So I was reading Perezhilton.com the other day (yes, I know. I’m trying to quit, but that sh*t is like crack!), and one of his postings addressed the idea of green as a fad, i.e., mainstream news and other media outlet’s attention to the subject will pass just as fast as, say, high waisted shorts.

Perez wrote: “The New York Times reports that the advertising industry is pulling back from green-themed marketing, having “grasped the public’s growing skepticism over ads with environmental messages.” Additionally, ‘green’ themed magazine issues are not selling well at the newsstands.”

Yikes…bikes! This is not good news, buuut, I pushed it out of my mind (this was Perez reporting) and went about my day as usual. But, then I read the comics in my daily paper, (which I read for the cardio, as letters to the editor demanding we drill in the ANWR really get my heart rate pumping), and Cathy by Cathy Guisewite featured a joke about buying a Prius. I think I failed to understand the humor; I reread it a couple of times to no avail (in all likelihood, it just wasn’t that funny), but nonetheless Perez’s words haunted me. Had green gone so mainstream (in the wrong way) that it was now the butt of bad jokes?

I recently went to eat at a new, downtown Charleston hotspot (I know one of the owners, and I was excited to see his new venture since last I knew, he was asking, “would like avocado with that?“). I was immediately disappointed, and it would not be an exaggeration to say heartbroken, because instead of using plates, you know the reusable kind, EVERYTHING was served in to-go aluminum containers. The flavors were spot-on, but, I was dumbfounded; so much so, I could not even ask if they recycled their single-use dinnerware. How could this place survive?, I thought, The horror! The horror!

Yet I did not say anything. This is what activists call a failure to exert social pressure. I am not proud.

You may hope I’m coming to some sound and tidy conclusion, but actually I just hope to resonate with those of us trying to be green, expecting everyone to be green, and then realizing, f**k, a lot of people don’t care?! Well yeah, that may be so, but this is for the people who do care, those who will prove green is not fad…it’s actually a common-sense something that has to happen if we’re going to be able to go forward as a sustainable society.

It ain’t easy, but it wouldn’t be worth it if it was.