divine green: Sustainable Home, Beauty, & Lifestyle

A recent article in the New York Times featured newly created buzzwords that crept into the American lexicon last year. Several terms were related to the environmental movement, if only in a laughable way.

“Vegansexual” is one noun. It refers to “a person who eats no meat, uses no animal derived goods and prefers not to have sex with non vegans,” according to the article. Personally, I prefer the term eco-sexual for the environmentally minded set who wouldn’t dream of kissing the less evolved. (Yes, I’m biased. Story here.)

Then, there’s “global weirding,” a term coined by Hunter Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a think tank that works on energy issues. 

Global weirding is “an increase in severe or unusual environmental activity often attributed to global warming. This includes freakish weather and new animal migration patterns.” I think we’ve all read stories about this phenomenon. 

The last one marks a serious trend in corporate America–one that could ultimately turn the tide of environmental bad practices. “Chief sustainability officer,” according to the article, is a “business executive hired to meet environmental regulations and to find ways to profit through environmentally friendly products and services.” Tons of Fortune 500 companies have brought on a CSO in recent years, but I’m sure such executives at DuPont and other companies have an uphill battle to change corporate practices. Still, it’s a positive development, along with the emergence of “green-collar workers,” people who are inspired to work in the green industry for what might resemble blue-collar wages.

What do all these terms have in common besides the environment? At least 8,000 references each in Google search results.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 10:21 pm and is filed under environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.