In 1970, Charles Reich published "The Greening of America," a best-selling paean to change and growth of consciousness—of man's relationship with the world, its fragile environment and its creatures, including and emphasizing his fellow man. In it he wrote, "America is dealing death, not only to people in other lands, but to its own people." Reich contended that America could and would do better than that. Greening, which is defined as "a restoration of youthful freshness and vigor," became part of the American culture, dialogue and language because of Reich, a professor of law at Yale.
The April 2007 Outside magazine was its 30th-anniversary issue, and was billed as the "Green Issue." It featured Arnold Schwarznegger on the cover as a greener politician than most.
That same month, Fortune magazine featured Yvon Chouinard, the founder/owner of Patagonia, on its cover because Patagonia is "the blueprint for green business."
Green is in and man's consciousness is growing and this is good, but I see incongruity in these two covers and what they seem to say about our world. Was Reich right about what America could and would do, or is green just the color of business as usual?
What is now Outside started out as Mariah magazine, the creation of Lawrence Burke, an adventurer/entrepreneur who loved both the outdoors and adventure and wanted a publication devoted to them. (He also wanted a place to publish accounts and photography of his own adventures.) Mariah filled that niche and more, but soon competition arose as Jann Wenner (owner/founder of Rolling Stone magazine) started Outside. Burke bought Outside from Wenner, published it for a time as Outside/Mariah, and then just as Outside. It has been the most successful outdoor magazine in America.
Arnold is an avid and accomplished skier (despite stumbling over his own ski pole last winter and breaking either his hip or femur), but the cigar-smoking, ex-body builder, Hummer driver and actor-turned-shrewd-politician is not by any stretch of the imagination an icon of outdoor adventure or even the outdoor world. He is, however, a self-made multi-millionaire (before he was 22), a business/economics graduate of the University of Wisconsin and a successful businessman/politician who would seem a more natural fit for the cover of Fortune than for Outside.
Fortune magazine was started in February 1930, four months after the stock market crash of 1929, by Henry Luce, co-founder of Time magazine, who was wrong about, among other things, his conviction that what became the Great Depression would last no more than a year. Still, Fortune was innovative from the beginning, featuring fine art and photography and well-researched articles and lists and is arguably the best of the high-end business journals, though it named Enron "the most innovative company in America" for the sixth straight year in 2001. Fortune, like fortune itself, is not without flaws, though it must be admitted that Enron was innovative.
Yvon Chouinard is a multi-millionaire more through happenstance in the pursuit of quality than by the design of pursuing money. A world-class and famous climber, an avid surfer, fly-fisherman, environmentalist and self-described dirt-bag outdoorsman, Chouinard's formal education ended with high school. He started out making climbing hardware (pitons, crampons, ice axes, carabineers) that was superior to anything then available and which revolutionized climbing. He expanded into soft goods (clothing) with Patagonia. Both the company Patagonia and the person Chouinard are icons of the outdoor world, and both are authentic representatives of everything that is meant by "green" and "greening" in the modern world, including the business world. Chouinard would seem a more natural fit (as he has been) for the cover of Outside than for Fortune.
In my opinion (admittedly prejudiced), Chouinard's and Patagonia's interest in and actions toward restoring a youthful freshness and vigor to the Earth's environment and to the consciousness of the humans who inhabit it come from the heart and the brain and a lifetime of watching the Earth's fragile environment unravel. They are genuine. They are not perfectly effective, as he is the first to point out, but they are effective. They are necessary to any sustainable world, including the world of economic wealth. That's why he's on the cover of Fortune.
Arnold's green credentials are suspect (to me) and do not come from a lifetime of close contact or appreciation of the natural world. (Check out the photo in the April Outside of the governor at the Descanso Gardens.) The politics of green and greening or, at least, greenwashing as good business (as usual) are as old and tired and stale as a backroom full of cigar smoke. But the thing is this—the fact that Arnold has gotten green into the conversations and politics and business and political decisions of some of those smoke-filled backrooms deserves our admiration and full support. Those conversations and politics and business decisions have an enormous effect on the Earth's environment. That's why he's on the cover of Outside.
Charles Reich said, "My goal in life is to make people think. If I do that, I've been a success." He has accomplished that goal. Now it's up to us. If each of us pays attention to people like Chouinard and Schwarznegger and what they truly represent while thinking seriously about the differences between green, greening and greenwashing, we can do as well.
