The Daily O’Collegian

It would appear that environmental concern has triumphed after decades of languishing in the slum of public discourse.

Advertisements for everything from tee-shirts to tennis balls have portrayed the “going green” movement like its going out of style, to borrow the cliché.

Politicians have similarly jumped on the bandwagon, and the media are involved in marketing “going green” as the Bohemian lifestyle of choice for the 21st century. What I fear is that “going green” as a fad has reduced environmentalism to a trifle, something to sprinkle on your coffee at Starbucks.

I offer caution to other environmentalists to not accept “going green” as any indicator of real environmental progress. On the surface, it is encouraging to see such widespread appreciation of the environment in our society. Although far and wide, this green is of dubious quality.

The truth is, “going green” is going out of style, because it is a fad and fads die. “Going green” has not affected my own environmental stewardship, which I have maintained for years, and it will not affect me long after it plays itself out and people are green not from environmental awareness but environmental nausea.

The commodification of environmental stewardship will likely lead the movement to its own demise as “green” saturates popular thought to the point of absurdity and mockery.

What I would like to see, and which I imagine my friends in environmental stewardship are striving for, is a more permanent sort of green.

Less a fleeting cultural experiment to sell handbags and other things of supposedly green origin, and more a common thread of understanding our world and living in it better, so that our descendants will have something besides a hoary ruin to inherit.

A sober approach to environmental stewardship can begin today.

To initiate OSU environmental groups’ Earth Week, Dr. Ken Crawford, director of Oklahoma climatological survey and state climatologist will present “the Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Oklahoma During the 21st Century” at 3:30 p.m. in the Student Union.