Here’s a question for all us greens: why do we call ourselves “green”? Why has the mantra stuck for so long? And is it a symbol we should continue to promote?
I’ve always avoided using “green.” As a clean energy advocate, I strive to avoid association with environmental stereotypes — and in my experience, “green” evokes environmental culture. Many other sustainability and climate advocates have made similar choices. Adam Werbach even launched what he envisions as the evolution of sustainability, “BLUE.”
But clearly this isn’t an experience shared by all clean energy and climate advocates. Friedman’s new blockbuster book calls it the “green revolution.” On September 27th, hundreds to thousands of us will join Green for All, 1 Sky, and The We Campaign in their “Green Jobs Now” day of national action. And whether or not you think “green” is the best approach, these are efforts we should all throw our weight behind.
As a comrade in the clean energy revolution, however, I feel a duty to address basic assumptions when I think they might be limiting our efficacy. So I ask my fellow greens: is “green” a symbol that can rally a national movement powerful enough to transform the entire economy?
I think the answer is no. Democratic Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado summed it up well in a recent interview in the New Yorker:
“I think, while we have great emphasis on green, that it should be about different kinds of symbols than the color green — wind farms, solar, renewable-energy laboratories, those things that are symbolic of the new energy economy. People think that we overuse the concept of green, and it could become trite in its expression.” Later, Ritter returned to the point. “This idea about green in a lot of people’s minds still conjures up this notion of a fringe or something that’s out-there,” he told me. “It doesn’t inspire this notion of a new America. It just seems more substantive than a color.” He continued, “If you only make it about being green, you lose the sense that you can build a national economy around this.”
This isn’t to say we should leave green behind. “Green” is a powerful approach with particular constituencies — namely, the greens – whose weight must be brought to bear. But it’s not an approach that can capture the public imagination and garner the level of necessary support. So whether we go with BLUE or “clean energy,” it’s time to commit to building this movement around symbols that allow us to finally let go of our green baggage.
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When we presented our community energy campaign to the mayor, he took one look at the original name, “Save Green”, and snorted. “This might work over at Williams, but here in North Adams people are going to see that and shut off.” It didn’t matter that our logo clearly showed dollar bills flying into the title, with a tree on the other side – double entendre is not necessarily good marketing. The mayor added, “we’re all going to be ‘green’ in 10 years, whether we like it or not, but right now folks don’t connect.” There’s a huge amount of wisdom in that snap judgement by the mayor, and the distinction about what works at Williams as opposed to North Adams (or the divide between every rich liberal town and the nearby middle-class conservative town for that matter) is a critical divide that we are not crossing.
I think Green Jobs is as much a message that targets the environmental community and urges us to think more about justice as it is a public campaign. After all, hardly anyone can even tell you what a green job is. And to that extent its working. But we (people who are working to solve global warming and the energy crisis) should be thinking ‘outside of green’.
Power Vote does that really well: “Power Vote: One Million Young Voters for a Clean, Just Energy Future
On campuses and in communities nationwide, youth are leading the way in responding to the global climate crisis.
Now “Power Vote,” a national non-partisan effort spearheaded by the Energy Action Coalition, seeks to elevate the issue of climate change in the 2008 election by mobilizing one million young “climate voters.” To do this, the Energy Action Coalition and its more than forty partner organizations are organizing young people across the United States to pledge their vote “for clean and just energy.”
Teryn,
I agree. If you are interested in seeing what I am doing on that front – come to (although it ain’t cheap) or listen to the broadcast of the panel I am hosting at the Online News Association Conference in DC – titled aptly enough: Beyond Green.
http://journalists.org/2008conference/archives/001204.php#beat
Anyways, I agree that “green” is limiting and reductive of the broad and deep engagement we need to be doing on building a sustainable vision for the economy, jobs, health, social justice, and society.
“Green Jobs” is great framing, imho, however.
FYI:
Backlash Brewing Against Green Marketing Images
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/02/10/backlash-against-green-marketing-images-brewing/
Personally, I think this is the cowards way out. No matter what term you come up with, the head-in-sand, global-warming-denying drill-drill-drill kewl kids of our society will just denigrate that term too. So why are you trying to appease this crowd? There is no appeasing them!
And I really especially like Morgan’s comment about “rich liberal towns” and “middle class conservative towns”. Oh really? What planet does Morgan live on? So only liberals are rich? And only conservatives are middle class? And what does that have to do with energy policy anyway?
So go ahead, people, go run and hide from the bullies, it only empowers them.
I say, bear the green label and bear it proudly. Bear the environmental label and bear it proudly. Everybody respects people who stand up for what they believe.
As far as the “backlash” against green marketing images, that’s what marketing always does, over-play and over-expose terms and ideas. So no matter what idea, term, you call it, the market will over-play it. I don’t see how changing the terminology is going to solve anything here.
The only way to solve it is to take back the “green label” and make it mean something more than a cheap fake slogan some slick marketeer can use to bamboozle his latest victims. That means, put some credentials behind what it means to be green.
I’m not saying I know how to go about doing this, but I am saying that to just keep changing the terms gets us nowhere.