After another 4th of July celebration, thoughts of patriotism linger. Is patriotism singing the national anthem or shooting off fireworks? No, patriotism is simply valuing one's country. Likewise, environmentalism is valuing the environment. Both are abstract concepts that are left to the individual to express. I may display a Support the Troops bumper sticker, while another may fly the flag. I may recycle every glass jar, while another may petition to stop deforestation.

Cultural elites have cast environmentalism as the unifying movement of the 21st century. New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, redefines green as a "geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic, and patriotic" movement to mobilize the masses and spur sacrifice for the greater good. Friedman tells us that a call to patriotism is exactly what's needed to energize Americans to go green. Indeed, Richard Stengel, Time Magazine's managing editor, says that just as FDR emphasized a call to patriotism during WWII by asking Americans to sacrifice for the war effort, environmentalists should emphasize a call to patriotism today by asking Americans to sacrifice for Mother Earth. But in WWII, the enemy was the Axis Powers, today, the enemy is ourselves.

Thomas Friedman would do well to recognize that the market process gives us green incentives. These are much more effective in achieving environmental ends than calls to patriotism. In the face of high energy costs, consumers have swapped fuel guzzling cars for more fuel efficient ones. Car dealerships are seeing the dramatic effect of Americans' demand for fuel efficiency. According to Autodata Corporation, sales of large cars dropped by 2.6 percent in 2006, 10.5 percent in 2007, and 26.5 percent in January 2008. GM Vice President Mark LaNeve estimated that, if carmakers had been able to produce them, 40,000 more fuel-efficient cars would have been sold in June 2008. The American automobile industry is in a survival race to meet this demand.

In August, we will witness another entanglement of environmentalism and patriotism. Mayor John Hickenlooper challenged event coordinators for the Democratic National Convention to "make this the greenest convention in the history of the planet." Director of Greening Andrea Robinson has left nothing unconsidered. Her to-do list includes: make the balloons biodegradable; take fried food off the menu; find organic cotton fanny packs made by unionized American labor; eliminate bottled water from the convention hall; and organize an army of volunteers to sift through the trash in order to create pure, reusable waste. The list is tedious as it is endless.

The danger of this environmental call to patriotism is that it takes advantage of critical, national situations, such as high gas prices, and uses them to leverage oversimplified patriotic policies like the greening of the Democratic National Convention. And while the Democrats' greening is harmless, some has gone too far.

Here's an example of how environmental patriotism threatens our liberties. In January, California's Energy Commission proposed a new device called programmable communicating thermostats. These enable the state to control temperatures during undefined "emergency events." Californians strongly rejected this proposal in favor of a “hands-off” approach by the California utilities—or any utilities for that matter. Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University, says, "There’s no end to what the energy czar could do, particularly if he enlists the aid of the Department of Health Services. Getting six to eight hours of sleep each night is healthy; good health lowers health costs. So why not make it possible for the energy czar to turn the lights off at a certain hour?"

Choosing to not stand for the national anthem at a baseball game will risk unwanted glances, just as choosing to blast the air-conditioning during the summer months will cause high energy bills. But these are our decisions to make. Dressing up environmentalism as the new patriotism is likely to be ineffective, especially if polices are enforced from the top down. Like standing up for the national anthem, successful environmentalism depends on individual choice. Going green is only the new red, white, and blue if you decide that it is.

Meggan Mills is at Boston College pursuing a B.A. in Economics and Theology. This summer she is an intern at the Foundation for Research in Economics & the Environment, in Bozeman, MT.