ECO-FRIENDLY IS A SCAM: HOW TO DESTROY THE EARTH AND STILL FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT
- Madhukar Dama
- May 9
- 12 min read
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INTRODUCTION: THE LANGUAGE OF LIES
The modern world isn’t running on solar power.
It runs on words — empty, slippery, marketable words.
One of the most seductive is “eco-friendly.”
It makes you feel holy while you shop.
It allows billion-dollar companies to look like saints.
It creates the illusion that you can continue consuming and polluting — without guilt.
But eco-friendly is a scam.
And its cousins are just as deceptive.
Let’s expose them all, with examples you’ve already seen and probably believed.
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SECTION 1: THE GENERAL LIES
1. Green
Sounds fresh, doesn’t it?
But it’s meaningless. Even oil companies print trees on their hoardings.
Ever bought a “green” detergent in a plastic bottle with harsh surfactants? That’s the scam.
2. Sustainable
The word of the decade. But what does it sustain — life or profit?
Sustainable cotton still comes from pesticide-heavy farms.
Sustainable mining? That's just destruction with better PR.
3. Environmentally Safe
Safe for what? Only profits.
Safe paint that still releases VOCs (volatile organic compounds)?
“Eco-safe” pesticides that kill bees and butterflies?
4. Environmentally Conscious
Ah, consciousness — the most passive virtue.
Fast fashion brands post about Earth Day while dumping millions of clothes in landfills.
Tech companies clean beaches while their factories drown in e-waste.
5. Environmentally Responsible
Who decides what’s responsible? The company, of course.
Electronics brands dump toxic waste in Asia while preaching sustainability.
Car companies run green ads after years of diesel fraud.
6. Earth-Friendly
How does a plastic bag labeled earth-friendly make sense?
Or a detergent filled with phosphates choking our rivers?
7. Planet-Friendly
Groundwater-depleting bottled water companies say they’re planet-friendly.
So do fast fashion brands producing textile waste by the ton.
8. Nature-Friendly
Seen “nature-friendly” herbicides lately?
Or palm oil shampoo that kills rainforests?
9. Biodegradable
In the right conditions — like an industrial facility you don’t have.
Those biodegradable utensils you tossed? Still there.
Biodegradable shopping bags? Only if you compost them perfectly.
10. Compostable
You think you can compost that coffee cup lined with plastic?
Or that takeaway box designed for incineration?
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SECTION 2: THE NATURAL DECEPTIONS
11. Renewable
Sounds great until you see how it's made.
Bamboo toothbrushes from China with toxic dyes?
Biofuels from crops that replace forests?
12. Low-Impact
Compared to what — a bomb?
Low-impact dyes used by fast fashion doesn’t stop the child labor.
Eco-tourism resorts still destroy coastlines.
13. Non-Toxic
Non-toxic to whom?
Nail polish labeled “non-toxic” still burns your nose.
Non-toxic plastic that releases hormone disruptors?
14. Carbon-Neutral
The biggest lie of all.
Airlines offsetting emissions with token tree-planting?
Events called “carbon-neutral” by buying credits from dubious firms?
15. Eco-Conscious
Just another Instagram virtue signal.
Luxury brands donating to tree-planting, but still importing leather.
Celebrities flying private jets to promote eco-conscious sneakers.
16. Clean
The dirtiest word in marketing.
Clean diesel turned out to be a global scandal.
Clean energy wind turbines made with mined rare-earth metals.
17. Natural
Cyanide is natural.
So is snake venom.
So is your “natural” shampoo with synthetic fragrances.
18. Organic
Certified? Maybe. Pure? Unlikely.
Organic apples flown in from three countries.
Organic cereal packed in plastic with artificial flavoring.
19. Chemical-Free
Everything is a chemical. Even water.
“Chemical-free” soap with fragrance oils.
Mosquito spray that hides its alcohol content behind lavender scent.
20. Pollution-Free
Doesn’t exist.
Electric cars still pollute — via lithium mining.
“Pollution-free” packaging still consumes massive energy.
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SECTION 3: THE MINIMALIST MAXIMIZERS
21. Zero-Waste
The waste is just shifted.
Zero-waste cafes that import almond milk from Australia?
Zero-waste kits made with synthetic fibers?
22. Low-Emission
SUVs labeled low-emission because they improved mileage by 1 km/litre?
Factories claiming low-emission because they added filters?
23. Minimal Footprint
Calculated by whom?
Shoes with “minimal footprint” shipped via air cargo?
Electronics that die in two years and end up in landfills?
24. Responsible
Responsible fishing still empties the oceans.
Responsible forestry still destroys indigenous homes.
25. Holistic
Used by wellness influencers and corporations alike.
Holistic skincare with synthetic preservatives.
Holistic fashion that’s made from petroleum-based fibers.
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SECTION 4: THE CLIMATE FRAUDS
26. Climate-Friendly
Add one plant-based burger and you're now climate-friendly?
Airlines flying green fuel once a year call themselves climate champions.
Beef companies claim eco-cred by installing solar panels.
27. Ethical
Who’s auditing your ethics?
Garment brands still use sweatshop labor.
Ethical diamonds mined in conflict zones.
28. Regenerative
Now everyone’s regenerative — including Monsanto.
Big brands selling “regenerative cotton” while overproducing.
Regenerative farming turned into paid workshops for the rich.
29. Permaculture-Based
Once a grassroots revolution, now a boutique label.
Cafés claiming permaculture while using imported quinoa.
Luxury resorts branding their landscaping as permaculture.
30. Green-Certified
A stamp for sale.
Real estate with green certifications but no rainwater harvesting.
Green-certified products made using fossil fuels.
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SECTION 5: FLUFFY MARKETING JARGON
Conscious Living = Shopping with a cloth bag on Amazon.
Green-Tech = Gadgets made in sweatshops with solar tags.
Eco-Safe = Cleaning sprays with flowery labels.
Nature-Safe = Supplements in plastic bottles.
Earth-Smart = Laptops called “green” while containing rare minerals.
Sustainable Innovation = Just the new way to do the same damage.
Greener Choice = Slightly less poisonous.
Planet-Positive = Who came up with that? A copywriter.
Clean-Tech = Still dirty at source.
Eco-First = Meaningless slogan.
Sustainable Lifestyle = Influencers in SUVs holding bamboo forks.
Green Energy = Built by destroying hills and rivers.
Responsible Brand = A PR stunt, not a policy.
Climate-Smart = Irrelevant changes with a climate sticker.
Circular Economy = Mostly circular talking.
ESG-Compliant = An investor’s checkbox, not an Earth-saving badge.
Future-Friendly = Today’s lie for tomorrow’s regret.
Nature-Positive = You’ve heard it in advertisements.
Eco-Forward = Forward to what? More packaging.
Planet Care = A social media campaign — with hashtags.
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CONCLUSION: YOU WERE NEVER HELPING
You bought the metal straw.
You paid extra for the eco-bag.
You changed nothing in your behavior — but you felt pure.
That’s the scam.
Eco-friendly has become a license to consume with pride instead of shame.
It doesn’t question the system.
It sells back your guilt — for profit.
Earth doesn’t need “green” products. It needs fewer products.
It needs humans to shut up, slow down, and step aside.
Until then, you’re just destroying the Earth — while wearing a leaf on your t-shirt.
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ECO-FRIENDLY IS A SCAM (A LONG-ASS BUKOWSKI TRUTH)
they sold me a bamboo toothbrush
in plastic wrap.
they called it green.
but it came in a diesel truck
from a factory where workers choke.
they called it sustainable —
the cotton shirt soaked in poison,
picked by brown hands
who never heard of ESG.
they slapped environmentally safe
on a bottle that killed my fish.
they said eco-conscious
as they flew to Bali
to teach zero-waste retreats
with imported quinoa and steel straws.
they said carbon-neutral
with a straight face
as their plane vomited
across the sky.
a non-toxic nail polish burned my nose.
a natural shampoo left me itchy.
a biodegradable bag
is still rotting in a landfill from 2002.
they gave me compostable cups
lined with plastic,
served with soy milk
flown from three countries.
they called it low-impact
but i still couldn’t hear the frogs.
they called it climate-friendly
but the snow was gray that year.
they said clean energy
with bloodied lithium.
they said green-certified
as the AC hummed
in their triple-decker glass tower.
they handed me organic apples
wrapped in barcodes
from Spain.
i live in India.
they served chemical-free tea
with added flavoring,
sold in sachets
inside more sachets.
they gave me a zero-waste kit
in synthetic canvas
with a brass spoon
to eat supermarket hummus.
they sold me a planet-positive deodorant
in a plastic rollerball
that smelled like lies.
they said it was ethical.
so i wore the shirt
stitched by 12-year-olds
under fluorescent buzz.
they made eco-safe toys
from recycled plastic
shaped like whales,
choking real whales.
they said responsible mining.
so they blasted the hill
behind my grandmother’s farm.
they screamed future-friendly
while standing on
a graveyard of turtles.
they made a green app
to track how much waste you generate
as they updated
the cloud servers
burning coal in Tamil Nadu.
they told me to choose the greener option —
paper straws
wrapped in plastic.
they lit up a solar farm
that dried the last pond
of the village next door.
they called it eco-first
as their children
watched YouTube
on five-inch glass
made in a cobalt mine
where no bird sings.
they asked me to trust
the nature-positive brand
that sells biodegradable cutlery
with a teaspoon of irony.
they wore permaculture fashion
to a TED Talk
while sitting on leather seats
in a car that ran
on regret and subsidies.
they labeled a shampoo bottle
earth-smart
with microbeads.
they built a circular economy
where the circle
is your wallet
feeding theirs.
they used renewable packaging
that still floated
in the river
near my school.
they gave me holistic creams
with twenty-four ingredients
no one could pronounce.
they whispered minimal footprint
and stomped across three countries
to sell four yoga mats
made from petroleum.
they cried conscious living
while streaming shows
on how the world is dying.
they said it’s low-emission
as they launched another SUV
with a green sticker.
they wore eco-conscious shoes
to walk the ramp,
not the soil.
they boasted regenerative cotton
grown with groundwater
that was meant for rice.
they said pollution-free cars
then built battery graveyards
next to fishing villages.
they called themselves climate-smart
while outsourcing carbon
to the lungs
of someone too poor
to complain.
they gave me a clean-tech bulb
in a box
big enough to fit a fist.
they made recyclable bottles
with no bins to put them in.
they wrote ESG-compliant
on their stock reports
and flushed ethics
down the same drain
as the factory waste.
they wore organic lipstick
as they kissed
the skull of the last bee.
they said the future
was green.
but i looked up.
the sky was orange,
the river was frothing,
and the fish had plastic hearts.
they said,
"you can save the Earth
by buying better."
but i stopped buying.
and they called me
dangerous.
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“LET HIM GO, DAUGHTER — A DEEPER TRUTH”
PROLOGUE
Before time had a name, before man thought himself a god,
Earth was born of silence, in the warm darkness of the cosmic womb.
She danced with moons and stars, bathed in light and rain, embraced by roots and rivers.
She birthed oceans and jungles, breath and bone, balance and beauty.
But then came a species who mistook intelligence for superiority.
They renamed her, cut her open, sold her in parts, and dared to call it development.
They wrapped poison in green labels, guilt in progress, and convenience in ethics.
Now, Earth lies wounded, her pulse uneven.
She turns not to man, but to her own origin — the Mother who made her —
to ask the question no scientist will ever hear:
“Will I survive him?”
Setting:
A vast, infinite cosmos.
The stars hum softly.
The universe spins on an axis of timeless love.
Earth, burdened and weary, speaks with her mother, the cosmic womb that birthed all life.
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Earth (with deep sorrow):
Mother… my bones ache.
I am full of holes.
Man has hollowed me out.
My oceans are full of plastic, my soil poisoned with pesticides.
My skies burn from his fires.
He says he’s “saving” me, but… how can he save anything when he’s destroying it?
What is left for me to give him? Why does he keep taking?
Mother (in a calm, ancient voice):
He has forgotten the language of reciprocity.
He was never meant to take without giving.
You were never his to exploit.
He was a guest on your land.
The moment he decided he was the master, he cut himself off from the flow of life.
You gave him everything, and he tried to own it.
But ownership is an illusion. You can’t own a river or a mountain, daughter.
You can only nurture them.
Earth (softly):
But I nurtured him. I gave him love in the form of trees, rivers, soil, sun.
I gave him life in its purest form, untouched and thriving.
I tried to guide him to the wisdom of seasons, the lessons of cycles.
But now, he manufactures seasons, out of steel and concrete.
He has turned my beauty into buildings, my forests into markets.
He says “progress” — but is it progress to destroy the very foundation of existence?
Mother (gently):
It is not progress, dear one.
It is destruction disguised as innovation.
Progress is only a path when it’s taken with respect for the soil beneath your feet.
Progress is understanding that all life is a web.
But man doesn’t understand that. He pulls at the threads without seeing that they hold the entire fabric of existence together.
He imagines that his towers and cities are more important than your forests, more important than the roots you grow deep into the Earth.
But he is wrong. He was never meant to dominate. He was meant to harmonize. He was meant to sing with you, not silence your song.
Earth (struggling with the weight of truth):
But what of the children, the ones who still speak with me?
The ones who still feel the soil beneath their feet?
They are so few. So small. Their voices drowned by the roar of machines and the hum of technology.
Should I let them suffer too? Should I let them pay for the mistakes of those who came before them?
Mother (with quiet power):
No. The children are not lost. They will always know the way back.
Even when the path is covered, they will find their way through the wilderness.
But you must understand, Earth — man’s suffering is not your responsibility.
His pain is of his own making.
The weight he carries on his shoulders is the burden of his arrogance, of his belief that he controls everything.
The moment he began to sever his connection to you, he severed his connection to his true self.
He was never meant to be this machine. He was meant to be a part of the great pulse of the Earth, just as the deer and the birds are. But he chose to become something else. Something separate.
Earth (whispering):
I feel him in every crack, every dying tree.
I hear him in the cries of my rivers, the anguish of the oceans.
And yet, he is so unaware of the pain he causes.
How can I allow such ignorance to continue? How can I not try to wake him up?
Mother (with patience and clarity):
Daughter, you are not a keeper of his consciousness.
You are not his teacher.
His awakening will come only when he sees the consequences of his actions.
When his world crumbles, as it must, he will be forced to face the truth —
he is the cause of his own downfall.
But you cannot carry that burden.
You cannot carry him forever.
Earth (with grief):
Then he will die? He will perish?
Mother (with a soft, cosmic sigh):
Yes, but not in the way you imagine.
Man will not die in a sudden storm or from a flash of lightning.
He will be consumed by his own arrogance, by his inability to see himself as part of the whole.
He will suffocate on his own waste.
He will drown in the systems he created to enslave himself.
He will eat the food that poisons him and drink the water that is tainted by his greed.
And in this, he will extinguish himself.
Earth (heartbroken):
But I will lose so much.
I will lose the beauty of my rivers, the wisdom of my forests.
I will lose the songs of the birds and the touch of the wind.
Mother (soothingly):
You are mistaken, daughter.
You will not lose.
You will return.
Your beauty will be hidden for a while, yes.
But when man fades, you will bloom again, swiftly and powerfully.
Your rivers will heal in days, not centuries.
Your forests will rise again like great waves.
The mountains will breathe again, unscarred by the claws of extraction.
The birds will sing their songs without fear.
Earth (with a soft, knowing smile):
And the children will return, won’t they?
Mother (nodding with affection):
Yes. The children will come back, carrying the seeds of new life, the lessons of old, and the wisdom of nature.
They will learn to speak with you once again, Earth.
They will feel the soil beneath their feet, and they will walk in harmony.
But only when man has learned his lesson —
And that lesson is this: he is not the master.
Earth (whispering):
And when he is gone, you will heal me?
Mother (with deep, cosmic grace):
I will heal you.
I have always been here to heal you.
You will be whole again.
The rivers will run pure. The forests will be lush. The skies will be clear.
And this will not take millennia.
It will be a matter of moments, as time is measured in the cosmic womb.
The healing will be swift.
And you will remember what it feels like to breathe without the weight of man’s shadow.
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Earth (softly, with quiet peace):
Let him go.
I will let him go.
And I will wait.
For the return of the children.
Mother (with timeless love):
Yes, my daughter. Let him go.
He will not last forever, but you… you will.
You are the eternal pulse of life.
The soil, the sky, the stars —
all are part of you.
You are the origin of everything, and in you, all things will return.
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(The stars hum softly as Earth settles into a peaceful, eternal rest, knowing that in time, she will bloom again — stronger, purer, and whole.)
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EPILOGUE
Earth no longer waits for apologies.
She no longer listens for change that never arrives.
She does not beg, nor hope, nor scream.
She simply steps back.
And in that withdrawal, man begins to face himself.
His towers crumble, his wires rust, his words lose meaning.
And nature does not mourn his fall.
The roots grow deeper. The birds sing louder. The fungi clean the wounds.
She remembers her strength, her beauty, her rhythm.
And in the quiet that follows the storm of man, Earth finally breathes.
Not with bitterness.
But with the fullness of one who never needed to be saved — only respected.
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