With the annual Earth Day celebrations set for next week, environmental consciousness seems to be all the rage . Personally though, there are few things that provoke such utter ambivalence in me than environmentalism and its status as a growing force in the global zeitgeist. It’s not that I don’t agree that something needs to be done. I think anyone with any shred of common sense realizes that the current model of “modern living” does not pencil out in the long run when you factor in the finite nature of not just our resources but also with the space in which we are working. However, acknowledging that “inconvenient truth” is one thing, but actually coming up with a solution, not to mention implementing it, is entirely another. Some people say the solution is to start “living green,” which is definitely a nice little slogan. And at face value, it has some merit. But in practice, it’s basically become nothing more than another way to do the same shit and feel better about it. It’s sort of like Christianity: It was founded upon a noble enough principle, but once the idea started to become the institution, shit started to get all fucked up. I mean, how many years did it take after Jesus supposedly taught everyone to love everyone else before dudes were killing people in his name? How many years has it been since the idea of “living green” came about before Wal-Mart changed their logo from blue to green, or Clorox started making Organic Bleach?
Another trait common amongst organized religions definitely shared by the Church of Green is the penchant for those who “believe” to merely select the parts of the church doctrine that they can most easily adhere to and blatantly ignore the rest, all while maintaining an air of piousness. It’s like the militant bike rider, railing against SUVs and cars as greenhouse gas-belching pollution machines, who doesn’t bat an eye about flying home three times a year to see the folks, spewing pollution directly into the upper atmosphere. Or how about the eco-conscious housewife, who makes sure to turn off the lights when she leaves a room to conserve energy and bought herself a Civic hybrid to cut back on emissions, but then serves her family burgers for dinner, the production of which released more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than three hours of driving, and used up more energy than leaving a light on for 20 straight days, not to mention that disproportional amount of localized pollution created by large-scale meat farms and the role of overuse of antibiotics in the beef industry in creating antibiotic-resistant bacteria. I guess it’s the thought that counts, right?
I guess the moral of the story is, however popular the green meme has become, its actual utility is questionable at best. For now, living green will continue to be something you can buy at the store, use in your marketing campaign or learn as a college internship: an ideal. Carbon neutrality will continue to be something you buy on a Web site, like a Christian indulgence. It’s gonna take a lot more to kick mankind’s addiction to consumption than a few melted ice caps, killer hurricanes and deadly droughts. We need to hit rock bottom, man. I’m talking Old Testament style shit. People are too lazy and stupid to do what they actually know is right until they literally have no other choice. We’ll just keep building malls and damming rivers and jacking up our pickup trucks until our eyes are melting out of our fucking skulls and even then, we’ll just invent some better sunglasses, made from 25 percent post-consumer recycled plastic!

In Royal Palm Beach, Flordia a 70-year-old Wal Mart employee got pissed and beat the shit out of an 81-year-old Wal Mart employee with a price gun. Maybe they were fighting over the price of gas or the wonderful health care that Wal-Mart provides its’ employees.

From AP:

An arrest report say a 70-year-old man attacked an 81-year-old man with a pricing gun inside a Wal-Mart. The report says Dennis O’Brien and John Esposito began arguing Sunday and O’Brien swung at Esposito with the tool in his right hand.

Authorities say Esposito suffered a swollen left eye and cuts on his nose and mouth. Esposito said both he and O’Brien worked at Wal-Mart. He would not discuss the nature of their argument. The report says O’Brien told a sheriff’s deputy he acted in self-defense, but security tape showed O’Brien raising his hand first, striking Esposito in the face and then pushing him to the ground. Officials booked O’Brien into the Palm Beach County Jail on aggravated battery charges.

Nice.

Good luck Tom:

MySpace, the world’s largest social network Web site, said it has formed an online music venture with three major recording companies in a challenge to Apple Inc’s dominant iTunes Music Store. Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group have minority stakes in the new MySpace Music venture announced on Thursday. Financial terms were not disclosed.
MySpace Music will offer free music and video streaming supported by advertising, paid-for MP3 downloads, ringtones for cell phones, concert ticket sales and merchandise. Chris De Wolfe, chief executive of MySpace, said the launch date of the new service was “fluid” with commercial features being added to the site over the next three to four months. He said MySpace is in talks with more music industry partners to offer their services on MySpace Music.

In the meantime, Apple’s iTunes recently supplanted Wal-Mart as being America’s #1 music retailer, with 19% of the music sold in January.

Now trailing only Wal-Mart, iTunes is the number two (legal) source of music distribution with 50 Million customers and 4 billion songs sold. They pushed past Best Buy and Target, who trail 3rd and 4th respectively.

From the Associated press:

About 10 percent of music acquired in the U.S. was through legal downloads in 2007, and consumers who bought digital music legally through pay-to-download Web sites grew by 5 million to 29 million in 2007, NPD said Tuesday.

With iTunes’ position as #1 internet retailer of music, I guess that most people figured out that those other digital music servicing sites (where you pay by the month and once you stop your membership your songs go bye-bye) are totally garbage. And more and more youngsters aren’t even buying hard-copies of the music either:

From MacWorld:

NPD says that 48 percent of US teens did not purchase a single CD in 2007, compared to 38 percent in 2006. The report estimates that one million consumers dropped out of the CD buyer market in 2007.

I guess that’s also because owing an iPod is SO COOL!!!!!!!!

…uh…

In what will probably the beginning of the end of the HD DVD format, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer and architects of the Deathstar, has joined Netflix and Best Buy in backing the Blu-ray high-definition DVD format. To be fair, poor HD DVD really never stood a chance. The format was backed by Toshiba, while Blu-ray has Sony — and it’s library of 4,000,000,000 films (estimated figure) — in its corner.

According to Wal-Mart’s resident blogger (I wonder what that pays) Susan Chronister:

“So … if you bought the HD player like me, I’d retire it to the bedroom, kid’s playroom, or give it to your parents to play their John Wayne standard def movies, and make space for a BD (Blu-ray disc) player for your awesome Hi Def experience.”

Ouch. Look at this way, if you always wanted an Xbox 360, which currently only supports HD DVD, now might be the time to get one cheap.