Harvesting Coat Hangers

I’m pro-environment. I don’t mean that in the “I recycle and refrain from disposing of old tires in local streams” sense of the word. I mean it in the “I like folk music and think Earth First chicks are babes” sense of the word.

I just read an article, however, that's a good illustration of why environmentally friendly technologies will never really catch on as long as humans have Walmarts. Lois Walpole made botanical headlines by growing a coat hanger right out of the earth, proving that “functional products can be grown”. The hippies below are just finding out about this discovery.

The article goes on to say,

"The coat hanger was the first of the 36 products growing on site to be harvested. The majority of the remainder will be ready to harvest over the next three years.”

Not only is this process environmentally friendly, but it’s insanely cool. It’s so cool, in fact, that I figure if I started growing my own coat hangers I’d have Fiona Apple & Alanis Morrissette fighting over me within two weeks. I mean literally fighting, like with their fists, or maybe even with knives or other weapons. At least that's how I imagine it.

However, when you mention that it takes three years to not quite produce 36 hangers, most reasonable people will congratulate you, then go to Walmart. It’s inefficiencies like these that account for the fact that environmentalists always lose at everything that they do.

That and the fact that so many of them smell bad. That’s not helping the cause at all, seriously.