Thursday, January 3, 2013

S1:E2-Following the Green in the "Green Movement"

"You look at a wind turbine... Somebody makes the blades, somebody makes the tower, somebody makes the gear boxes, the electronic controls. Those parts can come from China, India- or from Buffalo." -George Sterzinger, Executive Director of the Renewable Energy Policy Project in Washington, D.C.

In the same way we see feckless trendy altruism further the goals of the imperialists and compradors, misguided eco-friendly practices often benefit those responsible for the current environmental crisis.

Let's take a peek at the shameless irony of Fiji Water: You can read here about their ardent promise to create a cleaner, healthier product. In fairness, none of this is false advertising. Their facilities are certainly progressive in their construction, for which they recently built a windmill to help reduce energy consumption, and they utilize natural PET packaging that requires 24% less energy to make, is recyclable and creates 40% less solid waste then glass bottles (though when was the last time you bought a glass bottle of water?) Plus, it comes from natural aquifers, so it must be healthier, right? They may charge more money for it, but certainly we, as consumers, can rest easy knowing we are buying responsibly.

There are many, many people who genuinely believe this. There are people who, armed with this knowledge, will abandon their usual brand of choice for Fiji Water.

Their company name is not simply marketing. Swiss Miss hot cocoa is not actually flown in from Switzerland. Fiji Water is imported directly from the Fiji Islands, 5500 miles from Los Angeles, and where only half the population has access to clean water themselves. It then travels another 3300 miles to the East Coast (not to mention how far it travels to reach European consumers.) You are paying seven dollars for a bottle of water that is in reality no cleaner, healthier, or safer than what could have been produced down the street. This produces 84,396 metric tons (168,792,000 pounds) of CO2 every year [1]. It is laughable to believe any sort of measures they take can be considered in the interest of our ecological health. 

Some would point out that the benefits of a "green" product can outweigh the costs to our environment.

This generally seems to boil down to one or both of two arguments,

Trade is good, aiding all parties involved:
I hate to keep picking on Fiji, but I hear this argument from brand-loyal fans and fair-trade fanatics all the time. Be aware, this is nothing short of a polite rephrasing of "The White Man's Burden," a favorite creed of the colonialists. There persists a belief in most Western circles that if the Third World wishes to join in our fantasy world of unrestrained consumption, they need only collude with it's forgers, and that it is our responsibility as consumers and business owners to interact with them as much as possible. By the saving graces of white capitalists, they can pull themselves out of the muck and mire of their barren homelands and build a new country with what resources we leave behind. While this is consistent with contemporary economic theory, in practice we see that the results are anything but. Fiji Water was founded in 1996 by David Gilmour, a Canadian billionaire who in fact OWNS the Wakaya Island in the region, and employs only 400 residents (not even paying them fair-trade wages, and moving his offices off the island to avoid paying taxes to the country) [2]. Nor do these inexcusable money-saving methods result in lower prices for the consumer, exhibited perhaps most clearly by Fiji. Even should he begin paying workers appropriately, it would do little for the local people or their economy. Since the passage of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT- which I will note was not an "agreement," but rather a policy dictated by the politico-economic elite,) in 1947, the resulting World Trade Organization (WTO) has ensured developing nations are kept to such a condition by raising tariffs on any imported goods, and lowering them on raw materials, which are then used to make goods that can be sold back to them. We have seen frighteningly comparable results from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA,) which has strangled countless family-run and/or smaller operations in the US and Mexico, everything from farms to mines. This is the natural result of unregulated financial capitalism, something I will touch on more in a later series. 

Manufacturers are setting precedents that will be adopted by other firms if they wish to remain competitive:
This slow-and-steady mindset is simply a justification of consumer apathy and  displays a complete lack of faith in our ability to demand legislature obliging ecological responsibility. Bottled water is an inherently destructive and environmentally exploitative industry, despite what those who profit from it will tell you. There can be no preventative measures taken to change that. The myth of "clean coal" is another frequently touted example of how we can, through bureaucratic oversight and slight changes to production processes, still live by the standards we have for the past hundred-odd years. Even if this were true, the situation demands immediate action, and we quite clearly do not have time to wait for the free market to catch up while the poles melt. The truth is, capitalists have no incentive to do anything that would directly interfere with their profit margins. Any "green promise," any commitment to a cleaner product (either rhetorical or in practice) is done only for the sake of convincing you, the consumer, that they have your interests at heart and are thus worthy of your business. The Nash Equation, when applied to the economics of our situation, clearly shows that in any such collusive structure, market participants will mirror the others activity only to the point where it becomes most profitable to all of them, without any business "left behind," regardless of the impact on others (in this case the environment.)

Others still will claim there are no real "green" solutions, or present other (unrealistic, illogical, ineffective) ones.

Disregarding the detestable apathy of the former, I'd like to take a closer look at the two seemingly-rational elucidations I've heard most recently on how to tackle the climate crisis,

Conscious consumerism can save the planet:
It's true that a great amount of waste could be negated if we were all a little more choosy about what we buy. Many retailers organize themselves so that more eco-friendly products are made clearly distinguishable, be they organic, recyclable, biodegradable, or what have you. It's also true that we don't need to get eliminate all the waste we are creating. Mother Earth does a pretty stellar job of keeping up, frankly. But these folks are forgetting the vast amount of pollution created before the product reaches a store's shelves. Plastic water bottles, while still detrimental, make up but a fraction of our environmental expenditures when compared to chemical waste and carbon emissions resulting from their manufacturing/transportation. I in no way wish to remove responsibility from the shoulders of consumers, but they are equally victims of a very small population (producers) committing a very large crime (ecological genocide.) This "solution" also leaves the task of creating an educated populus capable of discerning which products are safe for the environment and which are not.

Self-elected withdrawl from the market:
"Surely if we all picked up and moved away from the cities, built little cabins or lived like nomads, and foraged or grew all our own food, we could restore the world to it's natural pristine condition, right?" Do not listen to these people. They are at best overly optimistic and at worst delusional. Of course that quote is hyperbolic, but this disposition exists in many less radical forms as well. You will never convince any large numbers of citizens in a developed nation to leave behind their precious comforts, abandon their current life of abundance or create a new system for trade. And this is hardly something we can judge them for! But even ignoring this most obvious fact, we find the same genetic flaw in this argument as the one before it: It would require a massive educational overhaul that no government or private corporation would ever be willing to provide. What impetus would they have to teach people how to live outside the system they created and benefit most from?

The Green Movement's role as a placatory structure

We find an eerily similar quandary in these philosophies as we do in those of the unexamined altruists (which was of course intentional on my part): There can be no real progress as long as we operate within the confines of the system that created what threatens us. This is not a coincidence; you will find they share quite a bit in practice. They serve to provide the citizens of Capitalist Statism with an outlet for their well-founded concerns, without in fact challenging the domination (political, financial, or ideological) of the ruling class. Business continues as usual for all parties involved, save for the consumers, who now perhaps sleep more soundly believing they have done something admirable or even in the least bit effectual. You are buying that contentedness, you are paying someone real money you earned for something that is not only intangible, but innately false.

The environmental threat we are facing is an urgent one. Do not waste your time, your money, or your dignity on their mind-games. Their mission, while latent, is found when you follow the green.

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