Vanity Fair has published it's "
first-ever green issue," complete with Annie Liebovitz portraits of "eco-heroes" (Julia Roberts: Who knew?) and the obligatory list of 50 things you can do to save the planet. It's good to see, and yet it's hard to look at that glossy cover and not experience a twinge of cognitive dissonance. After all,
Vanity Fair, America's most literary gossip rag, has probably done more to stoke the engines of consumption and materialism in this country than most advertising agencies. Of course, the same could be said of mags like
Outside and
National Geographic Adventure, which railed against environmental evils even as they fed the SUV craze. Don't get me wrong. I like all these magazines. I've even written for a couple of them (and no, I didn't think twice about cashing the checks). It's just, how do we square the excesses of the Hollywood lifestyle and our consumerist culture with an earnest desire to do right by the planet? Tell me. How? But enough of my senseless nattering: Anyone out there read the latest VF? What did you think?
6 Comments:
Thanks for posting on this--I've heard several people talking about it. I read the Vanity Fair press release that's linked in this entry (but haven't seen the magazine). My favorite blurb from it goes a little something like this:
Zac Goldsmith, environmental attaché to David Cameron (the new leader of the U.K. Conservative Party), is best known as a tireless environmentalist whose substantial inherited wealth (he’s the son of the late British financier Jimmy Goldsmith and the brother of Jemima) lends him a certain freedom and panache that old-school, Earth First! environmentalists—with their drab fashion sense and lentil-heavy diet—clearly lack. Goldsmith lives on an organic farm in Devon with his wife, a former model, and their three children; they are easily the eco-movement’s most glamorous family.
Inherited wealth does have a way of lending life a certain freedom and panache, doesn't it?
Indeed. The rest of us are saddled with a lifetime of student loan debt and drab fashions. (And lentils.)
Yes yes, there's cognitive dissonance , but, you know, the magazine sort of broke the spell of inaction for me. In the Al Gore article he says we've got about 10 years before the damage is irreversible. So I signed up for zero emissions with http://www.carbonfund.org, and actually set the thermostat down and took a number of other easy steps. Check http://www.newdream.org. FJ Brown
Although glossy covers and celeb gossip aren't exactly the best way to promote environmentalism, it's great to see that the problems we face are becoming mainstream and (at least) talked about by people other than scientists and lentil eaters.
By the way, I watched a program on PBS last night called "Dimming the Sun." I've always been an eco-conscious person, but this blew my mind. Check it out on your local station if you get a chance:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/
Thanks for the comments.
I posted this above, but in response to VF, AlterNet is asking folks to nominate their own eco-heroes in time for Earth Day. Good idea.
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