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The Forum > Article Comments > The PoMa paradox > Comments

The PoMa paradox : Comments

By Don Arthur, published 19/6/2009

Defining a PoMa: PoMas are appalled by consumerism and overconsumption. Their lifestyle isn’t materialistic but it is expensive.

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Why bother coining a clunky phrase like "PoMa", when plain old "w@nker" describes them perfectly?

Reading this article also put me in mind of this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/24/ethicalliving.recycling

"People who believe they have the greenest lifestyles can be seen as some of the main culprits behind global warming, says a team of researchers, who claim that many ideas about sustainable living are a myth."
Posted by Clownfish, Friday, 19 June 2009 10:31:36 AM
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Irrespective of what they are calling themselves now (or what others are calling them), these people have always been around; and they are insufferable, boring, arrogant and hypocrital farts.
Posted by Leigh, Friday, 19 June 2009 11:56:59 AM
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I second that from Clownfish and Leigh. Rick S care to comment on this post? He's one of your mates. I'm starting to see how the we could use the Sustainable People lobby as a hit squad for people who write this stuff.

"In a PoMa household there’s almost always someone with a food allergy or intolerance."

enough said.
Posted by Cheryl, Friday, 19 June 2009 12:05:53 PM
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Interesting article. I recognize many PoMa or Green Idealist types - very middle class, earnest and as far from bogan as you can get. This class overlaps with the "Volvo socialists" of the 70s and "chardonnay socialists" today.

The economic system merely expands to take them in too. The eco industry is a robust market niche - like Dick Smith's shops.

It's fair enough to point out inconsistencies (huge air miles versus recycling), but surely the ethical sensitivity of this class is better than having no concern for ethical behaviour at all?

One thing that annoys me is how governments and electricity utilities provide a "market" mechanism whereby people can voluntarily (altruistically) nominate that they want to use "green" electricity. This is an absurdity. If governments and utilities really believe there is a benefit for the whole community and the planet through such sourcing (though I think there's a pea-and-thimble trick in there somewhere), why don't they make it a community service obligation the whole community should pay for, mandate that x% of electricity has to be sourced this way, and *everybody* has it reflected in their bills? Otherwise it's an appeal for some people to provide charity for someone else's benefit. Altruism is a great thing (where would we be without the army of volunteers?), but it's nowhere near effective in providing solutions to a problem of this magnitude – that is, if you accept that greenhouse warming IS a problem AND that we're one of the causes.

I’m a keen recycler, and have bushwalked throughout NZ, Chile and Argentina, and Iceland, and been in about 50 countries ... !

People differ greatly in ethical concern and in how much they’re prepared to pay for those concerns – actually buying free-range eggs, fairtrade coffee, and so on. Some people reckon that everything is reducible ONLY to dollars and cents. Alan Moran, for example, told an environmental economics conference once that the solution to problems like the Franklin River was to put the river up for sale, see who’d buy it, and let the market decide. Barbarians at the gates!
Posted by Glorfindel, Friday, 19 June 2009 12:30:52 PM
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Having an "ethical sensitivity" is all well and good, but when the results of someone's actions are at complete odds with their publicly stated intentions, then I think "hypocrisy" is the word.

Recalling my long-gone Sunday School days, I think the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax-Collector is well worth considering in this context.
Posted by Clownfish, Friday, 19 June 2009 2:15:10 PM
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Once again this excellent book describes the extraordinary complexity re all of the world-wide connections involved in even the seemingly simplest of actions.

And how the many, if not all, ecological systems are under mpotentially disastrous stresses, including the inner ecology of our bodies, due to all of the previously non-existent chemicals we now breathe in and ingest.

http://www.ecoliteracy.org/publications/daniel_goleman.html
Posted by Ho Hum, Friday, 19 June 2009 6:50:54 PM
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