The source is lost to history – perhaps the National Lampoon back when it was remotely funny – but one of the funniest things I’ve ever read, a spoof of Blackwell’s “Worst Dressed” list from almost 30 years ago went a little something like this…:

I’ve just discovered the REAL worst-dressed people! Those “boat people” – why, it looks like they’re wearing RAGS! And the people in trailer courts in the Appalachians – who dresses these people?

I thought of that when I read Laura McKenna on the Times’ latest “Green Mom Trend” puff piece/paeon-to-product-placement. She notes quite sensibly…:

The greenest people are totally unhip and unlikely to be photographed for the Times or a glossy magazine. They’re still wearing their clothes from twenty years ago. They aren’t keeping their home spa-worthy clean. No need to worry about polluting the air with chemicals, if you aren’t dusting every five minutes. They aren’t constantly renovating their kitchens and bathrooms, all of which uses enormous amounts of energy and resources; they are still living with the Formica numbers from the 70s. They aren’t jetting off to Europe to browse the Paris markets; they go bowling in the next town over. They aren’t constantly shopping for new things and tossing out the old things.

This is some poetry in all of this. Grandma with the Hummels has a smaller carbon footprint by doing absolutely nothing than the wealthy do-gooder in the Range Rover attending the NRDC fundraiser.

Finally, I can feel good about my own kitchen, a fairly depressing seventies relic. “It’s ugly, but it’s green!”

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make a dent in global warming. But to do it, you need a serious, non-cosmetic, un-cool, and un-trendy change in lifestyle and habits. And frankly there’s no need to make a big fuss about it, get preachy or show off to others how environmentally correct you are. Excessive non-consumption aimed at impressing one’s friends and neighbors is just as annoying – and as conspicuous – as consumption.

As McKenna points out – to the Times, two of their friend’s neighbors seem to make a “trend” – but she’s right.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 5:00 am and is filed under PC / "Woke" Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.