Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Re: Happy Earth Day    [Max Schulz]

Wow, it’s Earth Day again already? Didn't we just, er, celebrate it? Of course, it feels that way partly because of a political and media elite that wants us to think of every day as Earth Day. There are signs, however, that the public is growing increasingly tired of having this notion drummed into it. Last year there was an explosion of news stories warning how to fight “green fatigue.” This year sees those same stories being (appropriately) recycled. But it’s a losing battle. A sure sign that preening greening has lost its edge is Vanity Fair scrapping its annual green issue. That’s something of a shame; the proliferation of green magazine issues this time of year means a torrent of earnest, self-serious, hectoring editorial dreck. Vanity Fair was the exception — theirs was the only one that wasn’t largely unreadable. But not for nothing are they the arbiters of what’s hip. It seems that a lifestyle leading, ultimately, to squinting in the dark, dressing like Jimmy Carter, and keeping an ample supply of buckets on hand is not the sort of thing Graydon Carter and company want to be associated with.

04/22 12:12 PMShare