Getting off the eco-trend rollercoaster
We eat organic food, buy environmentally friendly products and drive hybrid cars, but we're not necessarily friends of the planet as much as members of a consumers' club
If you buy clothes made out of organic fabrics, wash your dishes with environmentally friendly detergents, eat pesticide-free organic vegetables, watch commercials produced by companies with "green" agenda's and drive a hybrid car, you probably consider yourself an environmentally friendly consumer. Well, think again.
As environmentally friendly products are becoming more and more popular, the list of must-have items every environmentally friendly house and person should own is becoming longer and longer.
The green trend is being marketed more vigorously than ever, but before you whip out your eco-conscious credit card, maybe you should check the fine print.
At first glance, it seems the abundance of goods and services offered under the "green consumerism" umbrella all work towards the same goal – protecting the environment and minimizing the harm we inflict on plant earth. And let's be honest – it gives us a chance to clear our conscious. Or does it?
The problem, it seems, stems from the fact that "going green" often goes more through our wallets and less through an actual conscious decision to change our day-to-day behavior.
Effortless eco-awareness
We so desperately want to be eco-friendly shoppers, that we haven’t even noticed that instead of developing a meaningful ecologically-based consumer discourse – which can result in conscious consumerism, social awareness and effective protest against companies which exploit workers and harm the environment – all we've ended up with is another, exclusive consumers' club.
The subliminal message is clear: Want to be environmentally friendly? No need to stage a protest march, organize a consumers' ban or even venture out of the house. Just give us your credit card number and we'll do the rest.
We are not required to change anything in our behavior or reprioritize our goals as a society in order to make a difference. We are simply required to stay passive; and when you think about it, why would we want to change that when whatever green "itch" we have can be immediately soothed by simply agreeing to pay double for products?
Environmentally friendly products, as everyone knows, cost at least twice as much as regular products – which makes the green consumers' club a rather exclusive one. But isn’t that defeating the purpose?
And so, a welcome consumers' trend becomes yet another ploy by the well-oiled capitalist machine, meant to make us believe that if we just agree to pay more, the world will be a better place.
So, while there is no denying that every little bit helps, maybe it is time for us to stop thinking like consumers and start thinking like citizens of planet earth.
We have to realize that the real price tag is not the one stamped on the product, but the one expressed by the long-term damage to the environment; and that price can be avoided only by truly changing our nature as people, not as consumers.
