(Photo: My parents' low-flow toilet in their French W.C., water closet, a small room dedicated to, well, you know.)Posted: 07/15/2010 12:00:00 AM MDT
EL PASO -- In America, we tend to be humbled by the green lifestyles carried out in old Europe. And for good reason. The average American generates more than three times as much carbon dioxide emissions as the average French, German or British person.
How do they do it? Higher population densities mean you don't need to take your car so often. In some countries electricity comes from nuclear plants that don't generate emissions. And your average European is said to be more environmentally conscious than us.
But is that really so? I put that theory to a test during a recent trip to France. I was excited to investigate what innovative green practices the French are up to. For instance, my sister, who lives in Paris, had told me never to ask for a plastic bag at a French supermarché or "they" will "kill you." I assume, she meant the French cashier would give you dirty looks, but it is possible there are plastic bag-related homicides going on in France.
The trip started auspiciously, as there were no strikes going on in Paris during my stay. (Readers who have traveled to France will know how rare that is.) But when it came to living greener, the French behaved pretty much like Americans. The plastic Evian bottle reigned and I did not see one reusable bottle the entire time I was there.
I saw a chain of stores that sold only plastic wares, boldly named Plastiques. At the supermarket, I did notice an absence of plastic bags but the amount of packaging on products was insane. Two slices of ham deserved their own plastic tray, for instance. In the household cleaning aisle was only one green brand with the uninspired name L'Arbre Vert (The Green Tree).
At home for dinner, my mother gave me paper napkins. My own mother. Doesn't she read my blog?
At the same time, the French can't stop complaining about the invasion of genetically modified (GM) foods, which we in America call, simply, food. Stories about GM foods, also called transgenic, are all over the papers and people seem to worry a lot about them. Maybe, I thought, that's where the French concentrate their green efforts.
GM foods are crops like corn, cotton and soybeans whose DNA has been modified to resist pests and herbicides and, supposedly, yield larger harvests. There is no evidence that any of this is dangerous to human health, but the practice is recent; it started in the 1990s and we don't know its long-term impact.
Americans have embraced GM crops so much so that 90 percent of soybeans, 75 percent of cotton and about 65 percent corn grown in America are genetically modified, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. But Europeans see GM crops as Frankenstein science and have taken a stand to protect traditional agriculture by banning most GM imports.
The French are more sensitive to what goes into their stomachs and they love organic (and presumably GM-free) products, which they call bio. That led me to check out a bio store in my neighborhood. It was basically rows of shelves with bottles of vitamins and supplements, boxed granola cereals (again with the excessive packaging) and a tiny display of wilted vegetables, none of which was locally grown. Good for your health, maybe, but not so good for the environment.
It just made me hungry for a good ol' transgenic hamburger.
Send questions and comments in French or in English to Louie Gilot at her blog, www.lagreenga.com.
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