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Is American culture inherently wasteful?

Graham Hill Vice President, Interactive Media, Planet Green

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Question: Is American culture inherently wasteful?

Graham Hill: Well I’d like to sort of turn that around because I really . . .  I don’t . . .  I don’t think that we are a bad people, and I don’t think we’re different . . .  Americans, Canadians, Europeans, like I don’t think we’re sort of that much different.  I think the way that we’ve gotten here is really . . . is absolutely understandable.  And there was a time when natural resources went on and on.  Like they just . . . there was an incredible amount.  And we really didn’t have to think that much about being wasteful.  And that’s . . . that’s sort of where we’ve come from in this last century.  And so we sort of . . .  I think we’ve in a way conceptually have sort of worked our way around the globe, you know?  We set out one way, and there’s like lots and lots of forests.  And there’s sort of . . . well we’re just sort of realizing we’re about to hit our . . . come to the end, and we have to re-look at how we do things.  So I don’t think we’re bad people.  We’re just sort of . . .  We didn’t look . . .  It was hard to see that far in advance.  It was hard to think that we would actually go through those resources.  And so now we just . . . we’re learning quickly that we have to have a different approach. Well I think with . . . as with most things, like the answers are there.  Like there’s not . . .  The technologies, the solutions, a way to live a better, balanced life and get along on a global basis – I think it’s all there.  It just takes sort of the personal and the political will to make it happen.  So you know specifically green, it’s there.  Like there are amazing technologies and approaches that we can . . . that are here now.  And we just have to . . . we can really pull ourselves out of this rather quickly if we just get the personal and political will to focus on them.

Recorded on: 10/16/07 

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Graham Hill Vice President, Interactive Media, Planet Green

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Hill is the founder of TreeHugger, an online hub for news and information related to environmental sustainability.Hailed as a “green CNN,” TreeHugger hosts a constantly updated blog, newsletters, video and radio segments and a user-generated Graham site, Hugg. In the three years since its inception, TreeHugger has become one of the most high-profile and highly-trafficked sites on the internet. Recently, Hill his been hard at work developing Planet Green with Discovery Communications. Hill has also worked in a variety of industries prior to starting TreeHugger, including fashion, web-development, and plant-based air filters. He is also a designer, and his New York souvenir coffee mug is sold in over 150 stores. Hill was educated at Carleton University in Ottawa and Emily Carr Institute of ArtDesign in Vancouver.

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