Greener Posturing

The other day I found myself discussing how to be a little more eco-conscious with a New York girl-about-town after she commented how hard she was trying to be green. I suggested to her to consider taking small steps, like not getting a plastic bag when you pop into your deli for a pint of milk. ‘What do you mean?’ she replied ‘I’m not going to walk along the street carrying a pint of milk in my hand!’

The response probably reflects the current attitude about eco-issues. Competitive conversations at dinner parties no longer seem to be about real estate prices or travel, but more about how green the speaker is. Green is still more about status and consumption rather than function and abstinence.

I think of this because Treehugger points us to a feature in the New York magazine that takes a bit of a swipe at those who use the green as a status symbol and the products that are made for them. The article says:

Green is the new black. Green is the new red, white, and blue. And green is the new green, or at least a new means of getting people to plunk down more of it. To some, the “green consumer” is an oxymoron (they might even drop the “oxy”). The real solution, they say, is to consume less. While there’s some truth to this, a Walden-or-bust approach seems ill-suited to our present culture. Greed and vanity are alive and well; if they can be enlisted in the fight to save the planet, who are we to turn them away? With green-hype alert levels recently upgraded to orange, skepticism is warranted; here, our fictional sparring partners examine some well-intentioned products that mainly serve the buyers’ self-esteem, and others that have unsuspected depths.

New York Magazine