Hey man, haven't you ever hear of E. coli?

I find it fascinating and annoying that every time someone tries to talk about environmental issues, someone will pop up with the "global warming is a hoax" nonsense. It is a fact accepted and confirmed by thousands of scientists in several fields that global temperatures have risen and that this is leading to climate change. The only thing they seem to disagree about is how soon and how severely weather patterns, ocean currents, etc., will change. It's only Big Business and right-wing governments who are in denial now. Here's a link to a story about the Bush administration's ambiguous "let's pretend we care" policy:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/washington/25epa.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

In my city, Regina, Saskatchewan, the city council has its head in the sand and refuses to give more than lip service to recycling or reducing pollution while it offers incentives to big box stores and developers to expand the suburbs over good farmland. Meanwhile, the taxi companies are wising up and switching to hybrid vehicles because they can literally save the price of the new vehicle in fuel costs over one to two years. And the small town where I grew up put recycling bins downtown years ago and charges fees for extra bags of garbage in order to reduce the amount of waste going into the landfill.

There are a lot of people who don't want to hear anything more about being green because they don't believe they can afford the changes or just are too lazy to change their lifestyle even a little bit, but I think the cost of oil is going to force them to change if nothing else will. Most of the changes my family has made have made economic sense for us: ditching the gas-guzzler and patronizing stores within walking distance, buying a few inexpensive cloth grocery bags (easier on the hands too), replacing appliances as needed with energy-efficient ones (higher purchase price, lower utility bills), using a tap filtration system instead of buying bottled water, avoiding "antibacterial" products, composting leaves and veggie peelings to make fertilizer and generally trying to make stuff last longer. The cat composts his own poo in the far end of the garden.

On the other hand I'll still wash my dish towels in hot water to kill germs. And bleach is more friendly to our environmental health than triclosan.

Composting one's own poop is NOT a good idea and is not recommended by anyone. I thought that needed to be said.

Hey, Mark -- interesting concept, but could have used more specifics. Here's one I'll bet the readers have encountered: plastic bags. The Sierra Club (whom you reference) call them the worst product most Americans use because they are not bio-degradable. Everyone from Wal-Mart to smaller grocery chains are selling (or giving away) cute little canvas alternative bags with their logos on them. It's not too hard to request a paper bag (which is recylable) at most stores (except Uncle Wally's, where they are supposedly working on a biodegradable plastic bag). So how would you change the image of the world's largest retailer: an ad campaign that says: "We're working on it."?

"despite all kinds of irrefutable measurements about loss of biodiversity, habitat loss, air pollution, water pollution, and the depletion of natural resources."

Pollution is one thing. Climate change as a result is quite another. Far from irrefutable. This so called "loss of biodiversity" has been going on for millions of years. And the depletion of natural resources...well, if you've never read about all the ways Malthus and all the Malthusian doomsday sayers have been proven wrong over the past two centuries, let me know and I'll be glad to send you some information.

Recommended viewing: The Great Global Warming Swindle

My thanks to the anonymous poster who, through the WSJ article, led me to www.greenspiritstrategies.com. It's awkward to navigate, but presents a very different look at environmental issues, from the perspective of one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, who left that organization because he felt that it had become too motivated by politics and not enough by science. Well worth a look.

In every comment thread on an environmental blog post, the same themes always seem to come up:

1) Some skeptic will chafe against "Giving credibility to faulty and refutable science" (see Jon's comment), despite all kinds of irrefutable measurements about loss of biodiversity, habitat loss, air pollution, water pollution, and the depletion of natural resources.

If you have a few minutes, watch the video of Mark Bittman's talk about "what's wrong with what we eat" at the TED conference.

2) Someone else will bristle about the hypocritical celebrities, either Hollywood stars or Al Gore.

Does it really matter if they're saints? Or are you using their human and fallible behavior as an excuse not to do what you know is right?

3) And now (as Mark rightly points out) we're getting green noise, contradictory advice and flat-out BS about what to do.

But the big picture is, we've spent our lifetime ingraining bad habits, and all at once we're starting to realize how ruinous many of the are.

On top of that, the changes are coming from everywhere, so people are reacting against changing too fast.

Or that it's being touted as a "lifestyle," that green is the new black.

So it's a mess. But just because there are mixed messages and people in denial, it's still irresponsible to think it isn't your problem too ... unless, you know, you stop eating, drinking water, or breathing. Or you're utterly indifferent to the world your children will inherit.

Mark, I love it. I just had to read an article that used the work POOP in the title. I bet you've been dying to use this word somehow for a legitimate purpose...so funny

I am personally extremely suspicious of green marketing and have had more than enough of it! I trust it as much as I trust the Cocoa Pops marketing implying that their cereal is good for my kids.

While I may hate the marketing, I don't hate the companies, because it's a straightforward relationship: they are a company looking to make a buck, and I can choose to buy or not to buy.

Clearly Eco-marketing is losing its uniqueness and power, but I don't think it's a threat to us.

BTW, did you see the recent piece "Why I left Greenpeace?" in the WSJ? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882720657033391.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
Have a read and see what you think!

Hello:

Perhaps more efforts should be made to educate kids on ways to conserve and recycle resources. Given the dire predictions of our planet's future, conservation should be taught in K through 8.

What ever happened to "Everything in moderation?"

It works with diet. 90% of the time, you eat well, and 10% of the time you can enjoy dessert or your onion rings.

Why can't the same rule apply with your lifestyles? I watch my plastic usage, support local farmers, moved to the other side of town to save gas, and I try not to fret about those disposable diapers too much.

If we all practiced a little more common sense, we wouldn't likely buy into these green messages and just make the smartest choices we can for our families and the environment.

"and so utterly demanding in it's tone"

Okay, I loved this piece, but Mark, Mark, the phrase I copied in above uses "it's" when it should be "its."

Sorry -- I hate misuse of that word almost as much as I hate green noise.

Peter--

Things get interesting when Clorox creates a line of products called Green Works and gets the Sierra Club to endorse it.

See here:

http://adage.com/article?article_id=127770

Agreed that green noise is a serious problem.

But here's a nitpick - I'm pretty sure that the greenwashing that we are all getting sick of is not coming from "the green movement."

Environmental organizations (like the Sierra Club) are right to be alarmed.

Like you mention - greenwashing is coming from flacks and marketers who are jumping on the bandwagon in an attempt to capitalize on rising (but varied) levels of awareness from their customers.

I haven't had it with the environmental movement - not by a long shot. But I have had it with greenwashing from business.

Aside: the most ridiculous bit of green noise I've heard in the last little while was a radio spot using green spin to sell hot tubs. Hot tubs!

And hey - didn't GM announce that they were thinking of killing off the Hummer? Yay!

Giving credibility to faulty and refutable science has opened the floodgates and those who were dismissed by society as loud-mouthed, socialist, hippie, weirdos have now been given a socially accepted foundation for which to scream and chastise those of us who just want to exist.

This so-called "science" of Globull Warming is nothing of the sort. It's a religion. Like any religion, it's based on faith. All the science that refutes the notion that CO2 has anything to do with temperatures or weather patterns is ignored and treated as blasphemy. Thirty thousand scientists signing a petition protesting the Globull Warming agenda means nothing. That's not science. Science is a method of developing a hypothesis, testing it, and leaving it open for scrutiny. Any attempt to dispell the GW myth is either ignored or passed of as desperation on the part of the oil companies.

We've eaten this pile of feces and now the politicians are getting in on the action. Once again, they have another excuse to pass laws and taxes intended to alter behavior in line with one agenda.

To all those "moderate" environmentalists - you reap what you sow.

Sidebar comment: The incessant use of the buzzword "sustainability" is also reaching the eye-rolling stage, for me at least.

Hey Mark,

I love this post, but, :) I don't think it is all necessarily about hypocrisy as it is what people are passionate about and of course flat out greenwashing sometimes.

Environmentally there always seem to be unintended consequences and depending on what someone is passionate about they won't see the other side. Take for example your ethanol example. Those who are passionate about saving through their car will not see the side of contaminating waterways with fertilizers and shortages of other crops, or even some recycled materials.

IMO, we (as a world) have to learn to conserve before we can go another step and as you mention, we may be on our way with gas prices. :) Some still don't get it. I saw someone in an Expedition the other day waiting in a parking lot with the car running while the person parked put groceries away. They wanted to parking space closer to the door. I guess they don't mind $4 a gallon.

It's a tough call how to handle it, but I agree that turning down the noise a little may help. Let the gas prices take over spreading the word. ??

Stephanie

If eating all the leaves on my houseplants and then horking them up all over the apartment is some bizarre new kind of recycling, then yes: my pets are green.

I'm with Kristen when it comes to the hypocrisy. Some years back I was the office manager for a branch of a reknowned non-profit, public interest, environmental law firm. These attorneys did a lot of important work, but said that they would support people who were trying to develop compatible businesses that didn't harm our national forests. So a guy applied for a permit to do selective logging, using helicopters, planning to then turn that timber into "value-added" products, like furniture, which would be sold locally. This was precisely the sort of venture that these lawyers had said they would support. But you know what they did? They opposed this guy's permit application because "nobody needs a seven year permit." At this same job, I was talking with one of the senior attorneys about how he invested his company-matched 401(k). One of our options was a socially responsible fund, one that didn't invest in tobacco or diamond mines, that sort of thing. He told me that he had his in the one that gave the highest yield. When I asked why he didn't choose the earth-friendlier fund, he told me that when it came to money, that was different.

Right.

I trust this current embracing of "green" no more than I now trust the pink Susan G. Koman stuff. When I see a pink label on a can of Campbell's soup, there's something awry.

A zealot is a zealot, regardless of the cause. I think that most of us try to be responsible within our means. I'm one of those Prius drivers; I grow some herbs and vegetables in our short but light-filled summer; I buy eggs from a friend who raises chickens--we swap cash for eggs here at work.

But I don't recycle as much as I think I should, and I use bleach when a stain is stubborn, and I eat whatever meat is on sale, regardless of its pre-slaughter diet, and hope for the best.

I feel jaded, as a consumer. I figure that, in most cases, when a company starts touting its greenness, it's just a marketing ploy designed to appeal to my social guilt, and unless I see something of value to me personally, I pass it by. "Pervasive, self-righteous and utterly demanding"--well said, Mark. Count me with the masses saying "bite me."

I hear you Mark. Once those dirty diapers starting piling up, "climate change" doesn't even begin to grasp the impact at our house.

Kristen,

Thank you for that delicious rant.
I loved every word.

Mark

Mark you couldn't be more right about this! In our office, we have an "environmental nazi" person, and her latest bugaboo was to get her knickers in a twist because the solution the cleaners use to wash out the coffee urns, apparently have bleach in them, and that's not "environmentally responsible". SERIOUSLY?! Is that the BEST we can do? Anything to say we're "green" I guess.

Everywhere you look there's a different list of "do's" and "don'ts" and they all conflict.

And, as far as Al Gore goes, I was totally disillusioned when I found out that he flies around the world giving his big "Let's save the planet" presentation ON PRIVATE PLANES!!!

Come ON, Al! What ever happened to practising what you preach. And DON'T EVEN start with me about that "He buys carbon credits" baloney, because that is the biggest cop-out I have ever heard. If the planet is THAT important to you Al, I really don't think it would kill you to fly commercial - I hear first class is pretty plush, (not that I would know) and I'm pretty sure the private planes flying all over the globe create a honking big environmental footprint (I'm thinkings Sasquatch-sized!) So if you want the rest of us to change how we live, how about you first?

I've decided to just do the best I can and not drive myself crazy over this, because you can't win.

I'm with you on the gas thing, too. If the US government would quit subsidizing the costs of gas, and let consumers deal with the REAL costs, like they already do in Europe, you would see changes pretty darn quick!

Nice try, Goose, but it won't fly with me.

Disposable diapers are worse the coal-fired power plants when it comes to climate change.

Have you heard of a pooper-scooper. It works with babies, too, you know.

And I suppose we should all stop reading books. I just read in Business Week that the production of one book results in 8.85 pounds of carbon emissions.

Since I have a two year-old in diapers, I'll offset my carbon footprint by not reading books.