Green Frenz-E!

For a while now I've been warning about getting too cozy with the Green Mainstream. I am fearful that as the mainstream adopts the green lifestyle, it will immediately treat sustainability just like anything else that it adopts: as a meteor... The press will hype it, the politicians will spin it, the advertisers will sell it, the corporations will produce it, and the consumer will be expected to buy it... until the next big thing shows up. But mostly the mainstream corporate capitalist system will work to co-opt it and reduce it to its lowest common denominator. This is exactly what has happened to organic foods. Now it is happening to all sorts of other products. If you are a dis-believer, check out this note from TreeHugger.com:

Features like Style.com's spring Earth Friendly Guide to Green Fashion make me nervous. For fashion in particular, until we have a common vocabulary and system of standards, we have to go by what's not green. For instance, adding wooden stones to a leather clutch? Doesn't make it green. Canvas tie-back wedges? If the canvas comes from conventional cotton: not green. We love seeing organic Linda Loudermilk and Levi's, but a lot of the rest leave giant questions marks.