The Green Wave, Part 1 - Green Is Not Our Nature

In our recent posts, we've scanned the green landscape and discovered approximately 20 different shades of green.  Twenty!  Where has this profusion of green shades come from?  They have all been nourished by the green wave — a wave of rising environmental concern.  These days, it seems almost like a tidal wave.  Both the level of concern and the number of people who feel it are rising.  People respond to that concern in various ways, leading to the current jungle of green shades.

You may share the concern that defines the green wave.  In fact, environmental issues may be so obvious to you, and green attitudes so natural, that you have a hard time understanding any other viewpoint.  But to ride the green wave adroitly — as a green marketer must — you have to understand it deeply.  That requires stepping back for a moment, to see it in historical perspective.

To start with, why is the green wave a wave?  In other words, why is green so new?  Instead of a green wave, why haven't we always lived in a green ocean, a culture of environmental harmony?  Is it because of cities, civilization and industry?  Haven't indigenous people the world over always lived in a sophisticated harmony with nature?

Cities and industry certainly compounded our environmental assault, but they didn't begin it.  And while indigenous people were forced to reach some kind of balance with environments in which they lived a long time, they were also devastatingly shortsighted when moving into new environments.

• A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations, by Clive Ponting, takes you on a guided tour of humanity's relationship with our environment, from earliest prehistory to today.  It will leave you reeling.  Whenever and wherever we have lived, we slashed and burned and killed and soiled our nest. 
   
• The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People, by Tim Flannery, is a close-up look at the environmental relations of the brave, bold and brilliant people who populated Polynesia, Australia and New Zealand.  They must have been brave, bold and brilliant to venture forth on ocean voyages some 50,000 years ago.  That's the equivalent of today's astronauts — a whole society of them.
   
  But as the title suggests, they "ate their own future" again and again through failing to recognize that natural resources must be conserved.  In both Easter Island and New Zealand, they encountered a lush landscape teeming with tasty prey, and soon stripped it so bare they had to get their protein from human flesh.

So being green — that is, being concerned about the environment — is not our nature.  It's not against our nature, but it's not in our nature, either.  That's good news and bad news.  The good news is that we're not environmentally worse than anyone else, except on the scale of our impact.  The bad news is that the green revolution we're attempting is unprecedented.  We can't take comfort in humanity's green instincts.  They don't exist.

By "green" here I mean concerned about the environment, in the sense of feeling a responsibility for environmental issues — not just feeling a connection with the environment.  And by "instinct" I mean an inborn tendency  — not just one that can be acquired.  So I'm saying we don't have an inborn tendency to be concerned about the environment.  That's all I'm saying.

It's important, because green marketers need to understand what we have to work with — and what we don't.

Right here, there are lessons for green marketers.

1. We're unlikely to get very far trying to motivate people by making them feel guilty about their environmental sins.  People may be sinning against nature, but they're not sinning against their nature when they indulge in self-serving behavior that happens to damage the environment.  They're just being human.
    
2. We can't call on people's green instincts, because they haven't any.  They may have green feelings, concerns and values, but not green instincts.  Green is a cultivated taste, like jalapeno peppers and Limburger cheese.
    
3. However, many related instincts do seem to be in our nature:  self-preservation, not soiling our nest, social justice, community bonding, personal caring, aesthetic appreciation, spiritual connection, affection for certain animals, and affinity for some "natural" surroundings.  If environmental issues can be linked to any of these, there's leverage.  We can be green by linkage.  We're just not green by nature.

But why?  Why aren't we green by nature?  Why didn't the green wave arise earlier — and why is it here with us now?  Green marketers need to know, so see our next post.

Keith Borden, Consultant
Brilliant Green Marketing