Upper East Side Green
Not exactly the most jarring combination of words. The jump — from “green” to “money” when the former is paired with a reference to one of Manhattan’s most posh neighborhoods — is really more of a small hop. In fact, second to conjuring up images of Central Park, I would find it hard to connect “green” with little else, given the context. The New York Times has a different idea, though, and the result, Eco-Socialites Make Cleaning Green a Priority, is an interesting read.
A few choice clips:
“Her guests, familiar fixtures in the party pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, were improbable grime fighters. They included young society stalwarts like Renée Rockefeller, Valesca Guerrand-Hermès, Melania Trump and Jessica Seinfeld. Given their designer wardrobes, their houses flung about the country, and an aggregate income the size of a small duchy, they were odd candidates for a sales pitch that urged looking beneath the kitchen sink and tossing out your toxic powders and sprays…”
“Still, [Ms. Barnett] has no plans to reduce the family’s significant carbon footprint by, say, selling the Manhattan second home. ‘I’m not a perfect person,’ she said. ‘I’m not the greenest woman in America.’ And there was scant indication that other guests, most of whom, presumably, knew their way up the steps of a private jet, were contemplating major lifestyle cutbacks. Glancing about the room, Ms. Barnett said, ‘We aren’t all going to move to one-bedroom apartments.’”
And perhaps my favorite:
“[Ms. Rockerfeller] plans to practice conservation, to a point. Energy-saving light bulbs are fine — for the utility closet, perhaps. In other rooms, ‘they don’t give a very pretty light,’ she said.”
TAGS: Green | Environment | Manhattan | Upper East Side | Shaklee
This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 9:57 am and is filed under Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Enterprise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
May 1st, 2007 at 7:32 pm
To play Devil’s Advocate, what evidence is there that actually suggests that, we, as humans - an insignificant blip in Earth’s history - are so influential and powerful that we can change the world’s climate and environment? Surely, science finds that the rise and fall in the population of certain species is tied to our rotational relation to the Sun.
In context to the article, I think the wealthy (especially Hollywood celebrities) are the biggest hypocrites around. Buy a Toyota Prius and you’re supposed to be Earth-friendly? The production process involved in manufacturing a Toyota Prius is much more damaging to the environment than a Hummer. To that end, where do we go from here?
May 1st, 2007 at 9:32 pm
James:
First, it is great to hear from you! What are you up to? Drop me an email when you have a chance — I’d love to catch up. …and if you are headed out to the Boston-area, I’ll have a pint of Guinness ready for you when you step off the plane.
I think you point is well put — that said, I tend to be a bit cynical when both camps have equally massive piles of firewood to burn. At the end of the day, it is possible to find as many compelling arguments from the pro-environment crowd as from the pro-Hummer crowd. If you are a Friedman junkie at heart, and the arguments are a wash, you go with the camp that produces the greatest return. But if you aren’t a Friedman junkie, or you are, but have a sliver of empathy for a purpose greater than pure profit generation, you go with the camp that produces a strong return, but also, for instance, reduces electricity consumption.
Your point about the Prius is spot on. I think the greatest problem with moving toward the “right” solutions is a lack of transparency. A hybrid vehicle sounds great, until you factor in all of the emissions and waste created as a result of getting it into a customers driveway. That said, and for the record, I have always thought that Hummers were ridiculous for any purpose other than scaling a mountain…
Where do we go from here? In the case of the Prius vs. the Hummer, I’d ask how we deal with societies’ growing contradictions such as the growing need for autonomy with style and differentiation (in the form of hundreds of fuel-inefficient vehicles with extraneous niceties such as wood trim, power seats, etc.) contrasted against the constant cry for a cleaner environment. Do these same people really want to give up their laptops or their pre-packaged foods (myself included)?
Something needs to be done, but it can’t happen without honest and transparent conversations.