Although there are some interesting factoids in Kathleen O'Brien's Star-Ledger article today titled, "For green consumers, it's the fiscal blues," the article misses the essential point: less consumption is the greenest consumption of all. It's a point that gets overlooked by almost every news organization every day.

The article offers anecdotes about how demand is softening for things like solar panels on homes, Prius cars, and organic food. In a nutshell, the article's conclusion is: "those who still have the money to buy high-end green products may become a bit more circumspect about it."

But the kind consumerism that is often touted as "green" is actually anti-green. Moving out of a modest home and into a big newly-built "green" home produces far more carbon and toxins than does staying put or "downgrading" to a townhouse. Buying a new Prius, which is enormously resource-intensive to produce and deliver, is a less "green" decision than staying with a decent older car for a while longer (or commuting by train). Buyers of organic beef are consuming far more carbon, water and other resources than anyone eating chicken, vegetables, and certain kinds of fish.

So rather than stalling the green movement, the recession is doing far more to aid it than any other remotely-likely combination of events this year. It's too bad, but true. The recession is causing the the world to consume fewer resources (from houses to toys to gasoline), thus reducing the related pollution, carbon, water consumption, etc, involved in producing all the things we buy. During a recession that is genuinely harming so many people and businesses, we are also seeking efficiencies in almost everything we do, which is the ultimate in "green" trends.

No one wants recessions to be the greenest of human activities, but that will probably remain the case until it becomes common knowledge that consuming less -- and preferably, living more efficiently -- is far more green than buying a hybrid Cadillac Escallade.

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