Whether you know it or not, i’m sure you’re all familiar with the delightful trand known as Greenwashing. 

  The same way every company in America wrapped itself in the flag in the aftermath of September 11th, the last two years have seen a swell of interest and awareness in the environment.  Marketers have responded by painting the companies they represent in the most “Green” earth-friendly ways they can dream up.  In some cases this may represent a substantive change in corporate policy, in others just another cynical ploy to get us to buy more bluejeans. 

Dow Chemical gets my vote for most Odious:

  Tipping Point?  Utterly contemptible smokescreen?  Or an important if imperfect first step?  All three?
 
  Right now the ads are mostly a farce; offering people easy feel-good solutions that change very little, requiring little on the part of the consumer,  and wrapping their company image in a warm Green blanket.  Some of the worst environmental offenders of the last century, from Chevron to the coal industry to General Electric are all on the bandwagon. 
 
  But what else could we expect?  Is this not a sort of blackly cynical victory for Environmentalism?    The work of the fringe for so many years has paid off with some awareness among Consumers, and now the Corps must pursue this new marketshare.  It’s like they’re finally realilzing how much money there is going to be in cleaning up the mess we’ve made.
 
  This is not to say that the ads are all pure BS: I’m sure that these companies are investing in renewable technologies and less harmful manufacturing processes.   They can see the writing on the wall, but I’d be willing to bet that they spend more on advertising their ‘Green’ cred than they do on actually changing their business practices.  But of course continued consumer pressure will push more real change as time goes on.
 

Or so the theory goes…

 In classic chicken and egg fashion, Consumer demand for environmental responsibility leads Corporations to modify their business practices, and their advertising to trumpet this change increases Consumer demand, pushing more companies further towards ‘Green’ business practices in a big feeback loop.  At the same time, environmental activists continue to call out the BS and push for more real change, which trickles into public awareness and becomes part of the cycle until - Presto! - we have a clean atmosphere and lots of parks and we all keep our SUVs and there’s a free-range chicken (raised without hormones or antibiotics, of course) in every pot.

 But that all breaks down when you consider the reality that what really needs to happen is the one thing that is totally antithetical to advertising, corporate interests, and the lifestyle of the country - namely that we all need to consume LESS?  Buy less clothing, less gadgets, travel less, etc. 

 Even if we find an abundant and clean source of electric power, we can’t continue to consume paper, plastic, metals, and all manner of materials at the rate we do.  That’s the hard pill to swallow, and I don’t know when advertisers and companies are going to fall over themselves for That Message.
 
  Hell,  here I am writing about it, and I still consume at a rate that is completely unconscionable.  It’s starting to gnaw away at my soul, but I don’t know how to step off the train without stepping completely outside the bounds of American society.  It’s why stuffwhitepeopllike cuts me like a Knife.  I can recycle and buy used clothes and organic food, but at the end of the day I’m still pulling down far more than a sustainable amount of resources.

  What do you kids think?