Can Switching to Hybrids and Organics Really Save the World, or Is It Just Lazy Environmentalism?

AlterNet / By Maria Armoudian and Heather Rogers

Can Switching to Hybrid Cars and Organics Really Save the World, or Is It Just Lazy Environmentalism?
Heather Rogers' new book, 'Green Gone Wrong,' explores whether we can save the world simply by swapping our polluting products for greener ones.

April 29, 2010 |


Over the past few years, more and more so-called green solutions have emerged to address environmental crises within the context of the current economic structure. But author Heather Rogers suggests that some of these solutions amount to lazy environmentalism and may actually camouflage a larger problem. In fact, Rogers argues that our current socio-economic system depends on pollution to maintain its own well-being. If that's the case, what are the real solutions? Rogers' latest book, Green Gone Wrong: How our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution explores this idea and digs a little deeper to see the effects of the green industry.

Maria Armoudian: You are very critical of 'lazy environmentalism' or 'armchair activism.' What do you consider lazy and what is the harm done by it?

Heather Rogers: It's a term that has some currency in the newer generation of environmentalism which eschews the guilt and the sacrifice of the environmentalism that came up in the 1970s. This next wave was saying, "Okay, we don't have to suffer. We don't have to go live in Earthship houses and run our bath water through homemade wetland systems into our toilets and be totally off the grid. We can live in nice houses, live well, drive where we want to drive in hybrid cars and enjoy ourselves. We can enjoy the market mechanisms in order to have a good life and save the planet." And what I'm doing is investigating that a little bit more and saying I don't know if that really works.

MA: It seems you are arguing that it even might make it worse in some ways.

HR: Right. Well, the way that the market works is that it has to grow. In order to do that, it has to utilize materials in nature. So can't stop extracting and affecting the natural environment -- ecosystems that we need in order to hold back climate change, keep our water clean and keep diverse species on the planet. But there's this idea that we can somehow make capitalism behave itself. What I'm saying is that we can't undo this fundamental logic by replacing green products for dirty ones. That fundamental logic is still there. And where wealth comes from is still there. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/146654/can_switching_to_hybrid_cars_and_organics_really_save_the_world%2C_or_is_it_just_lazy_environmentalism

But not Lazy

Any efforts to help the environment no matter how small are not lazy.

this planet. Rodale was clearly right. HR: This is the other side of the economics of organic. The small, local farmer is held as the hero of this wave of environmentalism and the transformation of the food system. But these farmers have a really hard time making ends meet, even though they charge more money for their produce. Their costs are very high, and they have to deal with so much by themselves -- property taxes, distribution and marketing. There's such a dearth of infrastructure for them because of the USDA.

In the most recent farm bill, the vast majority of $300 billion goes to conventional, polluting, scorched-earth agriculture. It doesn't support local, holistic, community-based systems. If we could re-orient those priorities, it would make a tremendous difference environmentally, and it would make that food more accessible and affordable for regular people, rather than just for the wealthy.

without a population decline, what difference does it make?

is to move away from being predominantly agricultural. This has the effect of making children expensive (since they're no longer useful as unpaid farm workers) and minimizes the effect of agriculture-age religions with their "be fruitful and multiply" credo.

The transition to a manufacturing and service economy is the way that human beings will finally get their numbers to top out.

:thumbsup:

"...effect of making children expensive..."

Children are not cheap. Children are totally subsidized. Hell, they have to be. It really does takes a village to raise a child.

Now, making children is cheap. And fun. In fact the first act of making children is the greatest cheap thrill, evah!

But the rest of your screed? Unfounded conjecture.

they are indeed, not cheap. In an agricultural society, especially one that had not yet evolved a medical infrastructure to keep down the death rate, having many children is important. Each mouth to feed comes with a pair of hands and a pair of legs to plant crops and bring in the harvest.

Check the birthrates between the industrialized societies, and those that are principly agricultural in nature, and with the latter, toss in the societies that have very strong religious pressure in favor of procreation (like Arabic societies, for instance). You'll find some basis for my conjecture.

The more we use, the more we do. The more we do, the more we use.