It seems as though many were unaware that our environment was in jeopardy until the concept of “Go Green” shirts, organic hemp-material bed sheets, and labels of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” emerged. Obnoxious bumper sticker slogans began to rule the green movement and cause sudden interest to “Go Green.”
The green movement can be seen as a bigger fashion trend than Rainbow-brand flip flops, skinny jeans, or v-necks. It seems like these products are bought for trendy purposes, as opposed to environmental benefit. Celebrities influence what people wear; the big gold earring trend can be credited to Beyoncé just as much as the support of hybrid cars can be credited to Leonardo DiCaprio and other A-listers.
“Buying a hybrid car won’t help if it’s the aforementioned Lexus, the luxury LS 600h L model, which gets 22 miles to the gallon on the highway; the Toyota Yaris ($11,000) gets 40 highway miles a gallon with a standard gasoline engine,” said New York Times style writer Alex Williams. A luxury fuel-inefficient car is pointless if bought just for the “green” label.
The green movement in the United States can be seen as more of a capitalistic trend than an aid to the environment. Instead of useless personal materialistic efforts to supposedly aid the environment, the government should take more political action to reduce carbon impact.
Reasonable steps can be taken by individuals to protect the earth that can help long-term improvement, such as becoming involved with campus organizations to help the environmental cause. Through E3 at UCLA (Ecology, Economy, Equity), programs such as the Education for Sustainable Living Program focus on research and outreach by coming up with better sustainable solutions for solving ecological and social problems locally and around the world. Environmental Bruins, another branch of E3, work to educate students, faculty and the community about the role of natural systems and importance of the environment.
Michel Gelobter, president of the nonprofit sustainable living policy group Redefining Progress, frequently speaks out to the New York Times about the green consumerism issue: “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.”
Individual choices, such as buying organic materials, will have very little impact as compared to the greater impact of politics and the economy. Gelobter goes on to discuss the importance of mass impact.
“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.”
Individual action will do nothing to aid the movement, especially when consumerism seems to be the only solution instilled in many people’s minds. Buying more so-called organic products or T-shirts that advertise the recycling system does nothing for the environment. Ironically, it creates negative consequences. More natural resources are used to package and ship these products, more energy is needed for factories to produce these products, and more material is extracted from the earth and nature. In fact, these products leave a bigger carbon footprint with these mass manufacturing processes. It diverges American interests from being a part of the bigger cause to reinforcing the fact that we are a materialistic nation.
The only way to help the environment is to actually cut down on buying and spending rather than flaunting expensive solar-paneled houses and bamboo shelves to hold your 64-inch plasma TV. It’s unreasonable to buy ridiculous items because of the misguided notion of environmental good. How can mass production be completely earth-friendly?
Our consumer-driven nation needs to stop investing time and effort targeting individual consumers to buy products for monetary benefit and start actually thinking about the ways we could improve our environmental conditions with laws and greater enforcements. Buying a $45 eco-friendly American Apparel T-shirt will not only leave a hole in your pocket but will in no way help the environment in the long run.
However, many organizations exist in the United States to help protect the environment, such as the Environment Protection Agency that protects human health and the environment through extensive research and a constant scientific effort. Though this organization has been in effect since 1970, it seems its efforts have been silenced by the American government by not taking any significant steps to reduce our carbon footprint.
“Going Green” should not be a brand name but rather a collective effort to reduce impact. You can waste your money on what you think will help the environment, but do not be part of just another temporary fashion trend.
Email ghoogassian at cghoogassian@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.