Turns out energy efficiency measures aren't the only things susceptible to rebound effects. In "The Green Bubble," Michael and Ted wrote about the Green tendency to "proselytize the virtues of downscaling." Now, thanks to two Canadian researchers, we have social scientific evidence that Greens don't just have a habit of being condescending and narcissistic but, it turns out, the greener you are, the meaner you just might wind up:
"Do Green Products Make Us Better People?, a paper in the latest edition of the journal Psychological Science, argues that those who wear what the authors call the "halo of green consumerism" are less likely to be kind to others, and more likely to cheat and steal. Faced with various moral choices - whether to stick to the rules in games, for example, or to pay themselves an appropriate wage - the green participants behaved much worse in the experiments than their conventional counterparts. The short answer to the paper's question, then, is: No. Greens are mean.
The authors, two Canadian psychologists, came up with an intriguing explanation for this. "Virtuous acts," they write, "can license subsequent asocial and unethical behaviour." It's the yin-yang theory of psychology, or "compensatory ethics", to give it its proper name. Buy an organic potato, then go home and beat your wife with The Guardian. Hop smugly into a green hybrid car, then use it to run over little old ladies doing their shopping."
While these two examples may be a tad extreme, you get the picture...
