Compact?

I hate seeing this. Biggest pet peeve

hit me baby one more time

As I look around and see the ever growing accumulation of stuff and the ever lessening role of integrity and values, I wonder what example we are setting for a children. Does our future hold hope, or are we doomed to have history repeat itself?

About a week ago, I was flying to Seattle and had the pleasure of sitting next to a woman and her four year old, very well behaved, child. After a while, the conversation turned to our shared beliefs about the environment. She shared with me that she had just read an article in which it outlined, that when she and I were growing up, it cost approximately $100K to raise a child from infancy through college. In contrast, today’s estimates are that it will cost anywhere from $300K to $500K to raise a child. Yes, I will agree that part of this increase is due to the cost of living increase. But, I wonder what percentage is due to the marketing campaign targeted at children.

When I was growing up things were so much different; I was not allowed to watch television unless it was educational, I had to go OUTSIDE to play, I had a clothing allowance, I had chores, my mom made lunch everyday and dinner every night (or tried to make dinner, if you know my mom)… and, I will note she was a single mom who at one time had two jobs while taking post graduate classes. I was blessed with a mother who was able to put me through private high school, and paid for my entire college education without me having to take out a student loan. We lived in one house; the one in which she still lives and is fully paid off. She’s had three nice cars. She wears Marc Jacobs and Cynthia Vincent. She’s up on all the latest Apple computers, iPods, and iPhones. And, she did this all on a Los Angeles high school teachers salary.

The only reason I bring this up is because I keep observing how children are raised, today. I do not have a child, and I can only imagine the joys and difficulties of having one. I feel as though parents and children are being marketed to so heavily to continue our consumerism without regard for the impact on the psychology of the individual or the detriment of our environment.

I intend to do a post about the fashion industry at a later date, but, as one example, just consider the clothing that is available to children now. There are a plethora of stores that didn’t exist before that specifically caters to the fashion of a child. When I was growing up we bought clothes twice a year. One time before school started and one time in the spring. We bought clothes that lasted and had a purpose; play clothes versus dress clothes. It was not the thing to go “hang out” at the mall. We wore clothes until they wore out and then we patched them up and gave them to someone to wear out even more. An $80 shirt… if such a thing existed….paid for itself based on the amount of times we wore it, dirtied it up, washed it and wore it again. Today, and $80 shirt for a TODDLER is the norm… thank you Gwen Stefani and James Pearse. I can only imagine that it is worn one time, before the child spits up on it and ruins it or it is out of style a month later. And the fact that we so easily purchase such items without thought is… shaming.

I used to have a clothing allowance. In order to have money go towards that allowance, I had to do chores. Serious chores. I was in charge of cleaning the house and doing the cooking. Once I EARNED the money, I could decide to spend the $25 on one item of that price, or I could save it over time to buy an item that was more expensive. This allowance did not include school clothes, which was a uniform, and it did not include important event clothes like weddings, prom, or graduation. Needless to say, it taught me the value of a dollar. Today I look at children who have closets and closets full of clothes that are trendy or cool and have no longevity.

Another example of the industry of children is toys. Have you ever looked around and seen all the toys that children have? There are trucks, Barbie’s, buckets and shovels, action figures, yo-yo’s, dolls, and I don’t know what else. They have created furniture to house and store all of the toys children accumulate. First, we can discuss the psychology behind the supposed need for these toys. Is it really too dangerous to play outside or is that just the propagation of fear? What is the need for a child to have a toy for the beach? This toy will more than likely be used, maybe, twice, before the child grows out of it. Not to mention that it is interesting to me that you buy a toy when the beach, itself, is a toy. With creativity, tenacity, teamwork and good old labor, a sand castle can be built without a plastic bucket. And aren’t those same skills important to learn if you want to be a functioning member of society?

I can list many other examples of useless toys, or clothes, and site many examples where I could counter, that without either of the above, the child may be better off. So, I ask again, what are we teaching our children? First, disposability. When we buy things and allow our children to use them a very limited amount of time, we are saying it is okay to throw away useful goods. And, more importantly, we are telling manufacturers that they can keep making and marketing new ideas to us because we don’t support the concept of longevity anymore. There was a time when if you bought a television, you expected that television to last a very long time. And, guess what? It did! We demanded, industry supplied. Now, we are told to want cool, fast, hot, and cheap. We are letting the manufacturers tell us what to do, instead of the other way around. Why is it that we don’t let anyone else control what we do, unless it comes to consumer goods? An interesting point was offered in “Deep Economy” by Bill Mckibben. We have stopped trying to keep up the Jones’. Now, we try to keep up with the Hilton’s, the Lohan’s, the Simpson’s and the Richie’s. But, if you actually sat down and spent time with your neighbors, you would find out we are all pretty much in the same place.

Which brings me to my second point of what we are teaching our children; credit. Why did I bring up, earlier, all that information about my mom and her spending habits? I want to illustrate a point that my mother taught me. She does not buy anything that she doesn’t have the means to buy. She is not in debt. She actually has a nearly perfect… yep, PERFECT… credit score. She spends time evaluating what she needs versus what she wants. If she wants something, she determines where she has to sacrifice. She doesn’t pay the minimum on her credit card bill, she pays the whole thing. Unfortunately, I didn’t listen to her. I am a child of a generation that was marketed to, heavily. I thought why not buy something that I can afford in “three easy payments” cause I want it “NOW!”. I have learned my lesson and I am trying to remedy it by being a more active and aware consumer. I have written about it before, but I think a huge disservice to our country is that concept of credit and buying what we can’t afford. It has put us in a place where, because of our purchasing “power”, we are dependent on fossil fuels, we are supporting mass manufacturing in countries other than our own, and we have to work forever in order to pay off our debt.

My third, and last, point with the issue of the industry of children is that we are hurting the environment. You knew I was going to get here, eventually. But, seriously, think of all the toys that all the children on this planet own. Some of those toys have never been touched, some are trash because they broke upon opening the package, while some did an effective job of entertaining and educating the child for a long time. Most toys, I would venture to guess, upwards of 90% are made of plastic. Plastic is made using fossil fuels. But, more importantly, it never, ever decomposes. Never, ever. It never goes back to the soil and replenishes what we have taken. It sits in a landfill, while everything else around it is going back to the earth, plastic sits and waits. Oh, and let’s not forget to mention, it’s TOXIC!! So we are teaching our children to be in debt for the rest of their lives, to throw away whatever they don’t want anymore, to not care about the environment, and oh yeah, we are poisoning them!

So if you have or want a child, I urge you to look at what even the smallest of actions is teaching them. You may think it is harmless, but your child is learning from you. Your child looks up to you and looks to you for direction. Don’t you want to be the best person you can, so your child can be the best person they can?

p.s. I love you, Mom.

pants on fire

the EPA lied!

funny

red state blue state

what I’m looking at

Book: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

grist articles:
what to do about oil
green burial
sustainable agriculture
food storage

websites:
BestGreenBlogs
101 cookbooks
EcoForward

music:
This is Ivy League
AM
Steve Reynolds

what I’m looking at

Book: The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

grist articles:
what to do about oil
green burial
sustainable agriculture
food storage

websites:
BestGreenBlogs
101 cookbooks
EcoForward

music:
This is Ivy League
AM
Steve Reynolds

to be or not to be

Lately I have been thinking a lot about evolution. I discovered that many people, while they have a rudimentary understanding of how it functions, still could benefit from learning more. I want to see if I can explain evolution in such a way that it is clear and concise, and in addition theorize about how it affects you today, right now.

The most basic definition is that evolution is the process of change in the inherited traits of a population from one generation to the next. Evolution occurs on a genetic level. It is a misnomer that people walk about saying “survival of the fittest” thinking it means you have to be strong or domineering or whatever adjective you can label yourself as. Evolution doesn’t care. All it cares about are your genes and if you pass them along. Evolution’s playing field is nature.

Evolution happens in three ways: natural selection, genetic drift and gene flow. Natural selection is favoritism to genes that improve your capacity for survival and reproduction. To further explain, through the slightest of DNA mutations, our ancestors were able to become bipedal. This allowed for us to see above the brush to notice that a hyena was moving toward us, or see where our prey was located. So let’s say you have one early man developing bipedalism standing next to another early man that is not a fully functioning biped in the African savannah. One can see that the hyena is coming, one can’t. The hyena attacks and kills the one without the capacity for bipedalism. Therefore the early man that survives, meaning the genes that survived, is selected for , resulting in successful transfer to the next generation. Yes, the individual has survived….but constantly remember evolution exists on the microscopic level of genes.

Genetic drift is the evolutionary process of change due to the phenomenal probability in which chance events determine what characteristics will be carried forward. Best example, a catastrophic event occurs (tsunami, earthquake, plane crash), in which a group of people or population dies. Therefore, those genes no longer exist. Now, let’s add this to natural selection and see how it builds on itself. We have the same two early men… one bipedal, one not. A major natural event happens, let’s say an earthquake, and the bipedal man is killed. I don’t care that he may have been winning the game of survival of the fittest, because genetic drift just trumped natural selection. The better, more dominant genes just got killed. Do you see how it is incorrect to label evolution just as survival of the fittest?

Gene flow, the last component to evolution, is the transfer of genes – yep, there it is again – from one population to another through migration. This is mobility, or lack thereof, whether it expresses itself through a seed flying through the air and introducing itself into a new environment or the migration of homo sapiens from Africa to Europe and the corresponding genetic modifications of the people, or the lack of gene transfer because of the Great Wall of China. A good example of this in effect is GMO corn. A plot of GMO corn is planted next to a non-GMO species. Very quickly, because of reproduction which is gene transfer, the non-GMO has developed the characteristics of the GMO corn. Why is this important? Natural selection and some amounts of genetic drift, with the assistance of the agriculture industry has created the corn we know. It clearly is the king of the plant world. Currently, GMO corn is being developed so that it is sterile. It is called the suicide seed because after growing into one plant…that’s it… it dies and you need to buy new seeds. Let’s say the healthy, natural corn develops the gene for sterility, just by being right next door to a GMO plant. Can you imagine if every corn plant gets this mutation? Corn is gone. Gene flow beat out natural selection and genetic drift.

This is not to say that there are aspects of evolution that are more dominant than another aspect. There is no hierarchy. These processes are working together, all the time and the ultimate player in the process are your genes.

There are two more critical things I want to say about evolution. First off, the basis of biological evolution is that ALL of life on Earth shares a common ancestor. This means you are a distant cousin to the ficus growing in your living room. Every living thing on this Earth came from ONE thing. The second concept to fully grasp is that no one being is “more” evolved than another. As I said above, evolution is occurring all the time. Time, as far as we know, is linear. As time goes on, all beings are reproducing, therefore expressing their genes, therefore evolution is in progress. Because all beings live at the same point in time, we are all equal. I don’t think you can argue that all living beings, that exist right now, exist in some time other than 2008. We have had different expressions of our genes, but no one is more evolved. We have evolved the same amount of time. I keep harping on this, because I feel it is so critical to understand. A last example, and then I’ll stop; we did not evolve from chimps. Chimps and humans have the same common ancestor, which was neither chimp nor human. We each evolved, over the same amount of time, to become our unique selves.

The only reason I bring these two concepts to light is to fully understand that we are not the fittest. We are not the most evolved. We have our version of intelligence and communication which has allowed us to reproduce in mass numbers and survive in ways unimaginable to some animal species. But, we are not the best, nor a chosen being, nor any other hierarchical term you can think. We are evolutionarily equal to all living beings on this planet. To build on to that, we are related. If you have animals, you live with a cousin. If you kill a spider, you killed a cousin. When you eat a strawberry, you eat a cousin. I don’t think anyone reading this would knowingly go out and hurt their human relative. We condemn people to prison for murdering another human. But we support, encourage and honor the entrapment of plants and animals, which by no means are less than our relatives. It is a fallacy to think we are better, whether it be intra- or interspecies.

I know this has become a long article, but please bear with me.

So, here we are existing on this planet, evolution is occurring to us and all around us every day. Evolution’s playground is in the natural, genetic field. Remember how I keep saying, evolution cares only about genes; the adaptation and reproduction of the most favorable.

We used to determine sexual partners, whether long term monogamous partners, or short term promiscuous partners based on attraction to genes. She has wide hips; therefore she will not die during child birth. He is tall; therefore he can rise above the brush and hunt more animals for the group to eat. She has the skill to see the red berries and the thumb in which to pick them; therefore she is a good provider of food. He has the loudest of the voices; he can protect and defend the survival of the others. You get it. It was expression of genes that we based our sexual selections.

What do we select for now? I started thinking about this a few months ago. When our survival was being challenged on a day to day basis, it was imperative for us to select a partner that would ensure our longevity. I think that we, as a culture, have confused “survival” with “security”. I think most of you would agree that what we tend to select for now is financial security.

I can only speak for women, and I can only write about what I see in Los Angeles, however, I have found this amongst those I know that there is a trend where we may find someone attractive, but if they don’t have a certain income, we move along. As a result, the car, clothes, watch and phone have more significance in choosing a mate than strength or intelligence. I know that you can argue that if someone is successful they must have intelligence. I would assume for a certain percentage of people, that is the case. But for another percentage, I see success driven by being accepted into the club of corporate America and moving ahead as your mentors have moved ahead, despite your aptitude. And, for another, what I would guess larger percentage given the recent housing market issues, are a group of people living well above their means, deep in credit debt. (As an aside, I feel that this desire for more, more, more and me, me, me is the current downfall of our society. It is why we are dependent on fossil fuel. It is also the reason behind being a hyperindividual, as describe by Bill McKibben in “Deep Economy” where there is little regard for the local community and much more emphasis put on individuality.)

So I ask, what do you think we are evolving into? I would argue that we are no longer selecting for favorable genes that ensure our survival. Why is this critical to understand? Because evolution still is operating from the playground of nature on a cellular, genetic level. Evolution doesn’t care what kind of car you drive or home you live in, it cares if you can know the difference between an edible and poisonous berry. It operates on the level of chance; what if a catastrophic event occurs and the people who survive are not the genetically fit population, therefore we are one step closer to extinction. What if through gene flow, all the corn in the world is gone because it has mutated to incorporate the suicide gene… what will we eat? What will the animals that we raise for slaughter eat?

I never presume to have the answers to these questions. I pose the questions to create a community conversation, to get people to think beyond day to day routine of life, and to think beyond the “you” and toward the global population of earthlings.

earth

The Ultimate Spaceship

earthlings

A human being is part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part
limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and
feelings as something separate from the rest – a kind of optical delusion
of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting
us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle
of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in
its beauty.

Albert Einstein

the Convenor

I was sent an email early this morning that I want to share with you. It is a response to a comment posted about a critical article, written by Bill McKibben on the Tipping Point.

Here is the text of the email:
I was reading Yale 360 and check up on the discussions under some of my favorite articles. I came across this dumb ass. So since engaging with these idiots in real life isn’t enough anymore, I engaged in cyberspace. This guy is trying to say that Bill McKibben is being an alarmist about the whole environment thing. At the bottom of his post you can see his title is “Convenor” of the Climate CONVERSATION group. Meaning that his job is to stimulate conversation about the climate… obviously in the WRONG direction. He tries to unravel and discount the argument that the world is in trouble with rapid climate change. So someone out there holds a position at an organization designed to create conversation about climate, to mis-lead people! Are you listening… this is reason why aggressive discussion with others is so important. This guy’s job is to search the internet and refute people who are trying to help other people wake up and smell the coffee.

I answered him hoping to educate a person responsible for mis-leading a lot of other people.

**edit. note: I just looked up the derivation of “convenor”. I find it interesting that it comes from the word convenient. The definition of this word…. suited to personal comfort, easy performance, affording accommodation.

“The Convenor’s” comment:
You say: “One degree was enough to yield major effects in hydrological cycles, in the progress of the seasons, in the spread of mosquitoes, in the rapid melt of glaciers.”

A rise of just 1°F (0.6°C) over the period of a century is well inside the range of natural variation. To suggest it is not is scare-mongering, pure and simple.

The “major effects” you mention are in fact minor and cannot be ascribed to global warming, much less to anthropogenic causes. References would be helpful if you have them.

You also say: “As temperatures warm, snow at the very top of that ice sheet is turning to water, and that water in turn is finding its way through cracks and fissures to the base of the ice sheets where it can grease the skids for their slide into the ocean.”

This phenomenon occurs every year, in a season we call spring. You see, after the winter, the temperature increases up to summertime levels. During this period some of the ice at the edges melts. But when the winter returns, the ice on top of the ice sheet cannot melt, since it is far too cold. Even during summer, most of the surface of the ice sheet fails to melt.

Note the use of “can” grease, etc. There is no evidence of sustained increased velocity of ice towards the sea. The ice sheet is not, of course, sitting on “skids”.

If the mechanism of “greasing” is actually important, why have the ice sheets survived warmer periods in the past? Why are the ice sheets still there?

I admire your enthusiasm for global warming, but I must question your grasp of the science.

The Greenland ice sheet is growing, that is to say, its mass is increasing. That could not be happening if it was melting, do you see?

There’s a nice little story about the World War II aircraft that crash-landed on the ice near the end of the war. People went back recently to retrieve them and were forced to dig down 90 feet (ninety feet!) of solid ice. That’s how much had accumulated over the planes in only 50 years.

The moulins draining melt water are nothing new. Only the scientists are new, arriving each summer to observe the melt and exclaiming: “oh woe, oh woe!” Each winter the melt stops.

The Greenland ice sheet has lost a little ice over the last few years, around the edges, but there was still a net gain in ice. The loss at the edge is likely caused by higher sea surface temperatures than higher air temperatures. And that’s most likely due to changed polar ocean currents, not global warming.

Fascinating, isn’t it?

Hansen’s testifying to a “possibility” of 5 metres of sea level rise this century is no more authoritative than any other guess on any other topic. I don’t know if Hansen debases the scientific method with his alarmism or simply reveals a great love for the planet. A love which is prepared, strangely, to sacrifice his fellow man for the good of the planet. How can he think to remove most of the means of producing energy from developing (or any other) peoples? Why save the planet and doom mankind?

Richard Treadgold
Convenor
Climate Conversation Group

The response:

Mr. Treadgold, Your essay is consistent and even in your final argument, you show your lack of reading and understanding, to construct an argument that makes false a position opposite to your own… Meaning you have made it obvious that your opinions against your opponent are not based on any actual knowledge of your opponent.

If you had read more, you would have discovered that your premise, that those who love the planet do not love their fellow man and are willing to doom them to save the planet is false.

If I love my planet, I love everything that it is. Everything that this balance of millions of years has made it, and ultimately, I am a product of. So you can appreciate then that the people in the developing world have lived for thousands of years in harmony with their surroundings and community. Your concerns for providing energy to the people of developing countries as a means to save them from inevitable death is false because as we all know, the balanced manner with which the people of past (and currently modern developing country humankind) lived with their faming technique, and population growth management and self identification of their role in their environment, i.e. the world; was sustainable.

Our current model is not.

The point of your opponent is to educate you, and others like you, on the need to change our way of looking at our life in this world. We are consuming and growing at an unnatural rate.

Every organism alive in this world, exists in balance. Balance is crucial. As a doctor, I know that the number of various microbial organisms on your body, exceeds our world population. However, you continue to thrive and live everyday without dis-ease. But when one organism multiplies at an exponential rate, your balance will soon let you know by letting you experience dis-ease. So a normal inhabitant of your body, can become the cause of your end.

Humans are but one of the organisms on this planet. We have multiplied at an exponential rate. You cannot argue that this point is not true.

So we are consuming resources of this biologic petri dish we call earth, at an exponentially growing rate as well. But even if you exclude the population growth issue, you must also take into consideration the fact that within our society we are constantly advocating an ideal of more consumption, per individual, per year, i.e. the NYSE etc.

Take this point into consideration and you will see that despite all of your references of your opponent as an alarmist, you are the person who is advocating the end of humankind. By supporting the current blind, and inane way of life, you are actually saying you support dis-ease. Dis-ease of the planet, which if untreated (and as in medicine) not rapidly, will kill the host. (Kill refers to end of life as we understand it).

Those who are trying to awaken the rest of the world to the false sense of reality that they currently live in, particularly in our beloved United States Of America, are actually trying to ensure the continued life and well being of not only those are living now, but those who may come to enjoy it in the future. Compassion and direct action to save the world, and thus humankind and it’s continued well being, is the only way to be. It is disturbing to see so many people like you, who are so skilled in communicating and conveying the message for the good of others, are actually conveying the wrong message.

Maybe you should as the author of the article for a reading list to educate yourself before you out so much energy into drafting an article that can mislead so many to their demise.

I anticipate your predictable response.

Dr. Ali Sadrieh

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