NICOLE CHIN | layout & design editor

This is a trend worth practicing.

I waste paper. I throw away cans and plastic bottles. I’ve even spit my gum out into the bushes. I am a consumer and a waster and while I’m not proud of it, I haven’t done anything to change it.

Then there is my friend—let’s call her Conscientious Carrie. She is passionate about saving the environment and inspiring other people to change. She is adamant about resourcefulness. She will holler at the checkout cashiers. She will buy all her roommates cloth bags. It doesn’t matter if it’s one plastic bag or five energy-saving light bulbs—change starts with one little step and she knows that.

She is part of a movement and more and more people are jumping on the hybrid wagon. We’re being bombard by “save the earth” celebrity conspirators—Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sheryl Crow, Alicia Silverstone and Edward Norton. They are pushing to conserve wildlife, preserve the ocean, save energy and reduce waste. Things, according to Gore, Americans overlook.

“What we take for granted might not be there for our children,” he says in An Inconvenient Truth.

Gore first brought attention to this widespread need to save the planet with his 2006 Academy Award winning documentary. He put his green foot down and hoped the rest of the world would raise their green thumbs in response. They did.

Now, we have purely “organic” cotton T-shirts, with designs from the recycle sign to the slogan “Hotter than I should be.” We have energy efficient light bulbs, brown cloth bags, and baby trees planted everywhere. Professional sports teams are making adjustments to create carbon neutral stadiums. Best selling apparel is decorated with “Go Green” slogans. The Washington Post reports 79,000 hybrids were sold in 2004. Restaurants, like 21 Choices, have switched to biodegradable containers and eliminated Styrofoam. NBC NFL News broadcasted an entire newscast by candlelight to save electricity. Superstar Leonardo DiCaprio is producing and narrating his own documentary titled “The 11th Hour.”

I suppose you could say the world has “Gone Gore” with a splash of green.

Hard to believe, but “Going Green” isn’t a brand new concept. Captain Planet, started in 1991, was a television show designed to help kids understand the needs of Mother Earth. The slogan “recycle, reuse, reduce” has been attached to the blue bins for a while now. Taking care of our planet isn’t a new concept, but it’s a new practice for a lot of people.

“Going Green” is the environmental trend of 2008. Theater, Film and Television professor Monica Ganas defines a trend as something that is “pushed by celebrities, heavily marketed, the reason being pushed is tied to products, including movies.” And “Going Green” has seen everything from movies to buildings created entirely from reusable steel.

“I do think it’s a trend,” Ganas said. “I don’t think it’s a fad.”

Ganas says it’s not a fad. It’s not like American Idol or Ugg Boots, Furbys or Pogs. It’s more concrete and more serious, but it’s less appreciated. And while it’s widely supported, few actually practice it.

“If it turns out to be a temporary kind of thing and we never become serious about it, then it’s hype,” Ganas said. “People going through a stage or a phase in their life.”

But this can’t be a phase. This is the environment and this is a trend we need to practice. Some say there’s nothing sexy about reusable plastic ware, biodegradable spoons, cloth bags and the expensive carbon neutralizers. But what’s sexier than a beautiful sunset at the beach, a sunrise hike up Garcia or the lake at Big Bear with clear blue skies?

It takes passionate people to save a rainforest. It takes passionate people to clean the ocean. But it takes a nation to save the environment.

Think about Conscientious Carrie for a minute, in her save-the-environment-apparel, earth tones and all, getting rid of plastic bags, recycling bottles and reusing paper.

Don’t think it makes a difference? Maybe not now, maybe not in 10 years—maybe we’ll never see it. But someday the earth might take on some nasty Keanu Reeves’s Matrix atmosphere and will you feel guilty then?

Reduce, reuse, recycle—if not for yourself, then for everyone else.