Seeing Green: How Tree-Hugging Became a Competitive Sport

Opinion by Holly Moeller
May 26, 2011, 12:29 a.m.

Seeing Green: How Tree-Hugging Became a Competitive SportIn 2007, I wrote my first “Seeing Green” piece while stranded in Princeton’s student center (I went to the public rival-down-the-road, Rutgers) as my boyfriend coached swim practice. The column, “Oil for Breakfast,” detailed the myriad invisible ways fossil fuels support our daily lives — fueling the machine to fix the nitrogen to fertilize the corn to feed the pig to make the sausage, for example.

I recently read back over that first essay with some amusement. First, I had listed the price of gas at $1.95 per gallon. Second, the final copy suffered from several grammatical missteps introduced by an overzealous editor (which reminds me of how grateful I am for Kristian’s patience with me this year).

Four years later, the numbers certainly need updating, but the column’s message is as disturbingly true as ever. But is it as shocking?

Maybe I’m just enrobing myself in thicker and thicker bubbles, but it seems to me that we’re far more environmentally aware than we used to be. As the price of oil steadily rises and global warming predictions swirl around our shared consciousness, we’re constantly alerted to the many ways we depend on emitting carbon dioxide. And environmental catastrophes — like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year or this year’s threat of radiation leakage — keep ecological issues on the news docket.

We’ve come a long way in the 150-plus years that separate us from transcendentalists like Emerson and Thoreau, whose writings are sometimes identified as the origin of the environmental movement. The authors introduced a foreign concept to America’s Puritan tame-the-wilderness roots when they suggested that, perhaps, that very wilderness might have some spiritual value.

Although such ideas have long been appreciated by those of us who find solace in pristine landscapes and silent forests, the environmental movement didn’t really catch on until it became obvious that hurting the planet also hurts us. That’s why so many of us have heard of Rachel Carson: her 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” outlined clear linkages between pesticide use, environmental degradation and human health.

Suddenly, the country was up in arms. Spurred on by Carson’s words and environmental disasters like the 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire, America founded the Environmental Protection Agency, passed the Clean Air Act and vowed to protect endangered species. The effects were astounding. Despite industry protests, we cleaned our waterways, filtered our smokestacks and blocked major construction projects in National Parks.

America was Beautiful again.

But once the immediately apparent dangers were addressed, many Americans lost interest. A radical few operated on the outskirts, chaining themselves to trees or calling for voluntary human extinction. Their antics garnered attention, but little sympathy. As far as most Americans were concerned, the environmental crisis was over.

Of course, they were wrong. At the same time that we were celebrating our grand environmental cleanup, the phrase “climate change” was making its rounds in scientific circles. It is this latest crisis that has reawakened the environmental movement — or, at least, a modern version of it.

The carbon dioxide problem is a harder sell than its predecessors. We can’t flash photos of sick seabirds like we do after major oil spills. We can’t highlight elevated skin cancer rates like we did to close the ozone hole. But what the issue lacks in charisma, we’ve made up for with marketing.

Depending upon whether you believe that the ends justify the means — and what ends you find acceptable — you may or may not approve of the current popularization of environmentalism. Sure, there are plenty of people who are curbing their carbon footprints because they understand the global ramifications of their actions. Some of them probably started after they watched Al Gore’s movie or listened to a scientist’s testimony. Many still respond to the call of the wild or feel an ethical duty to protect nature. But most people who have gone green did it because it was trendy.

“Greenwashing” is America’s latest fad. Corporations use environmentalism — often coupled with personal health benefits — to move products. Just as we had to have those colorful sunglasses or coveted the latest Apple product, we’ve made following the ecotrends de rigueur in many social circles. Depending on which marketing survey you read (i.e., whether it’s one that’s trying to inflate the earth-friendly market share or not), up to 83 percent of Americans have gone green with their pocketbooks in some way for a variety of reasons.

This modern commercialization of environmentalism is at once both restrictive and expansive. Its messages are none too scientific, and its motivation is, frankly, profit. But it’s also engaged a growing swath of Americans, some of whom will eventually graduate from buying recycled toilet paper, to biking to work, to backyard composting. And as economic downturns transform us from spendthrifts to penny pinchers, the old mantras of “waste not, want not” and “every little bit helps” apply equally well to environmental goals as to financial ones.

So maybe that’s the message for the seasoned tree-hugger and for the environmental neophyte. Keep going green. And when you’re there, go greener.

 

What was the last “green” thing you bought? Why? Tell Holly — and send comments and criticism — to [email protected]. Thanks for your readership this year!

Holly is a Ph.D. student in Ecology and Evolution, with interests that range from marine microbes to trees and mushrooms to the future of human life on this swiftly tilting planet. She's been writing "Seeing Green" since 2007, and still hasn't run out of environmental issues to cover, so to stay sane she goes for long runs, communes with redwood trees and does yoga (badly).

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