Shades of Green: Guardian Takes the Green Festival to Task

The media loves a good conflict. So in a way it is no surprise that the Guardian (the San Francisco Bay one) has picked up on a growing level of dissatisfaction with the consumerist Green Festival, set to return to San Francisco in April 2010. In their article published December 16th, they covered our Cheatneutral shenanigans and also got some great quotes by the activist and author of Endgame, Derrick Jensen. I totally agree with what Jensen is saying here:

“Where is the overtly revolutionary material?” Jensen asked. “Where is the acknowledgement that capitalism needs to come down, or the discussion of the psychopathology of those in power? They talk only of alternative economies, but look what happened to every alternative economy — they get taken over and consumed by mainstream culture.”

It is this undercurrent of docility and powerlessness that permeates the Green Festival that is troubling. The assumption that buying a hemp necklace or a new water filtration system is somehow enough to halt the downward spiral. This is not a problem that requires tweaks, but a complete system overhaul. And increasingly, the Green Festival is looking like the greenwashed arm of that very system.

One thing is for sure. Carbon offset companies are vultures who are growing immensely wealthy by peddling a lie- that you can continue your extravagent western lifestyle and be ‘green’ at the same time. Here in the Bay Area it’s hard to go anywhere without seeing a “Terrapass” bumper sticker claiming “I clean up after my car.” These companies are guilty of false advertising and preventing real and lasting social change that is badly needed to respond to the threat of climate catastrophe.

If you don’t believe me, check out the blog of the Terrapass corporation, particularly their naive and ill-informed post praising Obama for his performance at Copenhagen.

Happy New Year everyone, and here’s to a 2010 of disobedience and confronting false solutions.

I’m off to the woods.