Ilex vomitoria

Green is making me sick.

The word is being abused so much, and the idea is so saturated, that I’m beginning to have trouble spitting it out of my mouth. You can paint cowpies green all day… they are still cowpies. In this time and art of greenwashing I’m afraid we’ve lost any understanding of the word.

The interesting thing about green is its location at 520-570 nanometers in the color spectrum. According to Wikipedia (via the Olympus Microscopy Resource Center) “the sensitivity of the dark-adapted human eye is greatest at about 507 nm, a blue-green color, while the light-adapted eye is most sensitive about 555 nm, a slightly yellowish green; these are the peak locations of the rod and cone (scotopic and photopic, respectively) luminosity functions.” The translation is that our eyes are most sensitive in both light and dark to the color green; we can distinguish more hues of green than any other color. This is why newer fire engines and cross walks are painted bright yellow/green; the color is visible both day and night. Green is interesting because we are wired to detect subtle changes in our environment, much of it dominated at one time by green, blue and yellow.

Removing mountaintops is not subtle and coal is not clean.

Green is interesting because it suggests some type of growth, a connection to water and sunlight, and the beauty of diversity. The absurdity of the green revolution is that it is occurring in advertising and not in environmental action; it is the representation of an ideal painted on a surface (in the hue of our choice). We, as communities and individuals, are very responsive to green ideas. The question unknown is if these surfaces can grow.

A cowpie is great fertilizer.

Can something worthwhile grow from the sh*t we are being thrown. Can advertisements like Clean Coal, get people to think about what coal really is and how difficult and dirty it is to find, access, extract, burn, sequester, store… maybe some intelligence can grow from the green facade? Maybe we can attract new ideas, solutions and inspiration from greenwashing? Or is too much green dangerous? Perhaps the washout will turn inspiration to cynicism.

Ilex vomitoria and too much green

Although the leaves of Ilex vomitoria, common name Yaupon Holly, do contain caffeine and have been historically used for medicinal and social purposes, too many leaves or berries leaves one feeling not so good. The plant is an emetic and is used to induce vomiting (hence vomitoria). In my state of American overdose on green I’m thinking that I’m being forced to consume too too many berries, and too much green is making me sick…

That said, the Yaupon Holly is an attractive native species that can grow as tall as 20′. It is the only native plant that contains caffeine and its berries are an important food source for songbirds. The Yaupon Holly is generally found along the coastal plain and as far north as Washington DC.