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"Green living" magazines irk me.
Dec. 20th, 2007 05:40 pmToday someone left one of those "green building" magazines in our break room.
Actually, the whole enchilada started earlier, as I was sitting in a coffeeshop and pretending to do something useful while actually checking my e-mail and bumming around. The room where I sat became overrun with people who appeared to be involved in getting our fine University's School of Sustainability up and running, at least with respect to marketing, and their conversation proved irritatingly distracting. I think they were discussing what kind of schwag they wanted to give to incoming students (to attract them to the program?), and one of the suggestions that received more attention than it deserved was the idea of creating felt coffee cup sleeves to serve as a replacement for all of those cardboard sleeves that keep our fingers from burning off when we pick up paper cups of coffee.
Anyone see the glaring error in this logic? As in, um, what about the coffee cups? Wouldn't the use of a nice ceramic mug or a stylish reuseable travel mug preclude the need for such a silly thing? If a person is going to carry around a little felt sleeve, don't you think they'd also have the presence of mind to carry around their own beverage container instead? Or perhaps they'd be willing to get a ceramic mug and spend the 10 minutes that are needed to consume a reasonably sized beverage while sitting in the place of purchase? O Starbucks, I loathe thee for thy iconic, tasteless, throwaway cups.
No, this project appears to be a greenwashed business, as was the aforementioned magazine.
By their very nature, magazines are not a good place to learn about or celebrate conscious living; they are designed to be transient marketing tools, and the present one was no exception. "Green Building" magazines are usually the best, and by the best, I mean the worst. I'm guessing that eco-building your own home is still not as environmentally friendly as living in a home that is already built, unless the building involves retrofitting that reduces heat loss in the winter or promotes more passive cooling in the summer. The editorial was particularly infuriating, as the editor decided to bribe her children to reduce household energy consumption in a household containing a large-screen TeeVee and related extravagances (why did she buy a whiz-bang beeping coffee machine in the first place?). (Would they lose too much status if they dared eliminate the television altogether?)
I think my favorite logical flaw in such magazines is the inclusion of a "trendy products you should buy" section showcasing the latest doo-dads or gizmos. That's right, o Consumers, open your mighty maw and swallow this stuff in the name of Green! Only, which green are you really worshipping?
There's no comparable glamour in a conscious lifestyle; instead, its thrills come in subtler, more lasting ways: the familiarity of an old cast-iron pot that won't break and be thrown away, the pleasure of reading a thought-provoking book or going for a walk. It will be interesting to continue watching how capitalists try to grapple with a social ideal not founded in the concept of unrestricted growth using unlimited resources with no repercussions for waste production (and here, carbon is perhaps the easiest currency of waste to first grasp, and surely it will be followed by other, more complex currencies).
Actually, the whole enchilada started earlier, as I was sitting in a coffeeshop and pretending to do something useful while actually checking my e-mail and bumming around. The room where I sat became overrun with people who appeared to be involved in getting our fine University's School of Sustainability up and running, at least with respect to marketing, and their conversation proved irritatingly distracting. I think they were discussing what kind of schwag they wanted to give to incoming students (to attract them to the program?), and one of the suggestions that received more attention than it deserved was the idea of creating felt coffee cup sleeves to serve as a replacement for all of those cardboard sleeves that keep our fingers from burning off when we pick up paper cups of coffee.
Anyone see the glaring error in this logic? As in, um, what about the coffee cups? Wouldn't the use of a nice ceramic mug or a stylish reuseable travel mug preclude the need for such a silly thing? If a person is going to carry around a little felt sleeve, don't you think they'd also have the presence of mind to carry around their own beverage container instead? Or perhaps they'd be willing to get a ceramic mug and spend the 10 minutes that are needed to consume a reasonably sized beverage while sitting in the place of purchase? O Starbucks, I loathe thee for thy iconic, tasteless, throwaway cups.
No, this project appears to be a greenwashed business, as was the aforementioned magazine.
By their very nature, magazines are not a good place to learn about or celebrate conscious living; they are designed to be transient marketing tools, and the present one was no exception. "Green Building" magazines are usually the best, and by the best, I mean the worst. I'm guessing that eco-building your own home is still not as environmentally friendly as living in a home that is already built, unless the building involves retrofitting that reduces heat loss in the winter or promotes more passive cooling in the summer. The editorial was particularly infuriating, as the editor decided to bribe her children to reduce household energy consumption in a household containing a large-screen TeeVee and related extravagances (why did she buy a whiz-bang beeping coffee machine in the first place?). (Would they lose too much status if they dared eliminate the television altogether?)
I think my favorite logical flaw in such magazines is the inclusion of a "trendy products you should buy" section showcasing the latest doo-dads or gizmos. That's right, o Consumers, open your mighty maw and swallow this stuff in the name of Green! Only, which green are you really worshipping?
There's no comparable glamour in a conscious lifestyle; instead, its thrills come in subtler, more lasting ways: the familiarity of an old cast-iron pot that won't break and be thrown away, the pleasure of reading a thought-provoking book or going for a walk. It will be interesting to continue watching how capitalists try to grapple with a social ideal not founded in the concept of unrestricted growth using unlimited resources with no repercussions for waste production (and here, carbon is perhaps the easiest currency of waste to first grasp, and surely it will be followed by other, more complex currencies).
