Green Is the New Yellow
On the excesses of "green" journalism.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Friday, July 6, 2007, at 4:21 PM ET
-----------------------------------------
Yellow journalism now comes in a new color: green.
Often as sensationalistic as its yellow predecessor, green journalism
tends
to appeal to our emotions, exploit our fears, and pander to our vanity. It
places a political agenda in front of the quest for journalistic truth and
in its most demagogic forms tolerates no criticism, branding all who
question it as enemies of the people.
Not all green journalism harangues, but even the gentlest variety
sermonizes, cuts logical corners, and substitutes good intentions for
problem solving. For an example of creepy gentle green journalism, there's
no better example than the "Slate Green Challenge," a series that Slate
started publi****ng last fall in conjunction with TreeHugger.org.
I've got no fundamental quarrel with TreeHugger. They're propagandists who
are "dedicated to driving sustainability into the mainstream" and don't
really pretend to be journalists. My ***** is that Slate, which ought to
know better, boarded the trendy greenwagon to publish the group's flawed,
if
well-meaning, guide to reducing carbon dioxide from one's "diet."
Now, don't get me wrong. Carbon emissions may indeed be causing harmful
climate change, and dramatic reductions by Americans may actually do some
good. But in typical green journalism fa****on, the feel-good TreeHugger
copy
gives equal emphasis to reducing your airline travel and installing an
aerating shower head in your bathroom. (Carbon saving from canceling that
New York to Los Angeles roundtrip: about a ton. Installing new shower
head:
about a thimble.)
There's not much in the TreeHugger-Slate package we haven't heard a
million
times since the first oil embargo: Install storm windows. Insulate.
Weather
strip. Keep the furnace settings low and the AC settings high. Turn things
off. Buy energy-efficient appliances and cars. Avoid unnecessary trips.
Carpool. Don't waste. But that's not good enough for the green wor****ppers
at TreeHugger, whose aesthetic is ascetic. The series counsels readers to
decarbonize by resisting new purchases of cotton clothes-unless of the
organic variety-and to seek fibers made of hemp, bamboo, ramie, linen,
silk,
and lyocell (wood pulp). In greenifying Christmas, one must give up the
carbon gluttony of Xmas cards, Xmas wrapping paper, Xmas trees, and
electrified Xmas decorations. "If you're decorating with candles, choose
the
ones made from soy wax or beeswax," the article seriously advises. And, if
you must eat, TreeHugger says, eat locally and organically, and avoid
processed food and meat.
Slate isn't the only victim of green-brain disease. The malady swept
through
the New York Times Magazine in May as it published a feature on the
glories
of an experimental solar-hydrogen house "that might very well change our
lives forever." The piece read great until a less-than-wor****pful letter
writer caught up with the magazine two weeks later. Using hydrogen as an
energy-storage medium is wasteful, A.R. Martin wrote to the magazine. "For
every 100 kilowatts of electricity produced by the solar cells, only about
40 kilowatts is recovered from the hydrogen fuel cell. By contrast, as
much
as 80 kilowatts could be recovered from a storage battery."
The entertainment press corps genuflected in Hollywood this year when the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences staged a "carbon neutral"
Oscars
ceremony. The academy accomplished the feat by paying the carbon-offset
service TerraPass, which in turn pays landfills, foresters, and others to
reduce greenhouse gases. In March, Business Week removed the eco-glitter
of
offsets with a feature, writing, "When traced to their source, these
dubious
offsets often encourage climate protection that would have happened
regardless of the buying and selling of paper certificates. One danger of
largely symbolic deals is that they may divert attention and resources
from
more expensive and effective measures."
Equally skeptical of the carbon credits has been the Financial Times.
"Companies and individuals ru****ng to go green have been spending millions
on 'carbon credit' projects that yield few if any environmental benefits,"
the newspaper re****ted in April. Another brilliant FT piece cites several
academic studies to show that im****ted foodstuffs aren't necessarily the
carbon bombs that "localvores" make them out to be. The piece speculates
that the car ride back from the grocery store might be the most
carbon-intensive part of a fruit, vegetable, or leg of lamb's journey from
farm to pantry. Compare this with the TreeHugger catechism in Slate, which
holds that "there's no question that eating locally grown foods and
shopping
at your farmers' market help reduce CO2 emissions by cutting down on
trans****t."
I don't mean to suggest all greenies are well-meaning dolts or
propagandists. Some possess all the skepticism of their more enlightened
brothers and sisters in the capitalist press. The troublemakers at the
Center for Media and Democracy, for example, point to dozens of examples
of
"greenwa****ng," which they defined as the "unjustified appropriation of
environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government or even a
non-government organization to sell a product, a policy" or rehabilitate
an
image. In the center's view, many enterprises labeled green don't deserve
the name. If only a certain online magazine were so skeptical.
******
Seen a rotten example of green journalism lately? Or a good example of
de-greening journalism? Send the links to me at slate.pressbox@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(E-mail may be quoted by name in "The Fray," Slate's readers' forum, in a
future article, or elsewhere unless the writer stipulates otherwise.
Permanent disclosure: Slate is owned by the Wa****ngton Post Co.)
Jack Shafer is Slate's editor at large.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2169863/
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