Green Fads Inevitably Die, but How?

Yeti by Philippe Semeria

The only question in regards to the death of the current green enthusiasm is, “Will the new green fad die via popular adoption, or via wholesale abandonment?”  Well, I guess this is the first question, not the only.  The second one would be, “What will green living look like when it is either abandoned or adopted?”

An intelligent reader (I know you are out there!) would of course respond, “Well, economical solutions will be adopted while unrealistic and utopian greening will be abandoned.”  And while making sense, this sort of reasoning with the American people is redonculous at best and dangerous madness at worst.  Just look at corn ethanol, still going strong all these years despite its fairly wide-known economic unfeasibility.  And we all know that the milk of the female Yeti could be a financial boon for holistic medicine if someone would just put in the hard work to create a Yeti milking program, or at least learn to synthesize the stuff.

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Fair wage? But Poverty Makes Some Nice Pants

Sweatshop in Chicago

Sweatshops.  Sounds kind’a nice as I watch the snow fall outside my window here in SLC, in April.  Oh, to feel the sweat trickle down the small of my back and then slowly spread along my waistband front and back until it looks like I have thoroughly wet myself.  Oh to feel a hard dirt floor with my blistered and cracked feet and to be able to gnaw on my swollen, spongy tongue longing for a cool drink of water.  Instead I just sit here at my fancy computer typing away with a hot mug of tea watching this freekin’ frozen crap cling to my grapevines and tulips.

Surely I jest.  But seriously, in my quest to discover the truth about global sweatshop numbers and stats I have discovered that this is an idiotic quest.  Much more important are the numbers and factors that make sweatshops not only flourish, but attractive.

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Reviving Blue-Collar Environmentalism

by Alfred T. Palmer

Environmental racism has been coined as an expression describing any policy, practice, or regulation that negatively affects the environment of low-income people.  Everyone seems to acknowledge that the poor get the short end of the stick when it comes to negative environmental impacts, but at the same time the broad assumption is made that low-income people simply don’t care about the environment.

Now if I were to say that poor people hate the earth then you would probably cry foul and fill the comment box at the end of this post with vitriol and lingual excrement.  But if we are honest, yes, the majority of us well-to-dos operate under a low-level yet constant assumption that low-income individuals (whether rednecks, urban minorities or simply blue-collar) don’t care about issues of sustainability.  These assumptions have been built on a long tradition of alienating all brands of low-income folk with hoity-toity environmental clubs and lofty policies built on negative reinforcement.  What do I mean?

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