[photo from MSNBC.com]
Monica Hesse wrote a thoughtful article a couple of days ago in The Washington Post – “Greed In The Name of Green.” She voiced the frustration that many within the environmental movement share
Green Consumerism: Problem, Panacea or Just One of Many Good Ideas?
Published: March 7, 2008Posted in: The Lazy E
Josh, I think your response is very smart. Thank you for your thoughtful words.
While I am glad to see Monica Hesse and the Washington Post taking on the important issue of green consumerism’s ills, I feel that her coverage of it was surprisingly one-sided. She basically rants against rampant green consumption, and does not address the issue that people DO need to buy things, the WILL buy things, and that the environmental impact of those products DOES matter. Buying green products over non-green ones IS the better way to go. (Now admittedly many products are being billed as green that are not, and they should be put on the Wall of Shame in a New York minute.)
One good point in the piece that I fully support, and that was so well made by Paul Hawken, is that embracing the environment in your life does mean consuming LESS. We cannot think that we can continue to buy buy buy and toss toss toss and if the products are green that it’s all okay. We cannot consume our way out of global warming, to be sure.
So we really should ask ourselves, as I know you do, Josh, do we need that new set of sheets? Are the old ones really on their last legs? Are the floors in our kitchen really shot or could they be saved? But if the answer is that we DO need something new, then we should definitely seek out the best green product for the job.
One last point and then I’ll shut up. Getting Target to sell organic sheets and WalMart to push CF light bulbs has other positive effects beyond getting those products into the hands of “Average Joe Consumer.” The presence of these products in those stores, and the marketing campaigns around those products, make more people in this country think about how their lives relate to the health of our planet. And they might go on from sheets to organic foods, to a hybrid car.
Thank you– Jessica Jensen, Co-founder, Low Impact Living, Inc.