July 08, 2007
Green is the new yellow
Jack Shafer, Slate’s media expert, often takes conservatives to task, but recently his acerbic pen skewered the latest manifestation of William Randoph Hearst’s yellow journalism. Shafer notes it’s got a new color, and takes his own employer to the woodshed for publishing eco-propaganda.
Yellow journalism now comes in a new color: green.
Often as sensationalistic as its yellow predecessor, green journalism tends to appeal to our emotions, exploit our fears, and pander to our vanity. It places a political agenda in front of the quest for journalistic truth and in its most demagogic forms tolerates no criticism, branding all who question it as enemies of the people.
Not all green journalism harangues, but even the gentlest variety sermonizes, cuts logical corners, and substitutes good intentions for problem solving. For an example of creepy gentle green journalism, there's no better example than the “Slate Green Challenge," a series that Slate started publishing last fall in conjunction with TreeHugger.org.
I've got no fundamental quarrel with TreeHugger. They're propagandists who are "dedicated to driving sustainability into the mainstream" and don't really pretend to be journalists. My bitch is that Slate, which ought to know better, boarded the trendy greenwagon to publish the group's flawed, if well-meaning, guide to reducing carbon dioxide from one's "diet."
[…]
There's not much in the TreeHugger-Slate package we haven't heard a million times since the first oil embargo: Install storm windows. Insulate. Weather strip. Keep the furnace settings low and the AC settings high. Turn things off. Buy energy-efficient appliances and cars. Avoid unnecessary trips. Carpool. Don't waste.
But that's not good enough for the green worshippers at TreeHugger, whose aesthetic is ascetic. The series counsels readers to decarbonize by resisting new purchases of cotton clothes—unless of the organic variety—and to seek fibers made of hemp, bamboo, ramie, linen, silk, and lyocell (wood pulp).
In greenifying Christmas, one must give up the carbon gluttony of Xmas cards, Xmas wrapping paper, Xmas trees, and electrified Xmas decorations. "If you're decorating with candles, choose the ones made from soy wax or beeswax," the article seriously advises. And, if you must eat, TreeHugger says, eat locally and organically, and avoid processed food and meat.
[…]
I don't mean to suggest all greenies are well-meaning dolts or propagandists.
But I do. The science doesn’t back up their hysterical Gore-basm induced efforts to make us live like aborigines, eating all-natural, free-range grubs, with sticks, tree bark and gravel for roughage.
The dishonesty of their agenda is revealed by their resistance to building nuclear power plants, the ultimate low-carbon energy source.
Anyhow, good for Shafer – and shame on Slate.
Posted by Mike Lief at July 8, 2007 11:17 PM
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