Here is trend #9 from my list of top consumer and business trends for 2009. It is perhaps worth mentioning that several people were writing about eco-cynics last year (and my own list of top trends for 2008 included eco-exhaustion). However, I think we were all a year too early and it will be 2009 that eco-cynicism really starts to bite.
Trend # 9: Eco-Cynics
People are becoming increasingly fed up with being told how to behave, especially from hypocritical and holier than thou politicians and celebrities that are driving a Toyota Prius one minute and stepping onto a private jet, wearing a fur coat, the next. There is even a UK-based arms manufacturer that is using lead-free bullets because they are kinder to the environment for heavens sake.
None of this is to say that acting on behalf of the environment is a bad thing. Far from it. It’s just that in many instances this new found environmental friendliness is nothing more than marketing hype and public relations spin — something green that’s cynically added to products and people to make them appear whiter than white.
I know of one US firm that uses the term ‘green plays’ for example. This could be an innocent phrase but I doubt it. A green play is more than likely one of many ‘plays’ that the company is trying out in the minds of mindless customers. Or how about the theme park in Australia with an Environment Shop. What’s inside this shop you ask? The answer is cute toy animals, largely made in China, largely from plastic and largely landfill within 12-months. In short, simplistic, tokenistic and opportunistic ‘solutions’ are driving ever increasing levels of eco-cynicism.
Implications
People are slowly waking up to the fact that climate change is a very complex issue and that nobody (including the experts) ultimately knows what will happen in the future. A degree of caution is obviously prudent but so too would policies that avoid faddish and shallow responses to the ‘facts’. Shonky carbon labelling and carbon offsetting schemes should therefore be thrown out in favour of better thought through alternatives. For example, investment in low-cost energy efficiency programmes (ways to use less energy) would almost certainly do more good than most of the expensive schemes currently under development.
A good example of climate confusion. According to studies by NASAs Goddard Institute of Space Studies, the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation and the US National Climatic Data Centre 2008 was either the 9th or 10th hottest since records began in 1850…or the coldest since the start of 21st Century. On balance things do seem to be heating up but, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, “For the time being, no one knows whether this temperature drop heralds a lasting retreat from global warming or a temporary blip”.