Greeniac 1 is a new voice in the Going Green movement. He prefers to be anonymous, fueling efforts to inform rather than seeking fame, or even recognition. I spoke with him by phone recently and he talked about his new website, www.greeniacs.com. He expressed his concern that the present green advocacy is creating a back lash. Greeniac 1 does not call himself an environmentalist, but a technicalist; he looks at the data and trends. For whatever reason, the data shows that early environmentalists in the late 50s and 60s did not resonate with everyone with their image of “space ship earth.” The trends point to their failure to inspire people to protect the planet.

The message is correct but the delivery is the problem because people don’t like to be lectured. People usually embrace freedom of choice and do better when they have the resources to make better informed decisions. They do more if it’s of their own volition and fits with their lifestyle. Greeniacs believe that if people have access to good information, they will make good choices that fit their lifestyle. "By opening the coffers of information we hope people will do as they see fit. Our research team will help find the questions people have. We’re thrilled to send people to other sites for information because we aren’t interested in mining information for resale. My directive to modify software to not obtain information meant that I had to pay extra to customize the site. Our site design is a counter-culture approach."

We talked about a major challenge for the Green Movement. It hasn’t addressed the fact that Green can be expensive and the less affluent may be discouraged from doing and thinking Green. The poor are lower on the political scale than many of those who embrace the Green movement. I mentioned my own interest in embracing diverse folks on environmental issues and my concern that the Going Green leadership appears to be mostly white folks. Greeniac 1 agreed and described a dilemma in Berkeley where a biofuel procurer needed more space and wanted to expand across the street. Unfortunately, the expansion would put a minority business out of business. The situation is a practical dilemma that is too often seen where poor neighborhoods are asked to sacrifice more than affluent ones. Too many times poor folks are told that they’re hurting the environment if they’re not wearing natural fibers while the affluent drive their expensive cars that use biofuels to go skiing at Lake Tahoe.

Greeniacs do not preach and avoid causing racial and class fault lines. No one is judging anyone else, and we should consider what people need to do to survive. “We’re Switzerland—we just educate people. I’m a simple guy. An entrepreneur, a problem solver, and was admitted to the bar many years ago, but didn’t have the right attitude to be a lawyer. I have a visual handicap that makes it hard to read. I’ve been forced to compensate for the challenge by developing auditory and memory skills and forced to think. It’s a powerful negative to be unable to access the writing of the great thinkers. Yet, I’ve always believed you play the hand you’re dealt . . . I’ve been married for 33 years and raised 2 daughters. I’m just a hard working kid from Brooklyn trying to get the lights turned on. I try to figure out “why” and somehow impact the next 40-50 years knowing the probability of one person making an impact is infinitesimal. But I’ll continue to roll up my sleeves and try to do something. I have the luxury of environmental ignorance. I don’t take a position that is confrontational; I’m a facilitator.”

Greeniac 1 has a particular interest in involving young people. They have energy and enthusiasm because they’ll see major environmental damage in their lifetime. He created the Greeniacs site to help broaden their thinking just as universities are created so that ideas can be exchanged and debated. The site launched in late September with 735 unique visitors and had almost 1,000 in the first week of December. Recently, the site acquired its own server powered by green service; setting an example for others.

Greeniacs are non-political and transcend all historical diversity and political categories. We’re all in the club; we’re on this ship together. We need to bail it out faster and faster. If we don’t succeed, the ship goes down as do we all. The press release about the launch of the website has received considerable attention. Greeniac1 is flattered and flabbergasted by the number and quality of the groups supporting the site. One member, Greeniac 831, explains the success of this approach as the result of talking about the environment with regular people, not the elite or the academics. He is President Emeritus of Stanford University and a PhD in human biology but says that academic journals don’t inspire most of us; don’t even get read. I’m inspired by the Greeniacs approach myself and recently joined. I am Greeniac 10796; there are apparently a lot of us. Go to www.Greeniacs.com and join the crew – you can’t lose.

[Article from  www.americandiversityreport.com ]

Add your comment