How We Can Stop Being Eco-Hypocrites?

Last week, Cécile presented to the class an article from the Newsweek website dealing with “eco-hypocrisy”. Eco hypocrites are the kind of person who never waste an opportunity to tell everyone how the world is going to hell thanks to inappropriate actions such as eating meet, have a car while they often breaking eco-rules themselves. With this article, Cécile have brought us a different way of thinking about our ecologist (or not) actions, it changes from the actual environmental discourse which just leads us to feel guilty about our green behavior always insufficient to save the planet.

First, Cécile started by sharing the point of view of the article’s writer, Raina Kelley who explained that she is tired of being considered as a bad person because she does horrible things, such as having her own car, and refused to feel guilty about them. The journalist estimates that she tries to do her best for the environmental cause: she takes public transportation, recycles plastic bags... She does worry about polar bears and global warming but she doesn’t push people into doing what is supposed to be “right”. She doesn’t want to be an eco hypocrite.

Then, Cécile gave us some examples of famous eco hypocrites, the Top 5 listed by the Telegraph. At the top of the list there is Sting, on the second place there is the Nobel Peace Prize winning environmentalist Al Gore who faced accusations of hypocrisy last year when a research group claimed his 20-room, eight-bathroom home consumed more electricity in a month than the average American household did in a year. Then there is the actor John Travolta and on the last celebrity is the Prince of Wales who faced embarrassment last year over a 7,000-mile round trip to the US to pick up an award for his environmental work.

Finally, Cécile asked us: What do you think about this green fashion?

I think that the green fashion is obviously used by persons who don’t put the environmental problems as their first preoccupation. Firms use it to sell eco-friendly products; politics use it in their campaign… However, the fact that the theme of ecology is fashion can encourage people to make little green actions: when it is said in fashion magazines that recycling is so cool and that Cameron Diaz is combating global warming, the idea of saving the planet begins more seductive than a decade ago when only pure (strange) ecologists were worrying about the environmental cause. Even if is hypocrite, it could finally have a positive impact on people behavior.