How, in this day and age, anyone can publish an editorial in the Times that reacts “with relief” to burgers “from inhumanely raised cows [and] unfairly traded Starbucks coffee,” complains about the inconvenience of composting, and scorns paper napkin dispensers that only release napkins one at a time is beyond me. Those familiar with Allen’s work will know her to be conservative to the point of reactionary, but she’s entitled to her opinions. And if the Times wants to publish them that’s what free speech is all about. What I take exception to is her way of expressing it—acting like a schoolyard bully who, looking around insecurely for approbation, feels she needs to mock opponents to best them.

While this rhetorical strategy undermines her credibility, I do agree with Allen’s condemnation of the minimal, meaningless tokenism people sometimes latch onto to assuage their guilt. “The more telling lesson [drawn from the cafeteria] might be how easy it is to feel virtuous—whether about the environment or your health or the Third World—by simply painting the lunchroom green, eating with a cornstarch fork and making a few other culinary gestures.” I wish the rest of her editorial had been a thoughtful critique of shallow green lip service, a subject that does deserve condemnation, instead of a misinformed, misdirected wholesale denunciation of the entire green movement.