Common Ground: Going Places

April 2008 | From the Editor

Going Places

By Eliza Thomas

For eco-evangelists like myself, Earth Day is Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Ramadan, Thanksgiving and Kwanza all in one. By the time April 22nd rolls around, CG staffers are already knee deep in our annual oblation and genuflection, our fasts and break-fasts, our atonement and absolutions. Okay, so maybe our religious rites (think: Eco City World Summit, New Living Expo, the Digital Be-In and free concerts in GGP), are a little more party than prostration, but you get the idea.

As with any good holiday, preparing for the seasonal celebratory insanity naturally leads toward reflecting on the year behind us. Lately, I’ve found myself returning to a question currently gripping greener circles: this worry that the “green thing” might be just a fad (google “green fad” for a bird’s eye view of the debate). It’s a question we pose in each of our monthly “Conversations” interviews, and looking back, I realize the theme has made its way into many of my editor’s notes over the past year.

But for as long as we’ve been anxiously anticipating its burst, the green bubble only keeps getting fatter. I find that both bemusing and encouraging. It’s a useful reminder to me that the editor of a Bay Area eco-lifestyle magazine might not be the best judge of just exactly how your average American (you know, the ones who pronounce it “echo”) interprets this movement. Absolutely everyone I interact with daily — from my friends, to my co-workers, to the bloggers I read, to my friendly neighborhood fair-trade, shade grown, organically-correct coffee barista — drank the green Kool-Aid a looooong time ago.

So despite all evidence to the contrary (organics at WalMart, plastic bag bans at Whole Foods, green collar jobs and peak oil as campaign talking points,) I’m hesitant to say we’ve summited the cultural tipping point. I said that last Earth Day issue, and, uh, I was wrong. If I’ve learned one thing from this job it’s that just when you think the green wave can’t get even bigger… it breaks another record.

Good news, right? In most ways, yes. But when a store like Forever21 — nationwide mall-chain purveyor of synthetic, throw-away crap — starts carrying “Free to be Green” T-shirts, we have a problem. Here’s hoping your typical teenybopper is smart enough to read the label and recognize the shirt behind the slogan is just plain old conventionally-toxic cotton, probably sewn together by some developing world factory worker even younger than she is.

Never fear, intrepid econista. In this year’s Earth Day issue, we’ve gathered the best and brightest green thinkers, ideas, businesses and truly enviro-smart solutions to help you wade through the warring headlines, spot the real green goods among the greenwashed sales pitches and separate, as they say, the hope from the hype. When/if the eco-bubble bursts, there’s no doubt in my mind it will leave an indelible mark on all of us, in the form of changes that are already taking place (witness this heartening-ly historical race to the Whitehouse). For now, I look forward to worshipping at the altar of green with all of you for yet another year.

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