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Living on Ruskin Time

John Ruskin, 19th century man about Britain, is a writer introduced here previously. The following is from Letter LXXXVII of  his Fors Clavigera.

By my promise that, in the text of this series of Fors, there shall be “no syllable of complaint, or of scorn,” I pray the reader to understand that I in no wise intimate any change of feeling on my own part. I never felt more difficulty in my life than I do, at this instant, in not lamenting certain things with more than common lament, and in not speaking of certain people with more than common scorn.

Nor is it possible to fulfil these rightly warning functions of Fors without implying some measure of scorn. For instance, in the matter of choice of books, it is impossible to warn my scholars against a book, without implying a certain kind of contempt for it. For I never would warn them against any writer whom I had complete respect for,— however adverse to me, or my work. There are few stronger adversaries to St. George than Voltaire. But my scholars are welcome to read as much of Voltaire as they like. His voice is mighty among the ages. Whereas they are entirely forbidden Miss Martineau,— not beeause she is an infidel, but because she is a vulgar and foolish one.*

Do not say, or think, I am breaking my word in asserting, once for all, with reference to example, this necessary principle. This very vow and law that I have set myself, must be honoured sometimes in the breach of it, so only that the transgression be visibly not wanton or incontinent….

. . .

It can’t be the end of this Fors however, I find, (15th February, half-past seven morning,) for I have forgotten twenty things I meant to say; and this instant, in my morning’s reading, opened and read, being in a dreamy state, and not knowing well what I was doing,— of all things to find a new message!— in the first chapter of Proverbs.

I was in a dreamy state, because I had got a letter about the Thirlmere debate, which was to me, in my proposed quietness, like one of the voices on the hill behind the Princess Pairzael. And she could not hold, without cotton in her ears, dear wise sweet thing. But luckily for me, I have just had help from the Beata Vigri at Venice, who sent me her own picture and St. Catherine’s, yesterday, for a Valentine; and so I can hold on:— only just read this first of Proverbs with me, please.

“The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.

“To know wisdom and instruction.”

(Not to ‘opine’ them.)

“To perceive the words of understanding.”

(He that hath eyes, let him read — he that hath ears, hear. And for the Blind and the Deaf,— if patient and silent by the right road-side,— there may also be some one to say ‘He is coming.’)

“To receive the instruction of WISDOM, JUSTICE, and JUDGMENT, and EQUITY.”

Four things,— oh friends,— which you have not only to perceive, but to receive. And the species of these four things, and the origin of their species,— you know them, doubtless, well,— in these scientific days?

“To give subtlety to the simple; to the young man, knowledge and discretion.”

(Did ever one hear, lately, of a young man’s wanting either? Or of a simple person who wished to be subtle? Are not we all subtle — even to the total defeat of our hated antagonists, the Prooshians and Rooshians?)

“A wise man will hear and will increase learning.”

(e.g. “A stormy meeting took place in the Birmingham Town Hall last night. It was convened by the Conservative Association for the purpose of passing a vote of confidence in the Government; but the Liberal Association also issued placards calling upon Liberals to attend. The chair was taken by Mr. Stone, the President of the Conservative Association, but the greater part of his speech was inaudible even upon the platform, owing to the frequent bursts of applause, groans, and Kentish fire, intermingled with comic songs. Flags bearing the words ‘Vote for Bright’ and ‘Vote for Gladstone’ were hoisted, and were torn to pieces by the supporters of the Government. Dr. Sebastian Evans moved, and Alderman Brinsley seconded, a resolution expressing confidence in Her Majesty’s Government. Mr. J. S. Wright moved, and Mr. E. W. Dale seconded, an amendment, but neither speaker could make himself heard; and on the resolution being put to the meeting it was declared carried, but the Liberal speakers disputed the decision of the chairman, and asserted that two-thirds of the meeting were against the resolution.”— Pall Mall Gazette, February 13th, 1878.)

“And a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.”

(Yes, in due time; but oh me — over what burning marle, and by what sifting of wheat!)

“To understand a proverb, and the interpretation.” (Yes, truly — all this chapter I have known from my mother’s knee — and never understood it till this very hour.)

“The words of the wise and their dark sayings.”

(Behold, this dreamer cometh,— and this is his dream.)

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

(e.g. “Herr ——, one of the Socialist leaders, declaring that he and his friends, since they do not fear earthly Powers, are not likely to be afraid of Powers of any other kind.”— Pall Mall Gazette, same date.**)

“My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother.”

The father is to teach the boy’s reason; and the mother, his will. He is to take his father’s word, and to obey his mother’s — look, even to the death.

(Therefore it is that all laws of holy life are called ‘mother-laws’ in Venice. — Fors, 1877, page 26.)

“For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head.”

Alas, yes!— once men were crowned in youth with the gold of their father’s glory; when the hoary head was crowned also in the way of righteousness.

And so they went their way to prison, and to death.

But now, by divine liberty, and general indication, even Solomon’s own head is not crowned by any means. — Fors, 1877, p. 92.

“And chains about thy neck”— (yes, collar of the knightliest. Let not thy mother’s Mercy and Truth forsake thee) bind them about thy neck, write them upon the tables of thine heart. She may forget: yet will not I forget thee.

(Therefore they say — of the sweet mother laws of their loving God and lowly Christ — ‘Disrumpamus vincula eorum et projiciamus a nobis, jugum ipsorum.’)

Nay — nay, but if they say thus then?

“Let us swallow them up alive, as the grave.”

(Other murderers kill, before they bury;— but YOU, you observe, are invited to bury before you kill. All these things, when once yon know their meaning, have their physical symbol quite accurately beside them. Read the story of the last explosion in Yorkshire — where a woman’s husband and her seven sons fell — all seven — all eight — together: about the beginning of barley harvest it was, I think.)

“And whole as those that go down into the pit.”

(Other murderers kill the body only, but YOU are invited to kill ‘whole’— body and soul. Yea — and to kill with such wholeness that the creatures shall not even know they ever had a soul, any more than a frog of Egypt. You will not, think you. Ah, but hear yet — for second thoughts are best.)

“We shall find all precious substance. We shall fill our houses with spoil.”

(ALL precious substance. Is there anything in those houses round the park that could possibly be suggested as wanting? — And spoil,— all taken from the killed people. Have they not sped — have they not divided the spoil — to every man a damsel or two. Not one bit of it all worked for with your own hand,— even so, mother of Sisera.)

“Cast in thy lot among us.”— (The Company is limited.)

“Let us all have one”— (heart? no, for none of us have that;— mind? no, for none of us have that;— but let us all have one —) “purse.” And now — that you know the meaning of it — I write to the end my morning’s reading.

My son, walk not thou in the way with them.

They lurk privily for their own lives.

Refrain thy foot from their path. For their feet run to evil, and hasten to shed blood.

Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

And they lay wait for their own blood.

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Math Lesson v. Popular Garbage

Now, popular garbage can and does take all kinds of forms. In this case, it’s Superfreakonomics, the swftly-selling follow-up to Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics. A counter-intuitive take on economics? Whoa, count me in!

Panned in all the finest establishments, not least (and maybe the best) by Elizabeth Kolbert in the current New Yorker, the new book has all of the appeal of high-minded contrarianism for the too smart to think mixed with the feel good ease of shortcuts to to problematic solutions. Consider the promise of certain geoengineering solutions to the AGW set (The denierati, in common parlance). Anyway, Kolbert slices, dices and disposes, but also gives the nod to one of Levitt’s colleagues at the University of Chicago, Raymond Pierrehumbert.

In an open letter published to RealClimate, Dr. P-h brings it:

By now there have been many detailed dissections of everything that is wrong with the treatment of climate in Superfreakonomics , but what has been lost amidst all that extensive discussion is how really simple it would have been to get this stuff right. The problem wasn’t necessarily that you talked to the wrong experts or talked to too few of them. The problem was that you failed to do the most elementary thinking needed to see if what they were saying (or what you thought they were saying) in fact made any sense. If you were stupid, it wouldn’t be so bad to have messed up such elementary reasoning, but I don’t by any means think you are stupid. That makes the failure to do the thinking all the more disappointing. I will take Nathan Myhrvold’s claim about solar cells, which you quoted prominently in your book, as an example.

He then goes on to quote-unquote do the math, to show that Levitt and Dubner’s refutation of solar energy capture solely on the basis of the waste it generates is yet another example of making us play a game of ‘fool or liar’, in which he respectfully eliminating the possibility they are fools. He even shows his work, by manner of screenshots of wikipedia searches and other applications of The Google.

So, to recap… the tally after 4 innings

Math lesson: 1,  PG: infinity- 1

But PG is definitely on the run.

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Real Estate

This is one of those areas where green is green, green meets green, green begets green… however you want to think about it.

It is turning out that the outlook for investments in smart growth real estate are better than for investments in sprawl(!).

“Next-generation projects will ori ent to infill, urbanizing suburbs, and transit-oriented develop ment. Smaller housing units-close to mass transit, work, and 24-hour amenities-gain favor over large houses on big lots at the suburban edge. People will continue to seek greater convenience and want to reduce energy expenses. Shorter commutes and smaller heating bills make up for higher infill real estate costs.”

In the near term, the report advises investors to “buy or hold multifamily” as “the only place with a hint of hope, because of demographic demand” as a large contingent of echo boomers seek their first homes.  In a section titled “markets to watch,” the report also advises investors to favor convenient urban office (see graph), retail, entertainment and recreation districts where there are mass transit alternatives to driving.  Investors are advised to shy away from, among other things, fringe areas “with long car com mutes or where getting a quart of milk means taking a 15- minute drive.”

The report is Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2010 and its conclusions are pretty obvious. What the report signifies is this outlook working its way into the consciousness of real estate developers and investors. Change the diaper, change the landscape.

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Zwischenzug

A San Francisco couple challenges the Waxman-Markey climate change bill wending it’s way through congress. Yawn.

A San Francisco couple who are both lawyers for the EPA challenges the Waxman-Markey climate change bill wending it’s way through congress. Scandal.

Check out the video in question. After the scary music, they offer disclaimers about not representing the government or speaking for the president. And I can’t tell from a straight-up amateur video that these people are any more overzealous or weird than the editorial page editor of the Washington Post Kaplan Test Prep Daily. They work at the EPA, and have for many years. They have strong opinions about cap-and-trade – they think it won’t spur the urgent technological innovations and investments needed to usher in the mammoth energy transition necessary to drastically reduce carbon emissions.

At some level, I don’t care how amateurish their videos might be – which also means that at some level, I do.  But I’m sympathetic to the argument that the bill, which gives away emission permits, doesn’t do enough. The EPA has every right to make sure their employees aren’t misrepresenting official policy – precisely because what their employees say carries more weight. That being the case, I’m interested in what they think. Most of what we hear about the climate bill is how much passing it will damage the economy. You can imagine that a couple of climate change deniers who were EPA lawyers would be feted as dissidents and we, treated to a new round of cable cause celebre. Harnessing the power of n, where n is anything other than coal or petroleum, will necessarily revolutionize much what we see and do. How are we possibly going to accomplish it? Let’s argue about that for a while.

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While We’re At It

The competition was intense, but the best opinion essay in the NYT this week goes to Bob Herbert:

Simply stated, we cannot continue sending service members into combat for three tours, four tours, five tours and more without paying a horrendous price in terms of the psychological well-being of the troops and their families, and the overall readiness of the armed forces to protect the nation.

So while this singular tragedy at the largest army base in the world draws a great amount of attention, not all of it appropriate, the underlying conditions that created it just keep rolling along. Six Hundred Eighty Billion. What does obscene mean?

Plus, Herbert’s last word is always our first.

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In the Night When He Slept

As promised, an excerpt from days gone by next week. Hermann Hesse takes up a decent amount of space in my early 20th century sweet spot, though I seldom revisit. Maybe I don’t have to – those who do so, long to create literature that stays with you. And here we are, the second part of chapter 5 of Siddhartha (1922).

As always, read the whole thing.

KAMALA

Siddhartha learned something new on every step of his path, for the
world was transformed, and his heart was enchanted. He saw the sun
rising over the mountains with their forests and setting over the
distant beach with its palm-trees. At night, he saw the stars in the
sky in their fixed positions and the crescent of the moon floating like
a boat in the blue. He saw trees, stars, animals, clouds, rainbows,
rocks, herbs, flowers, stream and river, the glistening dew in the
bushes in the morning, distant hight mountains which were blue and
pale, birds sang and bees, wind silverishly blew through the rice-field.
All of this, a thousand-fold and colorful, had always been there,
always the sun and the moon had shone, always rivers had roared and
bees had buzzed, but in former times all of this had been nothing more
to Siddhartha than a fleeting, deceptive veil before his eyes,
looked upon in distrust, destined to be penetrated and destroyed by
thought, since it was not the essential existence, since this essence
lay beyond, on the other side of, the visible. But now, his liberated
eyes stayed on this side, he saw and became aware of the visible, sought
to be at home in this world, did not search for the true essence, did
not aim at a world beyond. Beautiful was this world, looking at it thus,
without searching, thus simply, thus childlike. Beautiful were the moon
and the stars, beautiful was the stream and the banks, the forest and
the rocks, the goat and the gold-beetle, the flower and the butterfly.
Beautiful and lovely it was, thus to walk through the world, thus
childlike, thus awoken, thus open to what is near, thus without
distrust. Differently the sun burnt the head, differently the shade
of the forest cooled him down, differently the stream and the cistern,
the pumpkin and the banana tasted. Short were the days, short the
nights, every hour sped swiftly away like a sail on the sea, and under
the sail was a ship full of treasures, full of joy. Siddhartha saw a
group of apes moving through the high canopy of the forest, high in the
branches, and heard their savage, greedy song. Siddhartha saw a male
sheep following a female one and mating with her. In a lake of reeds,
he saw the pike hungrily hunting for its dinner; propelling themselves
away from it, in fear, wiggling and sparkling, the young fish jumped in
droves out of the water; the scent of strength and passion came
forcefully out of the hasty eddies of the water, which the pike stirred
up, impetuously hunting.

All of this had always existed, and he had not seen it; he had not been
with it. Now he was with it, he was part of it. Light and shadow
ran through his eyes, stars and moon ran through his heart.

On the way, Siddhartha also remembered everything he had experienced in
the Garden Jetavana, the teaching he had heard there, the divine Buddha,
the farewell from Govinda, the conversation with the exalted one. Again
he remembered his own words, he had spoken to the exalted one, every
word, and with astonishment he became aware of the fact that there he
had said things which he had not really known yet at this time. What he
had said to Gotama: his, the Buddha’s, treasure and secret was not the
teachings, but the unexpressable and not teachable, which he had
experienced in the hour of his enlightenment–it was nothing but this
very thing which he had now gone to experience, what he now began to
experience. Now, he had to experience his self. It is true that he had
already known for a long time that his self was Atman, in its essence
bearing the same eternal characteristics as Brahman. But never, he had
really found this self, because he had wanted to capture it in the net
of thought. With the body definitely not being the self, and not the
spectacle of the senses, so it also was not the thought, not the
rational mind, not the learned wisdom, not the learned ability to draw
conclusions and to develop previous thoughts in to new ones. No, this
world of thought was also still on this side, and nothing could be
achieved by killing the random self of the senses, if the random self of
thoughts and learned knowledge was fattened on the other hand. Both,
the thoughts as well as the senses, were pretty things, the ultimate
meaning was hidden behind both of them, both had to be listened to, both
had to be played with, both neither had to be scorned nor overestimated,
from both the secret voices of the innermost truth had to be attentively
perceived. He wanted to strive for nothing, except for what the voice
commanded him to strive for, dwell on nothing, except where the voice
would advise him to do so. Why had Gotama, at that time, in the hour
of all hours, sat down under the bo-tree, where the enlightenment hit
him? He had heard a voice, a voice in his own heart, which had
commanded him to seek rest under this tree, and he had neither preferred
self-castigation, offerings, ablutions, nor prayer, neither food nor
drink, neither sleep nor dream, he had obeyed the voice. To obey like
this, not to an external command, only to the voice, to be ready like
this, this was good, this was necessary, nothing else was necessary.

In the night when he slept in the straw hut of a ferryman by the river,
Siddhartha had a dream: Govinda was standing in front of him, dressed
in the yellow robe of an ascetic. Sad was how Govinda looked like,
sadly he asked: Why have you forsaken me? At this, he embraced
Govinda, wrapped his arms around him, and as he was pulling him close
to his chest and kissed him, it was not Govinda any more, but a woman,
and an full breast popped out of the woman’s dress, at which Siddhartha
lay and drank, sweetly and strongly tasted the milk from this breast.
It tasted of woman and man, of sun and forest, of animal and flower,
of every fruit, of every joyful desire. It intoxicated him and rendered
him unconscious.–When Siddhartha woke up, the pale river shimmered
through the door of the hut, and in the forest, a dark call of an owl
resounded deeply and and pleasantly.

When the day began, Siddhartha asked his host, the ferryman, to get him
across the river. The ferryman got him across the river on his
bamboo-raft, the wide water shimmered reddishly in the light of the
morning.

“This is a beautiful river,” he said to his companion.

“Yes,” said the ferryman, “a very beautiful river, I love it more than
anything. Often I have listened to it, often I have looked into its
eyes, and always I have learned from it. Much can be learned from a
river.”

“I than you, my benefactor,” spoke Siddhartha, disembarking on the other
side of the river. “I have no gift I could give you for your
hospitality, my dear, and also no payment for your work. I am a man
without a home, a son of a Brahman and a Samana.”

“I did see it,” spoke the ferryman, “and I haven’t expected any payment
from you and no gift which would be the custom for guests to bear. You
will give me the gift another time.”

“Do you think so?” asked Siddhartha amusedly.

“Surely. This too, I have learned from the river: everything is coming
back! You too, Samana, will come back. Now farewell! Let your
friendship be my reward. Commemorate me, when you’ll make offerings to
the gods.”

Smiling, they parted. Smiling, Siddhartha was happy about the
friendship and the kindness of the ferryman. “He is like Govinda,” he
thought with a smile, “all I meet on my path are like Govinda. All are
thankful, though they are the ones who would have a right to receive
thanks. All are submissive, all would like to be friends, like to
obey, think little. Like children are all people.”

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NPRoar

I’m all ready to put up something for your friday reading enjoyment, but (accidentally) listening to NPR this morning for a little too long had me pulling an Inspector Dreyfuss, and not in a good way.

Mara Liasson, you know you know me, national political correspondent or whatever, talking about the post-election shake-out, practically encapsulates the conventional wisdom flowing from every quarter that also just happens to be a ridiculous way of thinking about politics. It’s pulling for atrophy, as one friend is want to say. I’m not linking to it, but it goes something like this:

The final score of Tuesday’s election gives Republican’s evidence of a resurgence.

People want divided government, so it can do nothing.

So they vote for Republicans, even though they don’t like them (~20% consistently self-identify as republicans).

Republican can win, if they obscure their stances on social issues.

NY-23 was an example of Republicans dividing their support, and so handing a victory to the Democrat.

CA-10… oh, Mara didn’t mention CA-10.

Moderate democrats better hedge their bets on supporting the Obama agenda… or else voters will punish them for looking like they support something and running afoul of the way national political correspondents (aka The Village) and others have grown accustomed to thinking about what the legislative branch should [not] be doing.

So, NPR donors listeners good liberals… Is this the way the news about this or any election should be delivered?

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Time – the Revelator

We spend all manner of time and effort trying to de-couple these things which cannot be separated, no matter how much we want them to be.

I’m talking about economic growth and any of the things we don’t want to tackle because we’re afraid tackling them might harm our prospects for growth: health care reform, immigration policy, energy policy, especially regarding carbon emissions. Not only only will addressing these policy challenges head-on not jeopardize the future of the economy – the future of the economy is pretty-well destined to leave the toilet and head toward the sewer if we don’t address them. Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

gdpannualized1_2

via.

So what do you see when you see this graph? Are the prospects for growth drying up? Are they tied to other coincidental developments( peak stupid oil, the internet, the economic rise of Yurp and China? The wild swings of yesteryear and the policies that conjured them should not be the goal now. But this is a difficult idea for our better minds to grasp. We want to go back back back. Time goes forward forward forward, and well have to do way more with way less or we’ll just be like those crowds of people in old movies that are all dead now.

The prospects for and directions of future growth are changing; not in-a-phone-booth kind of changing but cloaked in the heavy disguise of things we’ve [supposedly] never done and so appear foreign and frightening, even un-American. But that charge is scurrilous and ignorant, and done they must be if the growth we crave is to become the reality we so desperately seek to escape. The extent to which we do not get this can become depressing; the extent to which we do will liberate us in the direction that turns hopes into certainty. Warning: An opposite set of outcomes may apply to the more resourceful among you.

Can you hear me, Doctor?

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Eco-Sikhs

Our government bails out sprawl and congress picks up two one more progressives (but two Dems) in overnight voting, but the news here is the role of religion in the climate change debate. Leaders of the world’s major religions have gathered at Windsor Castle to discuss ways in which the faiths can impact (in a positive way, more on that distinction in a minute) efforts to combat global climate change.

Much of the discourse over climate has been focused on gigatons of gases, megawatt hours of electricity, miles per gallon or details of diplomatic accords or legislation. But  Olav Kjorven, an assistant secretary general at the United Nations involved with the meeting, spent the last year visiting religious orders around the world to see what faiths could bring to the climate table. The answer, Mr. Kjorven told me, is a lot, and not simply in prayer.

Religions, he explained, run more than half the world’s schools, so tweaking a curriculum to include more on the environment can have a big impact. Their vast financial holdings provide leverage and capital for investments with environmental or social benefits. At the conference, which ends on Wednesday, many faiths will be  announcing long-term plans to make more of an impact in an arena that has not tended to be a top priority.

What was it Mom always used to say? Yes… but. Granted, there are religious people around the world who are taking the threat seriously.

Of our very own countrymen especially, however, these are the folks who are greatly uninterested in the impact of man upon the Earth, even as they/we subscribe to a divinely-inspired caretaker role. I get this whole ‘dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air…’ thing as it extends to super-sized mega churches surrounded by oceans of pavement amid seas of sprawl and entitled consumption of limited resources, but it leads to super-sized mega churches… . Anyway, I used to think the funniest thing was how the mega-churches labeled themselves that way. Now, not so much.

Churches may end up being the last refuge of climate change denial, or at least indifference. So much despoiling of the earth and its inhabitants has been committed beneath its aegis that it may be impossible to turn that around and begin to use it as a force to un-despoil. Conceding any of that would seemingly undermine too much. And imagine a sermon whereupon the minister looks up in the suspended Bose speakers and recessed lighting 100 feet overhead and asks his fellow congregants if they need all of that to effectively commune with God and whether the energy they put into what they’re wearing or how they arrived there has anything to do with the planetary crisis that has the liberals all in a tizzy. Me neither.

But how do they/we broach that subject? How do we connect the very trappings of our holy communion [obviously, not limited to religion] to the waste we’re laying?

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On Buying Green

That sounds a lot like On Golden Pond. And, with a little change of emphasis, it could be… Buying Green, Putting Green… Village Green. I love the village green. Anyway.

Here’s a piece about consumers buying green products, how we’re doing, why we’re doing it, etc. I don’t know how you read it without it reading completely weird. I mean what are we talking about?

  • “Dark green” consumers tend to be older, more well educated, and more affluent than “light green” consumers
  • They also tend to care more about what is in “green” products (all natural, organic, non-toxic) and how they are made (such as by socially responsible companies)
  • “Dark green” consumers also tend to be more thoughtful about their purchases, often planning them ahead of time. “Light green” consumers tend to be more impulsive, often buying green products out of curiosity

See? Totally weird; important (for me) to remember that this is not what we’ve come to – it’s just where we are now. Companies? Yes we consider them. But what are we buying when we purchase things? Must our achats symbolize our moral purity? Wait, before you answer that – one possible scenario:

Are we buying convenience? Durability? There’s a difference between, let’s say, buying cleaning products and jeans. If you’re buying clothes, you’re rifling through a whole number of characteristics, none of which likely have to do with sustainability. Or do they? Better-made clothes last longer. We might buy less of them. It’s a way… wait a minute. We weren’t even trying to be green – we just, hey… there are different ways to accomplish similar goals. Are there other reasons? Ewww. Can we not drive, buy local, eat well or hang out clothes to dry just because we like to do these things?

Even or especially with clothing, we don’t have to call it green or anything. But we do. Because the choice will help the environment and that’s why we would buy it… well no, it isn’t. The environment isn’t the only reason we would buy things that last longer, or buy less of them. Or shop in our downtown instead of W*lmart, or from farmers at a market. We do these things because we like to do them. They are meaningful in their own right. It’s a corporate world and we need the slogans. But our needs here in the 1st world are actually quite simple and directly correlated to things we like: we like to do things that are enjoyable. And have gotten off the path to enjoyable things for exactly to demonstrate the power of advertising.

So these things of value, to us, these are the benchmarks. Now, consider all the other stuff that we buy, and whether you think ‘buying green’ is necessary to change any of them.