The opening sentence in the Economist article caught my attention. It confirmed something I kind of already knew, the Arctic has been a fashionable destination this summer. Some members in my extended family went, and so did my friend Luc. Traveling to the Arctic has become the ultimate green chic, more than buying the latest Hybrid, more than building a totally green house. It is something to talk about at parties, and an experience only the very privileged can afford. If I had the money, I would probably consider it, never mind all the emissions from all the flying and buying the polar accoutrements for the trip. It is just so cool!
The same is at work when I go crazy for Target's latest designer. Everyday, I go to the mailbox, looking for my Dominique Cohen jewelry shipment. It's called fashion, and it is very, very powerful. Fashion has the amazing ability to change people's perceptions and behaviors overnight. I remember as a child growing up, being so embarrassed by my parents' lifestyle choices for our family. In the small town where we lived, we were the only vegetarians. How much I resented not being like the other meat eating kids in my school! I thought my father was a freak for having such unorthodox ideas. Years later, in California where I live, being a vegetarian is a statement of ultimate green coolness, and one of the ways that teenagers choose to affirm their independence.
I think about the lifestyle choices I need to make to become a truly green girl, the three R's- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle -, the small acts in the privacy of my home, the not shopping bit, the driving less, the changing the light bulbs to CFB's, . . . I think of all these things, and what strikes me is how unglamorous, how invisible they all are. Not to minimize No Impact Man's feat, my sense is it would probably be a lot harder, if not impossible, for him and his family to deliver on their promise, if they did not benefit from all the attention from the blogosphere, the movie in the making, and the book to come. For the commoner that I am, there are none of these immediate external rewards, only the satisfaction of a guilt-free green conscience. And that is not enough. The challenge I see, is how to turn fashion on its head, and use it to our advantage? There can only be one No Impact Man. How can we each capture a bit of that same green glory, and claim it as our own?
Marguerite Manteau-Rao is a blogger, social psychologist, and green girl wannabe. Since April 2007, she has chronicled her daily tribulations as a green girl wannabe in her blog: La Marguerite "My Inconvenient Truth: the Daily Sins of a Green Girl Wannabe" http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
By Marguerite Manteau-Rao
The same is at work when I go crazy for Target's latest designer. Everyday, I go to the mailbox, looking for my Dominique Cohen jewelry shipment. It's called fashion, and it is very, very powerful. Fashion has the amazing ability to change people's perceptions and behaviors overnight. I remember as a child growing up, being so embarrassed by my parents' lifestyle choices for our family. In the small town where we lived, we were the only vegetarians. How much I resented not being like the other meat eating kids in my school! I thought my father was a freak for having such unorthodox ideas. Years later, in California where I live, being a vegetarian is a statement of ultimate green coolness, and one of the ways that teenagers choose to affirm their independence.
I think about the lifestyle choices I need to make to become a truly green girl, the three R's- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle -, the small acts in the privacy of my home, the not shopping bit, the driving less, the changing the light bulbs to CFB's, . . . I think of all these things, and what strikes me is how unglamorous, how invisible they all are. Not to minimize No Impact Man's feat, my sense is it would probably be a lot harder, if not impossible, for him and his family to deliver on their promise, if they did not benefit from all the attention from the blogosphere, the movie in the making, and the book to come. For the commoner that I am, there are none of these immediate external rewards, only the satisfaction of a guilt-free green conscience. And that is not enough. The challenge I see, is how to turn fashion on its head, and use it to our advantage? There can only be one No Impact Man. How can we each capture a bit of that same green glory, and claim it as our own?
Marguerite Manteau-Rao is a blogger, social psychologist, and green girl wannabe. Since April 2007, she has chronicled her daily tribulations as a green girl wannabe in her blog: La Marguerite "My Inconvenient Truth: the Daily Sins of a Green Girl Wannabe" http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com
By Marguerite Manteau-Rao
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