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TechnoratiDesire and the Green Cure
I used to feel bad about mindless consumerism but not any more. The green movement has come to my rescue. With every purchase, I can now enjoy the warm glow of helping develop environmentally sound practices.
There's my new briefcase, for example. It is shiny and luxurious and its purchase has allowed me to throw my old one into the bin. But there's no eco-guilt for me.
According to the manufacturer, the leather in my briefcase was stained using "extracts of bark and seeds collected from renewable sources in the forests of Africa and India". The work was all done by "traditional artisans", all of them using "sustainable practices" in the "old saddler tradition". There's not a lot of detail on the leather but, based on the tone of the pamphlet, I'm pretty sure the cows would have been volunteers.
I feel I now deserve some sort of medal just for handing over my credit card.
I'm not alone in falling for this sort of sales pitch. People are always looking for an excuse to consume more and the latest excuse - bizarrely - is environmentalism.
Let's call it "greensumerism". Forget the simple mantra of "less is more"; with the help of the green movement you can now indulge in a frenzy of consumerism, with each luxury purchase excused by the idea that you are helping the development of the "green" sector.
People will ditch a perfectly good car in order to import the latest hybrid eco-model and expect to be praised for their sensitivity. Magazines like Vogue Living are now full of these luxurious holiday houses - temples to excess and over-consumption - which the owners claim as their personal contribution to sustainability.
There's even a new category of glossy magazine - selling the green lifestyle. Rarely do these magazines suggest we should simply consume less; the advertisers wouldn't care for that idea. Instead, each month brings us thousands of new ways for us all to consume our way to a better planet.
The latest convert to this idea is the NSW Water Minister, Nathan Rees, who now claims his dreaded desalination plant is actually terrific news for the environment. The ebullient new minister ran through the logic this week: since the power used by the plant will come from wind farms, the plant will give much-needed certainty to the industry, and thus assist in the development of the whole sustainability sector. Thus the planet is better off with the Sydney desalination plant than it would have been without it.
It's a classic example of the "greensumerist" logic: the more we consume, the better the outcome. Presumably if we doubled the size of the desal plant, the environment would be even better off. I'd suggest the idea to Rees but he might just do it.
With this much wind emanating from the young minister, you wonder why they don't connect him directly to the turbines. That, at least, would reduce the carbon costs of building his 25 new wind farms.
Of course, wind power is better than coal-fired power; but the real achievement comes when you use new wind power to replace existing coal power. To have newly created power and then splurge it on newly created demand is just another way of marching on the spot. We're like a fat man who has decided to double his eating and so ups his exercise level to match. He may not get any fatter. But he's certainly not going to get thin.
The truth is that we can't consume our way out of trouble. If we are going to buy something anyway, then we should try to buy a product that's been made sustainably. But let's have the honesty to admit the truth: every product adds to our carbon footprint, even products that label themselves part of the "sustainability industry".
The greenest decision of all usually involves buying nothing at all. It involves hanging onto an old car for a few more years; making do with an old briefcase; eschewing that second or third luxurious holiday house.
The really radical response to global warming - the one you won't find in any of the glossy green magazines - would be to rehabilitate the concept of thrift. The advertisers would hate it, but we could once more celebrate it as a virtue - in just the way it used to be celebrated by generations of Australians.
"Greensumerism" is trying to fool us into believing we can save the planet by upping our consumption, rather than trying to reduce it. It also tries to salve our conscience - inviting us to buy carbon credits, instead of changing our behaviour; or, like Rees, telling us we can feel OK about being profligate with power, as long as it's green.
At best, "greensumerism" leaves us like that fat man, running ever faster on the spot as we continue to stuff our faces. The ultimate outcome, as with the fat man's, won't be pretty.
All the green advertising and political speeches may give us a warm inner glow.
But the real achievement will come when we reduce that other warm glow: the one experienced by the planet.
Copyright © 2007 The Sydney Morning Herald
13 Comments so far
Show AllI think when people lose thier sense of the natural world they will try to fill that void with whatever is available to them. The problem is there is a large part of the world selling artifical solutions. What you need to feel whole is a bigger car out on the open road to paradise. What you get is a gas guzzlings thing that takes a lot of your money and pollutes the air you breath. Far from the open road (there are exceptions) you will be sitting in traffic on your way to paying for all those things that make your life less secure. In this regard you will need a lot more stuff.
Mr. Glover has a point, but its made in a way that confuses. Large corporations are using green marketing to sell more products. Yet, new technologies must come on line and when renewable energy is used instead of carbon based energy, we should celebrate. When people in third world countries are paid living wages to make products in sustaibable ways, we should celebrate. But, of course when it is shipped using fossil fuels 10s of thousands of miles, we have to stop and wonder how it could have gotten here differently.
We are in a serious fix. We need to be consciouse of our actions and their impacts, and learn to ingore marketing. We have to wake up to who we are and what we really need, as well as how to get our needs met in the most sustainable possible way. First re-use while recyceling, then buy locally or through thrift stores, then always purchase fair trade instead of free trade products. Don't forget, energy efficient appliances and purchasing green energy. Then use public transportation or bycicles and trains cross country where possible. It is our responsibility. Concentrate on what can be done, instead of complaining about the imperfections in the changes taking place right now, and of course how large corporations, by their very nature, are going to use what ever is popular to sell more. Let's take the responsibility into our own hands now!
So Rich, should they have continued to make the briefcase the old way? Seems like the problem was you buying a new one if you did not need it. If you had to have a new one it sounds like you make a responsible choice, good you had one. Of course the better choice might have been a used one or using something else you already had. Makeing things in better ways is a really important part of solving our gloabal environmental problems, why do you have to bash them.
Desire does not stop as desire is empty of inherent existence, right?
Asking for perfection outside of ourselves goes nowhere, no?
Enlightenment will come in due time.
i try not to think of it as buying less to be greener, i think of it as refusing to give my money to people who don't deserve it, which to me is kinda like warfare. starve the enemy by removing his ablity to exist. it's the same theory behind embargos and blockades.
when i walk past a mcdonald's, yeah i wanna buy and scarf a big-mac, yeah i wanna spend less for food at walmart, however, my desire to see mcd's corp. and walmart suffer a cruel death is greater. therefore to support these companies with even a penny would be shortchaning myself and my desires to see as many corporate show-offs die.
what do you want? what are your desires? are you willing to forgoe prosperity tomorrow for you AND your family for a big-mac or cheap produce from wal-mart today??
Most lovers of "green" anything should be justifiably horrified by the notion that corporations can co-opt environmentalists' terminology on packaging and use those words just to sell more stuff with a new version of "NEW & IMPROVED". That is, of course, is exactly what is and will be happening.
Remember that Democrats are likely to give you more limits (if any) on truth in advertising and labeling than Republicans are. Doesn't matter you say? They're all the same? No, they're not. If it weren't for liberals, you wouldn't have a clue as to how much cholesterol and trans-fat is in your food, and you wouldn't have ever heard of the acronym APR on a loan.
You also wouldn't have MPG ratings on cars and SEER ratings on air conditioners.
Want some limits on what's called "green"? Get some more Democrats.
The mindless consumers shop because they are brainwashed by advertising. If people were more informed about the negative effects of endless consumption, maybe shopping won't be used as a form of recreation.
Buy used.
Buy only what you really need.
Buy things that will last.
And buy sustainable.
Discern the truth for yourselves. This author complains of what? That instead of building a new coal fired plant to provide power to a desalination plant, a wind farm is? He mocks progress in doing what can be done to reduce our carbon footprint. New projects like a desalination plant will be built and rather than laud the value of a noncarbon enery source for it ... he complains that it doesn't work? No he is complaining that it does!
Did you think that only American mainstream media dumbs down it's citizens? Apparently they are none too bright in Australia either.
As consumers are offered greener products ... well yeah, most people would RATHER buy them than the old ungreen versions... competion will make producers try to make a slightly green product more green than it's competitors. We just begin to change the way we do things and this author is basically discouraging that progressive series of steps to a better way because it is so limited in it's beginnings.
Folks do you really have a problem with a new desalination plant running on windpower?
They dumb them down down under too.
All life is suffering
The cause of suffering is desire
suffering may be ended by ending desire
Desire may be ended by following the eight fold path
And just incidentally ending desire will end this insane consumer mentality and bring global capitalism to it's knees.
Inspired by Ted Turner's call (l990) for literary depictions of visions for the future, I "designed" pod communities that made collective acquisitions (where necessary); otherwise, people shopped at recyclatoriums, made vogue by the fact these objects had stood up to the tests of time and like a good wine vintage, been made the better for it.
I almost never buy new clothes. Thrift shops in upscale areas have amazing stuff! Same with furniture. You pay a fraction of the price, can get good brands & makes, and you are not adding to any new purchase orders.
Die Yuppie scum!
My suggestion is to buy almost nothing but the bare essentials until all credit card debt is gone.
Thanks for this article. I am glad someone is addressing this new trend.
While some purchases MAY be justified (like a new refrigerator that uses less energy...)
Most "green" consumerism is just a marketing tactic.. nothing more.
It drives me nuts that we now have to wade through Greenwashing ....
Yeah.. we are all going to have to change our lifestyles. Unattach ourselves from the junk that is endlessly sold to us.
Figure out a more energy efficient and environmentally way of living withouth MORE buying of crap.
Peace
Namaste
Caelidh