Assorted Afflatuses

Green products and services have come a long way. In 2001, when Toyota introduced America to the Prius, it was necessary for a New York Times article to help readers pronounce the name of the then-unknown quantity. Six year later, home design magazines and blogs have gone so far as to declare that, "green is becoming the new neutral color for home decor," as one GreenDaily.com blogger put it.

But, in its journey from niche-market to mass-market, a radical change has taken place in the world of green products. Unlike the Prius die-hards who immediately sought to purchase the first mass-produced hybrid gasoline-electric car in 2001, the Prius buyer of 2007 views the car more as the automotive equivalent of a Fendi clutch than as an instrument of social and environmental change. Today people buy green, think green and do green to be "Eco-Chic."

Solar power firms regularly outfit the curb-facing gables of drab suburban McMansions with a smattering of cells. Celebrated handbag designer Anya Hindmarch launched the "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" tote bag — a white leather tote emblazoned with the aforementioned phrase in highly conspicuous brown script — to great success. Even NetJets Europe, the company that pioneered the idea of fractional private jet ownership, has announced plans to be "carbon-neutral" by 2012.

It is fitting to see the same forces that popularized the gas-guzzling Chevrolet Suburban ignite sales of more environmentally-friendly vehicles, like the Toyota Prius. At the same time, however, I cannot help but wonder whether the Eco-Chic phenomenon detracts from the true goal of green products and services.

After all, it would be far more environmentally sound for someone to travel aboard a commercial jet than to charter their own Glufstream V through NetJets, regardless of whatever "carbon-offsets" NetJets intends to offer. And the idea that a leather tote bag — which requires a cow to be raised, killed and skinned before the hide is treated, dyed and fashioned into a bag — has less of a carbon footprint than one two-gram plastic shopping bag seems perfectly ludicrous.

I have no complaints that the environmentally-sound practices of 7 for All Mankind and Paul Smith add a touch of Eco-Chic to my wardrobe. But people should think of the environment first and their vanity second. Offsetting a flight from Dallas to Milan on a private jet with the purchase of an acre of protected wildness still dumps an extra ton or two of carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere.