The other day, I read a bumper sticker that said, “question their answers.” Frankly, I can’t think of a better slogan to accompany a good honest interrogation of the green “revolution” we’re apparently having. While this post is not one on how the media has cheapened and co-opted the meaning behind the word, “revolution,” it is, similarly, one about deception and the reinforcement of dominant power structures.

A friend of mine was appalled by recent claims by the global warming skeptics that this green frenzy was simply cooked up by politicians and CEO’s to make money while at the same time, fear mongering. It is a disgusting thought, but I can’t blame the skeptics for thinking this. Not one bit.

It’s everywhere—completely unchecked and out of control.

Last month provided many “green” gift ideas for xmas. Apparently Pittsburgh rang in the new year with an eco friendly dropping ball. The Daily Green: “The Consumer’s Guide to the Green Revolution”, however, provides information on everything from green cuizines to tips on taking “green vacations” to information on how to win a $250,000 “eco-makeover”—where you can “green your car, green your home, green your life.”

The New Air Jordan basketball shoes are made from recycled “sustainable” material. The first “Green” sports shoe. Nevermind the fact that the shoes still come from exploited countries thousands of miles away and require the design and construction of new machines in order to be constructed. Sustainable indeed.

The “Green” revolution is bullshit. For anyone paying attention, it quickly became a marketing strategy, used by politicians to claim moral superiority and used by corporations to reinforce false virtues of capitalism by promoting consumption to save the planet. Yoink! It’s a classic bate and switch, the ol’ buff and bluff, the ol’…well, you get the point.

I recently read Derrick Jensen’s new graphic novel that pokes fun at Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth. The truth of course is even more inconvenient. Remember all those tips provided at the end of the film—such as replacing lightbulbs, installing low-flow shower heads, recycling, and keeping your tires inflated—that were touted as individual things everyone can do to save the planet? Lets go through them…

1. Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent saves 150 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. If everyone in the U.S. does this, 400 million tons of carbon dioxide would be saved.

2. You’ll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don’t drive
(Which of course means you put out one pound for every mile you do). Considering that motorists in the U.S. drive about 2.3 trillion miles, if we cut that in half we save about 575 million tons of CO2

3. Recycle: you can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste
(Which means, of course, that you still dump 2,400 pounds for the other half). If every American household did this, 125 million tons of CO2 would be saved.

4. Keeping your tires inflated properly can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
(Which means that every gallon burned… )

5. You can install a low flow showerhead to save 350 pounds of CO2 per year and wash your clothes in cold or warm water to save 500 pounds per year. If both of these are implemented, 105 million tons will be saved.

6. Roughly another 105 million tons of CO2 would be saved if people adjusted their thermostat an average of 2 degrees down in the winter and up and in the summer.

7. Plant a tree: one will absorb one ton of CO2 during its lifetime
(Or we could just stop cutting them down). Again, if everybody in the U.S. did this, roughly seven million tons of CO2 will be saved.

Go ahead and add up the numbers; the math is pretty easy (and I was an English major!). If all these individual cut-backs were implemented, about 1.5 billion tons of CO2 would be saved! Relish in this utopia—this land of make believe. Thanks Al!

There is just one problem. Total carbon emissions for the U.S. are 7.1 billion tons per year. All these hokey individual contributions, which appeared in Al Gore’s list at the end of An Inconvienent Truth, would decrease emissions by a little over 20 percent—and lets be real with this culture, it won’t happen.

But for the sake of argument, lets pretend every American does implement these strategies and emissions are cut by 21%. There are still two major kickers:
A) the general scientific consensus holds that at least half (that would be 50%…) of our emissions need to be cut before any meaningful transformation may occur.
B) Considering, of course, that the total carbon emissions for the U.S. increase roughly two percent every year, the fact that we’ve all been swindled by corporate sponsored “green” propaganda” should be horribly clear.

It is the job of marketers to get you to associate products and brand names with the kind of positive emotions and feelings we’re all seeking. We all want to help the environment, but we won’t buy our way out of this one.

Sure, ride your bike, recycle, use energy efficient light bulbs, install low-flow shower-heads, be slightly hotter in the summer and slightly colder in the winter, and keep those tires properly inflated. But do it because you want to live a good moral life, not because you think you’re saving the planet. Because you’re not.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 11:20 am and is filed under "green", books. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.