Crazy Rant #4: "Eco-Friendly"

Back when I was still clinging to the foolish notion of earning a living by writing, I attempted to contribute as a freelancer to a website which specialized in generating daily "eco-friendly tips" for local citizens who were interested in that sort of thing. As you might have guessed, this dalliance did not last long. The more I learned about this concept of "eco-friendly," the more I realized that I did not agree with its philosophical implications. Eventually I realized that "eco-friendly" was upper-middle class code for "guilt-free." As in, "Oh no, honey, did you realize that when we buy these things and we do these things, we're actually destroying the 'environment?' Well we can't do that because it's going to hurt our children, and our children's children, and we want our children to last forever, don't we honey?" Well guess what "honey," buying organic cat food isn't quite going to do it. Sure, you can pat yourself on the back and think that you're sparing yourself from your children's children's wrath, but let's get real here.

Almost every single aspect of human life is bad for "the environment," if by "environment" you mean "everything on Earth other than humans." I would almost venture to say that "human life" and "the environment" are diametrically opposed. Altering the "environment" is simply what humans do - and how. To me this does not merit some sort of negative judgement. I think people have set up a false dichotomy. Environmentalists believe there are things that are "bad for the environment" and "good for the environment." Like there was a point in time where the earth was perfect and then humans came along and "altered" everything from its "natural" course. Well wait a second. Everything in our world today is "natural," in the sense that it is here in our world. Human life and all of its chemical creations are part of the "environment." Every little pocket of car exhaust floating into our atmosphere is part of the "environment." What about when the earth was just a ball of hot, molten lava? That probably wasn't very "eco-friendly," was it?

Environmentalists seem to act as though something has gone terribly "wrong" with the path of history, and we have to try as fast as we can now to "fix" it. It's funny but, although environmentalism is usually considered a liberal issue, from a philosophical standpoint I find it an intrinsically conservative one. This may sound obvious, but "conservative" means "to conserve," and environmentalists want to conserve the earth exactly as it is. But from a Buddhist point of view, the world is constantly changing and any attempt to "conserve" things as they are is doomed to fail. The way of the universe is change. The human race is not going to last forever. Planet Earth will not last forever. The way I see it, the destruction of the "environment" is neither a good nor bad thing in and of itself. It is just something that is happening. We are the ones who are placing a judgement on it. Sure, it may be bad for Planet Earth, but Planet Earth isn't necessarily the center of the freaking universe, is it?

I mean, if you really wanted to save "the environment," you know what you should do? Don't use electricity, don't buy clothes, don't flush the toilet. Or better yet: kill yourself. No, even better: become a mass murderer. Because otherwise, simply by consuming water and eating a bag of Cheetos, you are destroying "the environment." You may think you're off the hook by "recycling," but you know what? Even recycling takes energy. You're still destroying the "environment" by recycling. Sure, less destruction is better than more destruction, but don't call it "eco-friendly." How about "less eco-destroying"? Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?

Which brings me to another point: the marketing has really gotten out of control. Companies suddenly realized that "Ooh, everybody's feeling really guilty all of a sudden about how obscenely materialistic their lives are, so why don't we put a little picture of nature our shitty little box, make the font green, and stamp 'eco-friendly' on the label even though that term doesn't really mean anything in particular, and then people can buy our shitty little product and not feel so horribly guilty about it, even though it's almost just as bad for the 'environment' as our regular product?" Gimme a break. I picked up the newspaper the other day and it said "Printed with soy ink on recycled paper." Oh thank God, otherwise I was going to feel completely disgusted with myself.

I mean, how is this supposed to work? Are we someday supposed to reach a point where everything that isn't "eco-friendly" is suddenly gone, and then we can just go on with our perfectly"sustainable" lives? Here's what I see happening: 90% of the world, including every Third World country, not giving a crap about the environment until we reach some kind of "tipping point," and the human race will slowly just sort of die out, leaving the cockroachs and microbes to have their way. Maybe it's my impulse toward perfection that kills any environmental concern within me. The whole thing is just too half-assed. You either do something properly or you don't do it at all. It's like if there are about 50 large cracks in the Hoover Dam, and you're trying to repair one tiny little crack at the bottom. The dam is going to blow. Sure, you can try to repair that one little crack if you think it's going to make you feel better, but I wouldn't blame you if you didn't.