When do we change?
Let me apologise for the quality of the photo; it was shot with my mobile phone camera. What it shows is two food outlets at the Geneva Cornavin train station. On the left is the 'Bar Santé' which translated means health bar. On the right is a traditional pastry shop with croissants, brioches, rammequins and a variety of other butter-based, cream-filled, mayonnaise-spread foods. The one on the left has no one, the one on the right, the fatty foods one, has a line up. I stayed there for about 15 minutes to make certain this was not a cyclic moment. Well, it was not. During my fifteen minutes on station, I counted one customer on the left for every 22 customers on the right!
This all too informal analysis, I grant you, got me thinking about our social shifting. Are we doing what we are being asked to do? Are we, as citizens, business people or policy makers living up to our responsibilities and changing our habits? Are we, to coin a cliché, going green?
This unscientific observation would show that we are not. People, at least here, are more drawn to their traditional fatty foods than to newer age low-fat, carrot cake. But let's move on to more relevant comparisons. Are we changing our e-waste habits by keeping our electronics longer? Are we car pooling? Are we travelling less? Are we donating money to tropical forest preservation? Are we giving blood? On a corporate level, do we really need the private jet? Isn't flying commercial good enough? Do we really need one laser printer for every three office workers?
Enough. At some point we have to stop complaining and worrying about all the bad things others are doing and start to enact the good ones ourselves. Does this mean carrot cake? Clearly, you realise that I simply use this as an allegory but I'll still come back to these two shops regularly to test my theory. I just hope the carrot cake one does not go out of business; then I'll really worry.
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