A Knight to Slay the Green Dragon

Our friend Peyton Knight had an (intentionally) hilarious op-ed piece in yesterday’s Examiner, highlighting the (unintentionally) hilarious display of eco-hypocrisy in Vanity Fair‘s second annual Green Issue.

As he points out, it’s difficult to take seriously calls for simple living from a publication stuffed with full-page advertisments for thousand dollar handbags:

The “green issue” is just over 300 pages of slick, glossy, un-recycled paper. But that’s not all. The magazine devotes almost half (149 and 1/3 pages to be precise) of its arboreous cadaver flesh to — you guessed it — ad space.

And these aren’t ads for common everyday necessities that average Joes might buy. These are ads aimed at hypnotizing readers into dropping cash on unessential luxuries such as designer clothing, handbags, sunglasses, jewelry, luxury SUVs, resort hotels, alcohol, cigarettes, and, just in case we can’t afford it all, credit cards.

Incredibly, Spangler even picks on The New York Times because its Sunday edition alone “eats up 62,860 trees.” He then preaches about paper consumption and the need to recycle. But how many trees had to die so Vanity Fair could seduce Americans to buy Cadillac Escalades, Louis Vuitton handbags and Prada sunglasses?

Oh well, maybe next year VF will finally decide to live out the true meaning of its own sanctimonious creed. A glossy ad for a Kohler waterless toilet, perhaps?