A VOTE MAKES GREEN CHIC MEAN SOMETHING

Political action transforms green chic into meaningful deed. As Profesor Isham says at the bottom of this post, political action is the key. The House of Representatives will debate its Energy Bill this week and the fate of the Udall-Platts Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) amendment may largely determine the potency of the bill, so take action:

Got to POWER OF WIND, watch the video about the amendment and then use the tools there to tell your congressman you want a national RPS, a law requiring utilities to get electricity from New Energy.

Can ‘green chic’ save the planet? Ecofriendly buying choices alone can’t sustain America’s lifestyle, experts warn – unless ‘looking green’ becomes ‘voting green.’
Moises Velaquez-Manoff, July 27, 2007 (Christian Science Monitor)

WHO
Consumer-Citizens
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WHAT
A Whole Foods Market limited edition $15 cotton bag printed with the phrase “I’m not a plastic bag” created stampedes when it was put on sale in Taiwan and Hong Kong and was selling days later on Craigslist for $200-500. What some call “green-lightenment” others fear as a trend misleading a consumerist society into thinking sustainability is something it can shop its way to.

WHEN
A growing trend, a growing problem. According to the World Wildlife Foundation, the demands of the earth’s population exceeded its capacity by 25% in 2003.

WHERE
Mostly among the affluent.

WHY
“Magazines like Elle, Fortune, and Vanity Fair have published "green issues" in the past year, and the Academy Awards were carbon neutral. The Vatican recently announced lans to offset its 2007 emissions…” But reversing the current course requires a complete change in energy infrastructure, a unified purpose like the US World War II effort and a visionary understanding like the writing of the US constitution.
The main hope of people who understand the dimension of change necessary is that trendiness can become political activism. The defeat of an initiative in California designed to transform Big Oil’s wealth into New Energy suggests political awareness has yet to effectively unify in the necessary direction.
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QUOTES
- Alex Steffen, cofounder, worldchanging.com: "There is no combination of purchasing decisions which will make the current affluent American lifestyle sustainable. You can't shop your way to sustainability."
- Dale Jamieson, director of Environmental Studies, New York University: "[The founders] were people who were looking very far into the future and saying, 'Let's design a government that will last.' This is a little bit like that…You're talking about the greatest consumptive society in the history of the world trying to change its footprint…If you're going to get change, you need this kind of energy and enthusiasm. But that just gets you in the door."
- Michael Dorsey, professor of environmental studies, Dartmouth College: "We need people not to be thinking like consumers, but like citizens in a society…Bold decisions from a collective of bold leaders working with bold citizens that aren't afraid to take bold steps is the only thing that will avoid a climate catastrophe. That's it. There's nothing else."
- Jon Isham, professor of international environmental economics, Middlebury College: “[Political action is] the key… That's where we need to go above and beyond the idea of a fad… If something can't continue, it won't."