| Green Backlash |
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| Written by Jack Hudson | |
| Wednesday, 11 July 2007 | |
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The backlash on the green trend has finally arrived, and the question now is if the current wave of environmentalism has staying power. The people at Spiked see environmentalism fundamentally as an emotional spasm, a twitch of guilt and angst, which dresses itself in "frightfully dry statistics" to look grown up. Greenormal argues that "the fact that it is fashionable at the moment gives us no indication as to its prospects, either way." But my favorite recent sentence for clarity and wisdom comes from the New York Review of Books:
That's a sentence which says more than it lets on -- not only because the climate change issue (especially the US auto market) is remarkably like where tobacco was in 1950 (which is a grim prospect), but also because it hints that what the people at Spike really want, as do the people giving green awards and organizing Live Earth, is meaning and identity.  Disclosure: Whenever I see the word meaning, as Helen Epstein uses it, I think of Viktor Frankl. Frankl once proposed a Statue of Responsibility, a 300-foot stainless steel statue for the west coast to complement the Statue of Liberty on the east coast. The design seems somewhat uninspired. Maybe they should commission Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington, DC to come up with something. Not sure what Spiked would think of that . . .
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(4)
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written by Claire , July 14, 2007
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written by aloha.suckers , July 16, 2007
jack hudson:
so, you ask if it would be ok to link to my photo (it's not), i objected, and you used it anyways. brilliant. is that how you normally operate?
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written by aloha.suckers , July 16, 2007
never mind - i removed it.
no linky for you, thief.
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written by David Neubert , July 16, 2007
Our use of your photo is not theft as you gave us permission via the Creative Commons License on it. It would seem your photo was set up with a creative commons license. The way you chose your license is that you allow use as long as it is not changed, we attribute credit to you and we do not try to resell it. But we are happy to comply with your wishes and remove the photo. If I do not have all the facts please feel free to contact us. In the meantime, I am going to put back my the original photo that I, David Neubert, own the rights to.
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I agree with that Spiked author about the ills of American society. The green movement hits a nerve because somewhere people know that the capitalist system that produced our mega consumer society, does not feed the soul. They don't have the imagination to slow down, smell the roses and make more time for friends and family, so they cling to consumer trends that can make them feel good.
Sorry, I bet you didn't want me to relate to the bad guy. I am hoping that more businesses do what Ray Anderson has done, and that the government starts public awareness campaigns or outright rate increases for water, heat, etc. In short, that the efforts we make are real.