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September 01, 2020 1:43pm
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Valentine's Day flowers discouraged over environment concerns: 'Consider paper flowers''

New York Times writer makes the case for environmentalism by encouraging people to gift paper flowers instead in lieu of the real deal from Mother Earth.

A New York Times Valentine's Day opinion piece discouraged flower giving for the sake of the environment because while the "massive cut-flower industry — valued at $34 billion in 2019 — isn’t the most environmentally criminal of all commercial enterprises … it’s far from benign." 

"Fortunately, there are many ways to say, ‘I love you’ that don’t also say, ‘Eh, I don’t really care that much about the planet,'" Margaret Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer states in her article, "I Love You, Too, but Let’s Skip the Roses." 

"I’m a big fan of love letters and walks in the moonlight, myself," she added. 

She admitted the news "may be engendering a certain amount of despair," and pondered if there is "anything left that we’re allowed to view with unalloyed joy? If not a bouquet of bright flowers in the dead of February, then what?"

Instead of flowers from Mother Earth, Renkl suggests paper flowers if you are set on giving flowers or even a "domestic houseplant," but she warned that option still has similar problems to cut flowers like pesticides, water use and transportation. 

WHO IS ST. VALENTINE AND HOW IS HE RELATED TO VALENTINE'S DAY?

"But there’s still a big difference between domestically grown houseplants and imported flowers, and not just in the relative carbon costs of transportation," she added. "Houseplants aren’t discarded two days after Valentine’s Day."

HOW DID VALENTINE'S DAY BECOME A HUGE COMMERCIAL HOLIDAY?

Renkl argued that "the very best environmental alternative to a bouquet of imported flowers probably isn’t a potted plant or even paper flowers," but a local flower farm that uses regenerative farming principles. 

She even promotes a flower Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), where "Customers provide the farmer with a reliable source of income, and the farmer provides a reliable source of fresh, in-season flowers."

ZOOS CONTINUE VALENTINE'S DAY TRADITION OF NAMING COCKROACHES, ANIMALS AFTER EXES AND LOVED ONES

While it "might cost a little more" and "it’s easier to grab a plastic-wrapped bouquet from the grocery store," it takes more thought and planning "to send flowers — or plants and paper flowers — another way."

"If you really need to save money or time, it’s a lot faster and a lot cheaper to write a heartfelt love letter and go for a walk in the moonlight," she concluded. "But if you want to give your beloved a botanical gift, why not make it a gift to the planet, too?"

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