“Creating irresistible consumer demand for cool objects,” writes Bruce Sterling in an op-ed in this morning’s Washington Post, “that will yield a great atmosphere upgrade” is the way out of the planetary mess we’ve made. That’s the goal of green designers who are, according to Sterling, in a fight against the “20th-century fossil order.” And the cybergreens are winning. Why? Because instead of creating mediocre (and worse) products that are supposedly good for us, they’re creating things that people actually want: “health, sex, glamour, hot products, awesome bandwidth, tech innovation, and tons of money.”
As a result we’re going to spend our way to planetary survival.
The new green, after all, doesn’t have anything to do with alternative or counterculture. It has everything to do with everything. “Sustainability is comprehensive,” says Sterling, “that which is not sustainable doesn’t go on.”
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