Green Options

Communicating climate change is a difficult task, and in some sense a sea change is needed before the public and policy makers truly can catch up to the science.

There’s been a lot of noise in recent years about the widespread construction of Wal-Marts and other big box stores. A new development is the rise in vacated megastores. Recently, resourceful communities and individuals are re-imagining better uses for these behemoth structures.

A body of data and stories has been collected by Julia Christensen, author of the recently published Big Box Reuse. Her book, published by MIT Press, offers a detailed overview of ten communities that have transformed vacated Wal-Marts and Kmarts into civic structures.

The stock market is down, unemployment is up, and the political class is falling all over over itself trying to take action (or, at least create the appearance of taking action). Looking for some calm in this economic storm? Two words: carbon offsets.

That’s right: according to the Washington Post’s David A. Fahrenthold, there’s “a bull market in environmental guilt.” Fahrenthold’s tone, and those of several bloggers whom have linked to his article, suggests something nefarious is happening with the sale of offsets.

I don’t agree with that, but I didn’t sit down today to defend offsets from detractors.  I think there’s a much more interesting question raised in this article: the sustainability of a “green economy” that’s focused primarily on, well, environmentalists… or, at least those who share our larger set of values. Fahrenthold notes:

…people in this business are worried that the guilt boom is about to bust. Most of their customers — usually college-educated and making more than $50,000 a year — have not been hit hard by the weakening economy. Yet.

“People still come to the site, but where you used to get people signing up [for offsets] every day, now you’d be lucky to get a few people a week,” said Fred Weiss, a small-time offset seller based in Ann Arbor, Mich., who sends customers stickers that say, “Carbon Neutral Vehicle.” Apparently that isn’t as important now.

“Who cares about the environment? Am I going to have a house next week?” he imagined would-be customers saying.

As an environmentalist, it’s tempting to respond to Weiss’ rhetorical questions with something along the lines of “But you should care about the environment because…” — fill in the rest for yourself. More and more, I think that first impulse is probably the wrong one.  Rather than focusing on the first question, we should think hard about the second one… and worry if we can’t come up with an answer.

Editor’s note: This week, Ecotality blogger A. Siegel conjures up the spirit of 19th century French writer Emile Zola to point the finger at Newsweek and Washington Post writer Robert J. Samuelson. This post was originally published on August 15, 2007.

J’Accuse Robert J. Samuelson of facilitating inaction in the face of Peak Oil.

J’Accuse Robert J. Samulson of putting this nation through your peddling of false information about options to deal

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