Don’t Buy Green

Consumption, goes the tale, is the great driver of ecological disruption. Hence, green consumers will save the planet (a safe planet being one with sustainable ecological and energy systems). Right? Wrong.

...

Complete entry

Posted by EmbraceUnity  on  10/15  at  01:15 AM

Great post! We should still try to be ethical consumers, but that is just one small piece of the puzzle. We need better distribution of technology, better government policies, and so forth.

From a longer term perspective, we can also change our bodies to become less resource-intensive. More tolerant of temperature variation. Less requirement for food. More efficient metabolism. More efficient digestion. This is regardless of whether uploading is possible.

Posted by Frazer H Kirkman  on  10/15  at  04:39 PM

I agree that large scale structural change is needed,
but why does that imply we should not buy green?

I think your headline is misleading

Posted by Marcelo  on  10/15  at  11:01 PM

@Frazer: It's not that we shouldn't buy green, but I think buying green (at the end consumer scale) is pragmatically irrelevant, and in a worst case scenario, by making us feel we are already doing something, it eases off psychological and political pressure, and makes us delay more complex steps.

I see it as metaphorically similar to procrastination, something I have to fight against every day. It' easy for psychologically satisfying but pragmatically insufficient marginal activities to crowd out necessary ones with much less enticing immediate payoffs. Going to a local vegetable market: fun! Trying to modify land management practices to ensure a sustainable nitrogen cycle: not fun! But the latter helps feed a 6+ billion mostly urban planet, and the former isn't.

Posted by Frazer H Kirkman  on  10/16  at  10:06 AM

@Marcelo: but surely putting money in to the green economy means that there will be resources available to individuals who want 'to modify land management practices to ensure a sustainable nitrogen cycle' . Which personally I would love to do, but it is not my focus.

Posted by Marcelo  on  10/17  at  05:50 PM

@Frazer: I'm not sure in this context the "green economy" is a contiguous entity. I don't see most money spent on green/green-ish consumer products impacting on, say, financing energy infrastructure.

---

Add your comment here:

Name:

Email:

Location:

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Please enter the word you see in the image below: