One of the unexpected outcomes of having a complicated pregnancy and having to spend a lot of time waiting in doctors’ offices is that I have ample time to read a variety of magazines (at least the varieties that are to be found in the typical OB/GYN office). Well the April issues of all the home and garden, parenting, and cooking magazines just came out. Given that Easter is in March this year, I suppose that they all had to come up with some other trendy April event to focus the issue on. So in honor of Earth Day, I’ve read a good number of “going green” articles recently. And while these articles have been generally informative, they have also been highly amusing.
There is of course the home magazine that interpreted “going green” beyond environmental themes and had a whole section on incorporating green (as in the color) accents in your house. Cute. The fitness magazine that encouraged readers to buy an eco-sports bra – which of course was only “eco” because a tiny portion of the sale would be donated to some earth friendly cause. I’d really love to know how green (if at all) the production of said sports bra really was. My favorite was an article on “Growing Green Kids” that listed as its number one way to accomplish that as watching a nature movie with your kids so that kids will “develop empathy for the natural world.” Okay, I’m not opposed to watching movies but doesn’t that seem just a bit counter-intuitive? (to give the list credit, gardening made it as #4 on the list).
What struck me the most though were the underlying attitudes present in all of the magazines. Going green wasn’t necessarily about caring for the earth or for others – it was about helping you have a better life (which yes I know is kinda the premise behind most of those sorts of magazines, but still). The message was to say, eat organic for your own health. There were even lists provided as to which foods to buy organically and for which ones that “didn’t matter.” But of course the criteria for “didn’t matter” involved solely the amount of toxins you personally might be exposed to – ignoring anything to do with the amount the earth or the farmers might have been exposed to. Then there were the fashion articles on how to dress eco-friendly and still look trendy and cute (as mentioned above the definitions of eco-friendly varied widely). And it seemed like great lengths were taken to somehow fit what people already do into the idea of “going green.” For example do you know that you are eco-friendly if you shop at Walmart? They apparently provide space for plastic bags to be recycled, so therefore they must be eco-friendly (duh). The message I came away with is that I really don’t have to change much to care for the earth and that going green is just another way to feed my selfish tendencies. It was a bit depressing.
I know I really shouldn’t criticize, each magazine also provided some really good information. But some things just really make me wonder.