Dreaming of a Green Xmas: Compost Bins, Carbon Offsets, and All

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


‘Tis the season—media pubs are rolling out their holiday gift-giving recommendations (see Salon‘s very pricey list here and The New Yorker‘s even pricier male gift guide here), people can be found discussing Secret Santas, and office holiday parties are already in full swing. So, in this era of carbon neutrality, it’s no wonder, retailers are already making a play for the green Christmas market. According to the Wall Street Journal many companies are looking to package their gifts in a more ecofriendly fashion by offering biodegradable packaging or none at all. Different websites are dedicating pages to greener giving ideas, pushing soy-based candles and compost containers that will be shipped to you in biodegradable peanuts. Customers of Gaiam.com can offset the carbon emissions of shipping their gifts through the company and TerraPass, a carbon offset group, has gift certificates so you can offset the emissions of your friends and families (you know, if they aren’t as environmentally conscious as you are).

It’s hard to not be a Grinch about this whole thing, though, because it all still seems like consumption—or ways to make yourself feel better about consuming. For instance, Gaiam.com recommends that you buy a reusable shopping bag and then offset the shipping cost for $2. So, if I send my dad a reusable shopping bag nearly 2,000 miles (Broomfield, CO, where Gaiam’s HQ is, to Boston, MA, where my dad lives), it is only going to cost me $2 to neutralize the effects? I find that very hard to believe, but I suppose the whole “are carbon offsets really green?” is a whole other discussion. But, when you consider the miles driven to malls and the non-reusable/-biodegradable wrapping that goes on at the likes of Macy’s, shopping online and then offsetting shipping seems like the responsible thing to do.

Although, how about just not consuming at all? That seems like the greenest possible holiday season for Mother Earth…

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate