THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 241, November 7, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
GREENWASHING AMERICA
By Alan Caruba
ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION & ITS IMPACT UPON BUSINESS & CONSUMER COSTS -- ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION &
SMALL BUSINESS -- ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION AS THE LEADING REGULATORY EXPENSE FOR BUSINESSES WITH FEWER
THAN TWENTY EMPLOYEES -- THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL -- THE NEED FOR
AMERICANS TO SHAKE LOOSE OF THE INSANITY & TYRANNY OF ENVIRONMENTALISM
FULL STORY:
Every time you see some product being sold as “Green” -- allegedly safer or beneficial for the environment -- you can be
sure that it is more expensive than a comparable product that does the same thing without making this claim.
Everything you eat, drink, wear, or use begins as a “natural” product. It is absurd to think that calling it “Green” improves
it in any fashion. Countless inspections before anything reaches the marketplace ensure product safety. To put it another
way, a carrot is a carrot is a carrot.
Recently I received a news release from a public relations firm touting clients selling Green products such as “Parsley Plus
All-Purpose Cleaner,” along with “stylish organic bed linens," “natural and organic clothing,” a “99.6% natural line” of
shampoos, and, “100% Bamboo towels.”
In a similar fashion, every time you hear a corporation claiming it is concerned about the environment, you can be sure
that it is trying to protect itself against lawsuits from environmentalist groups or Environmental Protection Agency action
that will eat into its profits and dividends.
A recent Wall Street Journal article, “Misleading Claims on ‘Green’ Labeling,” cited a study asserting that “more
than 95% of consumer products examined committed at least one offense of ‘greenwashing,’ a term used to describe
unproven environmentalist claims, according to TerraChoice, a North American environmental-marketing company that
issued the report.”
“Environmental-marketing company”? By reading further down in the article, one learns that “TerraChoice was recently
acquired by Underwriters Laboratories, an independent product-safety certification organization,” adding that both
companies “could benefit if more manufacturers seek third-party verification of the eco-claims.” You think?
Consumers Union, an independent testing company, has built its reputation on its review of various products.
Underwriters Laboratories has done the same, but there is no reason to believe any Green product claim, particularly
since TerraChoice has announced it is probably a scam. Not surprisingly, third party certification has been offered by
some major environmentalist organizations, as yet another way to raise a few bucks.
It is no accident that the term “greenwashing” is akin to “brainwashing,” a term that came out of the Korean War, when
it was learned that American prisoners of war were subjected to “re-education” by their captors.
Communists have always been big on re-education, a practice of nations such as China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia,
and others where you were expected change your mind and learn to love Big Brother. The alternative was that you either
stayed in their concentration camps or were systematically murdered for the crime of having been an intellectual, a
landowner, or a bourgeois capitalist.
Communism murdered more people in the last century than all its wars combined.
Environmentalist organizations, in league with an unquestioning mainstream media, have been greenwashing and
brainwashing the public for decades. It usually takes the form of scare campaigns and, in the case of supermarket
products, it is directed at chemicals, plastics, how livestock is raised, or some other totally superfluous “issue” that has
nothing to do with the quality, price, or safety of the product. The object is always the same, to lay a guilt trip on the
consumer, i.e., to greenwash them.
Green product claims go hand-in-hand with the metastasizing Green regulations whose bottom line raises the costs of
everything in America these days. Angela Logomasini of the Competitive Enterprise Institute is an expert on regulatory
affairs. When it comes to the environment, Congress passed 1,163 new laws between 1973 and 2006. Ms. Logomasini
found that only 85 of those statutes reduced government regulation, while 795 increased it. The remaining were deemed
to lack significant regulatory impact.
Five of the fifty volumes containing the federal regulatory code are devoted exclusively to environmental regulation and
an additional twelve also address environmental regulation in some respect. The Small Business Administration
concluded that environmental regulation is the leading regulatory expense for businesses with fewer than 20 employees,
averaging $3,296 per worker.
Currently, the Environmental Protection Agency that generates the new laws and regulations is totally out of control. It
has been on a regulatory binge anticipating a Congress controlled by Republicans. Nothing rational explains President
Obama’s continued reference to greenhouse gas emissions, Green cars, and, especially, Green jobs, when so many
Americans are out of work.
The EPA, created by Richard Nixon with an executive order in 1970, has to be downsized to its original mandate,
ensuring clean air and clean water. When it began to define rain puddles as navigable waters and ordinary dust as a
pollutant, you have to know just how crazed and dangerous it has become.
It will take a generation or two for Americans to shake loose of the insanity that is environmentalism. Long seen as a
religion, it seeks total control over every aspect of your life.
© Alan Caruba, 2010
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, commentator and business and science writer,
he is the Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about "scare campaigns" designed to influence
public opinion and public policy.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity