apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I hate to be cynical, but the 1980's happened. The era of conspicuous consumption, "Dallas", greed is good, and James Watt. Then the 1990's SUV explosion. Maybe this time around, the new technology will help make many of the adopters this time around, preachers for the next generation, rather than just people who are just following a fad and will be on to the next thing next year.

I blame Margaret Thatcher!

Two words: Rea. Gan.

Wouldn't you say that the idea of Green has really taken off since Al Gore's movie? I mean, we all knew we needed to make a difference, but now it's hip to be Green and companies are actively marketing Green products. Plus the cost of energy and gas has gone way up-- for some people it's all about economics.

My parents put solar panels on their roof in 1980. They still use the panels to heat their hot water. Apparently there was a tax break for people that had energy efficient homes, but I think that by the time they installed it Reagan had axed that. My parents have also always been very into recycling, but for some reason buying natural/non-toxic cleaners is beyond them, probably because they have this depression-era mentality that they need to pinch pennies and they must therefore but the cheapest cleaning product.

I was raised on the Whole Earth Catalog and Shelter. In and out of eco-conscious communes with people who devoted their lives to this lifestyle that was at times rather unpleasant.
I think the previous comments are right on and also to add to the fact. Marketing and Money to be made. So much of the Green movement these days is about buying new "green" products and replacing your old "bad" products. But really the best green is to not throw out your couch and buy a new orgainc/wool/untreated couch. ReUse.

People have finally found a way to make money out of being green, whether it is Al Gore or your local laundromat.

However, I would venture to say that the new green is really an evolution of consumerism rather than of environmentalism. Basically, it allows people to continue to consume freely without feeling bad about it.

Thank you, Stephanie, for asking these questions so I can stop doing so! The current "green" discussion in larger society tends to leave me feeling ancient when I'm only in my very early 40s. My parents subscribed to Mother Earth News, so I read it at an impressionable age and tend to take a certain level of water and power conservation for granted.

Phaedrus: Thank you for making that point ("...allows people to consume without feeling bad..."). I was in another discussion in my face-to-face life about how a lot of the new "green" things in and on the market were really "light green," as in easy, unobtrusive, and not really substantive. And how many things called "recycled" are actually just repurposed, unnecessary (but neat-o!) tchochkes (sp?): do you really need tea lite holders made of reused bike parts? Is it more "green" to buy those or to buy nothing? It is more "green" to buy organic, small farm beef or to eat lower on the food chain to begin with?

"Light green" is, in some ways and cases, kind of a cheat. In other ways and cases, it's a gateway to larger changes. I haven't formed my final opinion on it, I just think about it time-to-time.

Another great magazine like MENews is the Canadian version of Harrowsmith.

Yes, this is old news and they've been talking photovoltaic tiles and methane digesters for decades!

Which is what makes me even sadder that we have not moved any farther forward than this :(

The neo-green revolution that's gaining momentum here in the states—that's been quite established in the rest of the Western world for many years reminds me of something Churchill said [i believe this is an exact quote, or fairly close]: "Americans will always do the right thing after they have exhausted all the other possibilities." There's billions to be made on green design...so it goes.