When we see a documentary that tells us how limited our time is before the world implodes, our first thought is, “Wow,” and the second is, “Let’s see who called my cell phone while I was at that documentary.”

The reason for this is that we, as a society, do not have the resolve to stop a problem 50 or 25 or even 10 years before it affects us. This is not because we’re selfish brutes only interested in our own best interest, though of course we are, but rather because we are shortsighted. We put things off until we absolutely have to deal with them, and then we put things off some more.

This is why there is such thing as credit card debt and the morning after pill and the tobacco industry. It is the basis for late charges on car rentals and library books, and the reason that flights are so expensive if you book them the day before a trip. It is the reason, as Thomas L. Friedman points out in his April 15th New York Times Magazine article “The Power of Green,” that things like profit and punishment will help America “get its groove back,” and the reason that climate scientists are so aggravated when their announcement of the impending apocalypse falls on deaf ears.

In the article, Friedman discusses a number of semi-inconvenient military and economic ways for the country to go green. A like-minded article in this week’s New York Magazine, entitled "Greener Postures: Hacking Through the Biodegradable, Zero-Carbon, Ecochic Overhype," discusses 12 fully inconvenient ways for individuals to go green, along with an analysis of the ecochic items, such as an oil-drum coffee table, a hand crank washing machine, a bat house, elephant dung notepaper, a solar-powered bag (and not one of Voltaic’s), soy clothing, a toilet top sink, washable menstrual pads, a plastic bag drying rack, a squeegee for the body (one of the authors pointed out that he could just use his hand), carbon-neutral weddings and a recycled coffin.

Although the articles address different spheres of American life, the same question emerges of whether we are ever going to compromise our comfort, convenience or bottom line, as individuals or as a country, for the sake of the environment.

Evan and Frieda Eisenberg, who reviewed the ecochic products, make comments like, "If you’re seriously considering this item, you have too much time on your hands. Go canvas for Greenpeace instead," and "The proliferation of absurdly specialized and redundant tools is not our idea of green." Their consensus is clearly that it is unrealistic to expect people to spend an exorbitant amount of time, money and elbow grease in order to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Friedman makes the similar point that is not altruism that will drive green innovation, but free market capitalism. "The only thing as powerful as Mother Nature is Father Greed," he writes. If the green trend doesn’t result in increased profits, no one’s going to be on-board, not Wal-Mart, not China and India.

But unlike the New York Magazine writers, at the end of his very compelling argument, Friedman talks about stewardship:

“Stewardship is what parents do for their kids: think about the long term so they can have a better future,” he explains, “It is much easier to get families to do that than whole societies, but that is our challenge.”

But wait, several real estate ads and a curried oyster recipe back, when Friedman is talking about lowering oil prices, he says, “People change when they have to – not when we tell them to – and falling oil prices make them have to.” And from beneath the flap of a Pravda Vodka ad, he says, “If we don’t put a price on the CO2 we’re building up or on our addiction to oil, we’ll never nurture the innovation we need.” Even EdBegley, Jr. would not purchase a hand crank washing machine voluntarily.

So what’s with all the talk of stewardship?

The same flaws exist in Friedman’s argument that exist in many arguments about our current global warming state of emergency: Altruistic or not (and the jury’s still out), human nature is not preventative.

In order to make green America “the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century,” as Friedman writes, we need to speak in the vocabulary of a capitalist system. Environmentalism should not be about stewardship or altruism, but about immediate financial and lifestyle returns, the likes of which can be found in any of the technological innovations for which we clamor, such as a telephone that also stores every song we own, or a solar calculator that never needs a battery replacement (and not so much a $675 coffee table made out of an oil drum).

America’s youngest generations may very well be its greenest, as Friedman readily predicts, but if there aren’t easy, obvious ways to incorporate this green trend into our lives, we may just never get around to it.

Photo:madalena_pestana, Creative Commons, Flickr