Wall Street Journal: The fallacy of "green consumerism"

[auroraglacialis]

A lot of people are convinced, that we can "consume our way out of the crisis", by replacing gasoline cars with ethanol or hybrid or electric cars, by recycling, more efficient light bulbs and high speed rail. Technology will save us, this says and what it means is that technology will save our way of life a while longer - and actually increase it while at the same time giving us the feeling that it is greener than grass. Some environmentalists have gotten that this "bright green future" is not exactly realistic and that basically it is a mirage created by economic forces to make us believe that we can save the planet by consuming it - just by consuming it in a more efficient way.

So I found it interesteing to find in the (well known leftist radical ecological ) "Wall Street Journal" this article:
The Problem With Going Green by David Owen - WSJ.com

If only all big problems could be tackled with product substitution. We're consumers at heart, and our response to difficulties of all kinds usually involves consumption in one form or another. My car's a problem? Tell me what to drive instead. Wrong water heater? I'll switch. Kitchen counters not green? I'll replace them. The challenge arises when consumption itself is at issue. The world faces a long list of environmental challenges, yet most so-called solutions are either irrelevant or make the real problems worse.
[...]
Flying from New York to Melbourne in 1958, on a propeller plane, consumed more energy per person than my 2010 flight did, but it was "greener" nevertheless. It required stops in San Francisco, Hawaii, Canton Island, Fiji and Sydney, and it cost each coach passenger something like a quarter of that year's U.S. median family income, each way.

If comparably slow and costly flights were the only travel option available today, I and almost all of my fellow passengers would certainly have stayed home: a gain for the environment, though a loss for the global economy. The only unambiguously effective method of reducing the long-term carbon and energy cost of air travel is to fly less—a behavioral change, not a technological one.