol and pop bottles have a ten cent return refund (remember the infamous Seinfeld episode?) and yet a fresh supply of strewn cans and bottles reappear weekly on my lawn and on the street. The state even accepts cash from Canada to take their trash. Due to homeland security issues and because the state of Michigan was unaware of what types of refuse they were accepting, legislation brought by Senator Debbie Stabenow to end Cash for Trash The practice is being tapered but the idea that it was in place to begin with shows the length at which Michigan will mortgage its ecological future for the promise of money.
I never gave Michigan's slovenly state much though until I traveled out West and witnessed the pristine highways and streets in Nevada. Beyond being aesthetically pleasing, it gave me the impression that the people of Nevada took pride in the land. It's rather heart breaking that a state rivaling Michigan in unemployment and the pinnacle of self indulgence still manages more accountability for its trash habits than Michiganders do. The 'Can't Someone Else Do It?' entitlement slogan ridiculed in an old Simpsons episode rings true for the Mitten state. Whether it can be attributed to the union influence on the metropolitan mindset or the influence of big government, residents have left it up to the elusive 'someone else' to pick up after them while they gorge themselves on a never ending binge of consumerism.
Barack Obama made a stop in Warren, Michigan last year touting green job creation, urging supporters that Michigan should take advantage of solar power by installing solar panels. The crowd (made up of who I would assume were Michigan residents) cheered loudly and from the boisterous cheering it was evident that neither the President nor the crowd for the matter had spent much time in Michigan, a state that boasts an average of only 150-170 days of sun a year. Wind turbines were planted like trees along the shore of Lake Huron in Michigan's Thumb region, an agricultural farming community, to harness wind power. Not the happy wooden Dutch windmills that immediately come to mind but scary, Stars Wars-esqe metallic windmills that ominously dot the horizon. I have seen them up close and it's unnerving, although I'm not sure what is more unsettling: the dairy cows loitering around them in the fields, the horrible whooshing sound they make or the fact that the landowners are being paid five thousand dollars a month to have them on their land. Never mind that the electricity doesn't stay local, it is sent to the affluent Traverse City region upstate but nearby residents have complained about the vibrations and noise from the mills making them ill. But money talks and in this poverty stricken state, five thousand dollars buys a lot of words.
Most residents of Southeast Michigan are aware of the trash issue in Detroit. Or should I say issues. Trash pick up can be inconsistent and that's the trash that is bagged at the curb. The trash in empty lots, in front of eviction houses, in and around abandoned houses has taken on a life of its own (and at least a few ZIP codes). Residents routinely call up local TV stations and invite a camera crew out to survey disaster zone after disaster zone while their complaints to the city about rat infestations (one among many trash related issues) fall on deaf ears. Usually the TV expose shames the city into a quick cleanup of that one tiny corner of Detroit that will start accumulating tires, furniture and other garbage the very next week. But to be fair the city is looking like Beirut and conducting itself in a similar war zone fashion so when they are unable to reign in violence of every kind, trash is probably pretty low on their priorities list. When former Mayor Ken Cockrel wanted to implement a trial curbside recycling program in Detroit and the current Mayor Dave Bing is talking about shrinking the city and using the abandoned outer lying areas as urban farmlands, I have to laugh. Talk about putting the cart before the horse--the residents are unable to respect each other enough to stop shooting, robbing, raping and killing each other. How can they respect the land and the earth when they can't even respect fellow human beings? That is the bottom line. If the people of Michigan took pride in themselves, they would take pride in their surroundings.