The first:
The second:Southern Fried Science wrote: Seeing Green
By Bluegrass Blue Crab, on April 21st, 2010
Is eco-chic all is cut out to be?
Did you ever meet that gear-head who had a shelf full of Nalgenes or a trunk full of those reusable shopping bags? At the time, did you stop and think about the environmental impact of these eco-friendly products? In honor of Earth Day, I’d like to take a moment to step back and evaluate the state of our environmental movement.
Yes, at some level these things reduce your personal environmental impact. They save millions of plastic bags and cups from entering the waste stream and therefore our biosphere. At the same time, they promote the consumer culture that created many of our environmental issues in the first place.
When thinking about this issue, it gets beyond the small purchases and pushes into the realm of greenwashing – but greenwashing on a personal, individual level. To what degree is the ‘green citizen’ just another marketing tool reinforcing the status quo?
Is Green the New Black?
I recently attended a talk by Stephanie Rutherford, the author of a yet unpublished book Green is the New Black. Her basic point, as told through four case studies of eco-consumerism, is that the recent sustainability movement criticizes and supports consumerism at the same time. Without more fundamental changes in societal norms, the efforts of tote bags for groceries and occasionally taking the bus are meaningless.
Rutherford discusses the “narratives of nature” and how environmental subjectivities are created – both subjects critical in the larger academic discussion of environmental citizenship. Exactly what does an environmental citizen look like and act like? The ideal citizen is perhaps not the one being created by the companies emerging from and succeeding because of the sustainability movement.
Two of her case studies particularly hit home – one of what Rutherford describes as “the fetishization of gear”, or creation of an identity full of Goretex hiking boots and sparkly new rain jackets from North Face. It’s a branding and an identity based not on what works, but what will provide the look that symbolizes the status of someone who can afford such an identity. So it’s really about advertising you belong to the upper class shrouded in talking about care for the environment. According to a teacher I know, the branding has gotten so successful that children at her school regularly get into fights over North Face jackets – and this is not over who has the most comfortable jacket on a mountaineering expedition but instead who has ‘the look’ in a school in the DC suburbs.
Want to buy a green dress?
The other case that hit home was her description of ecotourism packages in Yellowstone National Park. A large percentage of the park’s visitors each year come through organized ecotourism trips, complete with a guide and transportation through the park. Rutherford repeatedly documented the patrons on such trips not spending time asking the guide questions or looking out the window at the wildlife standing nearby, but instead talking to the other guests about past ecotours they had participated in. Again, more of a way to brag about class than appreciate nature.
Bottom line is that instead of simplifying our lives to be more in line with what our planet can support, we have shifted our complicated lives to use the eco-friendly label in our societal struggles of class. It’s not buy less, it’s buy better. But our economy and society are still firmly grounded in capitalist norms involving consumerism and commodification of all things green and natural. In the end, that underlying system is likely what needs to change. The current greening movement just has to step aside first.
~Bluegrass Blue Crab
Casaubon's Book wrote:Why I Hate Earth Day
Posted on: April 21, 2010 8:39 AM, by Sharon Astyk
I bloody hate Earth Day. No offense to those of you who love it, and I know there are some awesome Earth Day programs out there, but by the time we get there, I'm spending my days hiding under the covers, because every freakin' time I open my email inbox a wave of the most nauseating spew of greenwashing comes flowing out.
Guess what? A major department store chain, nearly in bankruptcy, is now selling the eco-tote, made from organic sheepskin, embossed with "Think Global, Act Local" to show your care for the earth and indifference to grammar. And not to trouble me, but just so you know, the manufacturers of a disgusting sugar laden soft-drink have a new organic one, in a special collectible earth-day bottle. Don't forget to follow the adventures of Eddie, who is marching nude across the Alaskan wilderness (except for his high priced hiking boots, oh, and the camera crew is clothed, as are the drivers of the six suport jeeps that follow him at 3 mph for the whole way) to raise awareness of Caribou migration Here's a new website that helps affluent consumers buy carbon offsets so they don't have to give a shit about their flights to Cancun wants to let me have an interview with their CEO. And don't forget the chance to meet the manufacturer of a new, even bigger hybrid SUV that gets ...woah...23 mpg!
This happens every year, but of course, for the fortieth anniversary of earth day, the bullshit levels reach new heights. My favorite new innovation is that now the press-releases actually acknowledge the problem of greenwashing, implying that you can't trust those other manufacturers of pointless bullshit, but you definitely, really and truly, can trust someone who a. knows the word "greenwashing" and b. cares enough to add your email to a mailing list of 70,000 people.
I find myself frustrated by the way that words like "organic" and "local" and "sustainable" are used by these companies. I know that most of them have only the lightest relationship to environmentalism, and many of them have given money to politicians and institutions that have tried to delay or stymie global warming legislation. Moreover, the culture of buying new, high status clothing every season, or driving around in slightly more fuel efficient cars simply can't get you where we need to go in the relevant time. Utlimately, their products are part of the problem. Moreover, track back the histories of many green products and you find they aren't really green. Consider bamboo fiber, touted as a replacement for cotton - the process used to soften and process it is incredibly polluting and toxic. Or look at "biodegradable" diapers and plastic bags - manufactured from corn grown in China with heavy doses of nitrogen fertilizer. There's nothing sustainable about this. Or organic food grown by enormous companies who use more fossil fuels and treat their farm workers badly.
Colin Beavan, aka "No Impact Man" used to say that environmentalism has to become as easy as rolling off a log to get most people invested, and there's some real truth there. The problem, of course, is that it can't be. It isn't easy to figure out what the right choice is - and there isn't a universal right choice. Should you eat meat? Well no one should eat feedlot meat. But what about a small amount of local and grassfed? Well, it depends on where you live - is your soil mostly tillable? Is there enough water to feed cattle? Do you live on a prairie that needs grazing animals, or on the side of a mountain where you can't grow wheat? Do you live in a city where you could raise poultry or rabbits on food waste that would otherwise be producing methane in landfills? Even if the answer is yes doesn't mean unrestricted or infinite numbers of cows - grazing populations have to take water availability and a whole host of other things into consideration. But it does mean that there's not one answer.
And when there is one answer, when it isn't complicated, the answer doesn't usually involve buying anything. It involves using a lot less of that thing - cutting the amount of shampoo you use in half, and then half again and seeing just how little you can use and still have passably clean hair. It involves thrift shops and mending and creative reuse - and hard work and thought about whether you really need something.
The thing is, it is possible to engage people with these more complex strategies. Historian Timothy Breen argues that these "rituals of non-consumption" emerge in difficult times to replace the satisfaction people gets from consumption. But they are communal, collective, and they involve conversations and practices that replace, rather than just eliminate. It isn't enough to say "stop shopping" - instead you have to give someone something as satisfying as shopping to do, and a community to do it within. When Miranda Edel and I founded the Riot for Austerity, we found that this was the esssential element - that we could get people to cut their usage by 70, 80 and 90% over the average American - and without major political interventions or buying that 20,000 dollar solar system. But what was needed was the fun of the participatory exercise of reducing one's usage. What was needed was a good story about how we were all part of something.
And that's why I'm a skeptic about Earth Day and Earth Hour and anything that has you be green for a weekend or a day or an hour. Yes, I'm the original poster girl for "your personal choice makes an impact" - but not one day a year. And yes, teaching kids about the basics of environmentalism is awesome, and having festivals is good. But the truth is that I don't see it sticking.
I see Earth Day as the new Valentine's Day or Mother's Day, a Hallmark holiday for us to give lip service to the environment. There are contrary forces, good in the mix - but then there are good things in the mix of Mother's Day or Father's Day or Valentines as well. But the reality of Mother's Day doesn't seem to be that it inspires us to be more respectful of the needs of mothers - what comes out of Mother's Day isn't more calls for breastfeeding stations and child friendly policies, but a "we told you we loved you last Sunday...aren't we done yet?" The same is true of Valentines Day - there's no compelling reason to believe that once a year special chocolates and sex really do all that much to lower the national divorce rate.
The problem of living in a culture whose dominant message is that consumption is all - that we are not citizens but consumers, is that we learn to think of ourselves as baby birds with our mouths open. Our job is to create markets, to buy the right things, to spend money. And how you spend your money definitely matters. But it matters in context with how you vote and act and live your life and demonstrate and speak and model a meaningful way of life. More is simply required of us that opening our beaks.
Isak Dineson famously said "All suffering is bearable if seen as part of a story." The emptiness that people feel when they live a life primarily as consumers is no accident - the problem is that the story we're engaged in isn't very interesting. A story where your primary role is to create a market, to consume and come back for more is incredibly dull - try writing one someday. But the good news is that there really is a worthwhile story to be told - just not one to be told one day a year. It has all the best elements you can imagine - survival against odds and courage and journeys through difficult circumstances. It has heroes and acts of heroism and passion and drama. It is the story of our lives in the circumstances we find ourselves in - and it is no accident that despite the fact that bazillions of dollars are spent telling us we are just consumers, and that's all the story we could ever need, people by the thousands and sometimes even millions are frustrated and looking for a better story. And it is here.
It is also no accident that corporations and others are attempting to transform the story of our future, of our journey to and through a difficult and remarkable transition as the story of just another shopping day.
Is it any wonder, if you live your life like a baby bird with your mouth open that what gets dropped into it every time is a worm? People will attempt to reshape your worm and convince you that it is extra yummy this time, but it is still a worm. And the story of consumers is still boring.
If you are going to get better than that, we're going to have to participate, and go out and seek new sources and resources and options, we're going to have to replace much of our consumption with rituals of non-consumption. We're going to have to write a good and compelling story with our lives. The good news is that it is a lot more fun to be a citizen than a consumer, and rituals of non-consumption are just as satisfying as retail therapy. The good news is that there are better stories out there for the claiming and the living, and events are conspiring to keep our times interesting. The good news is that we can do better than worms.
Sharon
