Eco-Junk and “Green Consumerism”
A thought-provoking piece on George Monbiot’s blog. This is better than any environmental article I’ve read all year.
Perhaps we’ve not seen this so much in Dayton, but green consumerism is the trend. Liberals embracing pro-consumptive green choice behavior as if it were making a difference in the environment or real people’s lives. In Toronto, the most popular billboard in the city is the huge face of renowned environmental scientist David Suzuki holding a glowing CFB with the statement “You Have the Power.” It’s a good idea, because people who really understand get the reminder. But it gives the impression that David thinks this is enough for you city dwellers. See Treehugger.com for a cutting blog on this.
Uncomfortable as this is for both the media and its advertisers, giving things up is an essential component of going green. A section on ethical shopping in Goldsmith’s book advises us to buy organic, buy seasonal, buy local, buy sustainable, buy recycled. But it says nothing about buying less.
Green consumerism is becoming a pox on the planet. If it merely swapped the damaging goods we buy for less damaging ones, I would champion it. But two parallel markets are developing: one for unethical products and one for ethical products, and the expansion of the second does little to hinder the growth of the first. I am now drowning in a tide of ecojunk. Over the past six months, our coatpegs have become clogged with organic cotton bags, which, filled with packets of ginseng tea and jojoba oil bath salts, are now the obligatory gift at every environmental event. I have several lifetimes’ supply of ballpoint pens made with recycled paper and about half a dozen miniature solar chargers for gadgets I donít possess.
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Ethical shopping is in danger of becoming another signifier of social status. I have met people who have bought solar panels and mini-wind turbines before they have insulated their lofts: partly because they love gadgets, but partly, I suspect, because everyone can then see how conscientious (and how rich) they are. We are often told that buying such products encourages us to think more widely about environmental challenges, but it is just as likely to be depoliticising. Green consumerism is another form of atomisation ñ a substitute for collective action. No political challenge can be met by shopping.
The middle classes rebrand their lives, congratulate themselves on going green, and carry on buying and flying as much as ever before. It is easy to picture a situation in which the whole world religiously buys green products, and its carbon emissions continue to soar.
As ever, Monbiot is the one to tell us straight up. Let’s see how far this message gets out there.
- Posted by Peter Jones for USTV Media
on August 8th, 2007 at 8:33 am
Monbiot is one of the most insightful voices being transmitted via the international media these days (fitting to be working for The Guardian UK, George Orwell’s old employer). Here he challenges our society’s underlining lie of what historian Richard Grossman calls ‘the endless more’. This is a lucid analysis of the false premises of the whole “green consumer” concept, and the current political and social efforts to combat global climate change without actually confronting the more systemic behavioral causes and real solutions needed.