The last time I criticized the New York Times for pandering to the hedonism of its readers, I received the following comment:

You may not like their "fluff," but obviously you are still looking at it.

Yes, I do read the NY Times every day. I quickly scan the online headlines Monday through Saturday, and I spend the entire week digesting the print Sunday edition. Y'all know that I frequently credit the paper as a source of grist for my posts.

Last Sunday, there was a thought-provoking piece in one of my least favorite sections of the paper–Sunday Styles. Titled Buying Into The Green Movement, the story explored the impact on global warming of eco-friendly shopping.

Consumers have embraced living green, and for the most part the mainstream green movement has embraced green consumerism. But even at this moment of high visibility and impact for environmental activists, a splinter wing of the movement has begun to critique what it sometimes calls “light greens.”

Critics question the notion that we can avert global warming by buying so-called earth-friendly products, from clothing and cars to homes and vacations, when the cumulative effect of our consumption remains enormous and hazardous.

Indeed, buying a 438-horsepower Lexus hybrid or a 10,000-square foot second home with solar panels feels like "too little, too late" to me.

Paul Hawken, the author and long-time environmental activist, says the current boom in eco-friendly shopping offers a false promise:

Green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase…

The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747–it's a complete joke, the idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn't matter if they're organic. It's diabolically stupid.

Michel Gelobter, president of  Redefining Progress, a nonprofit policy group that promotes sustainable living, offers a different point of view:

A legitimate beef that people have with green consumerism is, at end of the day, the things causing climate change are more caused by politics and the economy than individual behavior.

A lot of what we need to do doesn’t have to do with what you put in your shopping basket. It has to do with mass transit, housing density. It has to do with the war and subsidies for the coal and fossil fuel industry.

Michael Schelenberger of American Environics, a market research firm, sees a positive side to eco-buying:

We didn’t find that people felt that their consumption gave them a pass, so to speak. They knew what they were doing wasn’t going to deal with the problems, and these little consumer things won’t add up. But they do it as a practice of mindfulness. They didn’t see it as antithetical to political action. Folks who were engaged in these green practices were actually becoming more committed to more transformative political action on global warming.

Methinks there's an element of truth to each of the above points of view. What do you think?

Carbon Neutral Journal's thoughts are brought to you by Hawtin Jorgensen Architects.

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