Green Tech Girl

The “green” movement has been extremely trendy in recent years, trendy to the point of overexposure. With all the little green labels popping up everywhere, you have to start wondering what’s really green and what’s just green-washing. You know the movement has gotten a bit shallow when the worst of our cultural celebrity obsession merges with environmental news in the form of “green celebrity” sites like Ecorazzi.

But my admittedly tentative prediction is that such celebrity-focused media is going to lessen in coming years rather than strengthen. In my short almost 40 years of life, I’ve seen America turn from a relatively balanced culture into one where tabloids have taken over. We didn’t have “paparazzi” in the 1980s. This all started happening in the 90s. The mindless celebrity-obsessing seems to have hit an all-time high, and I can’t help but wonder (and hope) if we’ve hit the peak of it.

How does this relate to the green movement?

Back to Reality…

My feeling overall is that we’re coming off a collective high that is landing in one huge hangover. We had the dot-com bubble and then the housing bubble. People thought they sky was the limit and they could make money on doing practically nothing (flipping stocks, flipping houses).

We saw this represented in our television and media. We have an entire cable channel, E! Entertainment, devoted to mindless hours of celebrity focus. Shows such as “Dirty Sexy Money” were launched. Reality TV wasn’t so much about reality as it was about fantasy.

We obsessed over Britney, Paris, and what clothes people were wearing on the red carpet. This is easy to do when the money is everywhere and we’re collectively gorging on our own materialistic feast.

In the midst of this brainless cultural orgy, some positive things did emerge. Certain celebrities, such as Leonardo di Caprio and Ed Begley, decided to use their name power to help the environment. Meanwhile, Al Gore hit us with an Inconvenient Truth.

This was all well and good. But then the paparazzi mentality took over. Green was the “in” thing, and all the tabloids and celebrity news shows started jumping on it. It seemed to be an antidote to the ridiculous, over-the-top focus on clothes and hair – now we’re focusing on how green the clothes are! Hemp is in, polyester out! Prius in, BMW out!

Here’s my concern. Anything that becomes a trend is likely to become not a trend after a certain saturation point. I fear that environmental awareness may end up being thrown out with the celebrity focus. I definitely feel that America is going to be less interested in frivolous stuff if our recession deepens. Who has the stomach to watch a rich heiress or a Britney-of-the-moment blow her fortune on late night escapades and neurotic head-shaving sessions when your 401K becomes worthless overnight?

Some might suggest we’ll want more escape, but I’d submit that while we may want escape, it won’t be towards focusing on the rich. Candace Bushnell’s new television series Lipstick Jungle was heralded as the next Sex and the City, and show bombed. Having watched a few episodes, I can only say that there’s nothing much appealing about a rich, whiny, privileged woman whose main concern is whether her handsome husband or their nanny has to take care of the kids the night she’s going to an elite soiree.

I feel we’ll be seeing television go back to the real instead of the fake – don’t be surprised if we don’t suddenly see a return of gritty, 70s style shows. (I’m placing my bets on a recreation of the Waltons, a show about a family struggling during the Great Depression.)

In this economic environment, you will perhaps see celebrities shift their focus from the environment to more pressing situations, such as the growing tent cities near major US urban areas.

Green Consumerism

For regular Americans, being green has already been too expensive and will only become more so as inflation rises and belts tighten. Who has money for solar panels when unemployed? Who can afford to upgrade the car to a hybrid when the mortgage can’t be paid?

Organic food is already more expensive (sometimes two or three times) than standard food. A shirt made from organic cotton might cost $100 whereas the same one in regular cotton would cost $50.

But see, here we come to the crux of the problem: Too much of the environmental movement has focused on consumerism geared towards the affluent.

My being green should not depend on my purchase of an expensive eco-friendly yoga mat!

I do notice a lot of urban liberals poo-pooing places like Wal-Mart, saying that people shouldn’t shop there and that they should go to a boutique local shop instead. OK, that’s all fine and dandy if you are making a lot of money, but please don’t tell someone who is just trying to scrape by and take care of their family that they should spend $200 on a dress when they can get something comparable for $20 at the big box store.

People are by all rights practical, and when they have the money to spend on nicer things they will, otherwise, they’ll go for what they can afford. Period. You can’t squeeze more juice than what’s already in the lemon.

Thus, I feel, with belts tightening, people will be less inclined to buy the more expensive eco or organic versions of products, whether it’s in the form of soap or sofas.

Where We Can Make Progress

I’ve felt for a long time that America needs to return to the value of frugality. When you have less money, you become more frugal and creative with what you have. So instead of rampant consumerism where people will run out and by huge McMansions and newer and bigger large screen TVs every other year, we may see the following:

• A return to more modest homes that are more energy-efficient by nature.
• An ethic of re-using what you can (e.g., saving and rewashing plastic Ziploc bags).
• A trend towards keeping things longer (not replacing clothes, cars, cellphone, etc. on a whim).

As such, I think the environmental movement would be best served by finding ways to help people save money while helping the planet, rather than spending more money buying pricey eco-products. With such a shift, being more green could become a more permanent way of life rather than just the latest fad.