Triple Ocho

National Geographic's The Green Guide is a perplexing thing.

The homepage still sports a "green gift guide" for the holidays, and the most recent highlighted stories appear to indicate semiannual updating. On top of that, most of the site's cautionary material falls nicely into the category of: "No shit."

Obviously carbon offsets are a scam. This seems like pretty basic knowledge. But the site does get propers for equating them to modern day indulgences. Remember when the Catholic Church did that? Ah. Those were the days.

It was one of those things where I'm reading the article where they quote some gentleman of science as he points out the carbon offset-indulgence dynamic, and I get quite infuriated that it was not I who came up with the analogy. I mean, what is 13 years of Catholic education worth if I can't make a simple correlation between carbon offsets and the systematic fleecing of 16th century Catholics?

Nothing. That's what.

Long story short: Good analogy, Mr. Roger Pielke Jr.

So what prevents The Green Guide from being fed into the the maw of the ever-feasting hound known as thought-leader scorn?

Sheer effort. Like the kid sitting in the front of class every day, taking exhaustive notes and feverishly committing every lecture to memory that is still going to fail because math just isn't his thing, The Green Guide tries so damn hard.

It has buying guides for every product and service imaginable (because I know you're wondering, right now, whether or not your mattress could be greener), green traveling tips, and a whole slew of FAQs, which actually contain a a rather unexpected quantum of useful factoids.

Some more useful than others.

"How does harvesting rainwater work?"

-By harnessing the power of gravity and the natural phenomenon known as the impermeability of parabolic hemispherically shaped objects (commonly referred to as "bowls"), one is able to effectively "trap" water in a single location where it may be used for various means.

Illuminating!

In all seriousness though, The Green Guide is a fairly useful tool, but the thrust of its aim should be primarily focused on those uninitiated with the wondrous world of green brands.

It also gets a pass because it's put out by National Geographic, an organization with something of a stake in the state of the natural world.

Let's just say that National Ergonomic doesn't sound like an interesting magazine.