One Year Of The Unsuitablog
Posted by keith on December 31st, 2008
Take a look at the category I’ve put this under: it’s not “Good News” but simply “Unsuitablog News”. It might not seem like a big thing, but to most environmental organisations and campaigns a year of operation would be heralded as an achievement — well, if you count writing lots of words in the Blogosphere an achievement then I can give myself a big pat on the back, but to be brutally honest I can only honestly say The Unsuitablog has achieved something if there is an absolute improvement in the condition of the planet’s natural systems directly resulting from it’s activity.
How many campaigns can say that?
(Ans: Probably none)
To quote a recent Bulletin produced by Green Seniors:
It can be very frustrating at times knowing whether the work you do is having an impact. Try as we might, there are very few ways to know for sure whether Green Seniors is influencing people to make a change in their lives. Typing in “Green Seniors” in Google is one way, but people are unlikely to mention us as their inspiration (as nice as that would be), and even less likely to post the fact online. So we plug on, taking comfort from the kind e-mails, mentions in magazines and newsletters (another 2 or 3 this month), and the general way that the environment message is at least getting across – if not actually having a big positive impact as yet.
So why do I bother working my socks off at this, if at the end of a year I’m going to beat myself up about it?
Simply because, like Green Seniors, it’s an important — if very small — part of the combined effort required to change humanity’s priorities from economy to ecology; from commerce to connection; from suicide to survival. Greenwashing exists, primarily, to make people think something that is fundamentally destructive is actually benign: greenwashing is denial of reality; it is out and out lying in order that the system can continue its pursuit of mindless destruction. If you greenwash then you are playing by the rules of the Culture of Maximum Harm.
If The Unsuitablog even has a small chance of — to quote an earlier article — “making greenwashing as socially unacceptable as taking hard drugs in front of your grandmother”, then it will continue in its attempts to screw up the toxic messages of the corporate, political and even the well meaning, unwitting hypocrites.
For as long as it takes for things to change.