Just when will enough be enough?

The day after Christmas is a good day to ponder the excesses of the season. As much as we enjoy the feasting, the exchange of gifts, and the close family time there is a sense of fragility to this years festivities, a doubt about the sustainability many of the practices of the holiday season. As the young ones open the countless plastic doodads, packaged in single use plastic and wrapped in specialty papers and the adults quaff imported beverages, as we all enjoy our new electronics made from rare earth metals mined by slave labor in war torn Africa, I think even the most consumerist amongst us wonders if this can or should be maintained. Just when is enough enough? Perhaps we can use the sneaking suspicions engendered by our consumerism of one holiday to shape the next holiday. I don't usually make new years resolutions but maybe this year is good year to come to grips with the shortcomings of the path we are on. It is increasingly clear that we are running up against the limits to growth in the finite world we live in. An economy based endless growth is not only a physical impossibility based on the laws of physics but is also clearly faltering in spite of all our efforts to create the fiction of plausibility. Enough is enough!
We can have a steady state economy. It is a better option now and for the future.
Read the report from the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy.
Enough is Enough.

For today we can take comfort that at least we have the fundamental values to rely upon in the holiday season, generosity, filial love and support, and the spiritual teachings that underlie the
holiday season. None of these need rely on the fantasies of consumerism to be achieved.

The Christmas Tree debate and the genesis of a new tradition?

After I posted the christmas tree post I had a most interesting exchange over on FB with my friend Jerry. It is interesting enough that I thought I should post it. Jerry agreed.

Jerry

It certainly occurs to me to wonder whether growing spruce etc just to be cut down after a few years so that everyone can have their own family Christmas tree isn't actually a bit fucking stupid now there are so very many of us separate li...ving units and now we actually need uncountable numbers of trees - any trees - to be planted and left to grow and photosynthesise so as to get all that carbon out of the air again. I doubt I'll be persuaded to ever buy one again. We ought to be being carbon-rationed by our governments by now! And if it means less luxuries in our homes, we just need to devise and engage in lots more community celebrations and feasts to reward ourselves with conviviality and fun. Economies of scale I- bet a big collective blowout can be designed to use less resources per head for the same enjoyment pay-off per head. If fifty families are out dancing and singing and laughing together in a hall near where they live, LEAVING LIGHTS AND HEATING AND APPLIANCES OFF AT HOME UNTIL THEY GET BACK, there's a a significant carbon saving straight off.
Apart from the destitute and the truly impoverished, most of us in the industrialised countries have a level of material affluence - and profligacy - that would have been inconceivable to kings and emperors in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. It's about time we woke up. And use those fucking clever brains you've all got, people, to figure out what we need to drop and what we need to adopt so that we can find a way to live that works properly. Sorry for the language, but I'm terrified we'll go past the point of no return without a clue of what we're doing wrong, and that IF WE REALLY UNDERSTOOD we wouldn't dream of doing.

ME
 I tend to agree, particularly about the needless and wasteful affluence. I think the real impact of the season is the excess and pointless consumerism. This is one of the reasons I wanted to make a tree this year out of trimmings rather tha...n use a real tree, just one less thing to buy. Also the tree I trimmed to make it needed trimming. I'm thinking of cutting it down as it is in the wrong place on the property, if the trimming does it I can avoid the big chop.

Every year we yanks debate, real tree vs. plastic. Most seem to think that real trees are better now but I've always been leery of the monocrop nature of big tree farms with the attendant chemical usage. There are places that maintain a healthier forest where you can tramp through the snow and cut it down yourself, kind of a family tradition. I favour the live tree in a pot that you then plant out, though not as much as this years effort, that's my best so far. Though, I've recently heard from my ex in Seattle that one we planted almost 20 years ago is thriving and taller than the house. Somehow I find the idea of a real living tree being the center of a ritualized family gathering somewhat comforting in a pagan sort of way.
Jerry 

yeah... problem is the real dying ones that are what most people have. I just reckon perhaps the time has come where the idea of a tree in each home is ridiculously profligate, after all it's not as if most people use it as a tool to consci...ousness raising or anything, it's just a young tree that's been felled prematurely to die in a corner of your room so that "it makes you feel more christmassy" and "the kids would hate it if we didn't have one". Looked at that way, is it remotely justifiable as we enter deeper into a time of climate emergency?

ME
 probably not, but what about the idea of live trees carefully planted afterwards? Of course making that widespread is probably as likely as getting a suburbanite to give up their SUV.
There are so many cultural paradigm shifts that have to h...appen in order to accomplish any kind of meaningful reduction of emissions, I personally will continue to try to make it happen but am not holding out much hope, or staking my daily happiness on the chance that it will.

Jerry
But having somewhere to carefully plant out the live tree can be a real challenge, especially somewhere suitable for a stressed tree (stressed after weeks in a heated home) - I don't think there are for example many suitable locations for f...orest conifer species in urban environments.
The whole Christmas Tree thing just looks like a comfort attachment to me - people are almost AFRAID that they're asking for some sort of nameless trouble to visit them if they don't do Christmas "properly". Think about it, look at the strength of the associative feelings people have about Christmas... I reckon the fear is that if we don't hold fast to these emotional anchors (trees, presents, decorations, cards, lights, food in excess, familiar old favourite movies) at this time of year we'll be swamped with emotional feelings too powerful to handle, all connected with LOSS: loss of certainty, loss of childhood innocence, loss of belief in the power of simple Goodness, loss of our hopes and dreams (our idealism and optimism). So we're as superstitious in the winter dark as our ancestors (superstition uses ritual to hold fears at bay, as does compulsive obsessive behaviour pathology), but we don't any more (if we ever really did?) have particularly wise or appropriate rituals which effectively lead us into a raised (and shared) consciousness - yet we deeply long for it. This is only thought through on the hoof Robb, it's all come up in response to your comments. I don't know how much truth I've hit on, but I feel sure there's mileage in this idea that there's something we're afraid to face THAT WE COVER UP WITH UNEXAMINED CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS, at least unexamined for whether they might have something unresolved hidden away inside them as it were. 
ME
 I can't disagree with any of that Jerry but perhaps we could see it as an opportunity to teach a yearly tree planting tradition.

Jerry
‎"see it as an opportunity to teach a yearly tree planting tradition" - that is a brilliant idea! I went to bed after my last post above, had been up late because I couldn't go straight to bed after going to see "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" followed by the rest of the evening belting out Sheffield carols in The Sportsman up at Lodge Moor.
ME
 Maybe someone should hook up with a nursery to offer planting outings after Xmas. I suppose one would also have to have prearranged a site for planting. It would be cool if it could work. 

Jerry
It's very possibly too late to rustle it up in a useful way this year, but with time to make some good arrangements and prepare some good publicity and written (print or online) resources it could be as big next year as one decided to try a...nd make it. Should work with the right planning and a good team. And could be a really good awareness-raising tool PLUS real-world benefit of trees into the ground and carbon into the trees. Got to think about after-care for planted trees though, watering in hot spells in first year, mulching etc. 
ME
Yeah, I think this year might be rushing it. Better to have it all in hand when you kick it off. Might be a good initiative for Grow Sheffield, are you still working with them? Transition Sheffield might be into it as well.
 

   

Video -The next installment from the Story of Stuff - The Story of Electronics (2010)

Video - Leave it all behind

" If banks are "too big to fail" does that mean the rest of us are just the right size? In today's economy, bankrupt is the new black. Leave It All Behind. The debut music video from The Dalliance dealing with bankruptcy in America."

Video - Securing Human Well Being in a Resource-Constrained World

"Mathis Wackernagel, Founder and Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network, challenged attendees of a November 24 lecture to consider the ecological consequences of current consumption and development patterns."

Responsible Adults

I was listening to an interview with Annie Leonard this morning over on TreeHugger Radio. You might remember her as the "The Story of Stuff" lady, one of my all time favorite web videos. She is embarking on a series of follow on video's relating to issues raised in that first film, "The Story of Cap and Trade", and a recent one on the lunacy of bottled water, see below.

Anyway, Ms.Leonard said something I really liked. I think it goes to the heart of what I've been advocating for some time, that we should transition from being consumers to being citizens and that being good citizens. For me, being a good citizen requires that we reduce our personal consumerism. Ms. Leonards laments the trend to assuming that by just changing our patterns of consumerism we are doing the good work, greening up so to speak. And perhaps that is true but her point, that by buying a water filter to purify our tap water and thus avoiding use of bottled water, is that what we are doing is no more than what we do when we brush our teeth, take our vitamins, or buy organic food. We are merely being responsible adults, taking care of ourselves. This is not the end all and be all of being a good citizen. Yes, it is a small step forward but what about our community, our country, our planet? Being a good citizen is about lobbying for the change you want to see, whether it is about getting flouride and atrazine out of the drinking water in the first place (so you don't need to buy a filter), stopping a big box store from destroying your local economy, or working to start a Transition Initiative to get your community to become more resilient in the face of oil shocks, climate change and bankster fraud. Perhaps, for you it is about working to insure that school lunches are healthy and supportive of local economy, or reducing hate crime in your area, or increasing the walkability of your community. The point is, solutions that rely on consumerism alone, green or not, are not solutions.

I think being a responsible adult requires more than just taking care of our self. We need to accept that being a responsible adult requires us to be a good citizen.

Monbiot, solar panels, and consumerism

This was posted in over on facebook on Dave Hampton's profile in reference to the post from George Monbiot regarding feed in tariffs on monbiot.com.

I've seen others get bogged down in a single leg of the bottom line triad when they should know better, Economy (which seems to be the quicksand they all get stuck in) is no more important than Environment and Equity. Indeed, pursuing it at the expense of the other two is a false economy. 41p per kWH might seem alot but when you add up the fact that solar panels pay back the energy to make them within 2 to 5 years, are then completely carbon neutral, don't require huge inputs of water (unlike any thermal energy production including CSP), don't require continuing extraction of resources to provide energy (usually at the expense of local people), and if taken in the context of other electronic investments (when was the last time you heard of a TV with a payback period?) are a particularly good investment. I generally agree with Mr. Monbiot but I have to differ with him here.

At which point there was a post referring to solar PV systems as a a green version of timeshare and that scam merchants across the UK are taking advantage of well meaning greenies and trhat these systems will never payback the expense of their purchase to which I replied;

A lot of scam merchants are going around the UK selling television entertainment systems for thousands of pounds, this cost will never be paid back in the lifetime of the owner, nevermind the life of the electronic consumerist propaganda machine. When was the last time you got a savings on any bill from using your television more? When was the last time you heard of a television that was guaranteed to provide the service you bought it for, for the next 25 years? Quality solar PV panels will do both and in most cases will continue to produce power beyond the warranty period.

However, I would partially agree with your statement, Michael, about solar systems that are grid tied. These systems reinforce business as usual in many cases as they are designed as add ons to poorly designed inefficient houses and lifestyles. Research has shown that conservation only improves 10% or less after installing such systems. That is not to say that it can't be better and that grid tied systems can't play a role in reducing demand if properly designed and accompanied by rigorous conservation behaviour.

We must drastically reduce demand! YESTERDAY! We need systems that help us to do that....

IMHO, If you are serious about the "green thing", your best bet is to go off grid with as many circuits in your house as possible, build the PV battery system yourself, and carefully design it to enforce deep conservation of electricity to the point of being able to rely on the off grid circuits as close to 100% as possible. This strategy precludes consumerism of entertainment oriented electronics, electrically heated devices (which may require a complete green renovation of your house which you should do anyway), stand up fridge freezers, hair dryers, electric cooking, and generally wasteful behaviour. Having done this myself in the past and being in the midst of planning a project to do it on a much larger scale, I can assert that I am not naive, and that the savings (which includes the savings from not buying all the electrical devices you can't power as well as the savings from going DIY) will indeed pay for the system both in terms of finances and regarding the other 2 E's mentioned above. Admittedly, it will require the right site and enough panels to do the job and won't work for everybody but even if you take 1 circuit off grid it will be worth it as it reinforces a powerful ethic of conservation. It also gets you started with a small system that can be scaled up as finances allow. If you do this you will soon see that putting your money into self reliance is always a good investment.

There are scam merchants everywhere and folks need to look seriously at the suitability of their site and budget before embarking on such a plan.

Here another post queried the quality of solar PV particularly in comparison with nuclear power.
Here is my response.

A good tool is as good as how well you use it. For me, an economy based on consumerism and endless growth is the problem. Any tool that helps us move away from that paradigm is worth using, tools that reinforce business as usual are not. A solar panel, or a wind generator for that matter, is a tool that gives a reliable amount of power and when coupled with a reliable storage system (based around 96% recyclable or better batteries) will do so for may years with near zero maintenance, power that is consumed within feet of where it is produced with minimal extraction of further resources (periodic battery replacement requires some due to the 4%). I don't know of another technology that is nearly so elegant. Intermittent, yes, requiring of mindful attention to our behaviour, yes. All it requires is that we use it properly, this means change. IMHO, It is the change that people are resisting.

My problems with nuclear are many; it requires massive inputs of carbon rich materials at the front end and the back end. It requires continuous use of minerals extracted from the earth in a very damaging way that requires massive quantities of energy rich water supply, and huge quantities of water are also required in the operation of the plant. Waste is clearly a continuing problem, as is security. Having said that if we are going to continue to strive for endless growth and consumerism it will require a massive base load supply, I favor nuclear over coal which has all the same problems but on a scale that is much worse (excepting perhaps security), I favor CSP (concentrated solar power) over both as it is based on the sun directly but has similar issues with water. I favor large scale deployment of wind farms over all of them.

I suspect that some combination of the two paradigms will be required; for me it is drastic reduction in demand through the deployment of off grid microgeneration to help people restrict their consumerism while at the same time replacing coal and nuclear with wind farms as we scale back grid supply, if this requires rolling black outs until we get our demand under control, so be it.

My personal philosophy is that if it doesn't further sustainability it is not worth doing.

"Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all." -- Peter Drucker

Are you a citizen or a consumer?

This interview done by Rob Hopkins with Tim Kasser over at Transition Culture is well worth a read.

Part One
Part Two

Here is an Excerpt from part one;

"What’s consumerism done to us? How have we been changed by fifty or sixty years of that?

I think what consumerism has done to us is turned us into consumers. Which sounds like a silly answer but we all have roles in our lives, and we have multiple roles: I’m a father, and I’m a professor, a teacher, I’m an activist and I’m a consumer too, and our roles like our values end up influencing what we think is important in life, they influence our behaviour and how we treat other people. I think what’s happened over the last fifty/sixty years is that in order for our economic system to maintain itself, it requires people to enhance the consumer role – to think of themselves more as consumers and I don’t know how it is here in the UK, but when you’re reading the newspaper in the US you’re much more likely to see people referred to as consumers instead of citizens.

To be a consumer has a very different set of implications than to be a citizen. To be a consumer is to think about “what is it I want to buy?” So first off there’s a selfishness already involved in the role and there’s a set of behaviours implied by the role. There’s this sense that as that role comes to dominate more and more of how we think about ourselves and how our policy makers think of us, it leads potential solutions to problems or potential decisions to be “well what’s good for consumption, or what’s good to make a citizen?”, as opposed to what’s good for people. If you think about what a citizen’s role is, it’s to think about the whole of the community and “what’s my role in the community?”

You’re obviously still thinking about yourself, but you’re not thinking about yourself and what you’re going to buy, you’re thinking about yourself and who you’re going to be in relationship to others. There’s sort of a transcendent characteristic or aspect to that role. That I think leads us to behave in very different ways. I behave very differently when I’m being a consumer to when I’m being a citizen. The way that our economic and thus our political system is oriented now, is very much attuned to people as consumers and less to people as citizens and therefore it develops all kinds of policies that end up maximising the consumer role and not too much for the citizen role.

I think that’s part of why it makes it easy for people to think about “Do I want this?” instead of “well, how is it made, and how does my buying this impact people?”, and to think, “well it’s Friday and I’m going to stay home and watch TV”, rather than “I’m going to go out enjoying my fellow citizens cleaning up the river bank”, or having a meeting to help determine town policy about zoning and whether Tesco’s is coming in.

Consumer society tells us what the optimal ways are to live our lives. That’s what any social system does, there’s nothing special about consumerism with regard to that. Christianity tells us how to live our lives, fascism told us how to live our lives… the particular way consumer capitalism tells us to live our lives is this way and through consumption and the maximisation of economic growth. Through working hard so you can have a lot of money and then you can spend it on stuff that you want to buy. Whenever you believe something’s important something else has to become less important and the value of consumerism and materialism crowd out other important things.

Has consumerism left us more or less able to respond rapidly to change? Are we less resilient? How can we know that?

I think to the particular kinds of changes which we’re likely to face here in the near future if climate science is right and if everything we read about what’s happening socially is right, I really think it’s left us less able to respond to those challenges and I think there’s a couple of different things that goes back to: one of them is that consumerism leads us (this is true of any social system) when we have a difficulty to think about certain ways to solve that difficulty and to not think about other ways.

If you take a look at people who accept that there is climate change or climate disruption and then they try to figure out how to solve that problem, consumerism says: “well, consume in a green way”, because that’s a very reasonable solution to the problem from a consumers’ perspective – we just need to consume different things and we need to decarbonise and we need to keep economic growth, but just have carbon clean economic growth. So we get locked into that set of solutions when we think about the problem of climate disruption from a consumerstic view point.

All the climate scientists I talk to and everything I read suggests that that’s important, but it won’t get us anywhere near the way to solve those kinds of problems. Plus, it’s not going to help habitat loss or the other environmental problems we have to do those things. That’s one issue – it tells us solutions which are far too partial.

Another issue is that because we know that materialism and consumerism and materialism in research is associated with behaving in less cooperative and more competitive ways and less empathic and more manipulative ways and less pro social and anti social ways. What all that suggests is that when push comes to shove, and there are significant problems that we face, we will have lost some of the interpersonal, social skills and community skills that are really needed in order to come together as a group and solve the problems and instead I think we’ll be more likely to continue our competitive mindset in ways that end up damaging us at the very time we need to work together to solve the problems. Because we don’t think about consensus and we don’t think about building a group and listening to everybody and treating other people like people instead of other objects to be manipulated when we take on that materialist mindset.

So that scares me. If things get really bad here we may have lost some of the important skills that we need to manage that and the aftermath. We have milk goats and my wife wanted someone to teach her how and there wasn’t anyone. A hundred years ago there’d have been all kinds of people to teach her. But we’ve lost a lot of the self sufficiency skills that we need. Instead we go to work to earn money so we can hire somebody else to do it because that’s good for the economy.

We’ve lost a lot of the skills that ultimately we’re going to need if we live in a more localised way and we live not in a self sufficient way, but in a group sufficient way."

Video - The Story of Stuff

GHG Emissions from products and packaging

I try to purchase local food as much as possible. Unfortunately, the local farms aren't producing much produce and thus the farmers market is not running. So I am left to shop in the supermarkets for largely imported food. I find it frustrating that there are very few items I can purchase that are not delivered to the shops in some sort of packaging. The one exception is local banana's. They come in their own packaging. I try to avoid plastic packaging as it cannot be recycled here in Bermuda, but still leave the shop with some unwanted plastic.
I rarely purchase anything other than food.

Before we left Britain this time I went through all my stuff and got rid of as much as I could in preparation for moving to America in the spring. I gave away my Mac desktop computer, I gave away my printer, I sold some climbing gear, I recycled a few old cell phones (they had all been given to me when the previous owners upgraded), sent some clothes to thrift shops. But I am shocked at how much stuff I brought away from Bermuda when we left 3 years ago and collected over that time in the UK. I kept most of it because I think it will be useful; tools, electrical supplies for setting up a renewable energy system, various materials for home maintenance. I still ended up with a bag of electrical recycling which has to be specially recycled due to the WEEE initiative.

WEEE directs businesses to take back electrical and electronic consumer goods that they have sold in exchange for a purchase of a newer item. While I like the idea of businesses taking responsibility for goods they sell I don't like linking it to encouraging consumerism. A new report from the Product Policy Institute lays out the climate change costs of consumerism. It turns out that products and packaging account for 44% of US GHG emissions.

"It includes emissions from extracting raw materials, processing materials, manufacturing, transporting, and disposing of non-food goods, and accounts for 29 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The goods in this system include all non-food products, all packaging (including for food), vehicles, and materials for buildings and construction (except for heavy infrastructure). Emissions associated with vehicle manufacturing and building construction (including manufacturing of furnaces, hot water heaters, and air conditioners) cannot be separated from other products in the EPA data, so the Provision of Goods slice represents products in a very broad sense."

So what's to be done about it? Here's what the report has to say about it.

"Many approaches for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for example a cap- and-trade system or renewable electricity standard, act on direct emissions. Implementing these approaches requires knowing where the emissions are physically released. In these cases, only domestic emissions can be addressed. The sectors view is useful in these cases because it tells you the share of emissions coming from a particular type of facility, like electric power plants. Other approaches reduce emissions by changing the ways we produce, consume, and dispose of products and packaging. Manufacturers may improve their design or production process to reduce greenhouse gas impacts. Recycling systems can be improved. Or consumers may choose to buy more sustainable products."

Interesting language there at the end, "buy more". I notice it doesn't say consumers may choose not to purchase products at all. An obvious choice would be to never purchase a tumble dryer. This not only saves mony and the embodied energy and emissions in it's production and transport but also the very high impact in the use of the product. Certainly reducing planned obsolescence, increasing the use of recycled materials, improved carbon accounting methods and attaching the costs of carbon emissions to the products themselves is worth doing. But ultimately we will benefit more from a transition away from an economy based endless growth and pointless consumerism at the soonest possible opportunity.

In any case the planet can no longer support the level of consumerism that the west enjoys and the developing world aspires to. Cell phones are good example. Here in consumerist Bermuda we had students who got a new cell phone every month, either to keep up with the current fad, to match an new outfit, or simply because they lost or broke the last one. Astounding! A sense of value is never cultivated if a child isn't taught it. Instead they possess a sense of entitlement to all the resources of the planet.

Cancelling Catalogs; A gift whose time has come

This entry by Jennifer B. Freeman in the online book "Thoreau's Legacy; American Stories about Global Warming" published by the Union of Concerned Scientists struck me as a wonderfully simple thing to do to enhance the sustainability of your neighborhood. The stats are amazing.

"Just before Thanksgiving, my family gave a holiday present to our New York apartment building. It started with a box in the lobby and a sign offering to cancel any catalogs that were put inside. Our plan was to encourage our neighbors to think a little and help save some trees.
To make a difference in the fight against global warming, you have to work on many levels: change your light bulbs, write to your senator, talk to your neighbor, and walk in the woods to remember what it's all for.
The next day the box began to fill up. Four inches of catalogs, then eight inches. Buried in the stacks we found Post-its bearing notes of gratitude.
At first the calling part was all me. My kids decorated the box, wrote the sign with colored markers, and carried the catalogs upstairs. But making phone calls seemed at first to be a grownup job. By the second week the volume was overwhelming. Catalogs come in an astonishing variety: children's clothing, smoked hams, toys, diamond jewelry, hiking gear.
On a day off from school, one of my sons dared to make a catalog-canceling call, to feel the prankish thrill of phoning a grownup and pretending to be someone else. Leo learned a lot that day: that it's better to talk to a live person, that you can ask for a live person even if the robo-prompt tries to steer you to an automated system, that you don't have to give your phone number just because a grownup asks you to.
That afternoon my older son joined in. The apartment sounded like a call center. "I'd like to be taken off the mailing list please?" "You mean the number in the yellow box?" "The first name is Caroline, C-a-r-o-l-i …"
That day the members of our household canceled eighty-five catalogs on behalf of the neighbors. The project cost time and effort; each of us sacrificed. In short, it brought the true spirit of giving into our home. A slippery heap of canceled catalogs on the floor was tribute to our labors.
Every year, 19 billion catalogs are mailed in America. Catalogs use 3.6 million tons of paper, for which 53 million trees are cut down. Producing catalogs causes the release of 5.2 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (equal to about 2 million cars on the road) and uses 53 billion gallons of water. People should be able to receive the catalogs they want, but they should cancel the ones they don't want. According to industry statistics, about 98 percent of catalogs go straight into the recycling bin or the landfill.
Doing favors for the planet is good for your soul. Perhaps that's why our family continued to get notes like this one, from a friend for whom we canceled fifty-nine catalogs in a week. She said "I feel clean, purged, and righteous."- Jennifer B. Freeman

The Story of Stuff

This nice little educational video has been called anti-capitalist and leftist. I guess dealing honestly with the impacts of consumerism, understanding how what we use has a stream of waste behind it, and the potential of continuing to treat the planet as infinite is somehow a leftist practice. Does that mean that delusion, denial, and intentional misrepresentation of the facts is a right wing practice. Does capitalism have to be practiced in such a way as to doom itself? I guess I never thought that understanding how the world works was either left or right, just good ole common sense.

Yes We Must!

As scientists warn that we are fast running out of time to prevent runaway climate change (a global challenge that dwarfs this financial crisis both in size and importance, literally and singularly too big to fail), naysayers claim that the Obama administration is trying to do too much, talking heads and pundits on corporate media are saying we need to slow down on developing a smart grid, and the politicians that are owned by the lobbyists and corporate interests that have created the multipronged mess we are in do everything in their power to remain firmly stuck in the toxic coal waste mud oozing through the towns of Appalachia, President Obama is forging ahead with plans to rebuild the economy on the technologies of the future and put the world on a path towards sustainability. I may not agree with everything he is doing but I am willing to give him leeway to put a plan in place and will continue to try to influence the process through contact with my states' politicians and petitions to the Congress, Senate, and White House. In the meantime is incumbent upon us all to personally reduce wasteful consumerism, increase energy efficiency, invest in sustainability, fight dirty coal and reduce driving (the chief culprits in global warming), and further reduce our carbon footprint by eating local and organic. This isn't about Can Do it is about Must Do.

Here's excerpts from Obama's speech at the SCE Electric Vehicle Technical Center in California as reported on Climate Progress,

"... our greatest discoveries are born not in a flash of brilliance, but in the crucible of a deliberate effort over time. And often, they take something more than imagination and dedication alone — often they take an investment from government. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. That’s how we were able to launch a world wide web. And it’s how we’ll build the clean energy economy that’s the key to our competitiveness in the 21st century.

We’ll do this because we know that the nation that leads on energy will be the nation that leads the world in the 21st century. That’s why, around the world, nations are racing to lead in these industries of the future. Germany is leading the world in solar power. Spain generates almost 30 percent of its power by harnessing the wind, while we manage less than one percent. And Japan is producing the batteries that currently power American hybrid cars.

So the problem isn’t a lack of technology. You’re producing the technology right here. The problem is that, for decades, we have avoided doing what must be done as a nation to turn challenge into opportunity. As a consequence, we import more oil today than we did on 9/11. The 1908 Model T earned better gas mileage than a typical SUV sold in 2008. And even as our economy has been transformed by new forms of technology, our electric grid looks largely the same as it did half a century ago.

So we have a choice to make. We can remain one of the world’s leading importers of foreign oil, or we can make the investments that will allow us to become the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy. We can let climate change continue to go unchecked, or we can help stem it. We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad, or we can create those jobs right here in America and lay the foundation for our lasting prosperity.

... In the next three years, we will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy. We have also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history — an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in science and technology."

Where's POGO?

An interesting term, positive feedback loops, for something so negative and scary. As predicted, the positive feedback loops are accelerating. Huge amounts of methane is bubbling up in undersea plumes in the high arctic. This is now documented by science.
Check it out.

The Methane Time Bomb

Still think that foreign holiday is a good idea? How about that hamburger at the drive through?
Is it really a good idea to bail out an economy that is unsustainable or would it make more sense to spend that 700 billion on putting on the brakes and creating a just and sustainable one? Does it make sense to subsidize the oil barons or to create millions of green jobs building the new renewables industry? Are these questions difficult to answer? Apparently so as GW and the republicans want to drill, drill, drill, while over here the ruling labour party wants more coal fired power plants and a third runway at Heathrow.

I'm amazed and astounded both by the science that increasingly raises the alarm and by the powers that be that increasingly shut it out. As so often quoted in the comic strip "POGO" so long ago,

"We have met the enemy and he is us"

The Link between Debt and the Destruction of Nature | celsias°

A very interesting article with an accompanying video over on Celsias. The video is well worth the time it takes to watch it.
Banking on an Unsustainable Future? The Link between Debt and the Destruction of Nature | celsias°

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Go Carfree on the 22nd

On the 22nd of September don't drive or ride in a car. It's that simple. The reasons are so obvious and the implications so momentous that I won't go into them here. If you need more information please see the website:

World Carfree Day 2008

Sheffield Star online post #3 - by Robb

Here's the next post from my Sheffield Star online Green Scene column.

Beyond Consumerism?

"We are at a stage in human history that is as monumental as changing from a hunter/gatherer society to an agricultural society and from an agricultural society to an industrial society. ...We need to face the way we used the world for our gains, pleasures, satisfactions. ... we need to change our view about acquiring things. We have the opportunity to take a great leap forward in these very challenging times. We need to change our institutions and ourselves. ...We need to launch our imaginations beyond the thinking of the past. ...That's how we change the world... because WE will be the change."- Grace Lee Boggs, 93, a long-time Detroit activist and philosopher.

2030, imagine a scenario where you live in a completely different way than you do now. Your home doesn’t generate bills it generates power. Your bin only needs emptying once every month because you generate almost no waste. The clothes you wear are designed for practicality and durability and are rarely replaced. The food you eat is grown very close to where you live, some of it by yourself, the rest of it by your neighbors or farmers you know. You work either from home or within an easy walk or bus ride. You don’t need or own a car. As a result of all of the above your bank account doesn’t hemorrhage your hard earned pay but creates income because you have minimal debt. And best of all your choice to live this way along with all of your neighbors has supported the worldwide grassroots movement away from crippling dependance on fossil fuels and has helped to significantly reduced carbon emissions, stabilizing global climate. All of this is possible with current technology and current knowledge. All of this is happening currently. Don’t wait for 2030. You can take steps towards it now.

There are many benefits but perhaps chief among them is that this new style of life involves less stress, more time to spend with loved ones and neighbors, time for cooking and eating healthy food, exercising, and building a healthy community. It is a lifestyle based around long term sustainability, good health, and the development of human potential for all citizens.

Studies abound pointing out that the current cult of consumerism involves much less of the above, but who needs scientific research to prove what is evident to any who care to see it. Too many hours of the day are spent earning and spending money as our class based lifestyles rely on debt. Stress related illness is rife, obesity and ill health are at pandemic proportions due to poor nutrition and minimal exercise. The divide between rich and poor, educated and ignorant, healthy and sick is widening. And worst of all, the ecosystems that support our very existence are being sacrificed to support this short term pleasure based individualistic lifestyle. It is unsustainable. There is literally no future in it.

Every step you take towards a sustainable life is progress but small steps are not enough. As I pointed out in my second post of this series we are in a tight spot.

For more about that, download the WWF report “Weathercocks and Signposts”
We have a very short time to make very big changes.

In the next post I will look in more detail at some characteristics of a sustainable lifestyle.

For more about Grace Lee Boggs see:
http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/GraceLeeBoggs/HomePage

Is being green so hard?-By Robb

Over on celsias.com there a thread starting up about the difficulties of "Being Green"
It includes some good points and worth a read. I don't mean to deny that change isn't difficult but I think it needs to be put in context. The degree of change we, in the developed world, need to make are actually pretty minor compared to the level of change demanded of those on the front lines of climate change. I wonder, what do the citizens of Tuvalu think? Here is my post on the topic.

What's so hard about living an intentional life? For me it's simple, "being green" is about using less of anything produced with fossil fuels, being more self sufficient in as many ways possible, and helping others to do the same. It's the difference between being a citizen and being a consumer.

There is a well known mantra I try to live by at all times and I don't find it a hardship, REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE, with heavy emphasis on REDUCE.

"Being green" appears much less difficult than being an environmental refugee, starving to death, or drowning, all increasingly likely outcomes for billions of people, even those of us in the developed world, if we continue to consume fossil fuels.

Any action that reduces use of fossil fuel matters, the more the reduction, the more it matters.

For the citizens on the move in India due to the recent unprecedented flooding, those that didn't drown, a massive and immediate lifestyle change is required now. Right Now! No choice in the matter, no pondering how difficult it is, to survive it must be done.

We here in the developed world have the luxury of a continuum of change. It generally isn't forced upon us by calamity, though the citizens of the ninth ward in New Orleans might disagree. For instance, I personally have reduced my flying by over 60% per year in the last two years as I have come to understand it's impacts. Next winter's visit home I hope to be the last time I ever step foot on an airplane. After that I will travel by sea. It took effort, a bit of soul searching, some compromise with my family, and perhaps has been the most "difficult" aspect of my personal continuum of change. I know many people that have already sworn off flying for good, one man I know has not flown in 18 years. Not driving more than once every 2 weeks, not eating fast food more than once a month, not leaving devices on standby, drastically cutting meat eating while drastically increasing my consumption of organic food, changing all my lightbulbs to CFL's, buying only used clothing, growing as much of my own food as possible, staying out of debt to maintain flexibility, the list of actions grows and all are on some sort of continuum.

This is the luxury I have, this is to some extent the luxury I have created. Guilt comes from not doing these things, frustration is eased by understanding that the continuum is a necessary part of transition, and enthusiasm is not "dead of a thousand cuts" rather it flourishes on the life giving blood of a thousand efforts.

We have less than 10 years to get our emissions under control, do we have the luxury of the easy?

Free from Power Day

A monthly holiday in celebration of simplicity

This is an opportunity to express your willingness to consume less power in the form of electricity, fossil fuels, and products reliant upon them. It is also, a declaration of independence from the power of consumerism and media.

With a simpler life comes time to spend with loved ones, to exercise, to meditate, to work in the garden, to observe the rhythms of nature. With diligence you will discover how preferable is a life uncluttered by the superfluous trappings of the cult of consumerism.

By making this a monthly commitment you are more likely to adopt some level of these changes in everyday life than if it was less frequent, it stands to reason that adopting this action once a week, should you so choose, would be even more effective.

Thus on the first Saturday of every month:
1. Freedom from the power grid for entire day. Zero personal use of electricity delivered via the national grid.
2. Freedom from the fossil fuel use grid. Zero personal use of fossil fuels, no cars, buses, planes or trains fueled by fossil fuels. No cooking using fossil fuels or refridgerated food. No bathing or showering unless from rainwater heated renewably.
3. Freedom from Consumerism and media. No shopping, banking, television, radio, mp3, cell phone, land line phone, computer, or printed media usage.

This action developed out of a group discussion on the celsias.com thread started by John P. called “Can our economy grow forever?”. Everyone who commented on that thread has contributed to it’s development.

Yikes! consuming again - by Robb

It has been a long time, months, since I have bought anything other than used clothes, used books, biodiesel for the van (made from recycled veggie oil of course) or food. Today Jacqui, that's my wife, and I drove the van, another unusual occurence, to the DIY shop and bought 5 tubes of silicone sealant, 4 cans of spray foam sealant, and some latex gloves. All of this stuff was product from the chemical industry, over packaged, and toxic. It was a weird feeling.

We are finishing a project on the house I started some time ago, insulating and sealing the ground floor. The insulation is made from recycled denim but the sealant and the protective gloves are certainly not sustainable products but are the only cost effective solutions to the problem of cold air ingress from the ventilated unheated cellar into the heated ground floor. This will save energy, obviously, but I wish there was a way to do green renovation work without the use of such nasty stuff. I wish the building had of been built more tightly 100 years ago and that when it was renovated along the way someone had thought of that. But alas, I'm stuck with stepping back on the treadmill again.

If this bugs me I dread how I'll react when I fly back to the US to see my family this winter, love miles.....ouch! Can't live with em, can't live without em.

I first heard the term "love miles" from George Monbiot. For a good read see Mr. Monbiot's fascinating essays on flying entitled "Travelling Light" and We are All Killers