Beware of “Greenwashing”

We are all familiar with the term “whitewashing.” The verb whitewash used in the figurative sense means "to cover up, conceal, give a false appearance of cleanness to," and it was used with that meaning by the middle of the 18th century

But what about “greenwashing”? What does that word mean and why should we beware of what it designates? 

Greenwashing is defined as “the act or practice of making a product, policy, activity, etc. appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it really is.” This word was first used around 1990.*¹

Since it is a form of deception, we must be aware of and beware of greenwashing. This is one of the many important emphases in a new book (in English) that I have read and written a review of this month.*²

The book title is Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, and the author’s name is given as Kōhei Saitō. The English translation was issued just last month, but the original Japanese edition was published in 2020, and its (translated) title is “Capital” in the Anthropocene.*³

Saitō (b. 1987) was born in Japan but was a university student in the U.S. from 2005 to 2009 and then in Germany, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in 2015. After a few years teaching at a university in Osaka, in 2022 he became an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Tokyo.

“Ecology Is the Opiate of the Masses!” is the attention-grabbing title of the Introduction in Saitō’s book. He explains,

Long ago, Marx characterized religion as “the opiate of the masses” because he saw it as offering temporary relief from the painful reality brought about by capitalism. SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] are none other than a contemporary version of the same “opiate” (xvii-xviii).

Before that, though, in his preface to the English edition, Saitō asserts that “greenwashing is everywhere,” and he describes that concept as “an optimistic belief in green technologies and green growth” and says that it “may be nothing more than a ploy to buy time for capitalism” (xi).

Saitō’s main criticism is not directed toward the global warming deniers, whom he rarely mentions, but toward those who want to save the environment. Thus, his second chapter mainly disparages proponents of the Green New Deal (GND)—as I was when I made a blog post affirming the GND in Feb. 2019.

He asks, “Can a Green New Deal really save us,” and he answers his rhetorical question in the negative. Why? Because those espousing the Green New Deal emphasize “green growth,” which Saitō thinks is impossible. And now I think he is probably right and my previous support of the GND was wrong.

Politicians always have to be concerned about the next election, so affirming “green growth” is a way of appealing to those who want to combat the dangers of climate change as well as to continue receiving the support of “big business.”

But Saitō’s main point throughout his book is clearly stated in the Introduction: capitalism is the “root cause” of the current climate crisis (p. xix). Greenwashing is used to protect capitalism by making people think that the GND and the like will alleviate the ever-increasing environmental crisis.

So, why should we beware of greenwashing? For the simple reason that the New Green Deal and other similar plans for saving the planet from global warming are deceitful, for they propose that that can be done with capitalism kept intact. Still, the NGD is certainly better than maintaining the status quo.

Saitō’s analysis of the climate/ecological problem is most probably accurate. (You’ll have to read Saitō’s book or at least a/my review of it to understand what degrowth communism means and why he thinks that it is the only viable solution to the current climate crisis.)

But the solution he posits, a worldwide shift from capitalism to degrowth communism, is absolutely unrealistic. Even Saitō says, “The Earth will become uninhabitable for humankind before capitalism collapses” (p. 26).

But, sadly, with the MAGA Republicans refusing to provide additional funding for Ukraine and candidate Trump saying he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” if it attacked a NATO country that didn’t pay enough for defense, perhaps nuclear warfare will bring the end of the world as we know it before the ecological crisis does.

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*¹ From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

*² The review was written for The Englewood Review of Books, which provided me with a free copy of Saitō’s thought-provoking book. My review will appear on ERB’s website next month, but you can read (here) the review article (of around 1,200 words) that I submitted to Englewood.

*³ In the first printing of the English translation, all references to global temperatures should be disregarded, for they are all incorrect. I was able to exchange emails with author Saitō about this matter, and he said it was “a stupid conversion error” that has already been fixed on the Kindle version and will be corrected in the subsequent printings of the published book.

Note: Here is the link to a YouTube video of Saitō explaining his understanding of degrowth communism. That video has had nearly 10,000 views, and there are other, and longer, videos by Saitō on YouTube. 

Do You Know about TheGrio and the Icon Awards?

As this is Black History Month, it seems like a good time to post an article about TheGrio, which I just learned about by accident earlier this month. Some of you, I assume, know about TheGrio, but my guess is that most of you know little if any about it. 

TheGrio is “an American television network and website with news, opinion, entertainment and video content geared toward African-Americans.” It can be watched free on the internet, and it is also available on local TV in many cities across the U.S.*

TheGrio’s name comes from griot, a Western African word that designates a musician-entertainer who plays a vital role in preserving their people's oral traditions and histories.

Although I rarely watch local TV, I happened to turn on CBS on the evening of Feb. 3 and theGrio’s Icon Awards program was being telecast. I listened with interest to speeches by three of the Icon recipients, the three I am briefly introducing below.

Al Sharpton received the Justice Ikon Award. According to Wikipedia, Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. (b. 1954) is “an American civil rights and social justice activist, Baptist minister, radio talk show host, and TV personality, who is also the founder of the National Action Network civil rights organization.” 

Sharpton has been a leading, and controversial, civil rights leader for nearly 55 years now. He has also sought various political offices, including that of POTUS (in 2004), but was never elected.

At the end of his theGrioAwards speech, Sharpton said, “The only thing that I really live for is I get up with this dream: every bigot, every racist, everyone in this country that hates will say damn, he’s up again.”

TheGrio online article concludes, “He loves to have them know that they can’t stop him. He loves knowing that Black resistance to oppression is unstoppable. That’s why the Rev. Sharpton deserves the Justice Icon Award.”

Those who commemorate recent Black history forty years from now will surely remember Al Sharpton along with many other exemplary civil rights leaders such as him as well as the next two theGrio Ikon Awards.

The Scientist Ikon was awarded to Kizzmekia Corbett, born in 1986 in North Carolina. In 2008, she received a B.S. in biological sciences and sociology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).** 

In 2014, Corbett earned a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and since June 2021 she has been an assistant professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

Corbett was awarded the Scientist Ikon because of her great contribution to the development of the covid-19 vaccination, which probably saved as many as five million lives—and some sources put that figure as high as 20 million—around the world.

Please click here to read the article about the reason Corbett was chosen for the Scientist Ikon and listen to her acceptance speech last November.

The recipient of the Inspiration Ikon Award was Dwayne Johnson. I never thought I would post a blog article in admiration of a man whose main claim to fame is professional wrestling, for I am the very opposite of a fan of that “sport.” 

Johnson’s father was a Black Nova Scotian and his mother (whose first name is Mataniufeagaimaleata (!) but she went by the name Ata) is Samoan. Both parents were professional wrestlers.

Citing Wikipedia again, Dwayne Douglas Johnson (b. 1972), “also known by his ring name The Rock, is an American actor, businessman, and professional wrestler. He is…widely regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time.”

Recently, however, Johnson has been in the news because of teaming up with Oprah to raise and provide much-needed financial and housing relief for the many people suffering from the Maui, Hawaii, wildfires in 2023, the deadliest U.S. wildfires in at least 100 years.

Here is the link to Johnson’s impressive (and brief) acceptance speech for his Inspiration Ikon, which was also awarded in November 2023.

Black History Month every February is an important time to recognize prominent African Americans of the past as well as contemporary Black people of distinction who are shaping Black history that will be remembered decades from now.

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  * This is the opening sentence of the Wikipedia article on TheGrio (often written as theGrio)—and it needs to be updated as African-American is now not generally used as a hyphenated word nor used as much as Black. Here is a link to theGrio’s webpage with their explanation about themselves—and I encourage you to take a look at that website. (Note that Grio is pronounced grī/ō.) I was a bit surprised to learn that it is available on channel 62-2, a free local channel, here in the Kansas City area.

** I was interested to see that, for my granddaughter Naomi is currently a student at UMBC. 

A Tribute to My Mother

My mother was born 110 years ago in February 1914. Her birthday was on Friday the 13^th, right between Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, which was 105 years earlier on Feb. 12, 1809, and St. Valentine’s Day, which had been celebrated on Feb. 14 since 496 A.D.

In 2017, I posted “A Tribute to My Father,” on July 25, the day before the 10^th anniversary of his death. Now, just before the 110^th anniversary of my mother’s birth, I am posting this tribute to her.*¹    

Helen (Cousins) Seat (2005)

To tell the truth, from my boyhood until the end of their lives, I held my father in higher regard than my mother, although certainly I never had any notable conflict or disrespect for her. I am glad now to be sharing this long-overdue tribute to her.

Helen Lena Cousins was born in rural Mercer County, Missouri, the third child (and third daughter) of J. Ray and Laura Kathryn (Hamilton) Cousins. In 1925 the Cousins family moved to Worth County, Mo.

Mom and my father were married in 1935, two years after they graduated from high school in Grant City, Mo.—the same high school I graduated from 22 years later. She passed away 13 days after her 94^th birthday in 2008, having lived most of her long life in Worth County.

There is so much I appreciate about my mother, beginning with my pre-school years. Neither of my parents had any formal education beyond high school, and Mom had not been a very good student as a girl. (She had to repeat one grade in elementary school, but that was partly because of illness.)

As a woman of her times, she was a traditional wife, mother, and homemaker in the best sense of the word. She was a good housekeeper, an excellent cook, a skillful seamstress, and a successful gardener. But more than anything else, she excelled in encouragement and support.

In my life story book, I wrote that Mom “seemed to know how to encourage/support very effectively my desire to learn.”*² Thanks to her, I had learned to read and to do arithmetic so well that a week after I started elementary school, I was promoted to the second grade.

Through the decades Mom’s unwavering support and encouragement continued not only for me and my younger sister but also for her six grandchildren, whom she loved dearly.

In 1966 when June and I left with our two children for Japan as missionaries, taking with us Mom’s only grandchildren at the time, she never complained. I deeply appreciate her (and my father’s) understanding and prayer support of us during our missionary career in Japan which didn’t end until 2004.

The following words of tribute to my mother were heard by the family members and friends who gathered on March 1, 2008, for her funeral and listened to the sermon I preached on that occasion. I am glad to share just a bit of that sermon with you Thinking Friends now.*³

In it, I said that because of Mom’s quiet encouragement, my sister Ann became a medical doctor and I was able to earn the Ph.D. degree. But she was never pushy; she never tried to tell us what we ought to do. With only rare exceptions, if any, Mom always believed in us and always encouraged us.

Since Mom always took great pride in her children and their accomplishments, "we thought that nothing would have pleased her more today than for Ann to furnish the music and for me to preach the funeral sermon.”

Through the many decades of her life, Mom was a faithful Christian and church member. She “was constantly thinking of others—mainly her husband and children, but others outside the family and around the world, as well.”

Mom was also never one to complain—about her work or her health. She didn’t read a lot, but she knew by nature what Norman Vincent Peale wrote about in The Power of Positive Thinking.

At times in her later years when she was not feeling well and someone would inquire about her health, she would usually reply, “I’m getting better.”

After sharing those words in the funeral sermon, partly because the end of her long life was marred by progressive dementia, I said that “now she really is better—and in a better place, the place that Jesus had prepared for her.”

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*¹ Ten years ago, on 2/13/14, I posted “One Hundred Years Ago,” but only a few sentences at the beginning were about my mother’s birth on 2/13/1914.

*² About six weeks ago I published A Wonderful Life: The Story of My Life from My Birth until My 85^th Birthday (1938~2023). One definite reason why I have been so bold as to refer to my life so far as a wonderful life is because of my mother.

*³ I certainly don’t expect many of you to take the time to read all or even any of that sermon, but if you are interested, here is the digital link to it. In March 1959, 49 years earlier, I also preached the sermon at my mother’s mother’s (my Grandma Cousins’) funeral when I was still a twenty-year-old college student—but already an ordained pastor.