It's a difficult time to be a complex topic. In a culture of stunted attention spans, quick, easy and “sexy” messages are used to convey everything from medical findings to financial services. This demands that virtually every concept or product be given a slick of the lurid, explicit or exciting, even if it is none of these.
Heaven forbid we make people feel bad, or guilty, or think too hard.
Lezette Engelbrecht
As environmental issues have gained prominence in recent years, they have suffered a similar fate. The realities of biodiversity loss, water scarcity and rising temperatures are seemingly not troubling enough. They have to be rendered in the racy jargon of the day to feature in the never-ending newsfeed running through the collective consciousness.
Conversely, the buzz surrounding all things “green” is also being used to jazz up other topics, creating sub-industries like eco-fashion and eco-tourism. While these developments mark a positive shift overall, when the “green” label is used to piggyback hype without explaining deeper concerns, it implies environmental-friendliness is cool without saying very much about why.
This trend also leads to the narrowing of environmental concerns into a few “hot” categories, such as climate change, renewable energies, and electric cars, which get plenty of exposure, while “unsexy” topics like soil quality and overfishing are maligned.
There's no argument that bringing these issues into the mainstream has helped stimulate ideas and spur action on a mass scale. Environmentally-focused publications, Web sites, videos, documentaries, blogs and the like have done a great deal to raise awareness and share views. But the attempt to make “green issues” more accessible often has the side effect of making them commercial or superficial, with little to hold people's attention beyond a catchy headline.
While the rash of “green-themed” sites are helpful in encouraging a more conscious mindset in whatever we do, be it cooking or accessorising, they tend to reinforce the idea that “green” is just the latest brand of trendy social consciousness.
This has the potential to backfire in one of the areas where true understanding is most needed - campaigns that aim to get school learners involved. Environmental youth projects provide an opportunity to educate future generations about the challenges they will have to deal with directly in their lifetimes. But it seems the emphasis is often on making the message “sexy” at all costs, on “baiting” teens with celebrity appearances - as if no self-respecting youth would go near a green project without being plied with some sort of compensatory factor.
Interest without understanding tends to fade quickly, and unless these campaigns, for all their good intentions, really engage young hearts and minds, they will go the way of every other trend - replaced with the next big thing.
I've also written about electric cars, because they're hot and everybody loves hearing about them and it's a good way of hooking people who wouldn't normally care. And I admit, it can be a cheap shot, because it implies the underlying issues - energy supply, resource scarcity, GHG emissions - are something so dull they need to be compensated for. The relentless focus on making green stories sexy suggests they have to be glammed up for people to take any notice.
Heaven forbid we make people feel bad, or guilty, or think too hard. Just tone it down and dress it up. Well, sometimes things aren't sexy or exciting or popular. It's about sorting your trash and buying less and saving water. It's about getting stuff done. And that's a hard sell.
But the wake-up call has come and gone, and we can't keep hitting the snooze button. We've had the films, the sceptic-scientist feuds, the e-mail scandals, the politicking, the celebrity endorsements. It's time to step away from what can easily become distractions, and focus on the changes they demand. Because underneath the great green hype lies a very scary truth, and one that requires transformation on an individual, regional and country level.
I'm not saying environmental issues have to be dull or highly-technical or exclusive, but the argument that they must be “sexy” to warrant attention undermines the immense impact they have on nature and people's lives. The realities and stakes involved speak for themselves. They may not be flashy or fit in a neat, fashionable package, but they will define the direction of the next age.
Some of the greatest societal transformations - the Apartheid struggle, the civil rights movement - challenged ideals and shook the status quo and yet are hard to describe as “sexy”. But it's this kind of committed, widespread action, not captivating headlines, that changes the world.
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