Wondrous! The ecco-chic scene is simply marvelous. What joy to be a part of such an earth changing group...NOT.

The world is burning...do I hear fiddling?

Way to judge people you know nothing about, Willy.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Anybody having fun is obviously a phony.. *sigh*

Ever wonder why green never got mainstream before? Because of people like you, the elitist judgmental self-righteous crowd looking down on the "unpure".

Personally, I think the "new green" is great, and everybody's invited to do their part.

Ever wonder why green never got mainstream before? Because of people like you, the elitist judgmental self-righteous crowd looking down on the "unpure".

I agree and it is still apparent by many people other than willy.

I'd add to my comment above that it's impossible to know just from a picture of someone drinking and having fun how green they are.

Half the people in that room might have smaller footprints and might be doing more things to create a green future than you, Willy. Who knows?

Foot in mouth alert! Maybe because I WAS THERE?

Fiddle fiddle fiddle.

Oh, right, being there allowed you to see into the soul of everybody present and judge them. My bad. I forgot that it is possible to judge strangers' whole lives based on their behavior at a festive social event.

Time for coddling was maybe 30 years ago. Tipping point is now. Absurd ecco-chic distractions are almost criminal.

Of course, you could look at it in two ways:

Hey, Mr. X, there’s a smoldering pile of rags in your basement. Do you think that, well, you know, maybe you could consider going down and taking a look? You know, like, if it is not to inconvenient or stressful for you. What, you considered it, and you unlatched the basement door already? Well that’s great, ‘casue, like, every little bit counts, and I wouldn’t want to demoralize you by making things seem a bit more urgent and requiring of immediate and decisive action, or anything like that, you know. Oh, you emailed your friends that you had unlatched the door to the basement and invited them over for drinks later to celebrate this? That’s wonderful, it really is. And that blog entry you posted about it, really, that’s super great. Kudos, really. Etc…

Or:

TAKE THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER AND TRY TO PUT IT OUT NOW. IF IT SEEMS TOO DANGEROUS, GET OUT OF THE HOUSE AND LEAVE EVERYTHING BEHIND NOW. CALL 911 NOW.

How will future generations look back on these people? How will they look back on you? Fiddling away?

Whoa, how'd this turn into a hostile discussion? I wonder why Willy feels that way about the event, though.

What the heck is your problem, man?

Because we have serious problems, people shouldn't take a couple of hours to meet and have fun? It should be serious anguish 24/7, working on the environment till you die?

Is that what you're doing? Please tell us more about yourself, because you seem to consider yourself a role model, and if you are, it'd be "criminal" not to share your wisdom with us poor mortals.

Something to realize: It's much, much more effective to have hundreds of millions of people who support green than to have a small elite of super hippies living the pure life. It's the masses that will allow politicians to make radical changes, it's the masses that influences big corporations and the stock market. It's the masses that influence the media and culture.

So yeah, the new green aren't pure, but they also have a bigger impact than the marginal hippies. This kind of judeo-christian worldview that solving problems and changing the world has to be boring, serious, painful and unattractive (because the more you suffer here, the more fun it'll be in heaven?) has got to stop. It is leading nowhere fast.

All hail the new green!

Your grandparents would be ashamed of you. When faced with an immediate threat to their way of life, their very existence, they made sever changes to their lives over night. Do you think they were having little parties to celebrate how many cans they collected for the war effort, or how they didn’t use their gasoline ration for the month? No, they would have arrested anyone who would have made such a suggestion. When other humans had guns and the desire to conquer, your grandparents did everything necessary to ensure that did not happen. Today, we all have the gun to our own heads, but somehow this reality is easy to gloss over for the vast majority. Us Americans have such a big gun to our heads that it will take out a load of little guys standing next to us when it goes off.

Why do you keep saying the word “pure”? Labels like “hippie”, “unpure”, and “elitist” have no meaning when all of us are facing extinction together. Why do you keep making this out to be an ideological difference? Its not. Its life or death, that simple. You just don’t want to have to admit that, just like all these new-green do nothings who still have a carbon footprint that is several orders of magnitude greater than the world average.

I think it was Chris Rock who did the bit about wanting praise for things that are supposed to be a given. “I take care of my kids” “You’re SUPPOSED to take care of your kids! What do you want, a cookie?” “I aint never been to jail.” “You’re not SUPPOSED to go to jail” etc…

Nuff said, back to your regularly scheduled, albeit "green", lifestyle.

Ah, the Hitler reference.

The thing is, the situation isn't the same. Right now, as sad as that is because I sure wish we didn't have to do this, the goal is to get people on board and create a movement.

If the movement already existed and it wasn't doing anything, then you would be right. But what already exists is doing something, but we need to grow it a lot more on all levels. It needs to become mainstream, it needs to become the norm. The new paradigm.

"The best way to replace the old paradigm is to have more fun than they do."

We are facing extinction, that's why it's imperative to get people on board and spread the word.

You seem to be saying: "There's a problem! It's serious!". Well, we already know that. What is your solution?

This can't stay about individuals, it has to become collective, and the only way to have an impact on the collectivity is either a totalitarian worldwide government, or a worldwide movement that is so attractive that millions and millions join and create a tipping point.

What an extremely cool idea. In a couple of hours I was able to connect friends who are environmental engineers with angel investors who look for green engineering know-how. I was able to drink some tasty Amazonian wonderdrink, dance with the founder of Green Apple Cleaners, and shake it up with Ms.Ruben-Salama! where else can you do that?!

Green drinks is an amazing concept put to action, and I'm very glad to know of it. You shall see me again with a green drink in my hand and a hot-foot on the dance floor.

thanks!

Evan O'Brien

What the hell does religion have to do with this? Or WWII? I'm sure the fate of the world has been decided by 500 partying people.

To be clear, there's nothing I want more than an Appolo, Manhattan or WWII type push against global warming & co.

But to get there, there needs to be a large social consensus, and right now it's more useful to build that than to freeze alone in the dark with a 5 square feet footprint.

I realize that we are probably talking past each others, so I'm going to clarify my position a bit:

I don't believe, personally, that individuals can save us. To me, it's impossible that enough people will change fast enough and of their own will reduce their footprint and lifestyles to get us back to sustainable level.

I think individuals are very important, but for the human civilization to be sustainable, we need a different framework.

That means: Fiscal reform and a big push by governments (like appolo, WWII, etc).

-Fiscal reform is taxing bads instead of goods (CO2 and toxins instead of income, investment, payroll). That can be made revenue neutral so that the government doesn't tax more than it does now.

Environmental "externalities" would also need to be internalized. F.ex., coal electricity price should include the cost of global warming, smog & related diseases, mercury poisoning and coal mining damages. That would mean that coal would be a lot more expensive than solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear (thorium maybe? who the heck knows anymore if we want nuclear or not). That way, the people would have an incentive to pick the greener things because they would be cheaper. They are cheaper right now, but the extra costs of dirty things are "externalized" and paid by society as a whole over time..

-Big push: Governments need to invest massively in technologies like wind, solar, wave, geothermal, etc. Either remove all subsidies to fossil fuels and level the playing fiel, or reverse it and give the subsidies to solar, etc. Build tons of factories, capacity, etc. Invest in the grid and make it "smart" like the net so it's a lot more efficient and reliable. Etc. All these things would cost less than a mid-sized war.

Once we have that, we'll be moving a lot faster and regular people will make good choices because that's what will make sense for them financially AS WELL as ethically.

Right now, individuals have to swim upstream.. Until there's a critical mass of greenies. Once we have that, it will be possible for politicians and CEOs to propose the things I talked about above. Until then, even the best people in positions of power know that the mainstream is not with them, so they have to bite their tongues.

Hope that makes my position clearer.

pfft. dear angry willy: to paraphrase emma goldman "if i can't dance, i don't want to be a part of your revolution."

i really dont understand how people getting together to meet, mingle, drink, dance, AND discuss green issues can be considered a bad thing (with the exception of disposable name tags which just seems obviously wasteful). i apologize if you had a bad time, but that doesnt mean that conceptually this is a bad idea.

as people concerned with the environment we have a tendency to be so bogged down with unpleasant facts that it can almost become overwhelming (add to that the fact that many treehuggers are also involved in social justice issues, full of all their own unpleasant realities). i think an event like this would be a great way to recharge, to recall you arent alone in your actions and beliefs, to feel good about the possibilities of the future, instead of feeling awful about the reality of today. and again, i dont kno how that can be a bad thing. i would much rather happy activists who are able to accomplish things than people who are paralyzed by overwhelming data into inaction by not allowing themselves to simply enjoy life from time to time.

My stars! From religion to Hitler in one fell swoop!

While I can see the merits in bringing more of the main stream online, I can also empathize with the sentiment that we are doing way too little, way too late. I mean, look at the picture at the top of this post. If that does not serve to shut off ma&pa citizen with its aristocratic, big city let them eat cake attitude, I don't know what would.

I don't pretend to have the answers, but I don't think it is a financial or ethical matter. I really think it is a matter of survival. Bring in the masses, but make sure they appreciate the grave state of affairs and the herculean feats it will take to fix things. A party this is not.

Call it a party, but like it or not its an incredibly efficient way to connect with others and make things happen. Its about connectivity to like-minded people. Every other industry networks, so why shouldn't we? and have fun doing it? We take the issues seriously in our daily lives and want change to happen, but it can't happen if we're living in a vaccum. We all need to get out and meet people, collaborate and grow together as a movement- more strength in numbers than small individuals toiling away on our own. Did I mention its also fun? We need fun, fun is good, really really good, don't discount the value of a great night out - and hell its once a month!

I'm just wondering, why did Willy go to the party in the first place? I can't imagine that such a strong opinion appeared overnight.

Margaret- It's obvious you've outdone yourself this year. Great job!!! Greendrinks is the epicenter of the green network in New York and I've seen many great connections, ideas, projects begin as conversations over a beer- there is no denying the value of it. So good to see photos of everyone together. Wish I could have been there.

Hey Willy

Obviously more needs to be done *immediately*. How about you start - I'm sure you could make a big impact by turning your computer off...

Great, Michele, just great. You're showing how clueless you are and another giant ice sheet just broke off of Canada. Go throw a party. Might as well, for tomorrow we all...

is this conversation doing anything other than demonstrating the prejudices of the commentators?

Is it your job to change Willy, to change anyone other than your self?

It would appear that the support of green drinks might have more to do with wanting something that you are committed to to be seen as cool.

Please don't be an environmentalist because it is cool, do it because it is the right thing to do.

So green drinks aren't bad, but perhaps are less effective than direct action.