The Wrong Kind of Green

The Wrong Kind of Green, by Johann Hari. Nation: March 4, 2010.

This is another one of those, no, REALLY? sort of articles. No, REALLY? Massive environmental organizations take money from major corporations?

No, it couldn’t be.

Sometimes it is so difficult to control the sarcasm on this blog. The funny thing is, I posted about this before, though in reference to the smaller scale version. Actually, upon reading that post again, I’ve already said just about everything I might say in response to this Nation article.

I do want to point out one other part. Hari mentions the phenomenon in which environmentalists are happy to be thrown a bone, any bone: a few trees here, a few concessions toward climate change there. Many environmentalists will accept just about anything if it makes them feel like they’re accomplishing something. It’s sad, but you see it happen again and again. They just back down and back down and say things like, well, the political climate isn’t right, and next thing you know, the actual, physical climate is too far gone to do anything about it. And then there’s no going back.

It’s so sad, and it’s one of the delusions that plague the environmental movement. We feel powerless. We have been raised feeling that nothing we do really matters, and really, how could we possibly defeat the massive corrupt army that is Congress and its multitude of corporate funders? What can we possibly do? Easy to accept the sad concessions thrown in our direction when faced with all THAT. I think the 2004 election had a lot to do with it. I think a lot of us, after staying up all night thinking to ourselves, no, there’s really no way that idiot could be elected president TWICE, woke up the next morning (or dragged ourselves into work after no sleep) with a different view of the world. No, our votes don’t matter. No, sense and the best interests of the population (and the planet) do not matter. Money matters. Money, and expansion, and the economy, and the rest, and we can scream ourselves hoarse trying to convince anyone else differently.

Some people seemed to become hopeful again after Obama election, and maybe these are the people who were still hoping something would actually come out of the Copenhagen debacle other than a lot of waffle. But really, anyone who actually expected some kind of effective decision to come out of Copenhagen was delusional. Anyone who still expects Congress, despite its immense corporate sponsors, to act in some kind of reasonable and responsible way as far as climate change goes, is living in a fantasy world. So in that sense, the accusation that the major environmental organizations are only aiming for what they think might have a chance of passing Congress is unfair. Those major organizations have a much better sense of reality than the environmentalists who thought real action would come out of Copenhagen.

Of course, that’s no reason not to take a hard line. After all, that’s how the major corporations get their way (well, that, and a whole lot of money). They stand their ground. They decide what they want and they fight tooth and nail, do everything in their power, to ensure that they get that outcome.

Shouldn’t that be what we do, as well? I’ve had about enough of waffle.