How to Sell Green

Now and then there’s a surprise. Recently at our household, we being your tree hugger types and not about to be out-greened by anybody, we picked up some of the new hand crank powered LED flashlights. I started with the notion that here is a kind of a flashlight. In my mind I put this item into the flashlight category of stuff, a pretty ho hum category. Well, the surprise to me is that, after we’d had these hand crank flashlights around the house awhile, it became apparent to me that this little gadget is in a whole new category of stuff I hadn’t realized even existed until just recently. And in this realization I’m thinking here might be a way finally to sell green. Finally, after many decades of failed attempts at selling green, here might be the market penetrating device we’ve been looking for. Selling green? Market penetrating device? What, have I gone over to the dark side? No. Well, not entirely. I’m just saying that the dark side does have this one little thing going for it. It works like a dream. Capitalism succeeds. I mean look at how far we tree huggers have gotten with green through wringing our hands over the dark side of capitalism. Maybe I’m all wet here - I’m just thinking out loud here - but I’m thinking hey; let’s learn from it. What is the central most basic thing to learn from the success of capitalism? It’s this: the pitch has to be simple. The pitch can be no more complicated than appetite-food. That’s it. Appetite-food. Any message more complex than that will fall with a dull thud. Wade through this lengthy list of scientific papers on climate science is not going to cut it. Minimize your carbon footprint for the good of future generations is not going to cut it. So how are we going to sell sell sell green? What is the appetite-food pitch here? What I found from this hand crank flashlight is that it’s not just a minor variation on an old appliance, but it’s in a whole new class of appliance, one that puts you in a different relationship with your world. Different how? Different in being less complicated. The hand crank flashlight is a whole different thing from the disposable battery powered flashlight. Why? Because the battery powered flashlight still involves you in a long complicated contract by which batteries are produced, marketed, distributed, used up, and disposed of. From the beginning lighting has been such a big need for people to where we’ve been willing to devise these vastly complex globe-circling systems to address it. The systems have been miraculous in what they’ve achieved all the way from getting a harpoon into a whale to delivering whale oil to a customer in Nebraska. They’ve been even more miraculous as they have scaled up from that by many orders of magnitude to getting a drill head into an oil reserve 18 miles below the surface of the Northern Atlantic and the refined product into a Dodge Caravan in Utah at a cost per gallon less expensive than bottled water. That is a miracle. But. It’s complicated. Not that the hand crank flashlight is the holy grail that in itself is going to change this relationship. Oh there they go again. These tree huggers are going to have us shivering in the dark. No. I know that earlier tree hugger pitch of do without for the greater good of all was a marketing disaster. We have fired that ad agency. Let’s take a different tack here, we’re thinking now. Yes, the light of the hand crank flashlight is feeble. It’s not going to replace all the long-loop lighting in itself. Still, in my experience at least, I have found the hand crank flashlight can provide for quite a few of my lighting needs. It’s perfectly adequate for lighting my way to the john at night, and it has quite improved my aim. But that’s not all. The epiphany to me is that I have found that this hand crank flashlight isn’t merely handy; it has very slightly improved the quality of my life. In one small aspect of my life, a long complicated loop has been replaced by a short less complicated loop. Instead of participating in the complicated project to harpoon the whale and to process it and transport it and on and on, I just turn the crank. It’s far simpler more direct a contract. Even aside from the real or imagined problems with the long loop, the greenhouse gas emissions of it, the terrorist regimes that are funded through it, the wars fought to protect it, the politicians who are corrupted through its self-serving influences, the short loop has a virtue all its own. In every little way you can replace a long complicated loop with a shorter less complicated loop, there’s just that much less that can go wrong with it; there’s that much less stress in your life; you’re that much less driven to work yourself to a state of mental and physical exhaustion at a wage slave job; and you’re that much less likely to get caught up in one of the debt trap snares our top predators have devised for us. Less complicated isn’t just a theoretical value. Less complicated has tangible real world value. Less complicated brings a smile to your face. To put it crassly, that could sell. That’s what I was missing before. I was so focused on un-selling the long loop, that I neglected the positive virtues of the short loop. It puts me in mind of that parable about the wind god and the sun god. The wind god was blowing a lot of air around as per usual about how he could blow the shirt off that peasant down there. “Watch this,” he said. The wind god subjected that peasant to one fierce gale, but the harder the wind god blew, the more tightly the peasant clung to his shirt. “You’re going about it all wrong,” said the sun god. “Step aside, please. Watch and learn.” The sun god shone down on the peasant so that by and by the peasant took off his shirt. Our conservatives rightly perceive oil to be the very life sustaining life blood of today’s economy. In today’s world, we drive with oil; we recreate with oil; we’re employed by oil; we clothe ourselves in oil; we medicate ourselves with oil; we eat oil; we fight and die with oil for oil. The more shrilly we tree huggers have railed and ragged about this, the more tightly our conservatives have clung to it for dear life. What we need to do instead or perhaps in addition to it, dear fellow tree huggers, wherever we can, seek to replace long complicated loops with shorter less complicated ones. Then, and this is important, exude well being for it. If you can get there through the hermit in the woods approach, great. Whatever blows your boat around. What I’m trying to achieve here, though, is to find the market penetrating device that will reach our conservatives. For that, we need appliances, man, appliances. Our conservatives may distrust science but they sure do take the appliances of science seriously. If you must buy an appliance, try to select from this new category of short loop appliances. Or, I should say shorter loop appliances. One of my big favorites in this new category of shorter loop appliances is the photovoltaic solar electricity system. The solar electricity system admittedly still connects you to a highly complex system of manufacture, distribution, transportation, and installation, but after it’s done; it’s a long healing stretch of serene simplicity, especially when compared to a coal fired power plant. Am I claiming that we are actually measurably saner healthier people for our purchase of this appliance? Heck yes. That is my claim and I’m sticking with it. If my claim doesn’t pan out, I freely accept that the whole sales pitch here falls on its butt and deservedly so. This is so very tree hugger of me to say this, but I have a good feeling about it. I just have a good feeling about it. Please realize that, as crazy as I still am, I’m a tad saner than I used to be. Why? Because we have solar power and it’s a lot less complicated than the coal fired power plant it has largely replaced. This eases my mind. Assuming I’m right, and we are happier, healthier, and saner for our recent purchases of shorter loop appliances than we were with our longer loop appliances, others will see this. This will catch on. It’s called human culture. Complicated to less complicated. Appetite-food. Work in some kind of sex appeal angle and we are in business.