Twitter is abuzz with this admission from Greenpeace that it was “emotionalizing” (i.e., exaggerating) the global warming issue:
The problem with this “emotionalizing” is that it discredits the environmental movement and gives power to people who say global warming is a hoax. I personally don’t find the global warming issue to be a compelling one. I have been around long enough to remember that environmental scares come in waves: for a while we were focused simply on “pollution.” Then “acid rain” came in vogue. The hole in the ozone layer was a focus for a while. Lately, it has been global warming.
There are so many other problems the environmental movement could focus on. For example, I would prefer to see more focus on overpopulation. Let’s face it: Our environmental problems are caused by too many people on a small planet. I would prefer to see the environmental movement support education and family planning in third world countries as a means of helping keep birth rates down. Global warming in and of itself is too open to debate and gets us off-track on more important issues, such as the toll our big cities are taking NOW on our watersheds.
Whether or not global warming is man-made, part of the cycles of the planet, or both, it doesn’t really matter to me. What matters to me is that we humans are burdening the planet in a manner that is not sustainable. Let’s focus on that and not so much on polar ice caps, which just ends up causing ridicule against environmentalists.
The following message from Clint Richardson popped into my email box and I thought I’d share it…
I’ve driven the almost 400 mile stretch of Interstate 5 from L.A. to Sacramento dozens of times. Quite honestly, it’s as boring as it gets. with only the usual gas stations, mini-marts, fast-food, home-cookin’ restaurants, and strangely a newer batch of Starbuck’s Coffee shops sprouting up everywhere. In between… farms, orchards, cattle, and dirt.
On July 15th, as I began my trip to Utah, I came off the Grapevine decline and hit the flat 250 or so mile stretch of interstate which begins the farming belt in the valley. Almost immediately I noticed what I had only heard about on the radio and in the papers. Where once there were vast fields of green, now there where empty, barely recognizable rows of unplanted dirt and growing weeds. Only sporadically at first, but once I passed Bakersfield and for about a 200 mile stretch, I could not believe my eyes. Field after field laid fallow. And not really fallow, but unattended… as if it was not going to be planted in the near future either.
Signs were staked in the ground on almost every patch of barren farmland. The most common one, which was yellow and obviously a group effort to wake up the sleeping travelers of thier future plight, read:
“CONGRESS CREATED DUST BOWL”
Others, which looked more homemade were posted on non-operational farm equipment parked as close to the freeway as possible, stated things like:
“FOOD ONLY GROWS WHERE WATER FLOWS” -and-
“NO WATER = NO JOBS = NO FUTURE”
At one point, after 150 miles or so of seeing this horror, I broke down in tears and had to pull over to the side of the road. I saw the aqueduct, which followed Interstate 5 most of the way, and large fields of dead trees which were planted just a few feet from the flowing cement river. I imagined how those trees would feel, imprisoned in the dying dirt by their own roots, if they could indeed comprehend that their source of life was just a stones throw away. It was like some horrific story-book come to life; science fiction in real time. I was thinking of the farmers and their families and wondering what would become of them and their land. I was thinking about the consequences of hundreds of miles of food no longer being grown, and adding together the other states like Campo, Colorado which have the same situation… only planting 60% of their crops this year.
This deadness went on untill the brink of civilization once again began to show. When I approached the Stockton/Modesto highway interchange area the carnage seemed to stop, and the fields appearded to be healthy an bountiful. I can only guess that this is because more people drive on that stretch of the freeway, and so the powers that be are trying to keep up apearances. No other explaination came to mind.
To the readers of this, I can only say that living in the city has literally blinded me to the truth, even though I knew it was happening. I wonder how many other things I ignore? Many economists and trends predictors have called for food shortages and food riots in the fall, and with what I saw last week, I have new reason to believe them.
But then, that’s the real problem isn’t it? Belief…
If you believe that the food will continue to flow (magically appearing on store shelves in a grocery store near you) and just dismiss the very real claims of shortages worldwide, including a severe wheat shortage in this country due to a harmfull fungus, then I might boldy say that you deserve whatever fate befalls you.
I challenge you all to take a drive up the 5 and see this for yourself. Please! Don’t let this go unseen. If you are camera or video savy, I think it would be a really great photo exibit or website showing the true nature of our common problem. And you better believe, as you take your daily shower, flush your toilet, and water your fertilized-non-edible grassy yards, that this is indeed a Congress created crisis. So please tell as many people about it as possible.
Lastly, if you haven’t already… buy storable food! Go to the dollar store and buy rice and beans. Buy pasta, caned and jarred foods, or anything with a shelf-life of more than 6 months.
What’s the worse that can happen? You’ll have food in 6 months.
What’s the best that can happen? You’ll have food in 6 months.
Take care. Spread this information. Get mad. Fight tyranny. And…
Don’t be a sheep.
Clint Richardson
introspector48@yahoo.com
Monday, July 20, 2009
One of our most challenging and scary environmental problems is the safety of our water supply. People are flushing so many drugs down the toilet – from the actual pills to the residue in urine – that drinking tap water often means you’re getting a slight homeopathic dose of anti-depressants. Now we have pollutants in the water creating mutant fish and “intersex” fish (meaning, what should be male fish now turning into females):
So, where do these estrogen enhancers that are creating intersex fish come from? Seems there are a wide variety of sources, from materials used in agriculture and industry to women’s urine flushed down the toilet, with the strongest dose from women taking estrogen pills. (Stephen Colbert recently suggested that women now just “have to hold it.”)
Estrogen disruptors appear to have their strongest impact on the developing male fetus. Nicolas Kristof is taking the big leap (based on real data summarized by the National Wildlife Service) by suggesting that sexual organs of human boys are already trending towards “intersex.”
Read more here…scary!
I consider myself to be a moderate environmentalist; meaning, I am pragmatic and think we need to compromise in order to achieve things. I always felt that Palin was a somewhat moderate conservative – while she’s not a proponent of global warming, she has seemed all too willing to try to reach out and say, “hey, let’s come up with solutions we can all benefit from.”
This is why I never got the extreme animosity towards Sarah Palin by many people on the left. I believe a lot of it is sheer sexism (she’s pretty, doesn’t speak like an Ivy-League snob, and must therefore be a moron), a good portion of it is outright hate towards anyone labeling themselves conservative, and then the rest is classism. (She’s a “snowbilly” and eats mooseburgers instead of tofuburgers.)
So that said, I’d like to take a look at precisely what it is that Palin is proposing, without resorting to knee-jerk reactions. I’ll comment on a few excerpts from her piece:
American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president’s cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.
This is true, our prosperity has been built upon cheap oil. Without cheap energy, we would not have the lavish lifestyles we do.
Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.
In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.
The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.
The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity bills will “necessarily skyrocket.” So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
I have to admit, I am not happy at the prospect of paying more for my electricity. It is already my most expensive utility bill. And as a small business owner, I have seen – much more so than my friends with steady jobs – how bad the economy truly is. It is very bad out there. So I am concerned about cap-and-trade causing inflation at a time where we really can’t afford it. This is where my environmental pragmatism comes in – yes, we should cut carbon emissions, but if it ends up stalling our economy and creating havoc in people’s lives, maybe we should find another way to do it? Or a better time to do it?
I’m one of those folks who feels that environmental awareness is a by-product of prosperity. In other words, it’s my richer friends who have the luxury of shopping at Whole Foods. Poor people with no jobs aren’t going to be buying the more expensive recycled toilet paper. They aren’t going to be buying organic vegetables that sometimes cost twice as much when they are short on cash and have to feed their kids. Now, I have no statistics to back this up, but my feeling is, the more people struggle, the less time, energy and money they have to live a more “sustainable” lifestyle.
In other words, the only people I know with solar panels on their homes are rich people. Deepening a severe recession and putting people out of work just ends up creating tent cities – where people are using ravines as toilets. Not good for the environment.
Let’s continue:
In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.
Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy.
I am all for the natural gas pipeline…I think it is a good idea, and I’m glad she’s pushed for it. I am not a fan of off-shore drilling and drilling in ANWR. I would like to see Palin push more for alternative energy sources. That said, my pragmatism tells me that we might need to engage in off-shore drilling and whatnot because we’re on our way to a peak oil catastrophe. America turning into a post-apocalyptic Mad Max world of energy wars is certainly not going to help the environment either. We may need to drill. It’s either that or we could see the collapse of Western Civilization as we know it.
We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama’s plan will result in the latter.
My pragmatism comes up here and I will agree with her – I think it is probably better that Americans drill for oil here in a more environmentally controlled environment than simply purchase oil from other countries that might not be so mindful. Let’s not forget the human cost of the wars going on in the Middle East because we need to secure our oil supply!
If you had a choice – America fully out of Iraq and the Middle East, but that meant we had to engage in off-shore drilling here, which would you choose? And let’s say, we set up guidelines to make sure the drilling here had the least amount of impact on the environment as possible? I’d say, take us out of Iraq and drill, baby, drill.
See, these questions aren’t so cut and dry in my mind.
My biggest beef with Palin is that she has not latched onto alternative energy sources. But given that we as of yet have no alternative source that can replace cheap oil, I do think an “all of the above” approach may be our only energy option for the foreseeable future.
My hope is that, instead of extremism on the right and left causing us to fight over these issues without giving some thought to compromise, we can find a middle ground that works for America. The fact is, most Americans are going to care more about their wallets more than the environment. I know, I grew up in the Midwest. I get where average people are coming from. If you push them too hard and too fast on environmental laws that hurt their wallets too much, then people are going to backlash. And then going green could be as “out” as pet rocks.
The Onion came out with this hilarious satire on Taco Bell, touting a new “green” menu that would recycle garbage and reconstitute it into “tomorrow’s lunch”:
What’s truly funny is the comments for this video on YouTube – a lot of people took the video seriously and were righteously offended at the thought of eating recycled junk.
I actually like Taco Bell (guilty pleasure), though I think recycling garbage into food is where I might draw the line. Thankfully, that technology does not exist yet.
I realize this is completely anti-environmental of me to say, but when I hear something like “there will be no more tuna in a few years,” there’s a big part of me that feels I should go out and eat as much of it as I can before it’s gone. Reverse psychology. So is telling people this going to help lower tuna consumption, or increase it?
Flint Michigan is responding to the shrinking of the city by razing old neighborhoods that have fallen into disrepair and returning the land to nature. Some folks are up in arms over this, thinking mistakenly that the city is taking over people’s property, but the property in question has been abandoned. So I think it’s a great idea! More here…
I always find the concern over farm animals creating global warming to be a curious one. The latest screaming headline out is “Cows With Gas: India’s Contribution to Global Warming” We read a lot about how these cows can’t be stopped from putting methane into the air because giving them better feed or medicine to stop the methane release is beyond the reach of poor farmers. It is not until the end of the article that we read:
One long-running project has been biogas production – cow dung is utilized to make biogas for use in kitchens and even compressed biogas for use in vehicles. “Biogas plants have been very successful,” says R.K. Rajeshwari, a fellow at TERI, “Farmers are able to use biogas in their kitchens, to light lamps and to even drive vehicles.” Such projects, she says, have been particularly successful at gaushalas, cow shelters supported by donations from the devout and by government grants, of which there are 4,000 across India now. Most gaushalas are for abandoned, dry and aged cattle, of which there are many since killing cows is illegal in all but two states (the communist-ruled West Bengal and Kerala). “This way they are put to some use at least,” says Rajeshwari, “And by replacing conventional sources of energy, they help prevent global warming.”
I mean, yeah, hello, we’re facing a worldwide energy shortage soon and we’re trying to stop methane gas from being produced? We should be finding ways to harness all this cow flatulence! (Humane ways, of course.) I recently saw something on TV where cows would wear something around their necks that would collect their methane breath. Why not find a way to collect methane from the air around farms? Cow flatulence as fuel, why not? Just think – natural gas will have a brand new meaning some day.
I definitely feel there is something to the “New World Order” conspiracy theories out there suggesting that a global elite is pulling the strings behind the scenes in an effort to maximize their power and profits.
I’ve been concerned, however, that a few of the “conspiracy theorists” blow off genuine concerns over climate change as yet another conspiracy designed to manipulate people. Forget those new-fangled words “global warming” and “climate change.” Can we get back to a real basic, simple, yet desciptive word: POLLUTION? POLLUTION is the problem – pollution of the atmosphere, our groundwater, our environment. Can we all agree to try to cut down on pollution? And then whether or not said pollution causes global warming or climate change is a debate to be had, but it won’t distract us from the first goal, which is: REDUCING POLLUTION.
Mike Adams has an interesting article on the whole global warming conspiracy. He says it’s both. Read more:
The “green” movement has been extremely trendy in recent years, trendy to the point of overexposure. With all the little green labels popping up everywhere, you have to start wondering what’s really green and what’s just green-washing. You know the movement has gotten a bit shallow when the worst of our cultural celebrity obsession merges with environmental news in the form of “green celebrity” sites like Ecorazzi.
But my admittedly tentative prediction is that such celebrity-focused media is going to lessen in coming years rather than strengthen. In my short almost 40 years of life, I’ve seen America turn from a relatively balanced culture into one where tabloids have taken over. We didn’t have “paparazzi” in the 1980s. This all started happening in the 90s. The mindless celebrity-obsessing seems to have hit an all-time high, and I can’t help but wonder (and hope) if we’ve hit the peak of it.
How does this relate to the green movement?
Back to Reality…
My feeling overall is that we’re coming off a collective high that is landing in one huge hangover. We had the dot-com bubble and then the housing bubble. People thought they sky was the limit and they could make money on doing practically nothing (flipping stocks, flipping houses).
We saw this represented in our television and media. We have an entire cable channel, E! Entertainment, devoted to mindless hours of celebrity focus. Shows such as “Dirty Sexy Money” were launched. Reality TV wasn’t so much about reality as it was about fantasy.
We obsessed over Britney, Paris, and what clothes people were wearing on the red carpet. This is easy to do when the money is everywhere and we’re collectively gorging on our own materialistic feast.
In the midst of this brainless cultural orgy, some positive things did emerge. Certain celebrities, such as Leonardo di Caprio and Ed Begley, decided to use their name power to help the environment. Meanwhile, Al Gore hit us with an Inconvenient Truth.
This was all well and good. But then the paparazzi mentality took over. Green was the “in” thing, and all the tabloids and celebrity news shows started jumping on it. It seemed to be an antidote to the ridiculous, over-the-top focus on clothes and hair – now we’re focusing on how green the clothes are! Hemp is in, polyester out! Prius in, BMW out!
Here’s my concern. Anything that becomes a trend is likely to become not a trend after a certain saturation point. I fear that environmental awareness may end up being thrown out with the celebrity focus. I definitely feel that America is going to be less interested in frivolous stuff if our recession deepens. Who has the stomach to watch a rich heiress or a Britney-of-the-moment blow her fortune on late night escapades and neurotic head-shaving sessions when your 401K becomes worthless overnight?
Some might suggest we’ll want more escape, but I’d submit that while we may want escape, it won’t be towards focusing on the rich. Candace Bushnell’s new television series Lipstick Jungle was heralded as the next Sex and the City, and show bombed. Having watched a few episodes, I can only say that there’s nothing much appealing about a rich, whiny, privileged woman whose main concern is whether her handsome husband or their nanny has to take care of the kids the night she’s going to an elite soiree.
I feel we’ll be seeing television go back to the real instead of the fake – don’t be surprised if we don’t suddenly see a return of gritty, 70s style shows. (I’m placing my bets on a recreation of the Waltons, a show about a family struggling during the Great Depression.)
In this economic environment, you will perhaps see celebrities shift their focus from the environment to more pressing situations, such as the growing tent cities near major US urban areas.
Green Consumerism
For regular Americans, being green has already been too expensive and will only become more so as inflation rises and belts tighten. Who has money for solar panels when unemployed? Who can afford to upgrade the car to a hybrid when the mortgage can’t be paid?
Organic food is already more expensive (sometimes two or three times) than standard food. A shirt made from organic cotton might cost $100 whereas the same one in regular cotton would cost $50.
But see, here we come to the crux of the problem: Too much of the environmental movement has focused on consumerism geared towards the affluent.
My being green should not depend on my purchase of an expensive eco-friendly yoga mat!
I do notice a lot of urban liberals poo-pooing places like Wal-Mart, saying that people shouldn’t shop there and that they should go to a boutique local shop instead. OK, that’s all fine and dandy if you are making a lot of money, but please don’t tell someone who is just trying to scrape by and take care of their family that they should spend $200 on a dress when they can get something comparable for $20 at the big box store.
People are by all rights practical, and when they have the money to spend on nicer things they will, otherwise, they’ll go for what they can afford. Period. You can’t squeeze more juice than what’s already in the lemon.
Thus, I feel, with belts tightening, people will be less inclined to buy the more expensive eco or organic versions of products, whether it’s in the form of soap or sofas.
Where We Can Make Progress
I’ve felt for a long time that America needs to return to the value of frugality. When you have less money, you become more frugal and creative with what you have. So instead of rampant consumerism where people will run out and by huge McMansions and newer and bigger large screen TVs every other year, we may see the following:
A return to more modest homes that are more energy-efficient by nature.
An ethic of re-using what you can (e.g., saving and rewashing plastic Ziploc bags).
A trend towards keeping things longer (not replacing clothes, cars, cellphone, etc. on a whim).
As such, I think the environmental movement would be best served by finding ways to help people save money while helping the planet, rather than spending more money buying pricey eco-products. With such a shift, being more green could become a more permanent way of life rather than just the latest fad.
