The heights of going GREEN....

Read an article in The Times Of India and honestly i found it funny and insulting though i have reasons to believe that the writer had by no means intended it to be either.In this fast moving world ,when we don't really have the time to think for a moment, lets take a break and try to see where we are going.They say the environment is at a risk.I agree. What i don't agree upon is that almost every second some researcher/scholar/self proclaimed environmentalist comes up with a new theory and people actually believe it throwing their common sense to the winds.Are we living in a world where we care two hoots for our own intelligence and let some moron take it for granted.Are we so caught up in life that we stopped doing the most important that helped us to evolve...THINK.
Read on the article and let me know your views.

DON'T SHAVE

."Interpreting faces to know people's personal commitment to environment can be a bit presumptuous. But a male face can still give some idea. For example, one could say that going strictly by the face, R K Pachauri stands slightly more to the greener side of the environmental spectrum than fellow Nobel laureate Al Gore. Why? Because he sports a beard which the latter doesn't. For the same reason, the Bachchan son and father duo scores (son more than the father, for he sports a full fuzz) over Bollywood's Khan triumvirate.

It might sound a little far-fetched, but to shave or not to shave isn't a carbon neutral question. From shaving foam to electric shaver and from aftershaves to face-smoothening creams, everything that is used in the act of shaving has environmental implications. The wet shave - in which one uses shaving cream and warm water - is a greener option but not the greenest. Similarly, using a mug instead of running water is better but not without its tiny carbon footprints.

In any case, one must also reckon with the environmental costs of anti-wrinkle creams, sun-screen lotions, facials and face-lifting interventions like botox and surgical removal of wrinkles that go into maintaining the exposed face skin taut.

That's not all. The daily act of shaving takes a lot of time and effort, which involves an indirect environmental cost. To think that nearly half the adult world population indulges in this extravagance (some more than once a day) should make one's facial hair stand on end. Indeed one wonders why in these times of hyper-green sensibilities no one has thought of banning the darned morning ritual. But while the law can take its time, it should not stop the males of the human species from taking proactive action to shave the carbon emissions by growing a beard. It would be their unique contribution to the green cause.

Lest the skeptics scoff at the suggestion calling the beard a vestige of medieval maleness, one should mention other advantages of leaving facial hair alone. A clean shave might be dandy but beard is trendy. For, it can be styled into different shapes and sizes. Not that one would recommend dyeing it, which is environmentally hazardous again.

Facial fuzz has some egalitarian value too. For, if all males were to sport it, it would break an important cultural barrier and cease to be a symbol of identity and basis for discrimination."