Oh How Fickle We Are
Cripes, people turn, don’t they? And they turn fast, too. Is all the environmental this and green that and sustainable the other getting on your tits too? Christ it’s pissing me off. All of it, from the preaching of the converts, to the hollow me-tooism from major multinationals trying desperately to persuade us that they care, they really do care.
It’s called Green Fatigue, apparently, and reminds me of when hotels say that they want to avoid unnecessarily washing towels because they want to pwotect the pweshus wickle enviwunment. Utter bullshit. If it was more expensive than just washing the lot all the time, they’d never consider it for a second.
The silly thing is that I come from dyed-in-the-wool hippy stock, and despite my shallow, materialistic veneer I would describe myself as something of a hippy manqué as well. The friend with whom I was discussing this is also rather of the oatmeal variety himself, and he sparked the whole discussion by expressing frustration at the giddy myopia of the small army of global warming neophytes, all converted in the last six months from a state of skeptical indifference to a tedious kind of giddy sanctimony about everything and anything environmental.
The thing is, from a purely mathematical point of view, of course there’s no absolute certainty about global warming. It’s a massive system and the interactions are too complex to be certain about any of it. But it’s interesting how the same tiny sliver of mathematical uncertainty has gone from being a major doubt to totally insignificant in the space of a few months, simply as the tide of public opinion has gathered critical mass.
In Proper Job I design products, mostly medical ones, but products nonetheless. Objects made of plastic, metal and often some electronics, ranging in size from about as big as a pen to the size of a large television. As a couple of silly old hippies, my friend and I had to remind ourselves that we’ve been bashing on about the environmental impact to clients for years and invariably the result was utterly blank incomprehension, a moment or two of squirming, and then the resumption of the conversation from before the offending sentence was uttered. Two years ago we’d have been grateful for anyone, anyone, to listen to us for more than a moment about sustainable product design, and let’s not forget that the enormous amount of plastic we use in various products these days makes up a significant part of our total dependence on oil. Plastic is a hydrocarbon, and hydrocarbons basically come from oil so, simplifying slightly, without oil there is pretty much no plastic.
It’s amazing how quickly the sudden snowball put our backs up, especially given that we are basically on the same side. Are we really that misanthropic that the fact that everyone else is suddenly doing it too is enough to send a couple of silly old hippy idealists out to the shops to buy a Humvee? Well, no of course it isn’t, but it’s amazing how quickly we turn.
King of Prussia – Shades of Hippiedom
The Tragically Hip - Save the Planet
Well, after being an eco-fretter for many years, I finally traded my old gas-guzzling Volvo for a Honda Civic Hybrid. Yes, it cost me a pretty penny. Yes, we don’t understand the precise mechanism of how human activity interacts with natural climate cycles. But the science out there is just too scary to ignore, so I got off my arse…
Well I agree with you entirely, I’m just amazed by how resistant the recent swing in public opinion has made me to something which I believe in so strongly. It’s just bizarre.
Ah, coz you’re a contrarian, Dearest Toad! And I can understand the sentiment – there’s nowt that can put me off reading a book or seeing a film than hundreds of folks, even ones I adore & respect, saying “Oh FiL, you simply MUST see XYZ…” Oddly enough that doesn’t apply to music, where I’m more than happy to go all bandwagonesque (provided it’s the aforementioned adored & respected doing the urging)!!
P.S. Have you ever added a completely superfluous bit to one of your medical gizmos, just because?? “Oh, the rubber floppy bit? That’s the squizmoidal invectulator. It ensures the effluxulate levels stay within the Hofengruber Distribution. And yes, it does have to be peacock blue.”
This, my friend, is a masterpiece:
But, erm, no, since you ask.
Generally our clients know the science inside out, and come to us for expertise in making things that actually work properly.
The maths might be complicated but the peer reviewed science all (ALL) says that climate change is happening because of the way we are behaving. I’m all for contraryism as well but the thing that fucks me off most about commerce’s response to environmental concerns is that IT’S JUST A FUCKING EXCUSE TO FIND ANOTHER REASON TO SELL YOU MORE SHIT. I”m waiting for some vaguely respectable science to write about the positive environmental benefits of bat shit so that we can all be told that conflakes now come with added bat shit. It ends up being fairly simple – consume less. Don’t use / reuse / recycle. Be good. Don’t let the bastards grind you down. Face it, we’re fucked, but won’t it be glorious to go out at least trying to shout about the right thing.
Dammit, Crash, quit beating around the bush and let us know how you really feel
What bugs me the most is the degree to which emotion and prejudice has clouded the minds of everyone from politicians up through to the scientists. It’s hard to decide which is more maddening – the irrational denial or the exaggerated hysteria.
Although I don’t have a sniff about the science myself, I work with many many engineers and geoscientists. Years ago, before it got trendy, I had a lot of convos with them on climate change.
What I’ve gleaned from those discussions with real live scientists (rather than scientist/lobbyists) is that there is in fact a Middle Path both in terms of the science and the reaction to it.
One of the biggest things my engineer friends emphasize is that we need to put much more emphasis on adaptation and a little less on mitigation. Cutting back on emissions, yes, very important, but at this point we’re probably fucked anyway so we might as well get on with the job of investing in dams, retaining walls and water storage.
As for the hypocrisy of business, to wit “IT’S JUST A FUCKING EXCUSE TO FIND ANOTHER REASON TO SELL YOU MORE SHIT” well, yeah. The thing to remember about commerce is that it’s like the hypothalamus of our society. It just reacts, it doesn’t think.
The fact that commerce is trying to “sell” environmentalism simply demonstrates that most people are now at least somewhat educated on the subject and regard it as a value. And that’s a good thing, no?
One more Cliff Claven-esque observation:
“Plastic is a hydrocarbon, and hydrocarbons basically come from oil so, simplifying slightly, without oil there is pretty much no plastic.”
I was astounded to learn recently that this is not strictly true. You can make plastic out of vegetable oil. Further, such “natural” plastic is truly biodegradable. It doesn’t just break up into smaller bits of plastic, like the so-called biodegradables you get now; it eventually (decades, sooner with more heat) actually turns back into vegetable oil.
Funny how you don’t hear much about it, eh?
The fact that commerce is trying to “sell” environmentalism simply demonstrates that most people are now at least somewhat educated on the subject and regard it as a value. And that’s a good thing, no? I would hold with that ‘fucking excuse/more shit’ thing. I’m not that much of a fundamentalist – I can see that, for example, it’s better to buy an efficient and economical hybrid car than an SUV – but an awful lot of the time that sort of ‘better’ is marginal compared to the real ‘better’ of refusing to play. I can this smugly because I don’t drive, never have, don’t (and won’t) fly, and generally do the buy local thing whenever we can. I can entirely see the point in investing in disaster management though – maybe it will make people think about just how fucked we really are.
The most offensive thing for me about the avalanche of green adverts we’ve had to suffer recently is the fact that the companies in question are just doing the same old shit they’ve always done. ‘Ooh we manufacture tellies but we recycle some of our office stationery, so now we’ll kid on we’re green’. Fuck off.
And Mentok, whilst you are right about the potential of biodegradable plastics these are, in the overwhelming majority of instances, not used at all. Although hopefully this may change soon.
Oh, and we bought one of those patio heater things (don’t ask) about three days before this whopping great news story broke about how environmentally damaging they are. So we stood there in the garden thinking, well what do we do now, just throw it in the bin?
Yep
Well. You can heat up the outdoors if you want, although to be honest I’d recommend a coat or going indoors. It would be de trop to suggest ‘not living in scotland’ as another alternative to those who favour the year-round al fresco effect. I would like to apologise for falling off the wit/sarcasm tightrope on the wong side, too tired and caffeinated, y’know.
It’s for the wife. She is from Scotland – believe me I have tried suggesting moving somewhere else often enough. The Scots, for a Scandinavian country, are surprisingly prone to the cold. My workmates are always whinging at the slightest chill.
Yep, during my 15 years in the UK I never figured out why, despite the pervading damp & cold, houses were built with one-brick-thick walls and insulation was a legendary substance, second in rarity only to golden fleece.