Comments Appealsman has made

Framing Green Issues

No doubt about it. Orwell was right. Control language and you control thought. We need to change the way we speak about green issues if we want to change the way people think about them.

The term "environment" has been coopted to connote something apart from everyday human existence. Don't use the term "environmental quality." Talk about keeping pollution and poison out of our air, water and food. Air, water and food are part of our daily existence, and most of us understand that we are dependent on these things for life. Seek to use language that paints the issue as what it is- the basic wisdom that you shouldn't mess in your nest.

The irony is that pollution is waste, and reducing pollution means reducing waste. It is not an expense, corporate rhetoric notwithstanding, but rather a cost-savings.  Factories that reclaim toxic chemicals rather than belching them out their smokestacks can often sell or reuse those reclaimed chemicals for other industrial processes, increasing profitability. The cost of waste that corporations generate is included in the price of the finished goods and is paid for by the consumer. We should recast the debate as what it is- an issue not only of clean air and water but of laziness and irresponsibility of corporations who could be doing better both for us and their shareholders if they would just get off their duffs and start improving their processes. On Whither the environmental movement? III posted 5 years ago 16 Responses