Green is for the Wealthy?

As environmentalism goes mainstream, corporations are marketing the word "green" as a panacea for the world's climate crisis. Today the word describes a set of prescribed, mostly consumerist actions: buy local, organic and fresh; go vegan; eat in season; skip the elevator, take the stairs. "Green" has come to mean shopping at Whole Foods and possessing a Prius. Meanwhile, leading corporate polluters like BP and ExxonMobil place commercials on CNN advertising their "green" practices.

It should come as no surprise, then, that "green" lifestyles don't resonate with low-income communities; being "green" involves a set of behaviors that are financially or culturally inaccessible to millions of Americans. This presents a major problem for the environmental movement. If it is going to be successful, environmentalism simply cannot afford to be demographically segregated or isolated from the pathos of economic disparity.

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I am currently on vacation in San Francisco visiting my sister-in-law and her hipster husband and as I walk around this beautiful city and the many hip and luxurious suburban areas the thought that "this is an entirely different world" keeps coming to mind.

A world where it would be almost impossible not to slip into a form of "nationalism"; where you mistakenly think everywhere else in the world must be just like your little corner of it ... or if you do recognize the differences you can't help yourself from thinking everyone else has it wrong and they should all change to be more like you.

... I've only been here a few days and I my self feel the niggle in the back of my mind. But just as fast as the thaught starts to poison my mind I get a strong feeling of how wrong it is. That if it is any kind of utopia here, it is only so in the same way District 1 must feel they live in a utopia in "the hunger games".

Besides the people currently cleaning my sister in laws house right now I've seen very few non white non wealthy people here.

It's easy to live in luxury and feel that you have solved all of the worlds problems. That these solutions work so well for you that it's almost criminal for the rest of the world not to emulate you.... but that luxury and welth is always a key component to those solutions and with out it those solutions fall apart.

Being here its easy to understand why so many from this area silo themselves off from the rest of the world while at the same time feel the urge to broadcast their dictates into everyone else.

The environmental movement needs to do a better job of connecting issues of race, class, poverty and sustainability; in short, it has to become a broader social movement. And people of color need visibility in the movement. By that, I don't mean Barack Obama presiding over environmental policy from the White House or Lisa Jackson heading the Environmental Protection Agency during Obama's first term. I mean the recognition that sustainable survival practices in poor communities are just as significant as solar panels and LED lights. Ultimately this is where the citizenry of the planet can and must come together in order to move forward.

Sounds like some people have recognized the same issues I have the last few days ... the "green new deal" comes across as an attempt to fix these issues. "If we make the pore as rich as we are; by giving them free education and green jobs that pay hansamly; than they will be more willing to live like we do"

Sounds like some people have recognized the same issues I have the last few days ... the "green new deal" comes across as an attempt to fix these issues.

By the wholesale destruction of entire industries?

Putting people out of work and forced on government welfare programs because they don't have the skills to retrain themselves for the moronic church of climatology's grand agenda.

www.sciencealert.com...

The Streets of San Fransico covered in snip, do you check the crap map before going out ?

The green movement is nothing more than a psychosis that does nothing real except destroy wealth, and people's livelihoods.

a reply to: neo96

I didn't say the green new deal would work; but I can understand the idealistic thinking behind it. The "New Deal" had to be coupled with "Green" if "Green" was ever going to brake out of the wealthy enclaves.

a reply to: DanDanDat

Been happening forever, let them eat cake.

I once worked with a horrible director. He was seriously the worst. He didn't understand that a lot of us were dealing with young kids, family, elder parent issues, whatever. He did not believe in work flexibility at all.

He had a stay at home wife and made tons of money so it really didn't matter to him. He could not see the struggle, or didn't want to see it. until.... Sadly, his wife died of cancer. She got it and died very quickly.

He suddenly because a single father of two. The burden of taking care of kids, work, everything became too much. He was quickly demoted. I always wondered if after that happened if he understood and if he felt any pang of regret. I don't know, but I have a feeling he did.

originally posted by: DanDanDat
a reply to: neo96

I didn't say the green new deal would work; but I can understand the idealistic thinking behind it. The "New Deal" had to be coupled with "Green" if "Green" was ever going to brake out of the wealthy enclaves.

Make no mistake these well disguised 'do gooder' SHILL green propositions are nothing more than an attempt to further bludgeon the populace into submission. Destroy the jobs, cripple the economy and force us into taking .gov handouts; this is the natural byproduct: guaranteed corruption that simmers in a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT achievement.

America is responsible for @15 percent of the global "carbon footprint".

Even if "we" did all the things in the "deal" it wouldn't matter one bit.

The Green New Deal is a Communist Manifesto disguised as something else and rebranded for the 21st century.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Its interesting how oblivious these people are ... or is it a willful ignorance. Like your director it will like take a "come to Jesus moment" before they appreciate the reality of the situation.

I have green eyes and I am Rich. I am satisfied with the name Rich, I am not hooked on money

originally posted by: DanDanDat
a reply to: neo96

I didn't say the green new deal would work; but I can understand the idealistic thinking behind it. The "New Deal" had to be coupled with "Green" if "Green" was ever going to brake out of the wealthy enclaves.

Idealistic thinking is NOBLE, it really is. But shouldn't 'unrealistic' trump those hifalutin fancyful notions usually coming out of drunken revelries? Why is famed Kandinsky editing your posts?

a reply to: DBCowboy

Maybe the New Green Deal is designed to add to this list of failures under Obama?

a reply to: Ahabstar

I take pride in the fact that I coined the phrase (as far as I know). . .


"The Soylent Green New Deal"

It's to encroach on our freedoms and liberties and where we'll end up "fiscally" eating our own.

originally posted by: vethumanbeing

originally posted by: DanDanDat
a reply to: neo96

I didn't say the green new deal would work; but I can understand the idealistic thinking behind it. The "New Deal" had to be coupled with "Green" if "Green" was ever going to brake out of the wealthy enclaves.

Idealistic thinking is NOBLE, it really is. But shouldn't 'unrealistic' trump those hifalutin fancyful notions usually coming out of drunken revelries?

It ought to; but as I said in the OP there is an insidious acceptance of "unrealistic" in many areas of this country. Here in San Francisco it is like a drug in the air.

Why is famed Kandinsky editing your posts?

Not sure, looks like they where correcting a typo in my OP.

a reply to: neo96

vethumanbeing: Idealistic thinking is NOBLE, it really is. But shouldn't 'unrealistic' trump those hifalutin fancyful notions usually coming out of drunken revelries?

DanDanDat: It ought to; but as I said in the OP there is an insidious acceptance of "unrealistic" in many areas of this country. Here in San Francisco it is like a drug in the air.

This is so disconserting. Have these people lost their minds; what happened to common sense?

vethumanbeing: Why is famed Kandinsky editing your posts?

DanDanDat: Not sure, looks like they where correcting a typo in my OP.

Where are they when I NEED THEM (nice try).

a reply to: DanDanDat

how much of that do we eat.