Sunday, April 15, 2007

"Vaguely French" Environmentalism?

This doesn't signify anything in particular, but I was wondering why Tom Friedman said:

...they defined (environmentalism) as "liberal," "tree hugging," "sissy," "girlie-man," "unpatriotic," "vaguely-French."

Um... "vaguely-French?" France is not, to my knowledge, particularly green, notwithstanding their enthusiastic embrace of nuclear power, which is only a green policy if we're sufficiently afraid of boiling the Earth to risk irradiating it. So where did this come from? Hmm... Google "vaguely french" green -friedman, and you don't find many (if any) cases of people actually calling environmentalists "vaguely French," but you do find this July 2006 Mongabay.com article, Environmentalism without tears: Arguing climate change to an energy executive, specifically:

While there's little doubt that the issue is heavily politicized, 2006 may go down as the year climate change gained mainstream momentum. It's no longer the domain of fringe environmentalists and Hollywood celebrities—everyone from grandmothers to politicians is talking about topics like carbon-dioxide emissions, ocean acidification, and solar photovoltaics. Magazines from Time to The Economist are devoting covers to the topic, while green concepts have been recast as "economic" and "patriotic," rather than being labeled "granola" or "vaguely French."

Vaguely amusing.

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