The Hypocrisy of the Green Revolution

BY LYNDA SCHROEDERS Intercamp (Grant MacEwan College) EDMONTON (CUP)

Green is the name of the suddenly hip and sickeningly bourgeois environmental consciousness that has recently erupted. Green is also the color of money. Green is the color of puke. And puke I shall if I see one more book attempting to teach me how to become a green citizen. The idea of selling a commodity addressing the issue of over-consumption has always smacked of irony in my opinion, but this irony was elevated to the level of farce when I encountered an entire display table of these titles at my favourite store to not buy books in (that’s right, I’m one of those cheap schmucks who reads entire volumes at Chapters). Each of these books is salted with some sound advice on natural cleaning products (baking soda, salt, vinegar, and lemon juice — everything a baby can swallow but doesn’t want to), the three Rs and the importance of supporting the local economy. All things your grandparents could have told you if you’d ever bothered to ask about their lives before the nursing home. Unfortunately, the majority of these books sidestep the issue of rampant overconsumption in favour of recommending new products. In Green For Life, Gillian Deacon will educate you about carcinogens in your makeup and chlorine in diapers and baby wipes. But instead of coming to a full stop with this sobering information, she goes on to endorse the superiority of Burt’s Bees and Seventh Generation products. It’s not that you buy too much, apparently. You just bought the wrong stuff. The bad stuff. And if you have a shred of decency you’ll go out and buy the right stuff at one of the stores conveniently listed in Appendix A at the back of this book. Did I mention that green is the color of money? Nobody wants to hear that they should use their sheets until they’re tissue paper thin, that they should patch these gauzy sheets when they get a hole, or that they should cut them into rags for housecleaning once they are past the point of mending. It’s way more fun to go out and buy unbleached, organic bamboo bed linens. Speaking of fun, wouldn’t it be great if every store on the planet decided to promote itself with a reusable shopping bag? If grocery chains were actually concerned about the environment and not just out to make a buck, they’d quit selling their reusable bags. Instead they would give these bags away for a limited period of time – ten days, two weeks, whatever they consider fair warning – and then they’d quit supplying the plastic ones. They would piss off a lot of people, they would lose a little profit and they would do nature a tremendous service. The crisis facing the natural world can be reduced to one word: waste. Writing and reading books about it is as futile as reading a book on weight loss instead of going for a run. The rules are simple. Don’t buy shit you don’t need. Use the things you have until they disintegrate, and if you must part with something before it’s worn out, find a home for it – away from the landfill. Small appliances don’t rot. There. I just saved you 30 bucks. Remember, green is the color of money. And green-chic is just another opportunity for class distinction: “I’m better than you because I buy this.” Green living means buying a lot less, starting with bullshit.

How has composting become cool? Do you think we are consuming too many resources on what appears to be a trend?Or do you think new products can help us conserve the environment? Can our efforts to be “green” ever be free of capitalist opportunism? As Christians are we really being stewards, or are we just buying into the newest fad of our humanistic culture?

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