From the article:

"I want to think more about why people care about trees so much," Werbach says. "I really don't know."

How did that all come out Adam?  You've had a decade or so to find out.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Amazing,  I agree with your take on this new "Blue".

Sounds to me like a lot of Werner Ehrhart with his "you create your own reality" schtick being repackaged by a progressive environmentalist/capitalist.

What do we not understand abouta how little time remains to get this supertanker turned around before it plows into the parking lot!

Right, let's see. We're cooking the planet. What should we do? Oh, I know, let's have a marketing team come in and give the environmentalists a make-over. After all, they won't impress anyone if they dress in last year's fashions. Yeah, that should do it.

I'm reading "Confronting Consumption" (MIT Press) just as I stumble on this ...  has a whole chapter on "commodification" -- turning everything into a product that can be packaged and sold as a "lifestyle" choice or a "personal sustainability practice."  I keep turning down corners of the book for a review I planned for Gristmill -- will have to read faster now!

Save your community: Cut greenhouse gas emissions 5% per year.

I was all ready to start a new "blue" party after Gore lost the 2000 election - the name for me came from "blue sky", and the thinking that we needed a new 3rd party with a focus on the future (emphasis on science and technology as well as the environment and economy, etc.)

But then I thought a bit more. "blue" and the optimism I was shooting for didn't seem to go together. Besides which, the Democrats seem to have adopted "blue" in the color-coded electoral maps of recent years. And then Howard Dean convinced me that Democrats really can think coherently about science and technology and the future.

So really, "blue" = Democrat, and I'm happy with that. Now, what was this post supposed to be all about again?

Now lets take one word or phrase from each response:

lack of oxygen
global climate disaster is too urgent
people
how little time remains
cooking the planet
commodification
Can we take it back
until planet drops
focus on the future

Common subliminal theme?

URGENCY

The new Blue movement looks like a great plan for alienating even more people and making environmentalists appear wackier than ever. Just as caring for the environment is going mainstream, with government, corporations, and individuals hopping on board, Mr. Werbach wants to raise the bar. Now it will not be sufficient to care about the environment, reducing pollution, and preserving endangered species, folks will also have to lose weight and stop smoking if they REALLY care about the Earth. Should play well in the south, eh?

There are clear labels -- if a person needs labels -- for everything Mr. Werbach wants to encourage people to do. As someone mentioned above, there are permaculture and voluntary simplicity. There are also groups interested in spiritual growth. There are progressives. There are vegetarians and vegans. There are carnivores interested in human treatment of animals. There are organizations devoted to helping a person lose weight, get more exercise, or stop smoking. And so on and so on. Why not let people pick and choose how they want to improve their lives? They'll probably embrace a lot of related and other "good" behavior as well.

There is no need to create an all encompassing MOVEMENT that links everything together into a fundamentalist cult!

What's next... precise dietary rules, guidelines for choosing appropriate brides for your sons, and stoning of people who dare suggest it is okay to cut down a tree?

I've never smoked and have no interest in starting, but I always wonder whether there might be an evolutionary advantage from the behavior. Maybe is keeps disease-carrying insects away from the family compound or something. Anyway, if this is the case, then perhaps a pro-environment movement -- THE BLUES -- should encourage smoking. If it keeps disease-carrying insects away from people, smoking will reduce the use of synthetic chemical pesticides, bug repellants, and those silly citronella candles. Thus the problem with an all-encompassing movement. How does one decide -- with over one billion people involved -- what is acceptable Blue behavior and what is not acceptable Blue behavior? I suspect Mr. Werbach is just another potential cult leader who wants to impose -- via marketing campaigns -- his personal views of what is right and what is wrong on other people.

I don't see the cause for the vitriol here.  Granted, it comes off as a bit fluffy for the eco-hardcore, but I think that's the point.  I know that I have a hard enough time talking with friends and relatives, trying to convince them on the merits of green arguments alone.  People don't necessarily care when you toss a bunch of stats or scare scenarios at them.  It's a lot easier when you can relate it to something they're already interested in, whether that's personal fitness or quality of life or whatever.  

A lot of people on here seem to think the Sierra Club's role is to convince the environmentalists on the issues, but we really don't need that much prodding.  It's the large majority of the public that don't necessarily think about these issues that do need it.  If a marketing tactic like BLUE brings a few people on board, more power to 'em.

is what we often miss in the environmental community.  Of course we should walk to our corner, locally owned organic grocer and buy locally grown organic vegetarian food, and put it in our hemp shopping bags to carry home.  When 5% of us do that, we make a great difference.  We also set the bar so high that sustainability seems pretty out of reach to 'the average American'.  I visit my extended family in suburbia, and they simply don't get it, nor have I ever been able to demonstrate it unless they choose to come visit me in my little green house in my little green neighborhood in my big green city where they are immediately uncomfortable because they can't find parking or a McDonald's on every corner.  Adam's vision has helped bring sustainability into those people's lives in a very personal way, reaching hundreds of thousands, millions of people that traditionally just thought we were just weird because all they knew of us was what Rush Limbaugh would tell them about us.  Our conversations were circular amongst ourselves, and we can certainly put off a judgmental and holier than thou vibe that only then confirms in the general public what Rush told them:  that we're not grounded in reality.  

We are the 5% that are the leading edge.  We don't need to preach to ourselves at this critical moment, or debate whether wind power is better than solar.  What we need is to reach the next 50% and show them that sustainability is not weird, but rather can be good for them, fun, and good for their children and the planet, too.  The purchasing willpower of that 50% will not change.  They are not among our 5% who are ready and willing to hang our clothes to dry and reuse our ziploc baggies until they're riddled with holes.  They may get there someday, but they have to start with what they know.  So for now, when action is so desperately needed, wouldn't you prefer to see that 50% (150 million Americans) taking the first few steps towards joining our leading edge?  They start buying organic because they've heard it's good for them and hey, bonus, it's good for the planet, too.  Then they read labels, then they get concerned about chemicals in their food, in their paint, in their bedding materials, then something clicks, and they see...

the big picture.

And then they come join us on the leading edge.  

Lawyers inflate their billable hours. Werbach, Nordhaus & Shellenberger just waste ours. Are they paid by Madison Ave. to sooth super-consumers into consuming without guilt? The new Green Gurus are just what affluent Americans need to rationalize their life style which rests on the backs of the undeveloped world and what remains of the natural world. When will the mass media recognize these guys for what they are: SALESMEN. We need to let Rev. Billy loose on Werbach, the wettest behind the ears of these Stark Raving Loonies of Lifestyle Liberalism posing as holier-than-us preacher-wolves in green clothing.  

Why not use the current "green" label and show people how protecting the environment is good for everyone... our health and our economy? Why a new label?  Greens can grow. No need to start over.

Here, here! Eliminate the import ban on Cuban cigars. Light up and enjoy ... you're reducing your chance of contracting the West Nile virus (avian encephalitis), or dengue fever, or malaria  ...

These are only my personal opinions.

I agree - the vitriol is misplaced here. Werbach may not be living up to our stratospheric hopes for him, but his work on social environmental movements should not be savaged like this.

What is frustrating for me, personally, wallrock and others, is that this "shopping" frame has been really quite dominant, within the even more dominant frame "what can you do?".  As opposed to: "What can we do?".

Now, we've had these debates before: some, particularly of a psychological (and similarly, marketing) bent, feel that, as Scott, argues, you get people to take first steps, and eventually they move into "deeper" water.  

Fine!  Al Gore is pouring $300 million into a similar, marketing, individualistic effort.  I hope it succeeds.

But, 1) what happens after that?  While Mr. Wehrbach et al spend big bucks pushing for the individualistic approach, who is going to organize all of these people to actually push for some real change?  which leads to, what in my mind may be even more important,

2) a certain amount of cognitive dissonance (to try to use some psychology) -- the planet is about to fry, and all we're asking is that you change you're shopping habits.  Now think about this.  When we are engaged in wars (well, at least WWII), or big social movements (civil rights) -- two of the highlighted "we can do it" scenes in the "we" commercial -- people are doing something (fighting, sacrificing, working) that is to some extent commensurate with the task at hand.  

So the danger with the individualistic messages is this -- yes, we say global warming will destroy the planet, but, you don't have to do much -- therefore, it's really not a big problem, is the implicit message.

I don't see  vitriol or savaging here. I see sincere criticism of a proposed concept.

Are there any colors left?  Is it only one color for political groups like the greens and 2 colors for sports teams.  I quess for countries its 3 colors like red, white and blue for the USA and those Europe country flags.

It's better than those single symbol groups like the swatika.  

McDonough another big ego, can't be bothered with actual effectiveness details visionary already uses blue/green for the nonprofit he spun off.

Let's be candid - an agency known for everything but sustainability wishes to be 'in the game'.  What to do?  Buy Werbcach, add an S and then create some clever campaign to make it appear like you are leading.  Nauseating.

I've got a better idea.  Drop the labels.  Drop the ego. Keep it simple and do the right thing because it feels so right.  Your Grandparents and Great-Grandparents would be proud.

I wasn't at Werbach's Commonwealth Club talk.

I expect he got a standing ovation.  I would have joined it.

           --Stewart Brand

why you would have (ovated?) joined in an ovation?

Brand is a nuclear power advocate.  His brain has turned to mush.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

...I still have a carbon knife that I bought from a Whole Earth store 30 years ago, and it works great.  I don't know what relevance that has to anything, but I'm still curious.

If it really is Brand, it would be nice if he explained himself a bit more.  Who knows, anyone could use his name.

I can't remember how many times I have lamented the fact that he abandoned the Whole Earth Catalogue mode and how much it really would help now that all these technologies that are so unknown to mass media and the public have evolved into practical application.

Just when it would be great to be able to link to various articles on various devices right here on the net.  It was made for the net.  The Catalogue.

Instead he went nuclear.  I've seen his false dilemna fallacies disguised as arguments supporting nukes, pathetic.

Remember Khosla?  he never replied to our arguments.  Remember Nathaneal greene from NRDC?  Nope, no cogent reply either.

There will be none from Werbach or brand either.  The rich and famous are far beyond us simple bloggers.  So much jet set sophistication, how could they be expected to lower themselves.

The divine right of capital proves they are superior as a species.  Hehehey.  Gaack!  Socrates needs to reincarnate and kick some rich boy ass.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I think you got it right, with that big SF article that begins with scissors-sex Barbie, and Ken as her pimp.

More seriously, I am on record as having serious problems with many loosey-goosey applications of the in principle respectable noun "sustainability."  And unfortunately, Adam comes across as an exceedingly loose goose.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Mighty strange alright Canis!  The whole article was.  I think he wowed the board and Brower with the potential of making environmentalism trendy again.

But we see how that all turned out.  Too bad Brand and the group assembled for his speech hadn't read it.

I still think it could be made trendy, but in a deeper, quality of life respect.  The art chic attitude when adopted by advertising people?  Not very deep.  Real artists can get away with it, but not glorified salesmen.  Ads ain't art.  Sorry Adam.

Get 100 billion per year in subsidies for energy corporations diverted to renewables and conservation, now that would be art, hehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I think the idea of being either "blue" and/or "green" is ridiculous.

"Environmentalism" is the term that has brought us to this point in history where we are even aware enough as a society about these issues to debate these superficial terms.

The only departure from environmentalism - as practiced - I've read about is what Van Jones describes as a new philosophy which emphasizes priroritizing lower income communities with green collar jobs, rather than regulation, in some situations. That is a significantly different approach in my opinion.

However, SHellenberger and Nordhouse(or however you spell it) are wrong in that this new philosophy is not a difference in spirit of environmentalism and or in fundamental values from environmentalism, which they seem to think it is. It is simply a different approach.

As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. -Leo Tolstoy

Amazing, you are in your game on this thread.

We create rock stars out of nobodies and feed their egos by giving air time and dollars to their every thought, deed, rant and product.

Adam started out as one of the legion of idealists but had not the heart to stay in the trenches.  

Instead, he took to the fast lane and moved into a better zip code while others of us stay on the ground trying to make sense of the babble that surrounds US non-policy to placate selfish consumers in a  global warming world.  Walmart is China's outlet store.

You summed it up:

[The rich and famous are far beyond us simple bloggers.  So much jet set sophistication,]

This all makes me really blue.

John McCormick

No need to personally attack the rich and powerful.  It's better to have some sort of dialogue.

Usually their part of it is cut short.  Generally we who stand on the virtual street corner accept and dole out criticism in order to keep it going.

The powerful tend to keep to themselves, at conferences and in the halls of power.  Even the most obvious ideas that evolve on the street tend to be willfully ignored by power.

There's is a closed world view.  Shut off from what they see as the distraction of the mob.

I wonder if any of us would be different, were we to be adnmitted to that world?  Does a few million bucks make one deaf to the clamour?  I think so, the divine right of capital is the illusion that separates.

It's a bizzare phenomenon.  More than the actual cash, it's the consciousness of difference that counts.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Americans are lazy and hate being told what to do. I should know, I'm one of them. So I fail to see how getting on a high horse and telling people that they need to lose weight and stop smoking (though I don't smoke) is going to make or break climate change solutions. Does smoking really add that much greenhouse gas to the atmosphere? Do overweight people consume significantly more resources than skinny ones? No, of course not!

Lifestyle changes are necessary to the solution, but as Werbach noted himself, they are not the ONLY solution. And people aren't going to take the steps necessary to change their lifestyles unless they know WHY. Until then, they're going to chafe at elitist restrictions.

Why not suggest that people start backyard and community vegetable gardens instead of telling them to lose weight? Or suggest they support locally owned and operated businesses instead of Wal*Mart? Label reading is good, but should people really HAVE to read labels? Especially when so many (like "antibiotic free" chicken and "free range" eggs) are so misleading?

Lifestyle changes are not going to come easily. And they won't come at all unless we have systemic change brought on by political action. After all, if the FDA and USDA did their jobs and actually protected the consumer, we wouldn't have such a problem, would we?

Really, the so-called "BLUE movement" should be advocating common sense, efficiency, and a healthy does of skepticism to scrutinize what one consumes.

P.S. Why the all-caps "BLUE?" It's not an acronym, so first-letter capitalization is all that is necessary. Anything else is just silly and pretentious.

Amazing;

[I wonder if any of us would be different, were we to be adnmitted to that world? ]

That world does not admit persons who have not agreed to buy into the corporate or 'other-entity' (including public interest groups) line.

The powerful do not operate an 'open door' shop.

We are what we are after a certain youthful age.  

John McCormick

I knew we could shop our way out of an environmental crisis.  

Thanks Adam Werbach.  His programs work well with the Bush administration post 9/11 motto: America open for business.  Remember?

it seems rather telling to me that all these "thinkers" and their plans to "rebrand" environmentalism never have a section in their "blue" prints about challenging corporate power.

it seems rather obvious that corporate power is a big part of the problem here.

c'mon, from the War to environmental racism to mountaintop removal to social inequity and everything in between there are common culprits and they are called corporations. They have the best governments that money can buy in their back pockets and they are running amok across the planet in the name of profit and progress.

But do these great "thinkers" include any plans to challenge that power in their "new" ideas for citizen movements? I haven't seen any. Is it because they get paid from excess corporate largesse?

or are they just plain blind to the reality that the free market is all about sacrificing the future for the present?

Werbach, et al... If you don't have any real ideas about changing the power relations in this country and on the planet then you don't really have squat for any kind of solution to the myriad, complex problems facing communities. And, no, even if the Dems win next November, that will NOT substantially change power relations.

If working people and greenies had real power, things would change real quick.

all y'all have a nice day.

it seems rather telling to me that all these "thinkers" and their plans to "rebrand" environmentalism never have a section in their "blue" prints about challenging corporate power.

it seems rather obvious that corporate power is a big part of the problem here.

c'mon, from the War to environmental racism to mountaintop removal to social inequity and everything in between there are common culprits and they are called corporations. They have the best governments that money can buy in their back pockets and they are running amok across the planet in the name of profit and progress.

But do these great "thinkers" include any plans to challenge that power in their "new" ideas for citizen movements? I haven't seen any. Is it because they get paid from excess corporate largesse?

or are they just plain blind to the reality that the free market is all about sacrificing the future for the present?

Werbach, et al... If you don't have any real ideas about changing the power relations in this country and on the planet then you don't really have squat for any kind of solution to the myriad, complex problems facing communities. And, no, even if the Dems win next November, that will NOT substantially change power relations.

If working people and greenies had real power, things would change real quick.

all y'all have a nice day.

I posted notes on the speech to Grist because I've been impressed in the past at seriousness and the the depth of thinking that readers bring. Flames and personal attacks might make you feel good, but they don't really move our work forward.  A healthy movement actually has rigorous internal debate about tactics and strategies.  

The full text of the speech is posted, and I encourage you to give it a read before you reject the ideas outright.  

Let me make three points.

WE NEED TO EXPAND OUR TACTICS BECAUSE WHAT WE'RE DOING ISN'T WORKING.  I believe we're not making enough progress fast enough to combat global warming.  If you think that our current tactics are enough, and that we'll get to a reduction of our CO2 emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 by continuing what we're doing now, then we'll have to respectfully disagree.  

WE NEED POLITICS, INVESTMENT AND A PERSONAL SUSTAINABILITY MOVEMENT:  US federal legislation for a carbon cap is necessary.  We also need massive new public and private investments in clean energy (starting with the Apollo Project I discussed in 2004's speech and going much further.)  In addition,  we need to catalyze a new mass movement that goes far beyond green to serve the most pressing personal needs of the global public.  

WE SHOULD SPEND MORE TIME SHARING SUSTAINABILITY THAN DEFENDING IT: Ecological thinking, translated into an actionable framework like personal sustainability practices (PSPs) can solve a slew of common challenges facing a large portion of the people on the planet.  Yet today the people who know about these practices demand purity, "indie-cred", and perfect compliance rather than welcoming people to a broader movement.

Here are two excerpts from the speech that speak to some points raised:

"I've come to believe that changing the way people look at the world is more important in the long run than focusing only on the marginal ecological impact of the individual actions they take.

Eating organic food should be only one small articulation of the way you take care of yourself, your community and the planet.  

You can eat local, co-op grown, organic heirloom tomatoes and still be a bad person.  

Green is good, but it frequently breaks down as a strategy when it hits the marketplace.  The common green definition of sustainability or "environmental sustainability" is mainly concerned with the fate of the planet and how that affects our lives.  For me, sustainability has four integrated streams - social, cultural, economic and environmental.  All exist in balance.

That's why tonight I'm speaking about the birth of a new mass movement to compliment and expand our existing political efforts - not for professionals or experts or people who can explain photosynthesis and lifecycle analysis.   A movement we can call BLUE.  

This movement will have many faces, but at its heart it's a lifestyle movement, a way to live a successful life.  Many of us already have a regular practice that can reinforce our values.  While political activism is at best a bi-annual pursuit, shopping is a regular activity for most people on the planet, and if trends continue, for virtually everyone.  We can either cede this field to the profit-driven marketeers, or we can share the field."

"In developing the thinking behind BLUE there has been nothing more controversial than the idea of a consumer led movement. But I think that our understanding of the power of consumerism can change.  Recall that a hundred years ago the word consumption was a way of describing tuberculosis. We are no longer an agrarian society, and it's time that our cultural understanding of shopping -- gathering the things we need to live and thrive - matures.

I recently shared the vision for a billion-person consumer movement with the head of one of the largest environmental organizations and he scowled, "a billion person consumer movement?  I want a billion person anti-consumer movement."   It's a nice line, and a wonderful sentiment, and I hope he goes out a builds that movement, but what I'm proposing is that we meet most people where they're at today, as busy, complex humans looking to do the best thing for their family and themselves.

In fact consumer movements throughout history have been central to revolutions.   The French Revolution was a call for bread, which Marie Antoinette famously and fatefully responded to by saying, "Let them eat cake."  In 1960, four African American students sat at a segregated lunch counter at a North Carolina Woolworth's store at the seats reserved for white customers. And Gandhi rallied a nation against imperial British rule with the simple and radical call for a march to the sea to make salt.

Today our response to shoppers as a social movement is much like our response to corporations who wish to be leaders.   Which is, I'd rather you just didn't consume, or in the case of corporations, I'd rather you didn't exist.   We don't have time for this preciousness.  Corporations and consumerism can be vehicles for change.  The question is what type of change that will be."

While I'm not certain that BLUE is the way forward, it does seem that it at least has the advantage of using readily available and successful methods for changing the behavior of large groups of people.  And what we need, at bottom, is precisely changing the behavior of large groups of people--in a short period of time, as many of you have noted.  

Perhaps we're all (rightly) a bit squeamish about using consumer culture as a tool--and if consumer culture was the only thing Werbach was proposing, I'd be terribly skeptical myself--but why deprive ourselves of the most effective tools available for changing group behavior because some people we disagree with have used those tools for ill?   If the situation is dire, then ideological purity at the expense of generating the results we need is nothing more than narcissism.

Sorry for the personal attacks.  They are mainly a result of frustration.  We see mnostly a one way, top down mode of communication from those in positions of greater influence on corporate/public policy.  As we did from Vinod Khosla for instance.

Proclamations from on high. Vinod come down from the mountain with the stone tablets from the gods of the divine right of capital.  To bring us ethanol (that doubles the gHG per mile driven compaed to gasoline)! Hehey.

We want dialogue.  Not dictation.

I can see you have made the same  point many here often cite about the world changing power of quality of life over quantity of possesions and consumption.  Light that fire as a societal trend and corporate capital will flow to feed it.

We certainly will not eliminate corporate control of mass culture anytime soon.  But could we temper the next-quarterly-earnings greed with some longer term values?

How to get them to listen?  Corporate CEOs and boardrooms, who mistrust government and the power of the mob even less.  Turn the mob into careful consumers?  Yeah, that could help.  But why would corporatists use ad money to acomplish that?

If you could motivate them, fine.  

Meanwhile here at the internet grassroots we would like to rip corporate tax breaks and subsidies from the old energy and ag economy and direct them to renewables and conservation.

Direct to consumers, per GHG free kwh generated and kwh saved with conservation.  Direct checks to motivate consumer choices.  Money that goes from the bottom of the energy food chain on up to corporations that meet consumer demad.

Instead of only a green ad campaign for walmart, an actual bottomline incentive for Walmart to mass produce and supply devices like solar cogeneration panels for their customers and their stores.  Then make the ads about the effort.

Public opinion got to walmart on the lawsuit against their former employee, where they won medical expenses back from her settlement.  They voluntarily gave the money back.  

Why can't public pressure work with large corporations on energy?  it can.  If energy markets are freed up so that their customers see a pocketbook reason to demand the mass production of devices to make it happen.

I've got a campaign for you.  10 bucks per month in the next four months before the election, with a note calling for subsidy diversion, sent to candiates of our choice.  Times millions of green/blue voices.  We have millions of environmentally active voters that would do it, given the fire of a mass media movement.

"Money doesn't talk it swears", time to swear at the corporatists destroying our planet.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Just in case the occasional drive to the mountains didn't make you feel guilty enough, let's try to put weight loss and finding time for people into the same movement. And then take that guilt, and do what with it? Shop! This pretty much sums up what I think is wrong with the environmental movement ... we all take our guilt and try to deal with it on an individual basis. This is perfect for a consumer society, because you can only think, what could I buy or do differently?

Instead, why don't we work together to make our voices heard? Our values and interests are being overlooked, our tax dollars are being spent on wars instead of public transportation. Buying the newest diet craze won't help you change that, but forming a social movement like the Civil rights movement might.