Greenwashing America

The article that I have found is called Greenwashing America and is written by Alan Caruba. The main argument the author is making throughout the article is that “Green” (environmentally beneficial product and ways of living) are being unjustly forced upon the American populous, greenwashing/brainwashing them. The moral stand point is that this greenwashing is bad and it’s a problem that needs to be fixed. Although all his arguments are agreeable in many ways I found that the evidence and major points could be argued against and can be somewhat exaggerated. In this blog I will explain that the author’s arguments are justified and have clear supporting evidence but can also be quite easily disputed against. Firstly I will put forth the author’s major arguments/the evidence supporting them and in the following paragraph I will explain my point of view on whether or not I felt his arguments were reasonable.

“America is being brainwashed by environmentalism and this is very unfair to the population”. This is the major argument of the whole article which is supported by many sub-points that prove it s validity. I will go over the two main sub-points and there supporting evidence.

One of the sub-points the author makes is that these green products are also just a marketing ploy: raising the prices of regular products because they are organic and natural he explains “calling something ‘Green’ doesn’t make it better in any fashion”. An example the author used to support this point was that companies persuade clients to by Green products by labelling them such as “100% bamboo towels” and “99.6% natural line of shampoos”.

Although I do believe that companies using advertisements to persuade their clients to buy is wrong, most if not every company does this, why does it matter if there doing it with green products or flashy designs, as long as these green products are in fact environmentally friendly. Furthermore even though this point does support the basis of the major argument ‘greenwashing” I don’t believe it is a strong point because there are so many other companies that use advertising as a method of attracting clients.

In addition the author finds that corporations claim they are environmentally friendly in order to protect themselves from Environmental protection Agencies and saving themselves money from lawsuits thus making it even more of a marketing ploy. The supporting evidence of this point can be seen in this case; an environmental marketing company by the name of TerraChoice worked with another product-safety certification organization called Underwriters Laboratories thinking that manufacturers would like to seek out third party verification of their environmental claims thus making money.

In response to the sub-point and its evidence in the above paragraph, the evidence is very strong and the point is valid but it proves that some environmental organizations are in fact unruly and scams. There is no argument against that but once again the business world is made up of unruly companies trying to make as much money as possible. There definitely should be environmental organizations out there that check if companies are being as “Green” as possible, not that I am advocating for TerraChoice (environmental marketing company doesn’t make any sense to me either). Also this sub-point doesn’t coincide with the main argument of greenwashing but gives more reason to suspect eco-friendly organizations of being wrong.

For another important sub-point the author explains that brainwashing originated from American prisoners being subjected to “re-education” during the Korean War and also describes how communists have always been fans of “re-education”. He then further explains that communism has killed many people. He uses these points to clarify that greenwashing came from brainwashing and to prove that it has been done for wrong reasons in the past. Moreover he then explains that environmental organizations/media have been greenwashing/brainwashing the public for decades on which foods to buy and what not to do according to chemicals/plastics that are not eco-friendly.

Even though I do acknowledge the fact that these eco-organizations are pushy and convincing, there advertisements or scare campaigns don’t warrant being called brainwashing, especially in the context of communistic views. Greenwashing definatley does occur but it is much more suttle than brainwashing. When it comes down to it all advertisements are some sort of brainwashing. The Korean War and Communism seems a little exaggerated and because of this I don’t find this point very strong.

The authors point on how environmental regulations are getting out of control, with the evidence being that it is the leading regulatory expense for businesses with fewer than 20 employees and Obama’s references to green cars, green jobs, green house gases and green jobs even when too many Americans are losing their jobs .

This point is quite valid and strong with strong evidence to back it up so I will not disagree with it but rather sympathize for the other side. Drastic times call for drastic measures, the world does have too many green house gases and isn’t environmentally friendly right now so regulations need to be put in place, obviously not at the loss of jobs but there must be some compromises.

To conclude overall the article was very informative and an interesting read, with valid points and a great overall argument which made it very difficult to argue against. There were a few points that seemed too exaggerated in order to catch the reader’s attention such as the “communists have always been big on re-educating” and this in my opinion took away from the strength of the argument.