The Green Scene in TriBeCa

I've been doing some babysitting lately for an extremely wealthy family living in this ridiculous loft in Manhattan. The mother makes a conscious effort to stay "green", maybe even ecological, but it's a very limited effort. It mostly shows in the groovy/green/organic products that they purchase, but apparently her efforts go further. The other day I took the oldest boy (Alex- 6 yrs) to the Laurence Hall of Science in Queens, with a friend of his. Half way through eating lunch in the cafeteria, Alex looks directly at me and says "I'm done eating this pizza." Then pauses as if he's waiting for me to respond.

"I guess I could eat it then..." I said.

"Yea, that would be good," he replied. "Then I wouldn't have to waste it. It's bad to waste food..."

I must say that I was shocked by his thoughtful attitude, as he's typically only concerned for his own well-being, but clearly somebody has been sprouting little eco-friendly seeds in that rapidly growing mind of his(he's some kind of baby genius).

I feel conflicted about those "all natural" groovy products that are too high of a mark up for the average American, but inconsequential for the elite. I try to stay away from major corporate products, so as to support smaller, (and hopefully) more thoughtful companies. So in that sense it's really nice to see them eating Barbara's cereal instead of Kellogg's or using Ecover dish soap instead of Palmolive. But for those millions of people who can't afford the extra couple bucks to buy the groovy dish soap (that doesn't even keep the sponge soapy!), what's a brother to do? Being green is the thing to do right now, so of course our consumer marketing culture is taking advantage of it. But it my be turning into this elitist, snobby culture that raises their nose to those who don't buy organic produce for their kids.

Did you know that the person who discovered how to genetically modify plants earned a nobel peace prize because he confronted world hunger by discovering how to grow more than twice as much produce using the same amount of space? Here are some tough questions that I've been asking myself lately... How do I know it's better to eat organically? What the hell does it actually mean when it says the fruit has been "minimally treated"? Should I really spend the extra few bucks to buy the "green" product? Are these "green" companies really doing better things with their proceeds? Or is it just a get-rich-quick scheme on the newest fad?

If any of you have answers, thoughts, insights, or more questions, I'd love to hear em...