I singled out the Greening Earth Society as a psychological experiment in the manufacture of a social movement

Did he do the same with anti-corporate Greens? I can’t find any evidence. It’s an interesting footnote to this post, though. Intentional trashing of more established Green currents strikes me as a little more savvy than mindless, fad-driven disrespect.

I found this blog by googling pseustainability, a term which independently presented itself to me. I’m glad others have become aware of it as well. “faking sustainability” is about the most revolting behavior I can think of besides fascism, escalation, narrow mindedness…. well maybe its not really that bad.

The Neo-Green argument here is that transparency is constantly increasing due to monitoring technologies and media coverage. I wonder if there’s just an arms race between “transparency technologies” and “deception technologies” - with little if any net gain for transparency, and much energy wasted.

There’s an interesting bit in Jared Diamond’s Collapse where he examines the efficacy of sustainable forestry standards - where some certifications are awarded by forestry companies to themselves! And again, George Monbiot recently wrote about the environmental standards inspectors for UK buildings. Basically the inspections are a farce. Inspectors are independent contractors, but those who fail buildings don’t get hired again. Anyone who thinks they’re working for sustainability but doesn’t take on board these lessons about the free market is a fool.

Sort of like ‘diet soda’: people don’t want all the sugar in ‘real’ soda, so they buy ‘diet’ and get their sweet from all those nasty (carcinogenic) chemicals. The driving force may have been thought to be a push for more a healthful beverage, but the end result doesn’t seemed to have secured that end.

Perhaps I am pessimistic.

But glossy magazines are sort of like crack anyway.