When dealing with greening the old economy some businesses, organizations and governments pretended to be green when they were not and this was came to be known as greenwashing by RIO plus 20/2012.
Now when selling the green economy some businesses, organizations, and governments are selling it in a the name of socially and environmentally friendly sustainable development when it is only environmentally friendly economic development, a behavior which most likely soon will be labelled as "sustainable developmentwashing or green economywashing".
If green washing was taken as an unacceptable trick especially by environmentalists, why green economywashing seems to be fine now? Anythoughts about this?.
The people who have been involved in the Sustainability Movement accept that they don't know all the answers - the topic is too big for any one individual to be able to say they know the length and breadth of it. So, they intentionally have put up a big umbrella, with lots of room for everyone underneath. Their assumption, I believe, is that experience will ultimately show which really belong, and which do not. Everyone even vaguely involved in something that isn't the 'status quo' will slap on a 'green' label, knowing that the audience doesn't know enough to argue.
'Greed is good' still exists in the market. Our economists accept that the invisible hand will steer the ship of state to the best available outcome, because the Rational Agent is at all times acting in their own best interest, and a mob of Rational Agents must act in the best interest of the mob. Which sounds daft to me, but I'm thinking like an engineer.
When working with something like the Triple Bottom Line, we separate out ideas into financial, ecological, and social, and try to find a 'balance' between the three. It is not unlike the experiments by the Wright Brothers, when they found a balance between lift, thrust, drag and weight to be able to put an powered, manned aircraft in the air. It's a long way from Kitty Hawk to Cape Canaveral - Aeronautical engineering has found the rate equations between the forces so that as design choices are made, the change in the performance envelope can be determined. We need the calculus that allows us to directly relate economic, social, and environmental factors to each other so we can chart the performance envelope of communities of all scales and ensure that it lies firmly inside of 'sustainable & resilient'. Without it, all forms of green-economy/society/ecology washing are possible, and, in fact, expected.
Good day Douglas, thank you for writing,
you did not anwer the question or added to the argument on the relevance or morality of those types of arguments. One of them, green washing, knonwn to be unacceptable.......
Are you saying that those types of washing are happenning because they do not know what tjey are doing and so there is not responsability, academic or otherwise as they do not know what they are doing? ... Tricks require some level of smart thinking, do not you think so?
Greetings;
I think I'm saying it's all of the above. Partly through ignorance, partly through wishful thinking, and partly through flat out lying, we're going to be doing many things under a banner of 'green' that has nothing to do with creating Sustainability. Without a means to bring it all together, there is no way to refute any given position.
If you can't argue against me, I can say anything I want. Even if I believe what I say is true, false, or otherwise. Look at how long the climate change deniers have been playing their cards - it was treated as conjecture because the alternative would have been to accept responsibility... "can't have that". So the deniers have been saying goofy things for 3 decades, fiddling as Rome burned. Finally, there is sufficient evidence for most of the deniers to switch over to "well, yeah, but it's natural", and still attempt to skirt responsibility. No one knows enough to be able to provide the definitive answers, so they can say anything they want. Maybe 20 years from now they'll have given up.
Likewise, in a economic vs social vs ecological discussion, how do we know what the 'best' balance is? There is, at this time, no generally accepted test that can be used, so people can pick their scale of 'right' and defend it with enthusiasm. Maybe they are looking at endangered species rather than endangered languages. Maybe they are looking at changing agricultural practices instead of changing habitat requirements. Maybe, maybe, maybe. And there is no link to bring it all together, so it's both inevitable and challenging to resolve.
Good day Douglas, as you know I like to keep things simple: The question relates to two concepts, greenwashing and sustainable developmentwashing, the second one I made it up to contrast and it is in one of my future papers on this subject as in the context of "Dwarf markets",,,,,Is there a difference? if yes, what it is? If not, it is moral?....The anwer can not be everything....
With respect to your other comments, as scientist there is no excuse to through away the scienficic method and the theory-practice consisency principle when we shift to another market, or are green markets assuming scientific method neutrality?
Easy Douglas, I am asking key questions to create food for thoughts to be answered in my future papers....not every one is in the dark, just keep that in mind...
Have a nice day
Dear friends, here sharing my most recent article which I trust you may find interesting in terms of food for thoughts:
If Going From Free Markets to Non-Free Markets is the Way to Go: Does This Means the End of Rational Decision Making Thinking or Is This Just a Temporary Block of a Perfect Paradigm Shift to Green Markets?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312092336_If_Going_From_Free_Markets_to_Non-Free_Markets_is_the_Way_to_Go_Does_This_Means_the_End_of_Rational_Decision_Making_Thinking_or_Is_This_Just_a_Temporary_Block_of_a_Perfect_Paradigm_Shift_to_Green_Mark
Article If Going From Free Markets to Non-Free Markets is the Way to...
- Badges
- Science topic