Environmental issues have become so dramatically polarizing in our country. Flipping on the Sunday morning political talk shows is evidence of how strongly people feel on each side of the issue. While some of us are proud tree huggers, others are strongly opposed. And according to a recent story in The Washington Post, it’s left psychologists wondering why.

One study, published in the journal Environment and Behavior, found that those who have great sensitivity to others are also more concerned with environmental issues. Researchers followed 2,000 people, asking them about their environmental behaviors, finding that those with “emotional empathy” were more likely to also be environmentalists.

According to The Washington Post:

[T]he study found a small- to moderate-sized correlation between this measure of empathy and environmental values — as well as environmental activities. For instance, reported the authors, “the stronger a participant’s dispositional compassion the higher the chance that they would donate to one or more nature or environmental organizations.”

In order to prove that empathy actually caused concern for the environment, researchers used a smaller sample–94 German University students. Participants were shown two sympathetic images: one of a homeless man and another of a sick child. One group was told to feel empathy and the other was told to stay neutral. Then each was asked about their green tendencies.

The group that was told to stay neutral had less environmental concern than the group that was asked to show empathy. According to the study, “[r]esults revealed that compassion was indeed positively related to proenvironmental values, proenvironmental intentions, and reported donations to nature or environmental organizations.”

Other research has found that some people that might normally be concerned with the environment are less so because they don’t want to associate with environmentalists. Researchers found that some people don’t want to be linked to activism as a whole because it conjures up negative feelings.

“By aggressively promoting change and advocating unconventional practices, activists become associated with hostile militancy and unconventionality or eccentricity,” reported Pacific Standard.

This feeling is key to many people’s resistance to social change. Stereotypical views of environmentalists seem to push people away. Participants in the study, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, used negative terms to describe environmental activists like unhygienic, typical environmentalists, and hippie.

“Unfortunately,” researchers write, reported by Pacific Standard, “the very nature of activism leads to negative stereotyping.”

This research is useful because it can help us better appeal to all groups, not just those that are typically drawn to environmental activism. What do you think of tree huggers?

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Environmental Artist Fuchsia Lin’s Crystals of Transformation

Image: Fusion Vision

The post Why Are Some of Us Proud Tree Huggers and Others So Strongly Opposed? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Environmental artist’Fuchsia Lin’s latest project brings attention to Japanese scientist Dr. Masaru Emoto’s profound discovery about water and hopes it can change the way we see the world, starting with a very personal transformation within each of us.

Environmentalism has long been the focus for artist Fuchsia Lin. Creating film, photography and textile sculpture that includes costume and fashion design, Lin uses environmentally friendly techniques and materials to promote the message of sustainability.  Her inspiring and avant-garde designs have been sold at the famed Parisian boutique, Colette and collected by notables such as Bjork.

Water, and the need to protect the earth’s freshwater resources, is a recurring theme in her work. The environmental artist recently completed a multimedia project, Fantasy Folklore and Freshwater, which was rewarded with a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council Individual Project.

Her latest project, Crystals of Transformation, returns to familiar watery territory to celebrate the inspiring research of Dr. Masaru Emoto. His groundbreaking studies have suggested that water molecules change their structural forms to beautiful crystals or deformed structures depending on whether they are exposed to positive or negative thoughts and environments.

In collaboration with choreographer and dancer, Andrea Parson, Lin will create a series of costumes that express the essence of water crystals and the potential of Dr. Emoto’s discoveries for personal transformation.  “The two phrases that Dr. Emoto found water strongly responded to are: ‘Thank-you’ and ‘I love you,’” says Lin. “Water, complex and multi-dimensional is as much a ‘being’ as we are. As our bodies are 70%, our brains 90%, and much of our planet is water, honoring this discovery would truly impact our collective health and environment if we were conscious of the water we come in contact with.”

The project was awarded the RACC’s Professional Development Grant, which she is supplementing with a Kickstarter-like fundraising campaign through artist-supporting site, USAProjects.org. The campaign ends on June 25th for those wishing to contribute.

Crystals of Transformation from Fuchsia Lin on Vimeo.

Image courtesy of Fuchsia Lin

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To celebrate the world around us, here are 51 inspirational quotes of nature, wilderness and the environment.

1. Only when the last tree has been cut down,
Only when the last river has been poisoned,
Only when the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
-Cree Indian Prophecy

2. May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
-Edward Abbey

3. Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.
-John Lubbock

4. Everything you can imagine, nature has already created.
– Albert Einstein

5. We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
-Navajo Proverb

6. The human spirit needs places where nature has not been re- arranged by the hand of man.
-Unknown

7. I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
-Frank Lloyd Wright

8. Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.
-Chief Seattle

9. In the hopes of reaching the moon, men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.
-Albert Schweitzer

10. Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

11. Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
-Lao Tzu

12. Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.
-William Wordsworth

13. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
-William Shakespeare

14. How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it.
-James Russell Lowell

15. It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
-Ansel Adams

16. Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard.
-Standing Bear 

17. I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.
-Henry David Thoreau

18. The poetry of the earth is never dead.
-John Keats

19. Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.
-Juvenal

20. To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
-Jane Austen

21. Great things are done when men and mountains meet. This is not done by jostling in the street.
-William Blake

22. Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.
-Rachel Carson

23. Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

24. If you wish to know the divine, feel the wind on your face and the warm sun on your hand.
-Eido Tai Shimano Roshi

25. There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story.
-Linda Hogan

26. Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.
-Wendell Berry

27. If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go…. This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.
-Terry Tempest Williams

28. Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.
-Mohandas K. Gandhi

29. The famous balance of nature is the most extraordinary of all cybernetic systems. Left to itself, it is always self-regulated.
-Joseph Wood Krutch

30. We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.
-Barbara Ward

31. Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty.
-John Ruskin

32. Nature provides exceptions to every rule.
-Margaret Fuller

33. We owe our lives to the sun… How is it, then, that we feel no gratitude?
-Lewis Thomas

34. When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.
-Benjamin Franklin

35. It is in man’s heart that the life of nature’s spectacle exists; to see it, one must feel it.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau

36. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.
-Pearl S. Buck

37. The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask.
-Nancy Newhall

38. I’ve loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
-Galileo Galilei

29. At some point in life, the world’s beauty becomes enough.
-Toni Morrison

40. Rain is grace.
-John Updike

41. Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons: It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
-Walt Whitman

42. I am glad I will not be young in a future without wilderness.
-Aldo Leopold

43. Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.
-Jimmy Carter

44. The wilderness and the idea of wilderness is one of the permanent homes of the human spirit.
-Joseph Wood Krutch

45. There is nothing useless in nature; not even uselessness itself.
-Montaigne

46. When we heal the earth, we heal ourselves.
-David Orr

47. We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the Earth. Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.
-Thich Nhat Hanh

48. We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. We say we love trees, yet we cut them down. And people still wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved.
-Author Unknown

49. When the soil disappears, the soul disappears.
-Terri Guillemets

50. When the branches of trees in the forest are fighting, the roots are kissing.
-Senegalese proverb

51. To the dull mind nature is leaden. To the illumined mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Check out more of our favorite nature quotes here.

Image: puliarf

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Column“Do you know where you’re going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you?” – Diana Ross

After four luxuriously stupid days off – an epoch for an editor, really – wherein I spent much time, energy and money hurling myself down snowy mountainsides doing what other people call “Tahoe” and I call “please don’t look at me, no seriously, please go over to that other slope,” and less than zero time doing anything of intellectual merit, summoning the synapses has been something of a hurdle. Use it or lose, the saying goes, and is it ever true. When I found myself actually watching The Last of the Mohicans and meaning it this weekend, I decided to seek help.

I found solace in Rush Limbaugh. Rush, issuer of the hilarious little tirade meant to poke some good old fun, has been losing advertisers left and right. As usual, the liberal media, but now I’m being redundant, is having a field day with a couple silly words that Rush used merely to demonstrate absurdity by being absurd. Or is that illustrate? I can never keep it straight.

After initially refusing to say those two magic words (no, not those words), Rush caved and apologized for his use of the infamous two words (in case you’ve been living under a rock, or perhaps lying unconscious on a ski slope, they were “slut” and “prostitute”), presumably because he could no longer say it with flowers. He did not, however, apologize for the 53 associated insults or the tirade generally, which only made things worse, so then he really had to apologize, for real this time, for all of it, sweetheart, if you’ll just listen to me, I can change, I promise:

“This is the mistake I made – in fighting them on this issue last week I became like them, against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything I know to be right or wrong,” Limbaugh said. “I descended to their level when I used those two words to attack Sandra Fluke. That was my error and I became like them. And I feel very badly about that. I always try to maintain a very high degree of integrity and independence on this program.”

“What has your cult done for you lately?” Tina admonished me from the pages of Bossypants, after describing how devoting her life to the cult of comedy has resulted in such things as a loving husband, fame, fortune, and creative fulfillment.

It’s a good question. What has your cult done for you, lately? For Limbaugh’s Dittoheads, the withered fruits are a conservative cornucopia: Stubborn irrelevance, delusional insecurity, and so much more! Nuclear marriage to a mean streak. The delightfully jarring pitter patter of screaming slurs. Fear in the garage, desperation in every pot.

Something tells me Tina’s no Dittohead, unless I missed that 30 Rock, but her question is the best one I’ve heard since before I didn’t have snow between my ears because it applies equally to everyone. “What has your cult done for you lately?”

We all have a cult (or two, or even three, if we’re extra slutty), be it politics, sex, sexual politics, food, health, religion, tech, work, fashion.

Green.

And while it’s always easy to point fingers at the colicky cult that is the Grand Old Party, we should also look at our own. Because what has the green cult done for us, lately?

This is the latest installment in your editor’s column, The Insider’s Guide to Life.

Image: Daveybot

The post The Insider’s Guide to Life: The Cult appeared first on EcoSalon.

Consumers have become more cautious and conscious about their purchases – and these traits are here to stay.

Our global economy has taken a beating and consumers everywhere are changing their buying habits to adjust to our new reality of insecure jobs, reduced real estate values, mistrust in business and government, and an uncertain economic future. Consumers are saving more, spending less, buying items when needed, and patronizing companies that care about more than just business.

Businesses wanting to survive this prolonged economic slump are paying attention to these new buying patterns and are adjusting accordingly. Will these new habits continue once the economy starts to recover? Studies predict that the longer these frugal economic conditions persist, the more ingrained the habits could become. Recovery has been much slower than many anticipated, but while things may not get worse, they might not get better anytime soon, either.

There are more important things than money

When the economy began its rapid downshift, one of the consequences was a spotlight on a society that had been chronically overspending on material goods and living precariously on credit. Eyes Wide Open, Wallet Half Shut, a 2010 study by Ogilvy and Mathers, found that three quarters of post-recession consumers surveyed were disenfranchised with the pursuit of money, responding that they no longer cared to climb the corporate ladder, would rather spend more time with family, and would choose job security over an insecure job with opportunities for raises.

Authors John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio told brands to bid goodbye to the inflated wealth and hyper-consumerism of years past and say hello to “a lifestyle more focused on community, connection, quality, and creativity,” in The Power of the Post-Recession Consumer. Consumers are moving from “mindless consumption” to “mindful consumption,” specifically purchasing goods and services from vendors who echo their values and live up to their standards.

“More recently, the BAV [Young & Rubicam’s BrandAsset Valuator] surveys show sharp increases in the number of consumers who want positive relationships with marketplace vendors and who focus more on corporate behavior. Between 2005 and 2009, a growing number of people rejected status-driven values such as snobbishness and exclusivity, and embraced attributes related to bringing people closer together or making the world a better place. Among the once-prized brand attributes that declined in this period were: “exclusive” (down 60 percent), “arrogant” (down 41 percent), “sensuous” (down 30 percent), and “daring” (down 20 percent). On the opposite side of the scale, the brand attributes Americans found more important as they began to sense the impending recession and then suffered through the crisis were: “kindness and empathy” (up 391 percent), “friendly” (up 148 percent), “high quality” (up 124 percent), and “socially responsible” (up 63 percent).”

Frugality is cool

When faced with an increasing climate of job insecurity and falling equity, many consumers were forced to examine their own economic situation and revise their spending habits. People began economizing everywhere and both price and quality became key drivers for many purchases.

A Booz & Co. study, Forever Frugal? found that since the recession consumers are becoming extremely conscious about what they buy. They are spending less on household items, embracing less expensive private brands and buying fewer, high-quality items. The Ogilvy and Mathers study shows that 92 percent surveyed are using coupons, 91 percent are shopping at less expensive and/or discount stores and 90 percent are buying more store brands.

Buy now, use now

Finally, a good reason to curb the creeping Christmas shopping season that has managed to weasel its way into October (Editor’s note: a few clueless companies might take note. This morning – August 31 – we received a Christmas pitch). Brands could count on consumers to buy early and buy a lot on credit, but along with buying less, consumers are waiting until they need something to buy. Savvy companies are readjusting their seasonal selling to accommodate this recent trend. CEO of Newell Rubbermaid, Mark Ketchum, told the  Wall Street Journal that his company changed its back-to-school selling season from its normal early July to mid-August range to late July through September to capitalize on the consumer’s desire to buy supplies later.

Consumers are also making their way through all the inventory they already own in their pantries, makeup cases, and bathroom cabinets, and restocking with smaller packages and less variety. Warehouse stores like Costco and BJ’s (based in MA), have noticed that shoppers bought less but shopped more frequently. Ahead of the curve, in 2008, BJ’s had already begun shrinking its package sizes to appeal to smaller households and people who wanted to stock up weekly, rather than monthly. These clairvoyant changes resulted in increased sales and memberships. As this economic climate persists, these changes might become the future standard.

Green is still good

Despite the sometimes higher price of green products, environmental consumerism is still going fairly strong. A 2011 UK study commissioned by Amex found that consumers place value on ethically sourced goods, and a Mintel study also reports that more than 35 percent of consumers surveyed said they would pay more for environmentally-friendly products. Green customers aren’t the majority, but it is a strong segment nevertheless.

As many consumers try to lead more conscious lifestyles, studies project that demand for ethical products will continue. Consumers want to buy from companies who implement internal environmental policies, work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and commit to environmental targets.

Consumers want companies who care about the community…

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained visibility and momentum in the last several years with no indication of slowing down any time soon, but more than ever before, companies need to be strategic about their CSR efforts so they are complimentary to both the community and business growth. CSR isn’t simply about a company donating money to a worthy cause. CSR, implemented effectively, attracts both customers and employees, helps retain talent, and benefits both the company and the community. More than ever before, consumers are doing more research into companies and products before buying, requiring brands to be more transparent, ethical and accountable to customers in order to gain their business.

Each company defines CSR for itself. Intel focuses on energy conservation, emerging as one of the largest purchasers of renewable energy credits in the past few years, committing to 2.5 billion in 2011.  The semiconductor manufacturer has also invested significant efforts toward creating clean energy solutions in several locations and employee education around their efforts. This helps the company save money on energy costs, reduces its impact, and engages its employees in energy saving initiatives.

ExxonMobil focuses on women’s education around the world. ExxonMobil Foundation’s Lorie Jackson explains that it’s good business because it broadens ExxonMobil’s pool of talent in the countries where it does business. This, in turn, helps ExxonMobil, and it helps communities worldwide. PepsiCo was looking to improve the nutritional value of its snacks. One solution, replacing palm oil with high-oleic sunflower oil (HOSO), will improve the economy of a Mexican region and the financial picture of 850 families, lessen its environmental impact and stabilize operating costs.

…and about customers, too 

Although customers are more discriminating about their purchases and want to pay less, they still expect to be treated well by the companies they choose to patronize. Many organizations have cut back on easy return policies, shipping policies and customer service, but that has proven to be a mistake. After reeling from the large-scale meltdown of the financial industry, the last thing customers want to hear from a company is that they want their business, but don’t have the staff, time or inclination to treat customers well.

Companies who put customers first, versus those who sacrificed customer satisfaction for short-term relief, actually performed best according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Third Annual Customer Service Champs list. Companies like Hertz, who had to cut back on services at some locations, angering travelers who already faced more aggravation in airports and more fees when flying, scrambled to find the right balance between making personnel cuts, and making sure those cuts weren’t so visible to customers that lack of service drove them away. Other companies like USAA found that cross-training call center reps, so that they had expertise in more than one area, helped them to keep their customer service level high, even when they had to cut back.

Although gaining new customers is important, companies have found that retaining already loyal customers is crucial. Zappos used to quietly upgrade both new and return customers with overnight shipping, but decided to shift those costs toward benefits for repeat customers. Dell has struggled with customer service woes for the last decade, and is still working to regain trust.

The Great Depression spawned a generation of savers. This recession is also affecting the buying habits of the next generation. Mindful consumerism may very well be here to stay.

image: Stevendepolo, the cleveland kid, martino!

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It’s time to reconceive environmentalism and sustainability and help them evolve into a larger movement.

*Author Richard Louv is the author of The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder and Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.

Martin Luther King Jr. taught us, by word and example, that any movement — any culture —will fail if it cannot paint a picture of a world that people will want to go to. As others have said, his speech was not called “I Have a Nightmare.”

For decades, our culture has struggled with two addictions, to oil and to despair. It’s pretty clear by now that we can’t kick one of those habits without kicking the other. Yet, for many Americans, perhaps most of us, thinking about the future conjures up images of “Blade Runner,” “Mad Max” or Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”: a post-apocalyptic dystopia stripped of nature. We seem drawn to that flame.

It’s a dangerous fixation. Think how children and young people must feel today, growing up in a time when so many adults seem to accept, with a shrug, only darkness ahead. The key question here is: How do we change our vision of the future? Where do we start? Here’s one suggestion: reconceive environmentalism and sustainability – help them evolve into a larger movement that can touch every part of society.

Here are seven reasons for a new nature movement:

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ExclusiveArtist Alicia Escott’s intensely humane explorations of loss, longing, commercialism and ultimately, love.

“The best way I can express this is that I have lost enough hope to find a new hope.”

San Francisco-based artist Alicia Escott tells me this over coffee at The Summit, a popular cafe in the Mission District. We’re talking frankly, not philosophically, about pragmatic challenges of creativity and environmental issues, specifically, how one can retain any sort of optimism, much less focus, in the face of the enormous ecological challenges we face. (There have been six great “die offs”; we are poised for another.) “I heard an environmentalist being interviewed once,” she is saying. “The journalist asked him how he was okay with eating meat or some other destructive behavior. He answered, something like, ‘You know, you wake up in the morning, you take a shower then you walk around the corner to get coffee. It’s 9 a.m. and you have already walked over a mountain of skulls.'”

Escott is thoughtful, though not measured. She pauses for fresh lengths between questions.

“I function with a dichotomy that is extreme in a sense – I both think it’s perhaps ‘too late’ for humans but I also think about things from an evolutionary point of view,” she says. “Humans came out of great tumult. We are on the verge of another tumult. So I feel daily heartbreak; yet I also feel hope.”

Escott has already made a name for herself in environmental circles for her subtly captivating pieces that use disposable packaging as a medium for transcribing objects of both life and destruction. There is a bear on a bag seemingly expiring in undergrowth, a trout as litter in a stream (literally a fish out of water), and an atom bomb test on a to-go sushi container. (The last was too popular in a sense, says Escott. “They are so optically beautiful they trick you. That was a distraction from what I’m really wanting to talk about, so I did not make more.”)

The work, most notably that created on plastic sacks and film, is so fragile as to be temporary; the fleeting hand-drawn images are something like a compassionate catalog of the living past, or what will soon be our past. The art will not survive, and in fact, is not meant to – Escott has entire series expressly created to be recycled. But to describe her as an environmental artist or to view her work as somehow ironic is to miss the point.

“My approach is one of a thoughtful person, not only as an environmentalist, activist, or green advocate,” Escott says. “I am very hesitant about labels. I think we are making mistakes, and I have a lot of pain around these issues…but it’s really not for me to say. Us poisoning our oceans may return us, simply, to a primordial soup. Perhaps something better can come out of it. So my approach is holistic.”

There are eternal, contextually unsettling and shamanistic themes in Escott’s work. In a recently commenced series, she sends “Love Letters,” dated from the past, to acquaintances and friends alike. The letters include faded sepia and black and white photographs of simple scenes like children in yards and flocks of birds. The letters are poetic, eerie, profoundly haunting – and just slightly creepy. “It’s interesting playing with that tension,” she says with a mischievous smile. It’s clearly also enjoyable. My own Love Letter (“Love Letter to a Thick Billed Ground Dove. Extinct 1927.”) begins with “Last week I set the clock on my iPhone to December 18th, 1914” and includes the following line:

“Then came rock n roll. More than anything I wish I could show you rock n roll, you would love it, I’m sure. And there was the telephone, and then answering machines and call waiting and then caller id, and now you can have that with you always. Honestly.

There would never need to be these distances anymore.”

My notebook contains this list of words I jotted down before meeting with Escott, and I share them with her.

Bereft

Buddhist

Longing

Acceptance

Human

Lonely

Heartbreak

Healing

I ask if the Buddhist tendency is intentional. I’m the first writer to do so, and she considers it for a long moment. “My work tracks the heart – attachment, loss.” There is an unmistakable healing quality to the approach. “I work from the perspective of the human condition and more so the condition of life,” she says.

Alicia Escott

“I used to talk more about the evils of plastic and was focused on didactic aims,” Escott says. “Now, I am talking about something more esoteric, I view plastic as [among other things] a metaphor for talking about the packaging of our lives. Ideas are virtualized. They are commoditized – they are Likes on Facebook.”

The works’ comment on contemporary culture’s materialism and collective isolation is a compassionate treatment. She says she deals with complex issues simply, but her creations are pure more than anything else. Hence the trouble with labels.

“Consciousness must occur on many layers; it’s not just green. It’s easy to get bogged down by categories – but we shouldn’t stay too long.”

Images courtesy Alicia Escott. Works featured are from the series Littered Drawings.

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What I know about Jesus is based solely on what I’ve heard and what I’ve read. My opinions on the man come from hearsay along with some good books, so to speak, that paint a fairly clear picture of his times and culture, if not of Him Himself.

Unfortunately, when having any “What Would Jesus Do?” discussion, this leaves me at a distinct disadvantage to those who apparently know Jesus personally. And it turns out there are a lot of people out there who are on more than a first name basis with the guy. Not only that, they’re also happy to tell us all what he thought and, to some, thinks, about a host of issues including environmentalism.

These very knowledgeable people have a number of oft-used arguments explaining why environmentalism is “against” Jesus and God and the Bible. While they’re not specifically limited to the fundamentalist religious right (just a couple years ago, for example, the Pope was warned by council of an Antichrist who is “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist”), they do seem to be in possession of the greatest amount of truth on the matter. Here are some examples of how green clashes with God:

• The End of Days: Coming soon to an ecosystem near you. Environmental disasters are canaries in our coal mine of sin (or blackbirds falling from the sky). Jesus is coming and the Word is there’s going to be some global warming involved, anyway.

• Who’s driving this bus? You? Me? No. Just ask the Representative from the Great state of Illinois, John Shimkus, who reminds us “God will decide when to end the Earth, not man.” Well, there you go. Stop that silly worrying and drill, baby, drill!

• Stop monkeying around! Many in the religious right see a distinct connection between environmentalism, evolution and humanism. Think of it like a domino effect – first we evolve and pretty soon we’re all wanting to save the planet. It’s a slippery slope.

• Greenies are all about the S-word. Environmentalists tend to rely on the cult of science that proves things such as the earth being much, much more than 6,000ish years old.

• Kill the competition. The far Christian right works to paint the Green movement as type of religion. Unsurprisingly, like most movements other than their own, it’s after our children and determined to undermine our way of life.

Many of these points are laid out in the recently released and much-covered video film series Resisting the Green Dragon, described by its creators as “a biblical response to one of the greatest deceptions of our day.” Watch it and get the “the armor you need to rise up slay the Green Dragon and promote the true gospel of Jesus Christ.” The storyline, celebrated by Glenn Beck and told by a who’s who of right wing religious think-tankers and Christian group leaders, paints environmentalism as “a threat to the Christian state” (Michigan? New Hampshire? Oh yes, the United States) and takes pot shots at the movement’s “gospel” – some movie called Avatar.

But back to our man.

While many of these know-Him-alls’ points are said to be based on the Bible, it’s pretty tough to pin an anti-green label on Jesus. In my own anecdotal research, I have yet to hear someone say “Jesus said it’s okay to trash the planet.” The truth is that most data, even some from the Good Book, leads us to an entirely different conclusion than God vs. Green.

What, briefly speaking, do we know about Jesus? What kind of lifestyle did he lead and embody? As near as we can tell, given the time lapse between his death and the emergence of scripture, what types of ideas did he champion?

Jesus, it seems, lived a communal lifestyle in a close-to-the-land manner. He shunned wealth accumulation at the expense of the poor, spoke of the meek inheriting the earth and of creation – all creation – as being a gift from his father, God. He identified with pain and suffering and sacrifice for the good of the whole, promoting a spirit of equal access to many, as opposed to special privileges for the few. Exploitation, he preached, was a sin. A good summation comes from The Reverend Stuart C. Lord, Dean of Dartmouth’s Tucker Foundation, who answers that he calls “The Lifestyle of Jesus Question” with four key concepts: inclusivity, community, integrity and humility.

Let’s take a moment to consider the tenets of environmentalism.

Environmentalism, says Merriam-Webster, is the “advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment; especially: the movement to control pollution.” Inclusive? One people, one planet. Community? Is there anything more community-oriented than efforts to preserve, restore and improve its home. Integrity? What do they say about cleanliness? Where is it? Oh yeah. And what about that final concept, humility? Who are we to look a gift-God in the mouth. It’s enough, perhaps, to say thank you, give a bow if you wish, and refrain from defiling what’s been given.

If we dare ask the question of why anyone would want to paint the concept of environmentalism as anti-Christian, we have to be prepared to take a serious look at the co-opting of broad-based cultural and religious movements into corporate fiscal and political agendas. Other questions come to mind, like: Why are so many poor against national healthcare? Why are anti-spending hawks so gung-ho for massive military expenditures? When asking how so many have become convinced of the sheer nonsense that taking care of our Earth – our God-given home, if you like – is somehow heretical or socially dangerous, it would be folly not to consider the obvious. Read: follow the money.

That thesis paper aside, which would make note of Sliming the Green Dragon’s hackneyed brainwash-speech (constant repetition of terms like terms like “policy,” “new world order,” “liberty” and the dreaded “global governance”), isn’t it time to take a look at what The Man actually said and did? Indeed some Christian groups already are, as the Creation Care and Evangelical environmentalist movements continue to grow in the United States and around the world. Whether or not these groups will have the will to take on the well-funded Becks, Cornwall Alliances and Shimkuses of the world is another matter.

Having never dreamed that I would end a story with a quote from the Bible, I’m going to go ahead and throw down (I know, it’s Old Testament. So shoot me): “You shall not pollute the land in which you live… you shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I also dwell.” Numbers 35:33-34.

Amen.

Scott Adelson is a Jewish-born, Buddhist atheist. <ducks>

Image: Rodrigo Soldon

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The Third Wave Green concept we’ve introduced at EcoSalon means taking a hard look at the environmental movement’s sacred truths and considering whether or not they exclude diversity of thought and, most important, hold up to scrutiny. Not always an easy or comfortable task.

Deconstruction – or probing an argument’s veracity by exposing even its most counterintuitive contradictions – allows ideas to evolve and survive over time. This approach is invaluable to creating a “sustainable” Green movement – one that can withstand the most savage attacks by short-term-focused corporate interests (and their legislative, cultural and media puppets), as well as the defeating apathy of a green-weary populace. We’re starting with 10 common green assumptions many of us subscribe to, and asking: should we?

1. Assumption: Vegetarianism and veganism are pro-planet

Reality? There’s a monocrop where that rainforest used to be

It’s true that consuming less meat is a sound way to help lessen your carbon footprint; but like most assumptions, the underlying truth is more complex. A hamburger may be worse than a Hummer (or so the oft-repeated refrain goes), but the mock-meat-processed-from-a-monocrop-in-Myanmar style of vegetarianism is no golden nugget of eco goodness. Better to eat ethically-produced meat on rare occasions as flexitarians do than abstain from the steak but make heavily processed (and unhealthy) faux meats a cornerstone of your diet. Further complicating things, there are numerous studies showing that what’s really sustainable is efficiency, and in some cases, that means meat production over other types of product manufacture – even vegetables. And then of course, there’s the fact that even a truck driving, Big Mac chomping “Average Joe” has a lighter carbon footprint, on balance, than a green-leaning parent raising American offspring.

2. Assumption: Vegan fashion is good; fur is murder

Reality? Dressing up the truth and let’s talk leather

A world without fur makes sense to many. But is wearing leather any different? How many advocates for banning fur eat meat or don leather shoes or coats? Is killing an animal for its hide ever okay? If so, when? Can someone who does still be Green? Fur is viscerally offensive to many – but by that same token, shouldn’t we recoil at all the boots made for walking? Further, how exactly did vegan get lumped in with green fashion when many vegan products are made of toxic synthetics derived from fossil fuels? If a plastic (vegan) jacket is really better for the planet than a wool one, let’s ask if it’s because it is truly more sustainable in terms of the resources required to make it. Or is it just more efficient today, in our current context of an ultimately unsustainable, but temporarily efficient and cheap, system?

3. Assumption: Environmental protection is the key to our survival

Reality? Go GINK (Green Inclinations, No Kids) or go home

Or: It’s not the hamburgers and Hummers, stupid, it’s the kids. While the Green movement focuses on wildlife habitats, pollution and greenhouse gas reductions, and other ways to save the planet, are its efforts moot if it fails on the population challenge? It’s easy to create a epic battle in our minds that pits us against our helpless environment. But might the real battle not involve the environment at all? Perhaps George Carlin was right when he said that if we get to be too irritating, “the planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas.” Might our existence be merely a tick on the planet’s back and if we don’t tread a lot more lightly – i.e., multiply ourselves in a sustainable way – we don’t stand a chance with our to-date agreeable host, environmentalism or no environmentalism.

4. Assumption: Globalization hurts the little guy

Reality? Globalization helps the little guy

Those bandanna-masked guys on the street breaking the windows of Starbucks and Nike shops got their stories straight, right? If they’re anti-The Man, they must be green. Consider for moment what proponents of free trade and globalization are saying: global economic growth, job creation, lowers prices for consumers, capital and technology infusion into poor countries, giving them development opportunity. How about a more transparent global business infrastructure that could promote human rights? Sound like some pretty green motivations? Maybe throwing stones first and asking questions later isn’t such a great idea.

5. Assumption: Locavore, Locavore, Locavore

Reality? Eat global.

Green food comes from where it comes from. If a “place” is highly specialized to make a food in an efficient, healthy and earth-friendly way, might it be better to buy from that source rather than buying the local resource-intensive butter from down the street? We tend to assume that environmentally friendly is somehow akin to being homespun or even quaint, but might our journey here be contingent on creating our own efficiencies, using our ubiquitousness to lessen the load on Spaceship Earth?

6. Assumption: Recycling. Of course.

Reality? Follow the money – and the resource suck

Companies profiting from the practice won’t tell you, and few will acknowledge that recycling is expensive, generates pollutants and is in itself a resource drain. Are there better ways to think about what we do with our used goods and trash – like worrying less about what we do with what we consume and more about simply consuming less? After all, there’s an answer to the taking out the trash problem: Stop making so much trash. This possible truth says forget the red herring cry of “recycle” and tell all who would listen: reduce!

7. Assumption: Organic. Always. Period.

Reality? Caution: Mad Men at work

In some grocery store aisles it’s common now see more “official” organic foods than the evil and bad “non-organics” that we’ve consumed since the invention of, well, the invention. As one stands gazing at organic pop tarts, one might well ask two simple questions: First, what does organic mean? Second, even if I do get a functional answer to question 1, can I believe what I’m reading on the box? Then, as one leaves the store with a couple hundred dollars’ worth of organic stuff, a really big question should loom large: Has this facet of the Green movement been hopelessly co-opted by broad definitions, false advertising and “greenwashing.” Also part of this Organic deconstruction: What about the war on pesticides? How well does that fit in with global health and nutrition efforts? Would the elimination of such chemicals, called for some organic adherents, make us healthier – or cause global famine?

8. Assumption: The green stuff is the good stuff!

Reality? All stuff is stuff

From high-tech to the gadgets designed to make you life more ecologically friendly, we’re bombarded with claims – many truthful – that the stuff we buy, from mining to manufacturing to fulfillment processes, is Green as grass. But what does that mean? More stuff is just that, and even the “greenest” of it requires raw materials, transportation and other resources dedicated to get that product into your hands – before it’s dumped when you’re done with it. Does buying Green help as much as not buying at all?

Of course, others have taken on some of environmentalism’s “sacred cows,” as Wired magazine did when it took a look a issues specific to global warming, including:

9. Assumption: No nukes is good nukes

Reality? An inevitable option

A surprising number of the ecologically friendly are advocating what they say is clean, green, safe and inevitable. Is the Green tent big enough for these folks who say this fossil fuel alternative is the right way to go?

10: Assumption: Made in China, made by the devil

Reality? A big green ally

The Russians were coming. So were the Japanese. And now, enter the Chinese bogeyman. The fact is there are green-reputable manufacturers in China, and many expect the massive global player to be a leader in green tech and practices going forward. Could the new evil empire be a source of progress rather than just soot?

Some controversy for your environmentally focused brain? This is good. We pose such “alternate realities” not to come down on one side or another of any of these important issues, but rather to point to the eyes-wide-open self examination that must be absorbed into the movement at large if it is to escape the margins and permeate our thinking on a truly meaningful level.

Third Wave Green means not being afraid to question the norms and approach environmentalism from a variety of viewpoints. What are yours?

Special thanks to Sara Ost for contributing to this article.

Images: squacco, gfpeck, Tomorrow Never Knows

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Great movements must constantly reexamine themselves if they are to evolve and survive over time. They must self-generate their own “waves” – like feminism’s First, Second and Third – to progress in an often hostile, reactionary world, to “make it” into popular culture. To count outside the cult.

It’s time to ask what this means to the Green movement.

While others have spoken about “third wave environmentalism” in different contexts, the way it makes the most sense is to look at it in terms of the feminist model. Beginning with woman’s suffrage, that movement’s First Wave took on many “officially mandated” inequalities, its Second added to the mix “unofficial” inequalities and lifestyle issues, and its Third is now embracing diversity within the movement and has taken a hard look at some of the shortcomings of earlier incarnations.

Consider First Wave Green to have been 20th century activity surrounding basic environmental laws and practices, such as the establishment of national parks and the advent of wildlife preservation, addressing the most easily identifiable deadly chemicals and carcinogens in the environment, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The current, Second Wave has targeted the consumer, focusing on lifestyle issues such as green consciousness and health choices made by individuals. It has also included the radicalization of the “Green left” and the rise of independent green media. But the evidence shows that green still hasn’t fully tapped into the mainstream; indeed, 2010 has seen consumer and political backlash. For scientists, progressives and the everyday citizens who read sites like this one, it’s both maddening and mind-boggling. Why? Is it time, if not money? Or something else?

It would serve us well to begin to discuss what a Third Wave would look like.

Why now? As we enter the second decade of the new century, many green assumptions are coming under increasingly brighter lights of scrutiny and (sometimes justified) attack. This is in part due the movement’s successes, which  are heroically generating such harsh and determined backlash from the very greatest powers that be – a money- and power-motivated science-denying corporate and pseudo-religious axis that would have the movement die at the next turn.

And here’s some more Why Now: Because green is still niche and has failed to grip the national consciousness in a thoroughly broad-based, mainstream way – something that needs to happen to manifest the kind of change required to “save” our planet. And ourselves.

So what makes a third wave work?

Third Wave Feminism provides an excellent model: It works when a movement has the courage to both embrace its diversity and look critically at previous incarnations and current paradigms – and then has the courage to evolve. This means accepting gains made and respecting the zeitgeist of past efforts, while – and here’s the tough part – deconstructing assumptions to find more resilient truths.

What we’re talking about is taking a look at some of our closely held beliefs and asking ourselves some hard questions: Are things what they appear to be? Have we been making assumptions that might not be based on objective reality? Are we taking important conclusions for granted? What Third Wave Green would embody is the examination of the movements “truths” about what’s good for ourselves and our planet and ask if they are, well, true.

The are many examples of “Green conclusions” that call out for reexamination to help the movement inch closer to more accurate and, if you will, sustainable truths. These sacred cows include environmentalist bedrock, from organic food to green technology, from no fur to no nukes, from recycling to “buy local.” Not even the movement’s core supposition of “environment-first” action should be spared scrutiny. While many of these ideas will hold up to a second look, the reality is that each of these now iconic assumptions have their counterintuitive antitheses that need to be addressed – and in some cases be invited into the Big Green Tent.

Mature movements, like feminism, can withstand unflinching self-examination and criticism from within. Otherwise, it’s a toddler with a tantrum, and the adults are bound to shut the door.

If the Green movement is to survive its continued savaging from the outside as a result of its progress, and in fact enjoy a Third Wave, it must open its arms to diversity of thought and practice from within, even to those points of view that might be outside the norm – for now.

Next week we will look at 10 of the most common green assumptions and their counterintuitive alternatives.

Image: Davichi

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