Medium Low

This year has seen a trend for large, cool cultural events to label themselves as green. The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, the Sasquatch Music Festival, the Live Earth concerts, and Burning Man are a few examples of recent or upcoming events that are calling themselves green and/or carbon neutral. One might argue that any event that causes large numbers of people to drive long distances is by definition an unsustainable extravagance, but what do I know? Of course let's not forget some of the other forms of environmental damage caused by large gatherings of humans. Like a carbon-neutral event that generates enough drug-laced urine to damage aquatic ecosystems. It's fairly obvious that the term "green," like "organic" before it, has become a marketing tool that assuages liberal guilt while it encourages still more consumption, however the green labeling of massive music festivals strikes me as being especially hypocritical. Any change in society first requires awareness that a problem exists, so an increase in green consciousness is a positive thing. However, the motivation for so much of the green movement is to sell things. A conservative would argue that this proves the superiority of the free market. I, on the contrary, think that all we've done is substitute one form of consumption for another.