This week began the celebration of Earth Week here at Clark. The ASCC and the Office of Student Life and Multicultural Student Affairs planned several earth related events for this week, such as a “non-toxic cleaning solutions” presentation on April 22, a “global warming crisis” presentation on April 23 and showing the film An Inconvenient Truth on April 24.
    I started thinking about how much more time we seem to devote to cleaning and preserving our planet than we ever used to. The slogan “going green” can be seen everywhere. Commercials promoting the sale of fuel cell cars can be seen more frequently these days on television, along with commercials for everyday household cleaning supplies that have been made “green” using less harmful chemicals. After thinking about this for a while, I happened to open up the daily newspaper and immediately noticed a headline that read, “‘Green’ fashion options growing.” Yes, it’s true, we have actually started producing clothing from materials that are “earth friendly.” Organic cotton, bamboo and seaweed are just a few materials that are now being used to make these types of clothing.
    Even here at Clark, people have seemed to suddenly become more determined to save the planet. You know those blue and green books used for exams that are located in the bookstore? Has anyone ever wondered what the difference between the blue one and the green was? You got it, the green one is made with more recyclable materials.       
    By this point, I’d had a lot of time to think about people’s sudden desire to “go green.” Then I got to thinking about why we have suddenly changed our ways. Is it because we have finally realized that we should’ve been conserving our beloved planet earth for the future generations all along? Unfortunately, the answer is no. I have come to believe that, for most people, their motivation to “go green” is themselves. Think about it, as soon as gas prices sky-rocket, we see an increased amount of commercials promoting cars that not only are better for the earth, but also do not use gas. Do we decide to buy these “efficient” cars because they help the planet, or because they help our wallets? Sadly, the latter seems to be the case, whether we like to admit it or not.