Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism by Ozzie Zehner

Author:Ozzie Zehner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Technology & Engineering, Power Resources, Alternative & Renewable
ISBN: 9780803243361
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Published: 2012-07-14T22:00:00+00:00

11. Improving Consumption

And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! “Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas perhaps means a little bit more!” –Dr. Seuss, How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Across former meadows, rippling plumes of

heat levitate above sticky carpets of black asphalt rolled out as patchwork in front of chain stores standing infinitely shoulder-to-shoulder.

Their slightly faded Tupperware claddings

are mediated by painted courses of concrete block and punctuated by glazed doors whose

scarred hand-pulls open to a fluorescent parallel universe selling everything television has to offer. Inside, chrome and gold flicker like Christmas above a sea of manicured marble

tiles that appear to nourish the roots of dubious ficus trees whose bark and leaves blur the boundary between life and a plasticized version of it. Fantasmatic arrays of street culture, sex, food, nature, sports, alcohol, and music are available for the commodified self where this season’s lifestyles are on sale, prepackaged and shrink-wrapped.

Ecoconsumerism

Aisle 14: Juice and Soft Drinks—-regiments of jellybean bottles bask under a fluorescent sun. Generously labeled “All Natural,” they could easily be described as something much different: rehydrated food products with heavily processed syrups and stabilizers packaged in petro-plastic containers, wrapped in labels secured with toxic adhesives, printed with volatile ink compounds, and bounced many miles across the country above the wheels of multiple fossil-fuel-burning vehicles. (One study reports that a third of total energy input for food is mobilized to create sweets, snacks, and drinks with little nutritional value.)1

Perhaps “natural” says less about the colored liquid and more about how we’d prefer to relate to the food we consume. Is it a yearning to pour something down our throats that is more grounded, stable, and pure for our supposedly polluted bodies? Or perhaps a momentary escape from our hectic and sometimes frustrating day-to-day grind? A teeny tiny revolt against the hypermanufactured landscape surrounding us? In any case, “natural” appears to have deep-seated roots in our psyche and the concept has attracted the most eager of promoters who happen to have enjoyed notable success in translating “natural” into “cha-ching.”

And if “natural” isn’t enough to get your wallet out, perhaps “sustainable,” “green,” “organic,” “fair trade,” or “local” will do the trick—the buzzwords have become so ubiquitous that they now refer to anything and nothing.2 Builders label luxurious kitchen and bath remodels, costing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, “sustainable” when they veneer the cabinets with bamboo. Autoshow cars receive a green stamp of approval if their seat cushions contain soy-based foam. In fact, today we can purchase almost anything with ecological clear-ance, so long as we’re prepared to lay down a few extra dollars for our conscience.

224 The Future of Environmentalism

The green marketing trend began in earnest during the 1970s.

Indeed, some manufacturers developed new product lines and manufacturing processes much to the benefit of the planet. However, others simply relabeled, rebranded, and shipped the same products with green halos above their shiny new packaging, perhaps with a higher price tag, too.

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