spiked-central | Letter | Ethical consumerism

Rob Lyons argues that 'there's little real evidence that organic food is any healthier than the non-organic variety', and that 'people just seem to know that organic is better, even if they are unlikely to be able to justify why' (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

One of my grandchildren was born with severe allergies, including allergies to many foods. There's a difference in his health and behaviour, when he's fed food that isn't organic - his behaviour turns atrocious, and his immune system goes haywire. There is more benefit to organic food than Lyons indicates.

Gail Wiltse, USA

The Australian Government has helpfully provided a Green Vehicle Guide website, allowing people to assess the greenness of their cars (letters, below; Being seen to be green, 8 September).

From this, we learn that the much-vaunted, eco-friendly Toyota Prius scores handsomely with respect to greenhouse gases - 8.5 out of 10. To be impressed by this, one would have to be deluded into believing that anthropogenic trace greenhouse gases are overwhelming the influence of factors such as the sun and water vapour, and causing significant climate change. When it comes to the real nasties, however - nitrogen oxides, particulates, carbon monoxide, etc - the Prius scores a paltry 5 out of 10.

By contrast, the Mercedes Benz CL55K - a gas-guzzling, 5.4litre, 8 cylinder real car - scores only 5 out of 10 on the greenhouse gas rating (can't you just hear the trees breathing in deeply as it rolls by?), but scores a whopping 9 out of 10 with respect to air pollution. So, Amy Alkon, not only can the penilely challenged compensate by buying a proper car - they can feel as eco-smug as the hybrid drivers, but with better reason.

Paul Buddery, Australia

There's another side to the greener-than-thou attitude that Rob Lyons rightly attributes to middle-class recyclers (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

In parochial, working-class areas like the south Wales valleys, recycling - though largely viewed with indifference by the majority of people who live there - is seen by older people, like my dear grandmother, as 'waste not, want not'. What a shame to see elderly people saving glass and plastic bottles, jars, and other crap. The idea that every bottle that goes to the municipal rubbish tip is contributing to environmental destruction is a nonsensical delusion. I can obviously forgive an old age pensioner, for believing in such silly scenarios. I can't forgive those who propagate such ideas. The invasion of people's space by local politics and petty bureaucracy is sickening.

Andrew Cox, UK

The sad thing about so-called green consumerism, is that it is rarely what it proclaims itself to be (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

Organic food may be healthier, but if it uses large amounts of non-renewable resources to get the food from its source to the consumer and in packaging, then it is no less environmentally damaging than any other product. The free market means that supermarkets source their supplies from all over the world. Expensive air transport costs, plus cheap labour and overheads, enable organic vegetables to be produced more cheaply in the Third World all year round than at home. Home-produced organic food can't undercut these prices. Much of the greenness of supermarket organic vegetable produce is a sham, when the whole point of being organic is to minimise the use of fossil fuels, as well as the use of unnatural fertilisers and pesticides.

Real green consumers try to buy locally produced and locally sourced products, but they may find that looking for them involves travelling around. And unless this is done on foot or on a bicycle, then they are wasting precious fuel, pootling around to get their organic food and recycled products. Ideally, farmers' markets may be the solution to obtaining local food. But they won't have anything out of season, hence the variety expected in a supermarket simply isn't available. Few want to live off locally farmed produce, and few are prepared to eat only what is seasonally available as a matter of principle. The expanding range of organic ready meals and out-of-season produce indicates who is buying this food - people with money, who think of themselves first.

Peter Hollander, UK

The cost of owning an ecomobile like the Toyota Prius is far higher than its hefty pricetag suggests (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

It takes forever to get around in such an underpowered sluggard. This opens a niche market - nothing is cooler than being ecologically aware while passing Beemers on the autobahn. Give a Prius to one of the USA's premier chop shops, and they will expand its cylinders to a litre each and line them with hemiheaded, multivalved marvels that will increase the horsepower by a decimal place. If vegans complain, add a liquid hydrogen tank, to declare your liberation from Halliburton.

Russell MacGregor Seitz, USA

I don't care why anybody drives a hybrid - as a resident of southern California, I know I'll breathe a tiny bit easier, thanks to their choosing that over some gigundo compensation for their small penis (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

Rob Lyons is apparently a bit averse to prying his hindquarters out of his chair, or doing some substantive in-chair reporting. The Toyota Prius was designed to be a hybrid. The Honda Accord was retrofitted to be one, and is not as good of a car, in my hybrid-educated opinion. I'm buying a Honda Insight, which gets 70 miles per gallon, and looks kind of space age. I could never get a Prius, because it's just too ugly. Am I superficial? Yeah, I'm superficially adding a little less smog to the southern California air. If every road-hogging vulgarian did the same, we'd have blue skies here again, instead of brown skies.

Amy Alkon, USA

Rob Lyons misses a vital point about ways of being politically active, in this post-ideological age (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

Appealing to people's aesthetic sense is one of the remaining ways we can introduce reflective - if not subversive - questions about the consequences of how the world operates, to those around us. Ethical consumerism is a consistent way to use what little power we have to make a statement - call it a fashion statement if you will, but I think this unfair and simplistic - about our beliefs about the inequities of capitalist production. I share Lyons' concerns about the motivation behind buying organic - is it not the same motivation behind buying a 4x4 or people carrier: 'As long as me and my family are safe, I'll pay a premium for that safety'?

With all things that are the more expensive option, prestige follows. However, don't throw ethical consumerism as a whole in with this. Producers in developing economies benefit from our having the ability to choose fairly-traded produce. It may be seen as cool, but it also allows people to think about their relationship as a consumer with the means of production and distribution, in a more real way than Marxist theory on its own ever did.

Pete Seaman, UK

There is more to buying organic, choosing green products, or living without as many resources, than the consumers' own ego, health, or image (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

There is a litany of concerns that go beyond personal health, surrounding products like Monsanto's StarLink corn, or engineered cows. This type of dismissive and condescending snivel, excusing itself as critical perspective, is exactly the kind of smear Exxon, ADM, and RoundUP would love too see replicated. Lifestyle choices are surely less powerful than spiking trees, but does this somehow negate any action, or choice? When Rob Lyons is choking on China's pollution halfway around the world, he'll think twice about critiquing someone who thinks it a little bit more thoughtful to ride a bike than to drive a Hummer. Take some responsibility for your footprint, you ass - we all live on the same property.

JD Marston, USA

Once again, Rob Lyons bashes the concept of recycling, or doing one's bit, in a recycling of previous articles on spiked (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

Once again, we are told that 'there is little financial incentive for recycling, and recycling is generally...more expensive than dumping and making new goods from virgin materials'. Presumably, the environmental incentives for recycling - such as the fact that the virgin materials won't last forever, or the fact that dumping pollutes our land and our seas, damaging wildlife and our natural habitats - warrant no comment. These are strange concepts, indeed - much better to look at recycling in purely economic terms.

It's not about recycling being a fashion statement or a moral statement, or judging others for being too lazy or apathetic, although Lyons clearly feels under attack. It's about individual responsibility, and contributing positively, rather than commenting cynically from an ivory tower sinking into its landfill site. That might be unfashionable - positive contribution? Individual responsibility? What are these things of which you speak? But individuals can make a difference. And the more individuals that do it, the bigger the difference it makes.

Nick Temple, UK

Rob Lyons suggests that because some people buy organic produce or pursue an environmental agenda because it makes them feel good or look cool, this somehow detracts from the moral value of their act, or is otherwise distasteful (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

He goes on to suggest that because rather than 'seeking large-scale political or legal change', we merely 'do our little bit', we are acting in a 'degraded' fashion. I don't know when Rob Lyons last woke up in the morning, and decided and then successfully executed a decision to foster large-scale political change, but it's not exactly as easy as buttering one's toast. What does it consist of? More incoherent and ineffective laws, which Lyons also seems to abhor? Or altering the daily details of the lives of the greater populace - ie, exactly what these people are currently engaging in?

Just because in response to a questionnaire by someone standing at a checkout counter, some people suggest that self-interest has something to do with buying organic food, does not in any way degrade the moral value of the act, let alone its practical value. Many ethicists, including Peter Singer, point out that self-interest does not discount the ethical value of an action. It is the height of Judeo-Christian dogmatism to suggest that only selfless acts, whatever those are, contain moral value. It's possible to do things both because it feels good, and because we rationally feel that they're the right things to do. And this doesn't automatically mean that we feel holier than thou toward people who still buy eggs from mass hatcheries.

Mark Solomon, USA

I don't doubt that many people choose to buy organic, recycle, and drive hybrids largely for appearance's sake (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

In general, this strikes me as preferable to other sorts of conspicuous consumption - far better that they want to be seen in the Toyota Prius, than in the Hummer. And buying the organic tomato because it tastes better still keeps a cup of herbicide from being sprayed in the fields. I think the only objection could be to cases where the appearance of greenness is at odds with reality - for example, the dashing Prius does no better, in terms of fuel efficiency, than a 1980 Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel.

As 60 percent of the emissions associated with a car stem from its manufacture, buying a new car to be green is clearly a contradiction in terms - not to mention that the Rabbit Diesel could be run on biodiesel, unlike the gas-burning Prius. And of course, neither compare favourably with bicycling, which unfortunately has less prestige than it should. Some green buying clearly benefits the environment, whatever the motivations of the buyer. Some clearly does just the opposite. But the root of the problem lies in thinking that buying things is a solution to such problems in general. To my eye, not buying things is a far more environmentally sound approach.

Tobias Boyd, USA

Since the Earth's resources are finite, and responsible for sustaining life, one could hardly argue that trying to live a green lifestyle is a bad thing - not that this has stopped many a political conservative from indulging in the pretzel logic exercise necessary to mock environmentally savvy folks (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

Rob Lyons' point is how unspeakably trendy it is to be seen in the act of being a green consumer, and that this is a bad thing. Thus he deflects the indefensible position of mocking positive behaviour, by mocking the intentions behind the behaviour. Since extrasensory skills are necessary to glean intentions, I applaud Lyons on his supernatural abilities. Projection - the act of applying ones own deficiencies to others - would be a possible explanation for his article, were I willing to indulge in the sin of conjecture.

Dennis Fisher, USA

Instead of taking the religion out of environmentalism, as Rob Lyons desires, why not put environmentalism into religion where it belongs? (Being seen to be green, 8 September)

Religious leaders have missed the boat by not exploring the new moral imperatives of our increasingly complicated world. Don't get me wrong - the ten commandments are just as relevant today as they were 2,000 years ago. But Moses didn't need to know if his consumer purchases encouraged unfair labour practices or environmental degradation halfway around the world. He wasn't concerned about fuel efficiency, and he certainly didn't have to choose between paper and plastic. Being a good person today is more difficult than ever. Fortunately, it's also a more interesting and vital challenge than just keeping your hands off your neighbour's spouse.

Michael Thomas Brehl, USA

Being green has not one damn thing to do with being better than someone else (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

Because some people may want to go about it that way - and there are those who do, or at least give that impression - doesn't mean that this attitude has anything to do with being a green consumer. If Rob Lyons would spend just a little time looking into why green consumerism is good for everybody, he might get beyond being so hung up over whether someone is being a snob.

If everybody put their recycling bin out, it wouldn't make me feel less special. Rather, it would make me shout 'hallelujah, everybody gets it now'. If the only produce available was organic, I wouldn't be despondent because my status symbol was now ubiquitous. I would be relieved that our civilisation had realised that everything is dependent upon everything else, and a monoculture with the goal of sustaining only one species is a method that's way of out of balance.

Bill Dinger, USA

I agree that being green or buying organic isn't necessarily going to change the planet directly, and it's certainly possible that there's a fashion element involved for some people (Being seen to be green, 8 September)

But there's another reason for this type of action, and that's to raise general awareness of environmental issues. It's only now that organic food can be found in all supermarkets, that many people even consider the choices they have - maybe thinking about the kind of vegetables they're eating, and how they've been treated. In this age of ultra-competitive hypermarkets, it's also good to have a benchmark of quality, to compare things to.

Sean Davidson, UK

At no point does Rob Lyons elaborate on why buying organic, driving hybrid, and recycling are harmful - he merely feels that many make these choices for personal reasons, for their image (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

So what? Does driving a fuel-efficient vehicle because you think it looks cool make it any less fuel-efficient? Does it negate the numerous benefits? I agree that most people making such decisions are probably doing so for somewhat superficial or selfish reasons, but it doesn't follow that they should chastised and condemned for so doing. Like it or not, all acts of benevolence are somewhat selfish. Such acts are still indicative of a step in the right direction, and they are still valuable.

Jason Wax, USA

Many people probably buy green as a status symbol, in part because it is often more expensive (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

Good for them. Motivations don't interest me. I draw a parallel to emergency workers who are in the business for the excitement - if I'm injured in a car crash, I don't care why the paramedics are there, only that they provide quality care. Similarly, I don't care why someone buys a Toyota Prius - only that they bought it, and are using it. Given that so little is being done to protect the environment, any help for those of us who are sincere is welcome. It buys more time to make real changes in attitude.

Joe Melton, USA

Perhaps people who make their environmentally friendly purchases and life choices obvious do so - gasp - because they're trying to set a good example (Being seen to be green, 8 September).

Or at least perhaps they're trying to bring the subject to the conscious attention of the masses, who would ordinarily reserve such thoughts only for Earth Day. People do this all the time with things they think are important, including wearing supportive labels or signs on T-shirts, or pink ribbon pins. It is a statement, yes, but not always one about how hip a person is.

R McKay, USA