Greenwashing
 

Today, everyone trendy is concerned about the environment. And by trendy, I'm covering pretty much everyone that rather than being progressive just doesn't want to be called conservative, from hipster mootherfuckers that feel they're the shit for being vegetarians but still smoke, to intellectualoid liberals whose pedestal was raised a little higher when they bought their hybrid.

But the truth is that most of them really do nothing. This goes back to the argument we were having in the Meat thread and other ones where veganism was approached.
Of course I'm going to say this, but I say it because it really has its merits: there's virtually nothing we can do in this society to improve it if it's not radical, because it's intrinsically impossible to change how a game is played if you keep playing it by its rules.

Just as vegetarianism is a bullshit watering down of veganism that accomplishes nothing, so are most of the other things that supposedly help the environment.

Recycling consumes more energy than extraction, polluting more the environment. People that recycle tend to increase their consumerism because they feel they're already doing good.

Walking might pollute more than driving. It is already established and indisputable that the bovine industry pollutes more than both cars and factories combined. The extra energy people use by walking is recovered by consuming more food, namely meat and other animal products, which feeds the biggest polluting industry of all.

Hybrid cars, just as with recycling, encourage people to drive even more, which neutralizes the supposed benefits of such a high gas mileage. Not only that, but the cost of production in energy and raw materials to produce a car is 150% that of producing a Hummer (though I can't produce a source for this at the moment. I'm trying to find where I found it. Any help is good)

And an even bigger scam; outright scams. TerraChoice studied over a thousand household products and evaluated their "grenness"
99% of them were guilty of greenwashing. Only one product (not one percent) was entirely truthful. All others fell into these 'sins':


* Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off: e.g. “Energy-efficient” electronics that contain hazardous materials. 998 products and 57% of all environmental claims committed this Sin.

* Sin of No Proof: e.g. Shampoos claiming to be “certified organic,” but with no verifiable certification. 454 products and 26% of environmental claims committed this Sin.

* Sin of Vagueness: e.g. Products claiming to be 100% natural when many naturally-occurring substances are hazardous, like arsenic and formaldehyde (see appeal to nature). Seen in 196 products or 11% of environmental claims.

* Sin of Irrelevance: e.g. Products claiming to be CFC-free, even though CFCs were banned 20 years ago. This Sin was seen in 78 products and 4% of environmental claims.

* Sin of Fibbing: e.g. Products falsely claiming to be certified by an internationally recognized environmental standard like EcoLogo, Energy Star or Green Seal. Found in 10 products or less than 1% of environmental claims.

* Sin of Lesser of Two Evils: e.g. Organic cigarettes or “environmentally friendly” pesticides, This occurred in 17 products or 1% of environmental claims.

With paper and plastic, yes. With aluminum and glass, no.

I can only speak from personal experience on this, but that seems spurious at best. Since I switched to a bicycle commute, my diet has not increased (actually it has lessened, but that's more due to the fact that I also moved to another country). More likely, people just eat according to their habits and don't necessarily burn all of the calories they consume.

Oh, definitely. I did not write everything, but aluminum and glass are excellent to recycle.

One thing that I forgot to mention is biofuels. The amount of corn to fill a Hummer tank with ethanol would have the same amount of calories a human needs in a year. There were already riots in Mexico because of the rising price in maíz because of its funneling into being converted into ethanol. Biofuels would need much more deforestation, and would be turning the food of the poor into fuel for the rich.

My mother's work in Malaysia to preserve rainforests and peat swamps is being totally fucked by the rush for biofuels. Everything's already being cleared for oil palms and they're acting like it's this great gift to the environment because they're going to decrease carbon emissions, despite the fact that the peat swamps they're draining end up just catching fire and releasing massive amounts of... oh, hey, carbon! Not to mention the millions of endemic species that'll end up extinct. To say it enrages me would be an understatement.

It's not just that, those rainforests also act as a great carbon sink. Destroy them and you're not getting as much CO2 sequestered out of the atmosphere as you were before, resulting in a net CO2 gain.

Yeah, biofuels that come from crops are a really fucked up idea. But here in the US it gets shoved down our collective throat by the powerful corn lobby.

Windmills and solar panels also suck. They both use phenomenal amounts of energy to make, yet, in most climates never gain it back. It takes about 10 years for a wind turbine, in a fairly windy area, to gain back the energy it took to create. Yet most are replaced with 'more efficient' versions of same within about 5-7 years.

For solar panels it really depends on the use, home panels generally don't provide as much energy as it took to build them, but solar power plants do yield a significant net gain. With wind turbines it varies based on type the standard windmill isn't all that efficient and takes a lot of energy to make but the cylindrical turbines are much more energy efficient to produce and as such tend to yield a net gain within five years and as they are made to be aesthetically pleasing as well as energy producing they are less likely to be quickly replaced.

As for biofuels ethanol was just about the crappiest choice out there, biodiesel on the other hand is a much better choice, or you know you can always just use veggie oil in a diesel engine. Also electric cars have really become a viable option that really are better for the environment, as opposed to older models that used less efficient batteries, and can easily work for the average person's lifestyle.

Yeah the green movement isn't perfect but for people who are well informed there really are choices out there that do make a positive difference.

Viscus covered this, and also recycling is needed to save on landfill. It might use more energy for materials, but there's no perfect solution. Plus plastic is very useful and recycling means it can be used for longer, as it's a crude oil product and will therefore eventually run out. Basically more than just energy/gas emissions need to be considered.

I generally eat the same amount of food however much walking I do. Hiking is an exception, and I do eat more then.

They were definitely worse to start with, I saw a very good comparison of car types around 3 years ago. Since then I've seen a lot of claims of the hybrid and electric cars catching up, but not so many good sources. Hybrid cars have two engines, so more weight, and higher energy usage. Batteries and the like require more complicated materials that use more energy for production than pertrol, plus they contain a lot more nasty chemicals. The lifetimes of the early electrics, or the batteries at least, made them even more useless. I'm not sure how it stands now, I might see if I can find some decent sources tomorrow.

Why are imperfect solutions so easily dismissed? Isn't a partial fix better than nothing? Sure a perfect fix is better, but why not make incremental progress? Isn't the important thing to start moving in a better, more sustainable direction?

False dilemmas are rapidly outpacing ad hominems in the informal fallacy department here.

It's not imperfect solutions. They are not solutions at all.
Hybrid cars produce more pollution overall than they claim to save. That's out of the question.
Biofuels are the worse path to follow. There's no excuse for them.
Buying organic and shit like that do nothing.

The only "imperfect" solution is recycling. The others don't help. At all. It's not even that they don't do a good job. It's that they do worse.

Gotta say, Jillian is right here. Most of the "Green" stuff flying around these days is bullshit. At best it's an excuse for 18-25 year olds to justify a "lifestyle" for themselves, and at worst a marketing scam.

The biggest crock of shit I've seen lately is Carbon Offset Emissions. This is huge, companies get carbon credits for paying people to "offset" their emissions, and get to use it in their advertising so that they can claim they're "Green". The problem is that the Carbon Offset Emissions business is completely unregulated. So basically, if I had no soul and the right kind of contacts, I could buy a suit and form my own Carbon Offset company. Then I could approach major companies who want to be green and get them to pay me for "offsetting" their emissions. To offset them I could do...well, anything I wanted. I could plant some trees maybe, or maybe one tree. I could bike to work instead of driving, or hell why not just stay home since they're allready paying me and call that "Off-setting their carbon". I'm not driving anymore am I? Less pollution!

Keep an eye on companies that make this claim, 'cause it's popping up everywhere. Hell I just read on the back of a pint of Ben & Jerry's; Magic Brownies ice cream that Dave Matthews band has "offset their emissions back to the days when they drove around touring in one broken-down van"

Faux environmentalism annoys the hell out of me.

They had a King of the Hill episode on that.
The propane business said that they're buying carbon offset emissions. What this meant is that this guy had a big property filled with trees, so they gave him money...

So a well regulated certifying body would address some of your concerns about carbon offsetting?

Having a financial cost is really the only way to chance corporate behavior. Their very reason to exist is to "maximize shareholder value" - they are going to do whatever is cheaper, not what is best for us. The trick is to make doing what is best be that cheaper option.

Yep. Regulating that stuff would probably help.

I hate the way that people think their new hybrid car is a badge of being environmentally friendly, a Toyota Prius causes more longterm environmental damage than a LandRover Discovery. Also, lugging two power-trains around with a 1.5l engine isn't exactly doing much for the environment, considering a 1.5l Tdi Golf can obtain a gas mileage that puts the Prius to shame. I think sterling engines are the way to go, the ethanol "solution" was just destined to fail.

I had heard of the report that a Prius costs more energy cradle-to-grave than a Hummer, but thought it was pretty thoroughly debunked. And Toyota's betting the farm on their Hybrid Synergy Drive (they plan to have it standard in all models in the next few decades), so I don't imagine it could be that costly to manufacture.

Anyways, I'd be happier if people simply drove less and got behind projects like these.

Gah I wish they would put in a commuter rail around here, for a bit it looked like they were going to but apparently the tracks that are being put in are going to be for freight only, at least the buses in the area aren't bad.

Your mother rocks.


This year my company began allowing employees to telecommute to save on gas and auto emissions. Now I work from home! Yay!

I like the idea of Stanley Meyer's water-fueled car.
http://waterfuelcell.org/

Yeah, I accept that in hot places, in larger power plants solar panels probably do work well. However, in the UK solar panels will be efficient for about 5 days per year. That's a lot of time where they're not gaining it back. I know the UK isn't very significant in world energy terms, however most of the MEDC's aren't exactly tropical. Which are precisely the kinds of countries which are buying the solar panels in a big way.

Shame it's fake.

Yup I agree. Companies consider all costs to find the best way to maximise profit, charging them significant amounts for pollution would let them clean themselves up, as long as it's set up right. Otherwise they'll just pass on the pollution to another company, or abroad.

Yeah the UK doesn't exactly seem like a prime place for solar, though it doesn't have to be a tropical place for the solar plants to operate efficiently, plenty of places are rather cold but still tend to have very little cloud cover.

Really? I've never heard it to be. On the other hand, I'm really sick of having to read 18 different articles before I get to the truth of something. Can you give me a good link to check out? Thanks in advance!

I hate your logic.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/auto...s/4271579.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/0709...070910-13.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_l...thermodynamics

The Liberal Party here suggested a Green Tax, but everyone's agaisnt it because what the companies would do is just charge the consumer more, passing the tax off on us. Perhaps setting up rigid standards and fining those who violate it would work better.