That’s probably not a question you see tossed around a lot, but it’s actually a really important one. Everywhere you look these days, there is a company advertising that its product is green. Sounds good doesn’t it? But what does that really mean? Do the claims that a product is “green” mean that is good for a planet? You’d think so, but read on. You’ll soon learn that this isn’t always the case!

Have you seen shirts advertised lately that are made of bamboo? Or how about shorts made out of corn? Companies that make items out of these plants claim that they are green. But there is a dark side to a lot of these claims. Let’s look at bamboo for example. This plant may be familiar because it is the main food eaten by panda bears. But it also grows very quickly, and for this reason, it uses up a lot of carbon dioxide, which plants remove for the air to make food with the help of energy from the Sun. Carbon dioxide is one of the main greenhouse gases, so it is good thing if plants use a lot of it.

So far it sounds great doesn’t it. But let’s take a walk over to the dark side. It turns out that people need a place to farm bamboo, which grows in the tropics. When people want to start a farm, they have to clear land. In this case, the land they are clearing is land that tropical rainforests grow on. Tropical rainforests absorb enormous amounts of greenhouse gases. They provide a home for a great number of the world’s different plants and animals. They even help regulate the weather. In other words, they are irreplaceable.  And cutting them down spells trouble, big, big trouble.

So it turns out that this “green” product is really not so green after all. Often, it is good to check other people’s claims out for yourself before you believe them. In fact, you really can’t ever go wrong if you always check your facts. Especially as a scientist!