Spotlight might weaken environmental movement
In my opinion | Expel me
By: Josh Grenzsund
Posted: 11/21/07
"You say you want a revolution/well you know/we all want to change the world." The Beatles gave people a soundtrack for social change in the summer of 1968, but the question of if we can change the world into a peaceful and healthful place is just as relevant now as ever, as the new "Sustainability Revolution" takes root in our media-fertilized consciousness.Just stop for a moment to consider how the "environmental" language of the late 1980s and 1990s has exploded into a whole new lingo in the last couple years. A progression from "recyclable" and "biodegradable" to "greenhouse gas" and "climate change," to "global warming" and "environmentally friendly" has given way to an influx of pseudo-scientific jargon like organic, grass-fed, compost-able, zero waste, local, fair trade, hybrid, renewable, carbon emissions, carbon footprint, carbon neutral, carbon offset, carbon sequestration, green energy, green transportation, green housing, green farming, green economy, eco-friendly, eco-chic, and sustainable, sustainable, sustainable.
The currency of these terms in our discourse is evidence of both a progression towards thinking about life and death on our planet, and an example of the inevitable process of capitalist interests co-opting a "counter-culture" movement.
Knowing that people are talking and thinking in terms of how their lifestyles contribute to global extractive economies must be a dream come true for environmental conservationists, who have been arguing for decades that socio-industrial impacts upon our ecosystems are affecting changes that in turn negatively impact the quality of human life. At the same time, some likely worry about the real danger that proliferating these terms into the marketing subset of our socio-industrial structure will hollow out the intellectual content of the words until they have as much meaning as the "extreme" tag slapped onto so many products and fads in the 1990s.
This is the conundrum facing "sustainability" advocates. Is it possible to market "green, organic, and sustainable" products and movements so that their use, proliferation, and currency actually translate into ecological sustainability? Is it possible to prevent these same philosophical and marketing terms from being used by organizations whose eyes never shift from the bottom line?
No, in our current system it is not possible. A social movement of ecological sustainability is itself unsustainable because its proliferation depends upon and is a product of a capitalist exploitive economy that values the perception of sustainability over sustainability in fact.
Consumers are already being bombarded with conflations of what "green" and "sustainable" mean to eco-conservatives and what these same words mean in terms of global marketing and regulation. The idea of sustainable forests is a relevant example. Products and consumer identities are already being fabricated around the successful marketing of the "Sustainable Forestry Initiative."
The SFI certifies public and private forests as practicing, well, of course, sustainable forestry. However, the SFI bases its personalized certification process on the guidelines of the International Standards Organization Guide 66. This document spells out how a certification of an Environmental Management System "should" be conducted.
However, ISO Guide 66 is a procedural guideline only and does not specify any benchmarks or specific environmental concerns that must be considered. Instead it is left up to each "organization to define the criteria by which environmental aspects and their associated impacts are identified as significant."
Given the process of such guidelines, it is very likely that a forest of "Roundup® Ready" trees grown with pesticides and industrial fertilizers could be given SFI certification. The consumer, however, who looks for and buys based on the "sustainable" labeling may be buying that product based solely on a nostalgic idea of "sustainable" that may invoke pastoral images of quaint local businesses, community, and a warm sentimental feeling of quiet life. Keep your eye out for the advertisements of SFI-certified wood and paper products, then research the companies and the type of sustainability they are practicing.
This is the real danger that now faces the "green and sustainable" movement. Savvy marketing and catch-phrase piracy will give a new veneer to the same progression of industrial and bio-technology practices that eco-conservatives have been trying to work against for the last several decades. The marketing words will change, but the processes will stay just the same.
Think about this as Eugene continues down the road to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, and consider if your purchase of a carbon offset credit or buying coffee in a compostable cup is really a revolutionary act, or if marketing this as a "green" event is just another tactic to get you excited about pouring your idealism and your money into a very large and very industrial socio-economic process that "green" labeling alone will not change.
You may want to wear something that goes a bit higher up your leg than a track shoe if you're going to wade through the green hype piling up around the Eugene '08 Track Trials.
jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com
© Copyright 2007 Oregon Daily Emerald
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