My Turn: It’s not easy being green

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STAFF FILE PHOTO  STAFF FILE PHOTO

By AMHAD ESFAHANI

Published: 09-24-2024 4:13 PM

 

In recent weeks, following a random board meeting in Buckland, a man stopped me on my way out and asked, “are you the guy who wrote that obnoxious article in the Recorder?” This inquiry left me in a state of confusion for several hours, as I honestly was not clear which article he was referring to. A comedian’s brush, coated with a mixture of truth and perspective, will often an unhappy camper make.

In the spirit of that comment, a torpedo has been primed for Massachusetts’ duel-reactored green submarine.

As an attendee of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership series presentation centered on the coming fifth variant of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification (I’m confused already), it dawned on me that these scientists may have us chasing our own tails. To summarize what’s ahead, if you are wealthy in this state, you’ll build, and if you’re not, you’ll watch. Not to diminish the hard work of the ever-preparing-for-the-next-version eco-clergy, but it is quite funny to realize that for the past 30 years we’ve always had five years to divert from a climate change disaster.

As Hollywood clowns burn jet fuel while urging us to lower our footprint, we’re being told that making every single thing run off of electricity is the next best thing to the spurious research supporting that idea. Chills ran up my spine as the group-think pervading our air-conditioned room had a similar bouquet to that of the Republican National Convention. “Believer Accounting” might make a great Taylor album title, though in this instance it was all about breaking even. Oh carbon, you horrible, horrible scapegoat.

Having only been hours since my presence at this green revival, the heavily painted grins displayed either had a working knowledge of conflict of interest law, or a subtle comfort in knowing that all this is heavily funded by taxpayer dollars. Did I dare raise a serious question underlying another certification being simply a trapdoor that unlocks buildings benefiting haves over the have-nots?

No, and neither did I ask the Republicans in Milwaukee if they thought the attempted assassination was staged. It’s better to be silent and thought a fool, than have something thrown at your head. When someone tells you something improves overall quality of life, you better believe them or you can be certain they will try to lower yours. Upon leaving, I wondered if this constantly moving certification refresh cycle actually takes away from implementing whatever the academics say we should have been doing last week. DSM VII, anyone?

Seemingly unconnected is this state’s handling of cannabis and its derivative products. Walking into a dispensary in Greenfield, and being run through the double ID inspection, could be a scene out of a Soviet-era convenience store. “Papers please” may be necessary to protect the children, but it has the dangerously normalizing effect of getting people used to being suspected of deception.

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Also, all this control of cannabis is surely keeping enterprising teens from procuring the devil’s lettuce for themselves, right? One check of the identification card, this makes sense. We do this for alcohol, cigarettes, and quite possibly soon even for smart phones. It is the double check that opens the door (so to speak) for further introspection.

I’ve always taken this to be an inference that either the customer or the first ID-checker-person has pulled a fast one in getting access to the counter. Though I do shed tears for those who hold cannabis to be a plant medicine, my inner bureaucrat is too busy screaming, “there’s a better method to achieve compliance!” What that method is, who’s to say, but navigating the cannabis culture within Massachusetts leaves me wondering where the love went, man.

Is Massachusetts actually more anarchist than socialist? Having gone through the fire of being a free-stater in neighboring New Hampshire, I was acculturated with the quizzical capacity of both smelling out socialism and rediscovering lost liberty. Seeing car after car go 30 miles on my way back on Route 2 tickled me with that old idea that perhaps an overabundance of laws actually results in laws being unenforceable.

Smoking green or building green, there may be a realization sign quickly ahead of us that reads “You Can’t Keep People From Doing What They Want To Do.” Our law enforcement officers are heroes, but they aren’t superhuman; and a responsibility of the citizenry may be that of recognizing there are limits to what can be expected of human-run institutions.

Amhad Esfahani lives in Greenfield.