Going green or going good

Earth Day is tomorrow, but it need not be Earth Day to see all things turning green. No, I’m not talking about the budding trees of spring. I’m talking about green mania. Anyone who has been even partially awake for the last few years has seen the gradual acceptance of global warming morph into a full-on frenzy to save the planet.

It’s a celebrated cause and a market unto itself. There are now plenty of ways to go green and be hip in the process, whether by buying that brand new Toyota Prius or a designer hemp-bag reading “recycle.” Green has become a label—the new black, so to speak—and companies aren’t missing a beat in showing us how they are saving the world.

At the heart of this, beneath the hip marketing campaigns and designer goods—is a struggle for a healthy earth, a place to live and let live. No one wants to be on the wrong side of this issue. As inhabitants of this lonely planet we have an obvious interest in preserving hospitable conditions. This and marketing make the green movement a force to be reckoned with. Suddenly we have entered into a new climate in this discussion of climates, where the only right side is the green side, where any resistance to a go-green initiative is not only immoral but also inhumane. This is especially clear on Columbia’s campus, where green is as visible as blue and white, and to boycott the green movement is a quick route to becoming the campus pariah.

I have accepted the science behind global warming, and I do think work needs to be done at Columbia to increase environmental sustainability. I am fully aware that the temperature is likely to rise by up to 8 degrees, and that sea levels could increase by 23 inches (and yes, I have seen the pictures of polar bears drifting out to sea.)

However, I am also aware that my citizenship is global, that I have responsibilities that are social as well as environmental. There are needs that must come first, or—at the very least—be incorporated into any truly sustainable solution. If we were to go completely green, the planet would be healthy, but would we be? Is going green always the same as going “good?”

I spent my spring break in Guatemala working for a host nongovernmental organization that collaborates with communities to give smaller family farms access to the larger global market. Through this model, which has been employed in numerous other developing countries, small-scale farmers are given the access necessary to compete in the larger market and slowly lift themselves out of the poverty in their communities. It also ensures that farmers are treated fairly and receive equitable wages and prices for their goods.

Fair trade sounds great, and it is. However, it comes at an environmental cost. The same avocado from Guatemala or even farther south comes with a significantly larger footprint than those available from Mexico, California, or Florida.

While buying a U.S. avocado would support American farmers and do less damage to the environment, it would mean neglecting the agricultural export economies of such developing countries. These nations and these families depend on us through the system we have created. To walk away from it entirely in favor of locally grown foods, as many would like, would be to abandon them and fair trade.

It’s largely due to the environmental cost and the hyper-awareness on campus—thanks to student-led initiatives such as EcoReps—that for all the great efforts being made on campus towards buying and eating local, the only truly fair trade item offered on campus is coffee. There is not, as far as I have been able to find, a single other fair-trade option available to students, and the Dining Services Web site even says it is looking for a local coffee to use in the future.
If we continue moving toward environmental neutrality in this single-minded way, we will achieve great and necessary things, but at a human cost. Before we can go local, we first must ask where our food has been coming from and what the consequences of change will be. It would be socially irresponsible to make sweeping green changes without first ensuring that there is a system to protect the livelihood and wellbeing of farmers abroad. Ask the dining staff, your grocers near campus, and the green representatives. Question the system and challenge it to save the earth and its inhabitants, starting with how things work at Columbia.

The author is a student at Columbia and JTS.

Tags: Opinion, David Myers, Environmentalism, fair-trade