The bossiest, smuggest, preachiest, most didactic people I know are the ones who are Green, and who want everyone else to go Green, too.  They are the new fundamentalists, the new Sermonizing Class.  They are what so many preachy Christians, by and large, used to be in the culture and in the workplace (and some who still are), always quick to point out what someone’s doing wrong: why regular milk has too many chemicals, why driving your Taurus is bad for the environment, why your clothes could have been made of organic cotton.  They think they’re educating you.  But as soon as you make a joke about the milk, they don’t laugh.  That’s because one problem with all passionate, argumentative fundamentalists is that they cannot laugh at themselves.  Global Warmers and Climate Changers don’t know how to laugh. 

The most sustained joke about the environmentally conscious is the South Park episode “SmugAlert!”, where the “smug” from all the hybrid-car owners in South Park begins to merge with the smug from hybrid-car owners in San Francisco. One character tries to point out that hybrids would be a good thing if people were prepared to drive them without being so self-satisfied about it, but everyone accepts that would be too much to ask-and people go back to driving their SUVs.

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