July 1 , 2007 Buying Into the Green Movement By ALEX WILLIAMSHERE ’ S one popular vision for saving the planet : Roll out from under the sumptuous hemp - fiber sheets on your bed in the morning and pull on a pair of $ 245 organic cotton Levi ’ s and an Armani biodegradable knit shirt . Stroll from the bedroom in your eco - McMansion , with its photovoltaic solar panels , into the kitchen remodeled with reclaimed lumber . Enter the three - car garage lighted by energy - sipping fluorescent bulbs and slip behind the wheel of your $ 104 , 000 Lexus hybrid . Drive to the airport , where you settle in for an 8 , 000 - mile flight — careful to buy carbon offsets beforehand — and spend a week driving golf balls made from compacted fish food at an eco - resort in the Maldives . That vision of an eco - sensitive life as a series of choices about what to buy appeals to millions of consumers and arguably defines the current environmental movement as equal parts concern for the earth and for making a stylish statement . Some 35 million Americans regularly buy products that claim to be earth - friendly , according to one report , everything from organic beeswax lipstick from the west Zambian rain forest to Toyota Priuses . With baby steps , more and more shoppers browse among the 60 , 000 products available under Home Depot ’ s new Eco Options program . Such choices are rendered fashionable as celebrities worried about global warming appear on the cover of Vanity Fair ’ s “ green issue , ” and pop stars like Kelly Clarkson and Lenny Kravitz prepare to be headline acts on July 7 at the Live Earth concerts at sites around the world . Consumers have embraced living green , and for the most part the mainstream green movement has embraced green consumerism . But even at this moment of high visibility and impact for environmental activists , a splinter wing of the movement has begun to critique what it sometimes calls “ light greens . ” Critics question the notion that we can avert global warming by buying so - called earth - friendly products , from clothing and cars to homes and vacations , when the cumulative effect of our consumption remains enormous and hazardous . “ There is a very common mind - set right now which holds that all that we ’ re going to need to do to avert the large - scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions , ” said Alex Steffen , the executive editor of Worldchanging . com , a Web site devoted to sustainability issues . The genuine solution , he and other critics say , is to significantly reduce one ’ s consumption of goods and resources . It ’ s not enough to build a vacation home of recycled lumber ; the real way to reduce one ’ s carbon footprint is to only own one home . Buying a hybrid car won ’ t help if it ’ s the aforementioned Lexus , the luxury LS 600 h L model , which gets 22 miles to the gallon on the highway ; the Toyota Yaris ( $ 11 , 000 ) gets 40 highway miles a gallon with a standard gasoline engine . It ’ s as though the millions of people whom environmentalists have successfully prodded to be concerned about climate change are experiencing a SnackWell ’ s moment : confronted with a box of fat - free devil ’ s food chocolate cookies , which seem deliciously guilt - free , they consume the entire box , avoiding any fats but loading up on calories . The issue of green shopping is highlighting a division in the environmental movement : “ the old - school environmentalism of self - abnegation versus this camp of buying your way into heaven , ” said Chip Giller , the founder of Grist . org , an online environmental blog that claims a monthly readership of 800 , 000 . “ Over even the last couple of months , there is more concern growing within the traditional camp about the Cosmo - izing of the green movement — ‘ 55 great ways to look eco - sexy , ’ ” he said . “ Among traditional greens , there is concern that too much of the population thinks there ’ s an easy way out . ” The criticisms have appeared quietly in some environmental publications and on the Web . GEORGE BLACK , an editor and a columnist at onEarth , a quarterly journal of the Natural Resources Defense Council , recently summed up the explosion of high - style green consumer items and articles of the sort that proclaim “ green is the new black , ” that is , a fashion trend , as “ eco - narcissism . ” Paul Hawken , an author and longtime environmental activist , said the current boom in earth - friendly products offers a false promise . “ Green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase , ” he said . He blamed the news media and marketers for turning environmentalism into fashion and distracting from serious issues . “ We turn toward the consumption part because that ’ s where the money is , ” Mr . Hawken said . “ We tend not to look at the ‘ less ’ part . So you get these anomalies like 10 , 000 - foot ‘ green ’ homes being built by a hedge fund manager in Aspen . Or ‘ green ’ fashion shows . Fashion is the deliberate inculcation of obsolescence . ” He added : “ The fruit at Whole Foods in winter , flown in from Chile on a 747 — it ’ s a complete joke . The idea that we should have raspberries in January , it doesn ’ t matter if they ’ re organic . It ’ s diabolically stupid . ” Environmentalists say some products marketed as green may pump more carbon into the atmosphere than choosing something more modest , or simply nothing at all . Along those lines , a company called PlayEngine sells a 19 - inch widescreen L . C . D . set whose “ sustainable bamboo ” case is represented as an earth - friendly alternative to plastic . But it may be better to keep your old cathode - tube set instead , according to “ The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook , ” because older sets use less power than plasma or L . C . D . screens . ( Televisions account for about 4 percent of energy consumption in the United States , the handbook says . ) “ The assumption that by buying anything , whether green or not , we ’ re solving the problem is a misperception , ” said Michael Ableman , an environmental author and long - time organic farmer . “ Consuming is a significant part of the problem to begin with . Maybe the solution is instead of buying five pairs of organic cotton jeans , buy one pair of regular jeans instead . ” For the most part , the critiques of green consumption have come from individual activists , not from mainstream environmental groups like the Sierra Club , Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network . The latest issue of Sierra , the magazine of the Sierra Club , has articles hailing an “ ecofriendly mall ” featuring sustainable clothing ( under development in Chicago ) and credit cards that rack up carbon offsets for every purchase , as well as sustainably - harvested caviar and the celebrity - friendly Tango electric sports car ( a top - of - the - line model is $ 108 , 000 ) . One reason mainstream groups may be wary of criticizing Americans ’ consumption is that before the latest era of green chic , these large organizations endured years in which their warnings about climate change were scarcely heard . Much of the public had turned away from the Carter - era environmental message of sacrifice , which included turning down the thermostat , driving smaller cars and carrying a cloth “ Save - a - Tree ” tote to the supermarket . Now that environmentalism is high profile , thanks in part to the success of “ An Inconvenient Truth , ” the 2006 documentary featuring Al Gore , mainstream greens , for the most part , say that buying products promoted as eco - friendly is a good first step . “ After you buy the compact fluorescent bulbs , ” said Michael Brune , the executive director of the Rainforest Action Network , “ you can move on to greater goals like banding together politically to shut down coal - fired power plants . ” John Passacantando , the executive director of Greenpeace USA , argued that green consumerism has been a way for Wal - Mart shoppers to get over the old stereotypes of environmentalists as “ tree - hugging hippies ” and contribute in their own way . This is crucial , he said , given the widespread nature of the global warming challenge . “ You need Wal - Mart and Joe Six - Pack and mayors and taxi drivers , " he said . “ You need participation on a wide front . ” It is not just ecology activists with one foot in the 1970 s , though , who have taken issue with the consumerist personality of the “ light green ” movement . Anti - consumerist fervor burns hotly among some activists who came of age under the influence of noisy , disruptive anti - globalization protests . Last year , a San Francisco group called the Compact made headlines with a vow to live the entire year without buying anything but bare essentials like medicine and food . A year in , the original 10 “ mostly ” made it , said Rachel Kesel , 26 , a founder . The movement claims some 8 , 300 adherents throughout the country and in places as distant as Singapore and Iceland . “ The more that I ’ m engaged in this , the more annoyed I get with things like ‘ shop against climate change ’ and these kind of attitudes , ” said Ms . Kesel , who continues her shopping strike and counts a new pair of running shoes — she ’ s a dog - walker by trade — as among her limited purchases in 18 months . “ It ’ s hysterical , ” she said . “ You ’ re telling people to consume more in order to reduce impact . ” For some , the very debate over how much difference they should try to make in their own lives is a distraction . They despair of individual consumers being responsible for saving the earth from climate change and want to see action from political leaders around the world . INDIVIDUAL consumers may choose more fuel - efficient cars , but a far greater effect may be felt when fuel - efficiency standards are raised for all of the industry , as the Senate voted to do on June 21 , the first significant rise in mileage standards in more than two decades . “ A legitimate beef that people have with green consumerism is , at end of the day , the things causing climate change are more caused by politics and the economy than individual behavior , ” said Michel Gelobter , a former professor of environmental policy at Rutgers who is now president of Redefining Progress , a nonprofit policy group that promotes sustainable living . “ A lot of what we need to do doesn ’ t have to do with what you put in your shopping basket , ” he said . “ It has to do with mass transit , housing density . It has to do with the war and subsidies for the coal and fossil fuel industry . ” In fact , those light - green environmentalists who chose not to lecture about sacrifice and promote the trendiness of eco - sensitive products may be on to something . Michael Shellenberger , a partner at American Environics , a market research firm in Oakland , Calif . , said that his company ran a series of focus groups in April for the environmental group Earthjustice , and was surprised by the results . People considered their trip down the Eco Options aisles at Home Depot a beginning , not an end point . “ We didn ’ t find that people felt that their consumption gave them a pass , so to speak , ” Mr . Shellenberger said . “ They knew what they were doing wasn ’ t going to deal with the problems , and these little consumer things won ’ t add up . But they do it as a practice of mindfulness . They didn ’ t see it as antithetical to political action . Folks who were engaged in these green practices were actually becoming more committed to more transformative political action on global warming . ”