This might be the quote of the year regarding the push to be "green":

“Green is a trend and people go with trends. People get them as fashion statements and they have, like, 50 of them. I don’t think people know the real facts.”

The quote comes from a woman interviewed by the New York Times regarding new evidence that reusable grocery bags contain high levels of lead. The Times story notes that "reports from around the country have trickled in recently about reusable bags, mostly made in China, that contained potentially unsafe levels of lead."

Of course it is next to impossible to have perfect knowledge regarding all of the products we buy and their ultimate impact on the planet. The problem is that too many have substituted a desire to be trendy for a truly curious and thoughtful approach to achieving the goals we claim to care about.

Worse, that mindless approach is actually being promoted by government agencies. Witness the silliest video of the year (and more videos apparently are promised since this is "Episode One"). King County, Washington produced the following spot, called "Eco-Cribz," resembling the MTV program of a similar name. Ostensibly, the county government's goal was to promote "green" living, but the appeal is clearly more about fad than fact.

It should be noted that the house featured in the video is, according to tax records, 4,000 square feet and has an assessed value of $2 million. I'm not sure that is considered sustainable by the county's own standards.

One of the fads promoted by the video is the use of "certified" timber. The host of the program says that buying "FSC certified wood" is one of the best things you can do for the environment. The facts indicate, however, this isn't always the case. FSC certification carries some heavy baggage and actually increases harm to the environment in a number of ways:

• Frequently, buyers of FSC wood have it shipped from across the country because adequate supplies are not available in the Northwest. This increases, not decreases, the energy intensity of the wood.
• FSC rules vary from place to place. The rules in Idaho and British Columbia are different from Washington state. Washington's basic forestry rules, the "Forests and Fish Law," are more stringent than FSC rules in other states. Ironically, buying FSC from out of state may have a larger impact than buying non-FSC from Washington.
• FSC is designed to reduce the amount of timber harvested per acre, which decreases supply of timber and raises prices. This can have two results. First, it could cause people to substitute timber from overseas, which is cheaper but where rules are lax. Second, it could cause builders to substitute concrete or steel for wood. Doing so replaces a renewable, energy-efficient source of building material with a non-renewable, energy-intensive source.

Of course, if you don't buy FSC, you can't have an eco-crib. What would Lady GaGa think?