I love to see debate about how the environmental movement is approaching real change.

Today I read an interview with a self-described "Radical" green blogger named Keith Farnish.

He started out by saying: "I normally describe myself as a radical blogger, environmental campaigner, father and husband; but above all I'm a human being and part of nature, who happens to have a deep interest in ensuring that the world we live in returns to a state in which humans can thrive as part of the global ecology." Fair enough, right? Afterall, we are all human pieces of nature and the global ecology.

What's so radical about that? Then he was asked: What are the top 5 environmental lies?

And he said:

1. That corporations care about the planet.
2. That governments care about the planet.
3. That you can "offset" destructive activities.
4. That cities can be sustainable.
5. That environmental problems can be solved through the application of technology.

Awesome list. I will say that Farnish did a good job of presenting all of his opinions without guilt-tripping anyone, just objectively saying, look everybody, we're going to have to step it up a few hundred notches to have any effect. Right now we are sort of shuffling one foot an inch or so.

And THEN he said: "Sadly, the biggest area of growth [in the future] will be in greenwashing: as humans become more aware of issues, companies and politicians have to work differently to sell their products and ideologies. If there were a huge growth in our ability to think and read critically then greenwashing would cease to exist. On the surface, there is nothing significantly positive happening (every global pact or treaty is just business as usual); but under the surface and between the cracks an awful lot is happening -- environmental radicalism is on the rise, which is well overdue."

Love it.

I can't say that I wholeheartedly disagree with him, but there is something to be said for progress. To wit: I was talking with a few folks over 4th of July while fireworks were exploding in the sky- a very non-Earth friendly way to celebrate a war, which is pretty environmentally destructive in its own right, that created what has become probably the most environmentally destructive nation (US) in the history of the world. But I digress- and we started talking about "greenwashing." Yes, in a way its exploitative and opportunistic capitalism at its best, but in another way, it's powerful to see that even the biggest companies in the world understand that people are starting to demand eco-friendliness. (People are somehow not demanding truth, but we all have limits). I used to work with a lot of AA groups, and some of the guys in the groups were chain-smokers who drank coffee all day- nobody's definition of healthy. BUT, they weren't drinking, and they were doing everything in their power to live a changed life, and the guys with families largely said they were doing it to be an example for their kids.

I tend to think of all the greenwashing and half-way eco-stuff that is going on right now as a society realizing a powerful and environmenally damning addiction to fossil fuels and the faux luxuries they have afforded us for generations. if you are over say 25, you grew up without much of an insistence on eco-friendliness. Sure, there were environmental activists, but they weren't mainstream and were often termed alarmist wackos. 15 year olds in their high school mock debates are talking about climate change policy where many of us talked about abortion or Vietnam.

My point is, our society is doing a so-so job of the really hard task of breaking an addiciton (fossil fuels). it's a habit turned lifestyle. Those of us who grew up with it are not "grandfathered" in to do as we please, but we can be allowed to still chain-smoke and empty the coffee pot, perhaps akin to eating too much meat and using plastic bags at the grocery store, while we keep the evils of fossil fuels in the faces of the next generation. This is how Earth Day went from a weird fringe thing from the 70's to an almost cliche concept in the "green" 21st century. Hopefully when our kids have kids they will get nauseous thinking about fossil fuels the way we think of working conditions in the early Industrial Revolution or pre-civil rights race laws. Just as it would be absurd to expect children to work 12 hour days or people of different races to use different bathrooms, in 20 years it will be absurd to think of burning a fuel that sends toxic smoke into the air just so you can drive a few miles and buy factory-farmed meat and carry it home in a bag made out of petroleum.

Let me know your thoughts or where you stand.