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Green wash
Green is the new black. In the seventies Kermit the Frog sang ‘it’s not easy being green’ but these days it is cool to flash your environmental credentials.
BP became masters at this – they changed their name from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum, painted their logos green, and stuck solar panels on the roofs of all their outlets. Like that was going to somehow make people think burning fossil fuels was environmentally friendly. The problem is – it worked, for most people BP was seen as a ‘green’ fuel option until the Gulf of Mexico disaster raised the awareness of the destructive and polluting practices of the company.
Now New World and Four Square are sponsoring the ‘great NZ cleanup’ for conservation week – where bus-loads of school children will be taken to beaches around the country to fill bags with rubbish they collect there.
New World has an environmental policy on their website, and they appear to be taking their environmental impact seriously, and unlike BP the greening of the supermarket appears to be systemic - from management down; covering all conceivable areas, including being a member of the New Zealand Packaging accord.
The NZ Packaging accord was a five year voluntary initiative which aimed to cut down on wasteful packaging. The goals included getting manufacturers and retailers to take responsibility for packaging even after it has left their stores. They advocated for efficiency in the production, use and recovery of packaging materials, as well as
fostering markets for sustainably-made packaging.
The supermarket chain Foodstuffs can only do so much and go so far to being ‘green’, because ultimately generating a profit is their primary objective.
While the trend towards consumers favouring ‘green’ choices continues, we can expect to see companies react to that pressure. It would be a mistake to trust that they are doing it for any reason other than to increase their market share and win customer loyalty.
Complacency is the risk we take as consumers, and it takes vigilance to ensure that the environmental changes run deeper than changing the colours of a logo to green. Green-washing is pervasive, insidious and needs to be constantly challenged, because in the long run it can allow people to ‘rest assured’ while behind the scenes often very little has changed in the practices of big companies. Jumping on the Green bandwagon may be trendy, but it can also undermine the urgency of the message and need for action.
More and more we are beginning to realise that repairing the environmental harm we have caused cannot be done merely by changing our lightbulbs and picking up rubbish. Promoting rampant consumerism is seen as the direct antithesis of sustainable practices, but sponsoring an entire generation of school children to be environmental activists could, in fact, be the most powerful creator of long-lasting change possible.
Green lifestylism is a dead end
Hi Kazel
You're getting closer to the truth here, thank you!
IMO it has to start with a few deeper premises:
1. Who's 'we'?
If you mean us modern industrial 'civilised' humans, then yes 'we' have a growing number of huge challenges coming (or even here already!), the most important one is waking up to the insanity of the dominant pathological culture we find ourselves in.
2. Why 'consumers'?
Why have 'we' taken on this mantle? Why not citizens?
The more 'we' are locked down behind the golden curtain of consumption, the less 'we' shoulder the responsibility of citizenship, the less power 'we' have to change what is becoming more obvious: a fascist police state with global power structures setting our agendas for everything. Citizens on the other hand, can choose to vote, not to vote, and if necessary, remove government if it becomes detrimental to our communities.
3. 'We' live with an illusion of democracy.
The banksters, elites and corporations now hold the power. 'We' give them that through identifying more strongly as consumers than citizens. Politicians at central govt level are caretakers and field-managers on their behalf. It's not much better at a local government level. The political classes are captured by and wedded to the culture-as-usual and business-as-usual models.
4. 'We' are being farmed.
Watch this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BepH3Z3aXNs
proteanview | September 14, 2010
"When a child is taught these patterns by their parents, they have no choice. Children are indoctrinated by these mores & folkways just as they're taught language in schools. This is cultural. Children don't choose how they're indoctrinated. As adults, however, they often blindly defend their way of life."
proteanview
Beautiful independent expression of modern psychotic civilization.
Listen to the conclusion. This is genius...
Greenwash is simply modified 'consumer porn', and needs to be recognised as such. We need to decolonise ourselves and develop really good bs detectors and pass this knowledge on to as many people who will listen and wake-up.
"The earth is not dying, she is being murdered, by people with names and addresses"
Utah Phillips
At a local community level, 'we' need to start taking back our sovereignty. When we can fall in love with our landbase and protect, preserve and defend it as if our lives depended on it, things may start to change.
It is time to start taking a stand, we need it all. Starting with children may be a great place to start, as the majority of the generations in power or retired seem oblivious or even highly resistant to the urgent need to change.
Read this for more reasons why green lifestylism isn't the answer:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801/
Forget Shorter Showers
Why personal change does not equal political change
by Derrick Jensen
and his latest article at:
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/5838
World Gone Mad
I would like to think that the Transition Town movement could be an important part of the political change needed at the local level....!
Best Regards
Ted Howard
Nelson