Dear Jennifer,
Thank you very much for getting in touch with me to let me know about your awards. I do not promote advertisements on my blog, except for a few products that I feel are environmentally safe and widely available to the mainstream community.
It would not be ethical to ask my readers to vote for my blog if that would send them to a site where they could potentially be exposed to advertisements for items that I do not endorse or support.
My reason for this is that green consumerism is still consumerism and is therefore not good for the environment. Instead of advertising green products and services, you should be encouraging people to not consume at all and instead get their items used and preferably for free.
It was good synergizing with you on this.
Sincerely,
Michele Nordlie
Blogging Associate
The Accidental Environmentalist
6 comments:
Oh, man. Excellent synergizing, dear blogging associate! Thank you for protecting us all from the green consumerist tidal wave of annoyance.
Wow, Michelle! Are you discerning or simply dismissive? I know the group involved in this awards program and it is a non-profit dedicated to putting people in touch with environmentally responsible alternatives to the "consumerism" they must perform in order to survive. Your contrarian response is really very narrow-minded. You begrudge a group from educating the public about green alternatives by claiming there is an inherent political bias in choosing among those alternatives. This is so philosophically obscure as to be absurd. Join hearts and hands with others who are trying to add their energy to the movement, Michelle, instead of poking holes. We need to patch holes (in the Ozone) not poke them.
In answer to "anonymous 5:09 pm": I am both discerning and dismissive. Since you know something about the Green Log awards and website, I will respond as if you know what you're talking about.
There is really no such thing as a non-profit. Someone is profiting from the organization, either in the exchange of salary for working for the organization, or from the revenue stream that comes in from traffic to website businesses or brick and mortars because of passive advertising on the non-profit's website.
I have nothing against non-profit organizations. They do good work and I know this because I have worked for two non-profits, myself, one as a paid employee and one as a volunteer.
"Consumerism" is not done to survive, and "consumption" is a word that should be reserved for things like food or wasting diseases. When we call ourselves "consumers" instead of "citizens" we have forfeited a very important part of our selves, as part of a nation and as part of a community. Consumerism is what it is (a tired excuse for survival), but that doesn't make it right or worth anyone's time.
I don't begrudge whatever the name of that organization is that wanted me to leap in to get my readers to "vote" for my blog; most of my readers are friends and family, or just trying to find out whether or not Arm & Hammer Essentials laundry detergent contains petroleum products.
What I begrudge is the dismissive email I was sent by Ms. Hetherington, who obviously didn't take the time to read my blog long enough to even discover what my first name was. So, being called a "Blogging Associate" is insulting and demeaning and implies a mass-mailing.
Ms. Hetherington also felt she was "synergizing" with me even though I was just the recipient of a mass-mailing. Using corporate buzz words like "synergizing" in correspondence to perfect strangers is also demeaning and insulting.
If an organization wants to shower me with accolades or little buttons to put on my blog that say I'm great, that's fine; I don't mind getting shallow rewards like that for my incessant blatherings for nigh on these two years. I just want that organization to be sincere and willing to take the time to learn what this blog is about.
These "buy green" sites have a whiff of prom committee chairperson about them. Not that there's anything wrong with prom committee chairpersons--they know what's hot, and what's hot is very important in our modern world. It's easy to overestimate that importance, though, and this is what we must guard agaynst, lest we become so propagandized we can no longer differentiate between, say, The Letter from the Birmingham Jail and an Exxon ad featuring a little fox drinking from a crystal pool of water.
"...the 'consumerism' they must perform in order to survive," hah? I've survived 40 years, and I've never been in a position to consume most of the stuff advertised on that blog. The consumers from whom they want votes must be members of the "ownership society" and presumably, therefore, they must be above subsistence level livin'. Presumably nobody but a panda needs to consume bamboo to survive.
There IS an "inherent political bias" in these choices (reclaimed wood? Or cork???) because there's an inherent class bias in these choices. I, too, think a bamboo floor looks really cool, but I'm not willing to expend the energy it would take to "join hearts and hands" with anyone over it or over CFLs vs LEDs or over any other like blab. Now, if somebody had a project to send fleets of kayaks out to the garbage gyres for the next two decades until we picked up all that plankton-replacing, fish-starving, albatross- and turtle-killing plastic, I could feature joining hands and possibly hearts. Trendy bunkum fails to inspire me, and you know what? I feel good about that. Because it means I'm not completely frikkin crazy.
Michele's husband here.
First, anyone who uses the term "synergizing" in an attempt to communicate with another human being is... well, let's just say it's someone who needs to remember that no one except corporate spokesbeings talk that way. I would've disqualified the entire offer on that basis alone.
Second, these days everybody has an agenda. I don't know who or what is behind this "best green things awards contest," but I'm betting some of the tentacles lead to squid I don't want served. And I don't have the time to fully investigate. So my vote is, "when in doubt, throw it out."
The end.
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