Max Gladwell will never achieve anything but #greenwashing

“For me the green movement is about changing the consciousness of the world via education and engagement, one thought at a time.”

Max Gladwell will never achieve anything according to Radical Green Blogger Keith Farnish because he is not demanding enough. I posted a list of my top 10 green blogs and generated a great response. Including responses from some of the people on the list such as Max Gladwell  http://www.maxgladwell.com/

Then along comes a comment from “Keith Farnish This could have more accurately been named “Top 10 Green Blogs That Won’t Change A Thing”. If “green” means being part of nature, as humans are, then these all have a long way to go; and considering the number that think you can buy your way out of ecological crisis, have no intention of being truly green anyway. Some of us just want to protect the planet from the economic machine.”

Ok I thought and I had a look at his blog and then I got in contact with him and asked him for an interview to elaborate his comment . I also asked if he would be happy for me to then comment back so here I am.
Keith Farnish interivew

I have already seen one response on http://earth-talk.com/news/putting-r-radical

….”greenwashing.” Yes, in a way its exploitative and opportunistic capitalism at its best, but in another way, it’s powerful to see that even the biggest companies in the world understand that people are starting to demand eco-friendliness.”….

In summer my abridged take on Keith Farnish view is that we are all not doing enough, we need to all stop our consumption right away. We should also stop governments and company are only involved in the green movment and are just creating “greenwashing” to pretend to be green. Keith Farnish interivew  and  http://www.theearthblog.org

My challenge with this is that you just are not going to get take up of this idea or meme with this approach. For me the green movement is about changing the consciousness of the world via education and engagement, one thought at a time.

You are not going to get everyone who has never thought about the environment before changing their behaviour overnight because you shout disaster. People have been trying that since the 70s and it has not worked. What is working is that governments and company’s are jumping on the bandwagon and taking up the green cause. Governments and companies putting their marketing resources and communication skills behind the green cause are engaging in communications of a scale and sophistication which green groups just could not mobilise. This marketing effort is leading to green issues being more and more main stream, they have now passed the tipping point and are now central to political and corporate theory’s as well as being take up by increasing numbers of consumer  people.

10 Years ago Prince Charles talking about the environment made him seem like a lefty radical now the fact that he has been talking about it for years makes him seem like a visionary.

I believe governments and companies should be encouraged to participate in the green movement not discouraged.  

Companies such as Useless featured by Max Gladwell would never have be viable if it had not been for all the other green marketing done by governments and company’s Keith accuses of greenwashing.

I say bring on greenwashing. There is one thing greenwashing companies have not worked out yet. People are smart and are waking up as they are educated. Greenwashing companies are helping to raise the general awareness of green issues. When people learn more they then demand more and any company involved in greenwashing. This is soon going to be demanded of to deliver the real deal not just greenwashing. I say Keith do not discourage them, encourage them.

Talking of greenwash Steve Hall  Adrants covered Dominoes Green graffiti is applied by placing a stencil on to the road. You just clean up the road and that shows the design. How long will company’s be able to get away with that as green before consumers ask how green are they really.