Published: October 03, 2008 12:15 pm            

DRINKWALTER: The green washing of America

Marketing! Marketing! Marketing! Not a day goes by that we are not bombarded with “green” messages. Windex tells us if we clean our windows with their product and let more natural light into our homes, we are giving our homes “the green light.” Each morning, on Channel 2’s Daybreak, they give a “green tip” of the day. I receive a floor covering trade magazine each month; as I flip through the pages, almost every flooring manufacturer is advertising how green they are or how they are “mimicking nature” in one way or another. Better Homes and Gardens magazine is offering “Living Green Tours” of homes around the country. You can win “green” prizes from their sponsors by visiting bhg.com/features/living-green. Clorox has a natural dishwashing liquid called “Green Works” that is biodegradable, sustainable and not tested on animals, to boot!

One company boasts the best way to conserve water is to purchase their brand name shower head, sink and toilet. Even Chris Elliot shared his green tip on the David Letterman a few weeks ago. His tip was to conserve water by bathing in the sink at work. (Go figure.) He was washing up in the break room, folded into a sink full of bubbly water, legs dangling. Meanwhile, co-workers walked by in their business attire, with coffee cups in hand. That was just silly, but in reality, it’s hard to tell whether companies are truly making green initiatives or just far-fetchedly marketing their product to appeal to our sense of “green” and our need to save the earth.

Last month, I caught a TV interview with Thomas Friedman, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning columnist with the New York Times. He recently authored a book titled “Hot Flat and Crowded.” He has some great notions on how to save the earth. One point that I took away from the briefs interview was that he wasn’t against drilling for oil in our own backyard; he was against making drilling our primary focus. There are so many alternatives. There’s urgency to his message but his attitude is most inspiring. Here’s an excerpt from his book. He wrote:

“The core argument is very simple: America has a problem and the world has a problem. America’s problem is that it has lost its way in recent years partly because of 9/11 and partly because of the bad habits that we have let build up over the last three decades, bad habits that have weakened our society’s ability and willingness to take on big challenges. The world also has a problem: It is getting hot, flat, and crowded. That is, global warming, the stunning rise of middle classes all over the world, and rapid population growth have converged in a way that could make our planet dangerously unstable. In particular, the convergence of hot, flat, and crowded is tightening energy supplies, intensifying the extinction of plants and animals, deepening energy poverty, strengthening petro dictatorship, and accelerating climate change. How we address these interwoven global trends will determine a lot about the quality of life on earth in the twenty-first century.”

After listening to Thomas Freidman and reading some excerpts from his book, it seems like there can be light at the end of the tunnel. Obviously, slick marketing to green wash the public into buying questionably “green” products isn’t the solution.

Unfortunately, with our financial system just a hair clump away from going down the drain, most of us are more interested in saving our green-backs than saving the earth. Hopefully we’ll be able to weed through the green washing and begin making sound buying decisions.

Deb Drinkwalter is a Lockport resident. Her column runs every Sunday.

        

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