Pimpin’ the G life

In a year when every major magazine has featured a green issue, and the world’s pop star elite gathered for Live Earth around the globe, those who have made it their life’s mission to acquire the celebrity zeitgeist are bound to take notice.

Just as the flower power days of the 1960’s, when it became fashionable to talk about revolution, the “man”, and fighting the power, we can now fast forward to 2007 to those re-dressed archetypes speaking refrains like: sustainability, organic and carbon footprint. How many of you have had an experience in the past year where you knew the person you were speaking with had no knowledge whatsoever regarding “green” issues, nonetheless, spouted greenthink slogans they think you want to hear?

But hey why be uptight, can’t hedonism and ecological activism mix? The revolution must not be devoid of pleasure.

But if this is an age crying out for authenticity, the only genuine article parlayed by Paris Hilton and Ron Jeremy et. al. is the art of the “put on”.

If they really wanted to work for change, shouldn’t they work within their realms of influence - develop an ecocondom, make a home permaculture video, or at least follow the example of this young, idealistic and very sex positive couple in giving to the green porn cause?

Instead they pose like a Jeff Koons tableaux of Hollywood glitterati struggling for tenancy in the garden of Eden, sculpted in green plaster of Paris that ages in real time.

It is precisely the aging part that gives one pause. If our celebrity-obsessed culture cannot accept the maturing of human flesh, how can it live in harmony with nature’s cyclical acceptance of decay and rebirth?

The Diesel clothing company’s campaign, “global warming ready” exemplifies this irony.

What is the message behind these images of the thin, mostly white and homogeneously beautiful in nonchalant repose amidst a flooded, world in crisis? What were the memos that must have been flying around ad-strategy boardrooms and marcom sticky pads? “Buyer persona - young, aspirationally affluent, environmentally “aware”, but loves the thought of rockin’ in an 07 Hummer limo. So why don’t we create an “aspirational” tableaux of a post-apocalypse that can be, well…. glamorous?”

cool…?

Are we flashing the ultimate cynical sign, a kind of “bling uber alles”?

We say nah. Make friends with reality. It is coming, and without a stylist in tow.

The signs do seem to read that a “tipping point” has been reached. The “Green” label will become something else, all the eco terms will fall away to be more about being a conscious and awake human being, whose green/eco status will be based simply on their actions.

The issues will still be there, in spades.

Keep it real.

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Via Influx comes a video on the greening of the UK from CurrentTV. Notes on climate change as a public priority, and a green recording studio in London fill out the report.

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