The World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) announced that the world lost 50% of species in the last 40 years. Directors at the WWF credit this to human consumption. For climatologists and scientists, there’s a bleakness to the future — one that includes starvation, exoduses from low-lying areas, droughts, and wild weather year round. It’s clear that we need to reduce our fossil fuel usage, but how we do that is still a complicated endeavor.
The flawed governmental approach
Going green is often framed as a decision to buy “certified organic” foods, choose energy-efficient technologies, and chuck your empty plastic bottle into a blue recycling bin. While these conscious choices are more environmentally friendly and better, they seem to ignore the very real consequences of our consumption. To illustrate this point, the U.S. government suggests, “switching all the light bulbs in a home from conventional incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs…” Going green is seen as an additional item; without the latest energy efficiencies, you’re not green.
As the government site shows, they exclaim the ills of conventional bulbs and recommend purchasing CFLs. Unfortunately, that mass waste and consumption of a new product goes unnoticed and unaccounted for. By immediately trashing all your old bulbs for the latest and greatest green tech, you’re simply ignoring the true life of a product and upgrading before it’s necessary.
The U.S. government should be encouraging people to take full advantage of the natural lives of products; instead, we hear how we should switch every bulb in our home. They are training you to have a faster turnover and consumption rate. Eventually, they’ll be recommending you switch all the CFLs with LED lights, which last longer and take even less energy. This technology is definitely better for the environment, but each transition creates massive amounts of waste, and the new products require marketing, packaging, shipping, storage, warehousing, and a consumer that will likely drive (consuming fossil fuels) to purchase the new bulbs.
Big green is big business
For the federal government, going green cannot mean consuming less. Pro-business entities and lobbying groups would launch a massive critique and attack if that was stated. Our economy is not equipped for people to stop buying. This capitalistic system is predicated on infinite growth; a pyramid scheme that will end at some point, but whose leaders hesitate to bring its early demise. Unfortunately, the government can’t properly advise its citizenry regarding climate change prevention.
At some point, going green was co-opted by “big green” — the big business approach to energy efficiency. Big green needs you to keep spending, too. With this aim in mind, they’ve warped the dialogue into a justification to purchase more. The irony is that by buying more — in order to be efficient — we’re digging ourselves into a deeper hole.
Just look at the first sentence from this Huffington Post article: “Saving energy and water can be difficult, but now there are plenty of gadgets on the market that aim to make the process easier for you.” This comes from the “Huff Post Green” section! Articles like these (which are everywhere) advocate buying more gadgets and technology, and are only contributing to this horrible, repetitive consumption.
Even at my alma mater, Colorado State University, the institution had a habit of touting its green initiatives. All the brochures advertised the push to use renewable energy and active involvement in recycling. These are commendable efforts, but there’s a hypocrisy to it all. Throughout my years there, they were always building — I never knew the campus without yellow construction taped areas, sounds of construction, and digital photo representations on the buildings to come. All that development adds tons of pollution to the air and creates epic proportions of waste. Cranes, bulldozers, and industrial materials would all be necessary to complete the buildings. The carbon costs for these components often goes uncalculated and unnoticed.
Then there’s the story of the Toyota Prius. In 1997, the company released this awfully designed hybrid monster. Getting around 50 miles per gallon (MPG), the Prius became a popular vehicle with a clear message: “I care about the environment.” When considering the technology and energy that’s required to make it, it’s scary. The battery cells, which recharge when braking and coasting, harness energy that would otherwise be lost. But they are an environmental nightmare and difficult to dispose of properly. Moreover, the Prius gets about the same gas mileage as Honda Civics from the late 80s and early 90s. The Honda Civic Hatchback from 1992 got about 48 MPG; no hybrid battery cells needed, and for a fraction of the cost on your wallet and the environment!
Finding a real solution
We’ve been duped into believing the solution to climate change is another purchase. In reality, the better answer would be to say, “Stop where you are, turn off lights, protest for change, and don’t buy anything for a year!”
Most moderate voices understand that we cannot become Luddites to combat carbon emissions. The world has become increasingly connected and globalized — it’s hard to imagine regressing whatsoever. Technological development is only ratcheting up, and people are embracing the progress fervently. But our course is not sustainable.
We need to consider movements to buy local crops and goods, collective markets and organizations, and ignoring the message to buy more to save. Going green doesn’t have to hurt your budget. It should be about consuming less and supporting sustainable development. What could be better for your budget?
This is the best article I’ve read all year. Thanks
This post is going to go VIRAL! It is perfect. I have nothing to add. You’ve said it all!
Great points, but I think switching over once a you’ve worn out the old inefficient products is probably a good practice. In the meantime, yes, let’s all consume a little less please.
I am glad you shared the topic about the hybrids and their batteries. No one ever talks about how much energy is takes to build these batteries and then you can’t dispose of them. It takes more carbon emissions to build these batteries than a regular car would produce in half of it’s life span.
Consuming less is great, but you would normally expect your costs to decrease as a result: what actually happens is the energy companies increase their prices to compensate for the reduced “volume” they sell. Energy prices in the UK have been increasing at a rate of around 15% per year for the past few years. It’s ridiculous!
This is a great post, Sam. I find that environmentally-friendly decisions are very consistent with frugality, if you’re careful about it. Like you said “don’t buy anything for a year!”! Using less energy = cheaper, biking/walking = cheaper, not eating meat = cheaper, etc. But, like you said, this is all fairly counter to the prevailing big green message. Thank you for writing this!
This is great, Sam. Definitely a large loogie in the face of the jolly “Green” giant, but necessarily so. Human hyoer-consumption is what’s destroying the earth.
Love this! Your concept is right on. Usually by “going green” we’re not “green” at all. I haven’t switched all my light bulbs for the “green” version. Instead I’m switching to the new ones when my current ones burn out. My fave “green” example is the “go green” stamps sold by the USPS. If you were really “going green” you wouldn’t ship paper (made from trees) through the mail (which uses fossil fuels). So there USPS!
Great article! In your last sentence, you suggest we consider buying local, but then also say we should “ignore the message to buy more to save.” Isn’t this a bit of a contradiction?
Good point. Perhaps it is unclear as written. What I mean is that you must consume a certain amount of goods. Food, for instance, is something that can be purchased locally most of the time (from local growers). By doing this, you supporting sustainable food, transportation, and delivery pipelines, as the fossil fuel usage is greatly reduced. You must eat; therefore, you should buy local. 🙂 Hope that makes sense!
the cost of going green is thru the roof. what is that? one would think it would lower costs.
The problem, as you have stated, is when people just throw things out and replace with “green” items. We’re green in our house, but we do not buy extra stuff as a consequence (we’re also minimalists). We buy much less and have only replaced things when they were finished (ie cleaning products) or make our own. It would be irresponsible to throw out old cleaning products, lightbulbs, etc to use something green in the house, especially when people do not think of these products as possibly hazardous and just throw them in the trash. The underlying issue isn’t only buying toxic materials, it’s buying too much of anything. Also, one must be smart when going green. Our cleaning products (ie vinegar, baking soda, etc) are much cheaper than green or traditional. When people are not willing to change their lifestyle and put time, effort and research in going green, they’ll just end up blowing money on many things that, if you actually read the label, you will see are not green and could be a scam.