day of action

350.org is one of my favorite environmental organizations.  I don’t know… maybe it is because it was started by my favorite, Bill McKibben.  Maybe it is because they just seem real.  And maybe it is because they ask for you to participate my doing something, not just giving money.  I like that because it helps you feel accountable for what you are doing.

I got an email from them today about an event they want YOU to organize.  I don’t know if it is cool to do… but I am just going to copy and paste the whole darn thing from their website and link you to it.  There is nothing I feel I can add to it, so please read it and ponder, maybe, if you could, organize something….

 

 

 

when bill talks, i listen

Anyone who reads this knows that I admire Bill McKibben a great deal. I pretty much post links to every article he publishes, and today will be no different. He has an article in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of Foreign Policy in which he debunks many of the sayings you hear on the street about climate change.

Why is this so important to make you aware of? Because it is our duty to make sure these myths end. With the proliferation of these stories and fables of climate change, the longer it will take to get going on what needs to get done. There is a call upon the citizenry to make the change, and a good first step is to ensure you are well-versed on the data, so you may challenge the person spewing rhetoric. Memorizing this article might not be too bad of great first step.

Excerpts from the article:

Myth: Scientists are divided
Bill’s response: No, they’re not….. that debate is long since over.

Myth: We Have Time
Bill: That melting Arctic ice is unsettling not only because it proves the planet is warming rapidly, but also because it will help speed up the warming. That old white ice reflected 80 percent of incoming solar radiation back to space; the new blue water left behind absorbs 80 percent of that sunshine. The process amps up. And there are many other such feedback loops. Another occurs as northern permafrost thaws. Huge amounts of methane long trapped below the ice begin to escape into the atmosphere; methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide

Myth: Climate change will help as many places as it hurts
Bill: Here’s how that Pentagon report’s scenario played out: As the planet’s carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies would reemerge. The report refers to the work of Harvard archaeologist Steven LeBlanc, who notes that wars over resources were the norm until about three centuries ago. When such conflicts broke out, 25 percent of a population’s adult males usually died. As abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may again come to define human life. Set against that bleak backdrop, the potential upside of a few longer growing seasons in Vladivostok doesn’t seem like an even trade.

Myth: It’s China’s fault
Bill: China has four times the population of the United States, and per capita is really the only way to think about these emissions. And by that standard, each Chinese person now emits just over a quarter of the carbon dioxide that each American does. Not only that, but carbon dioxide lives in the atmosphere for more than a century. China has been at it in a big way less than 20 years, so it will be many, many years before the Chinese are as responsible for global warming as Americans.

Myth: climate change is an environmental problem
Bill: Expecting the environmental movement to lead this fight is like asking the USDA to wage the war in Iraq. It’s not equipped for this kind of battle. It may be ready to save Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is a noble undertaking but on a far smaller scale. Unless climate change is quickly de-ghettoized, the chances of making a real difference are small.

Myth: Solving it will be painful
Bill: But so far we’ve just been counting the costs of fixing the system. What about the cost of doing nothing? Nicholas Stern, a renowned economist commissioned by the British government to study the question, concluded that the costs of climate change could eventually reach the combined costs of both world wars and the Great Depression.

Myth: We can reverse climate change
BIll: None of that is going to stop, even if we do everything right from here on out. Given the time lag between when we emit carbon and when the air heats up, we’re already guaranteed at least another degree of warming.

The only question now is whether we’re going to hold off catastrophe. It won’t be easy, because the scientific consensus calls for roughly 5 degrees more warming this century unless we do just about everything right. And if our behavior up until now is any indication, we won’t.

The full responses to each myth can be found HERE. It really should become part of your repertoire for cocktail parties when someone drinks too much and starts an anti-climate change diatribe.

un climate summit

It has been difficult to report on what has been going on with the UN Climate Summit, primarily because it has been a negotiation, with no decisions, and many people looking to the U.S. to lead the way… and, we know how that would go with a Bush Administration representative.

That is why I was so pleased today when Bill McKibben posted an essay on Grist.org. I am a big fan of this man, which you know if you have followed this blog for a while. I admire his work, I think he is extremely well spoken, slightly provocative in his ideas, and definitely innovative.

Please take the time to read the article, which can be found HERE. Below are some excerpts:

In writing about the Ptolemaic Universe:

The Greek astronomers invented all sorts of flourishes to make the orbital calculations work: deferents and epicycles, equants and eccentrics, little wheels within wheels that preserved the theory for a very long time, more than a thousand years — till finally Copernicus came along with some new data and blew the whole thing up….In somewhat the same way, we’ve all agreed to suspend disbelief for a long time and keep pretending that the process to do something about global warming is working.

about the negotiations:

The language of these negotiations is numbers, and so the less obvious but more pragmatically powerful way to state it is: These interminable talks are designed to build a machine that would halt the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 to 550 parts per million. They’re so loaded with loopholes, and the timetables are so slow, that they probably wouldn’t accomplish even that, but that’s the goal. The theory is that the world we need is a 450 world, based on the science from five and 10 and 15 years ago.

and then… the truth:

And then, on the last day of the talks, Al Gore gave his speech, which drew everyone into the main conference hall. It was a good talk, but by far the longest and loudest applause came when he formally announced the new reality. “Even a goal of 450 parts per million, which seems so difficult today, is inadequate,” he said, adding that we “need to toughen that goal to 350 parts per million.” People erupted — probably not the Chinese and American delegations, and definitely not the Saudis and the Russians, but all the people who’d spent the last few years struggling with the idea that their work was getting increasingly off-the-point. It was a way of saying: We’ve been engaged in saving the treaty, not saving the world — and we’d rather save the world

and the conclusion:

They’ve said the world circles the sun. Now we have to proceed on that understanding. It won’t be easy — “political reality” says it’s impossible. But political reality is easier to change than scientific reality. Since we can’t change the laws of physics, we’re going to have to try and change the laws of man.

Bill McKibben

I don’t know how many times I can mention this man’s name and essays before you finally go pick up one of his books and read them.

I think he is one of the greatest topical writers of this generation, and fortunately, his topic is the environment. I don’t know how to most effectively explain it, but he doesn’t lecture about changing light bulbs and turning off your water. He helps you understand why we got into the mess and his suggestions for getting us out.

The first of his books that I read was “Deep Economy”. In it he “offers the biggest challenge in a generation to the prevailing view of our economy. For the first time in human history, he observes, “more” is no longer synonymous with “better”—indeed, for many of us, they have become almost opposites. McKibben puts forward a new way to think about the things we buy, the food we eat, the energy we use, and the money that pays for it all. Our purchases, he says, need not be at odds with the things we truly value.”

I also have read “Age of Missing Information” in which he juxtaposes a week in the wilderness to 2400 hours of television. Guess which one leaves you a more well-rounded, educated, critically thinking adult?

He has started the website 350.org which has lead a campaign to get President Elect Obama at a critical climate change conference in Poland later this year. (Sign the petition if you haven’t already.)

I bring this up because of another article that he wrote, The Most Important Number on Earth, via Mother Jones. In it, he writes about the necessity of bringing our carbon level back down to 350ppm. He makes it clear what we are up against with global warming and uses a metaphor that I think we can all agree would be true for us:

…the doctor has said, “Your cholesterol is too high. Scaring me. You’re in the danger zone. You need to change your diet and then you need to pray that you get back down where you’re supposed to be before the stroke that’s coming at you.” When that happens, you clean the cheese out of the refrigerator and go cold turkey.

But what stops us when it comes to the cholesterol of the Earth?

He writes about the challenges ahead, and in my favorite passage, really illuminates the kind of challenge it is:

The consensus must be broad, it must come quickly, and it must encompass the whole earth—they don’t call it global warming for nothing. The list of things on which we’ve achieved a broad and deep global consensus is pretty much limited to…Coke Is It. And that took billions of dollars and several decades, and it involved inducing people to drink sugar water. The odds against a strong global movement about anything tougher than that are low, with language barriers, religious barriers, cultural barriers.

I find in his writing a man who is passionate and compassionate. And, I think his final sentence states best the kind of moral and ethical challenge before us:

To be human in 2008 is to rise in defense of the planet we have known and the civilization it has spawned.

Please go and read the article. Pick up one of his books. I think it should be required reading for every human.

Barack’s first steps

Bill McKibben just posted a fantastic article on Yale e360 about possible next steps for our new President Elect.

Any hope of succeeding will require Obama to grasp, deep in his guts, the fact that climate, energy, food, and the economy are now hopelessly intertwined, and that trying to solve any one of these problems without taking on the others simply makes all of them worse. More, he needs to understand, again viscerally, the single stark fact of our time: No matter how many votes, no matter how much lobbying, no matter how much pressure you apply, you can’t amend the laws of physics and chemistry. They aren’t like the laws that politicians are used to dealing with. They will be obeyed, like it or not. 350 is now the most important number on the planet, the red line that defines reality reality.

Go HERE to be enlightened and challenged by an amazing writer.

350

THIS is a great site.

Go there. Sign up. Take Action.

If you talk it, you better walk it.

discover… the truth

So I started seeing this ad months ago, and each time I saw it I got more and more perturbed by it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFZjg4eGMk]

“We are a nation of consumers, and there is nothing wrong with that.”

I know that most people see this advertisement and think to themselves… a credit card company that gets me and my concerns. But remember, they are still doing this to get your business and make more money. That is their ultimate goal. Do not be duped into thinking anything else. For their sake and the sake of their shareholders, they still need to increase their revenue, so they have figured out a way to market to you. The truth, however, is that they are still a credit card company. They still charge you an 19% interest rate, and if you are late, it defaults up to 31%.

And what an interesting opening line. I believe that there is “something wrong with that”. I know that some of you think I rant about the world as I see it should be. But, when you look around at all of the stuff that you have in your homes, and then realize that you only use 20% of what you own, I think the logical conclusion is that we OVER-consume.

I am reading a fascinating book right now called The Age of Missing Information by Bill McKibben. I think when you read it, as well as when you take the time to really evaluate what commercials are saying to you… you will start to understand that the media is manipulating you. The companies have allowed you to be viewed as a malleable, uninformed, uneducated being and they can say whatever they want, over and over, until you are convinced you “have to have it”.

Think before you buy.

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.