This blog was originally posted on Identity Campaigning.
Here’s Do The Green Thing’s spoof promotion for Nothing:
Pretty cool, eh? Do the Green Thing say:
Shopping is a buzz, an energy, but it uses energy too, all the energy needed to make all the things we shop for. So if you’ve got to shop but want to see the global temperature drop, buy the green thing that took lots of love to create but zero energy to make. Shop your sustainable heart out and Buy NothingTM
…except I Want One Of Those saw another opportunity:
A snip at £3.99. IWOOT write:
What better present for the person who has everything than a poignant reminder that they want for nothing? This lovingly crafted vial of emptiness is filled to the brim with unfettered nothingness.
Why sell spoof nothing when you can make good money selling the real thing?
About Tom Crompton
I'm Change Strategist at WWF-UK. For five years I headed WWF-International's Trade and Investment Programme (working on World Trade Organization issues, for example). While I was (and still am) convinced that international trade policy is crucially important in sustainability terms, I was frustrated by the glacial pace of change on this agenda - and the fact that even those trade negotiators I got to know who were personally quite 'radical' nonetheless felt impotent in a system where there was so little political space to pursue the changes that are needed.
This led me to ask how organisations like WWF might begin to work to help create the political space for more ambitious change. What leads to more vocal expressions of public concern about sustainability issues? What motivates people to bring more pressure to bear on their elected leaders?
These questions led to work with social psychologists and political scientists, and the publication of a series of reports: "Weathercocks and Signposts: the environment movement at a crossroads" (2008); "Simple and Painless? The limitations of spillover in environmental campaigning" (with John Thogersen, 2008), and "Meeting Environmental Challenges: The Role of Human Identity" (with Tim Kasser, 2009). These pieces of work culminated naturally in our new report, "Common Cause".