Green Smugness

 Smug according to dictionary.com means:

contentedly confident of one's ability, superiority, or correctness; complacent.

 There is nothing wrong with being confident about your ability, or about knowing that you are correct.  Without confidence a person will usually not succeed in any endeavor.  When one is right, one is right, and there is nothing wrong with knowing the correctness of your stance.  When you throw superiority and complacency into the mix is when the meaning of this word takes a nose dive into annoying as hell.  It's my observation that nobody embodies this trait quit as well as the "liberal hippie douche".   (forgive me if you have to suffer through a commercial on that link, but I couldn't find it on youtube).  However, this video illustrates pretty nicely how a real life "aging liberal hippie douche" acts.

Everything they are doing at Earthhaven is awesome.  I agree 100% with their philosophies as well as their actions.  It would be nice if society would structure itself with their infrastructure and governance.  A sustainable and renewable tribal system is the only way forward.  The concept of an "Ecovillage" is indeed intelligent and informed just like this liberal hippie douche stated.  From Earthhaven's "ReMembership Covenant":  

PURPOSE:  Dedicated to caring for people and 

the Earth, and recognizing the Oneness of all life, we 

come together to create and to sustain beyond our 

lifetimes a learning community village, by gaining the 

skills, cultivating the attitudes and sharing with the 

public the resources for a holistic, regenerative 

culture.  

Outstanding!  However, do you have to come off so damn smug?  Just in case you read my last blog I wanted to clear the air a bit.  It may sound like I'm conflicted, but I don't think that I am and I will begin defending myself in short order.  First, let me just say that I agree with Carlin wholeheartedly:

This gets to the heart of the problem.  This points to where Earthhaven went wrong, aside from the fact that they appear to be pretty damn smug.  We aren't going to save anything.  Where the liberal hippie douche get's his sense of self righteousness is from this idea that his actions are going to help save the planet.  They're not.  This smug attitude that the majority of the "green" followers embody goes a long way to explain the failures of the climate change movement.  Any rational person can understand that carbon dioxide is a green house gas.

Anybody can look at this graph and connect the dots.  Mankind's activities are contributing to the average global temperature rise.  The above graph clearly illustrates this fact.  We should collectively do something about this but not to save the planet...we should do something about it to save our own asses.

I compost, grow food organically, and recycle for many reasons but mainly because I feel like it's the right thing to do.  I don't do those things because I think my actions are going to save the Earth.  Again, the Earth doesn't need saving, we do.  We need to save ourselves from ourselves before the Earth "shakes us off like a bad case of flees."

Don't fall victim to this green guilt crap either.  There is a market that has been enjoying great success at the hands of this contrived green guilt.  Green guilt is just another product for sale by corporations.  If you have to spend money to save the Earth, you aren't saving anything.  Only the well-to-do can afford to buy solar panels and solar hot water heaters for their roofs.  Having money doesn't make you holier than though and it doesn't allow you to save the planet.  Smugness is not going to win over anybody.  I'm not saying that these green technologies shouldn't be used if you have the resources to use them.  I'm just saying that you having the resources doesn't make you any better.

To be clear, I'm not taking back anything I said in my last blog post.  I considered moving my families future to an "Ecovillage."  I started to think that eventually moving to an ecovillage, like Earthhaven, would be a viable form of retirement.  In case you are confused, there isn't going to be any retirement for anybody younger than 50.  Social security is not going to be around long term, nor is Medicare.  Being part of a tribal community is just about the only type of retirement one could hope for these days.  The elderlies needs have traditionally been taken care of by family and community.  We are going to have to return to this type of culture.  Ecovillages have the right idea but they are misguided with their attitude and delusional with their goals.  At least as far as I can tell.  Being genuine does not entail smugness.