Discuss: Altar Call for True Believers

I.  Making the case for a reduction in absolute global human population numbers.

2007 World Population Data:

http://www.prb.org/pdf07/07WPDS_Eng.pdf

II. Making the case for a reduction in per human consumption of limited resources.

The Wealth Report: Living Large While Being Green —- Rich Buy ‘Offsets’ For Wasteful Ways; Noble, or Guilt Fee?

24 August 2007

The Wall Street Journal

It’s not easy being green — especially if you’re rich.
With their growing fleets of yachts, jets and cars, and their sprawling estates, today’s outsized wealthy have also become outsized polluters. There are now 10,000 private jets swarming American skies, all burning more than 15 times as much fuel per passenger as commercial planes. The summer seas are increasingly crowded with megayachts swallowing up to 80 gallons of fuel an hour.

Yet with the green movement in vogue, the rich are looking for ways to compensate for their carbon-dioxide generation, which is linked to global warming, without crimping their style. Some are buying carbon “offsets” for their private-jet flights, which help fund alternate-energy technologies such as windmills, or carbon dioxide-eating greenery such as trees. Others are installing ocean-monitoring equipment on their yachts. And a few are building green-certified mansions, complete with solar-heated indoor swimming pools.

Some people say the measures are a noble effort on the part of the wealthy to improve the environment. Eric Carlson, executive director and founder of the Carbon Fund, a nonprofit that works with companies and individuals to offset emissions, says the wealthy are taking the lead in alternative-energy markets such as solar technologies just as they take the lead in consumer markets.

“Obviously these people have different lifestyles from yours or mine,” Mr. Carlson says. “At the same time, they’re not obligated to do anything. We praise those who are doing things. We’re trying to get to a market where the superwealthy are leaders in reducing their [carbon dioxide] footprint and playing a major role in changing this market.”

Others say the efforts are little more than window-dressing, designed to ease the guilt of the wealthy or boost their status among an increasingly green elite. Environmentalists say that if the rich really wanted to help the environment, they would stop flying on private jets, live in smaller homes, and buy kayaks instead of yachts.

“Carbon offsets and these other things are feel-good solutions,” says Lester Brown, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute. “I’m always interested in people who buy a carbon offset for their jet to fly between their four big homes. These kinds of programs postpone more meaningful action.”

Either way, an increasing number of companies are launching programs designed to help the rich live large while staying green. Jets.com, a private jet service, plans to start a program in early September in partnership with the Carbon Fund. After they take a trip, customers will get a statement on their bills telling them how much carbon dioxide their flight emitted and what it would cost to buy offsets from the fund.

The offsets are a bargain compared with the flights: A round-trip private-jet flight between Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Boston costs about $20,000. The offsets for the 13 metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted would cost about $74, the company says.

V1 Jets International, a jet charter company, rolled out its “Green Card” program that it says accentuates “the positive effect your flight emissions will have on the environment.” The company calculates the total emissions from the trip and then buys a carbon offset from the Carbon Fund. “From a jet perspective, we have a responsibility to look after the damage that these planes do,” says Andrew Zarrow, V1’s president. The company also has created technologies designed to make flights more efficient by selling seats on “deadleg” trips — flights that are returning empty from one-way trips.

Yacht companies also are getting into the act. Trinity Yachts, a Gulfport, Miss., builder, this month announced it will pay for part of the cost of installing special oceanographic and atmospheric monitoring systems in all of its new boats.

The system, called the SeaKeeper 1000, measures water temperatures and salinity, as well as air temperature and wind speed. The data are sent to scientists who monitor the earth’s oceans. Trinity’s program is in partnership with International Sea-Keepers, a nonprofit marine conservation group founded by a group of yacht owners concerned about the environment.

“The caliber of client we have is very aware of what’s going on in the environment,” says William S. Smith III, vice president of Trinity Yachts. Still, the system doesn’t reduce emissions from the yachts themselves, which can burn hundreds of gallons of fuel a day.

Some wealthy people are going green with their houses, too. The U.S. Green Building Council has certified at least three mansions for being leaders in environmental design, including one owned by Ted Turner’s daughter, Laura Turner Seydel, and her husband, Rutherford, in Atlanta. The 7,000-square-foot-plus house, called EcoManor, is equipped with 27 photovoltaic panels on the roof, rainwater-collecting tanks for supplying toilet water, and “gray water” systems that use water from the showers and sinks for the lawn and gardens. The top of the house is insulated with a soy-based foam that is more efficient than fiberglass. The home has 40 energy monitors and a switch near the door that turns off every light in the house before the family leaves.

Mr. Seydel says the couple’s energy bill is about half that of comparable homes. While he acknowledges they could have built a slightly smaller house, he said all the space is well used, between kids and visiting friends and in-laws.

“The wealthy have always been the early adapters to technology,” he says. “I’m hoping that we can pave the way and show that you can have something that’s luxurious that also makes a lot of sense from an energy and convenience point of view.”

III. Making the case for a reduction in the seemingly endless economic globalization activities of BIG BUSINESS now overspreading Earth.

In Praise of Mother Nature
By Bret Schulte

Posted 7/15/07

US News & World Report

Science writers generally don’t do whimsy, particularly those who have witnessed the aftermath of Chernobyl or the plundering of Latin America’s resources. But in his provocative new book, The World Without Us, Alan Weisman adds a dash of fiction to his science to address a despairing problem: the planet’s health. Weisman wonders how Earth would fare if people simply disappeared. With help from experts, Weisman discovered that, untended, humanity’s achievements would stand little chance against Mother Nature, even in her weakened state. Sans electric pumps, the New York subway would flood within days. Pretty flowers would quickly crack sidewalks. And the life span of your house? About 50 years. Weisman spoke to U.S. News.

Environmental books are often depressing reads. Does framing a message around a hypothetical make it more approachable?

I would say so. I was looking for some way to seduce readers to keep following along so they could see what is going on in the world and how it all connects. Ultimately, once we take humans out of the picture we see how the rest of nature could flourish. We think, “Wow, if nature could do all that, then is there a way that this could happen that does not depend on our extinction?”

Your book takes us to a 14th-century European hunting preserve and demilitarized zones where nature has a free hand. Were you surprised by what you saw?

It was pretty weird. This fragment of primeval European forest on the Poland-Belarus border literally feels like it’s out of Grimm’s fairy tales. That’s what it looks like, that’s what it sounds like, that’s what it smells like. But the incredible thing is that it doesn’t feel exotic. For someone growing up in Europe or North America, it feels familiar. It feels right.

How did your visit to Chernobyl lead to this book?

I got a call in 2003 from an editor at Discover magazine who read the 1994 story I wrote after the explosion at Chernobyl, where I described how abandoned houses were being taken over by their own landscaping. Roots and trees and even flowers were breaking up sidewalks. A population of radioactive deer kept growing, and radioactive wolves kept coming after them. In 1994, she thought the article was depressing, but as she was editing all these depressing environmental stories, she said it had become one of the most hopeful stories: that no matter how badly we screw up, nature will find a way to overcome it.

What did you take away from these places?

I wasn’t really expecting to realize the history of architecture is kind of like a bell-shaped curve. Our first dwellings were caves, then we started making caves-houses out of rock-and as we got more refined, our buildings grew higher and less permanent. Engineers tell me that our oldest buildings will outlast the newer ones…because we don’t make them the way we used to, out of material from the Earth. The World Trade Center collapsed and St. Paul’s Chapel, which is made out of Manhattan schist, is still standing. Other buildings around the World Trade Center that did not get hit by the airplanes collapsed anyhow.

Is this book a cold splash of water for humanity’s many triumphs?

In some ways it’s a wake-up call, but at the same time humans have done some beautiful things, things you have to admire. One of the surprises for me is coming away with so much respect for the people who maintain our infrastructure. If it wasn’t for these guys keeping the bridges from rusting, or who keep our subway tunnels pumped, or who show up every day at our nuclear plants, stuff would start to disassemble rapidly. We live on the backs of some unsung heroes who are keeping it all together.

Three things: One of them is lovely, the Voyager spacecraft carrying our artwork, our music. I talked to John Lomberg, who put all that together for Carl Sagan, and it was beautiful to talk to someone who thought about what the message to posterity should be. On the darker side: nuclear waste. Depleted uranium has a 4.6 billion-year half-life. The planet is only going to last about 5 billion years before the sun expands. The other thing is plastics. No one really knows how long it will take for plastics to break down because they’re relatively new. Plastic isn’t filling up landfills; it’s blowing into rivers and flowing to the ocean. It’s breathtaking how much plastic we’ve generated.

Your book ends on a controversial note.

I ask: What if we tried one child per family for everyone? I don’t want to deprive people of siblings, but I don’t want to deprive people of species that are wonderful and part of our life. We can’t live without them. If we could bring our numbers down, that would buy us some time to clean up our act.

To expand; I really have only one thing to say - buy less America! Somehow it always seems that to simplify their lives people buy more. How does that work?

To Ms. Rose,

Mr Tyson, (no relation to the turkey factory, I assume)

None! But ah—- might one wish?

Your remarks about “trust fund hippies” shows that you have put me in one
of your standard categories appparently reserved for people who live in the
country.

No, that wasn’t my meaning, I’m sorry that you took it that way. The point I tried to make is that your circumstances, as you describe them, sound unworkable for more than a fortunate few. I’m not gifted in brevity so I hope this condensation clarifies what I had hoped to express. Yes, I enjoy the city life I lead, including the bicycle ride I’m about to take this Sunday morning, far into the mountains to the west. But, and this is the important qualification, I don’t imagine that the life I lead would suit just anyone, either. Again, I hope to make the point that in imagining a better future we would do well to check our models against the relevant pragmatics.

Wallace Stegner’s formulation about hippies came to mind simply because it expresses (for me) the disconnect between that era’s ‘flowery’ public image, and the difficult underlying realities. Again I’m sorry if this rubbed against you, personally. My mother’s ‘no visible means of support’ remark also fits. ‘Hippies’ largely represented an affluent, well-educated, White American social stratum who had the means to drop out. (I didn’t, quite. I worked, to get through college.) So it is with country living, I fear. The idyllic setting and free-time lifestyle are American ideals, but in almost every case I can think of when you scratch the surface you discover exceptional if not truly extraordinary circumstances that have made this or that individual’s country haven possible. My intent was only to point out that, good as this may be as a non-impactful, if not truly sustainable, way of life, it is probably not a good model for widespread adoption, simply because it will not be possible to scale up the model, against pragmatic limits.

My family has a cabin at high elevation in the California Sierra Nevada. It is off the grid, has a pit toilet that has served with no need of service for twenty years, and returns no effluvia to the terrain or ground water. It can be heated with wood dragged in from forest deadfall without showing a trace, but that is true only because there are so few cabins there, and so vast a forest nearby.

But this cabin is a very poor ‘model’ or ‘example’ for something as huge as what Ms. Ray points to in her article. Everything about the place is un-ordinary and not scalable. The carrying capacity of that brittle subalpine or subarctic mountain environment is small, and—if you will note above, I wrote ‘has’ with respect to the issue of possession, and ‘can be’ for that of obtaining fuel for heating and cooking. Ours is a US Forest Service lease site, not ‘real property’. And we usually purchase firewood which is delivered by motor vehicle. As much as I am grateful for the place, I keep in mind that we are stewards of something, there, in keeping with a profound privilege that we enjoy.In some sense the ‘style’ in which we occupy the place is a kind of fantasy posturing, no matter how deeply we think we understand what we are doing. Returning to the city, I look around me and search for ‘style’ that brings fantasy as close as possible to ordinary quotidian actualities.

The examples could be multiplied. I did my best, working from the example of Ms. Rose’s and Ms. Ray’s country living experiences, and in relatively few words, to convey some of the practical differences between ‘country living’ and ‘city life’ as we know them.

There is something else that comes through in Ms. Rose’s words, as well as in Ms. Ray’s article. But efore I continue, may I say to Ms. Rose and others, none of this is meant personally, but as self-observation. It is part of us all. I insert here that I’m open to off-list email too, at   lkrndu ‘at’  tiscali.it — my more complete contact info is on my blog and linked pages, if you click on my name at the top of this post.

I am a nurse and have been for over 25 years. In case you don’t
know, it is pretty hard work most of the time. My mother cleaned houses for
a living and saved enough to send me to college. I wanted to point this out
not to chastize you for this categorization but just to point out that all
of us do this.

‘Hard work’ and ‘all of us do this’. I hope I’m included in that number! I write as a former middle school science teacher, speaking of work. So. In the article and these posts, Ms. Rose’s included, I read a tone of stress or anxiety. It’s as if we live in fear we might not be able keep what we’ve earned, what we’ve made. Maybe this manifests greed, the dark side of task, or a losing sight of purpose, the high side of love. Such underlying un-ease might well trigger guilt and shame that cloud our thinking when we approach larger dilemmas.

I know that there are huge contradictions in my life style when it comes to
the environment. I would love to see them clearly and weed them out as much
as I can.

I for one can accept such contradictions, and especially when I know we’re on the same page in our forthrighness as to what’s what. That honesty, and self-acceptance makes going to the next step in exploring options much more fluid and much less personally threatening.

Your city life sounds really good for you. But it too has some
contradictions.

It is and it does. I ‘bragged’ some of the positives earlier. Again, my deeper motive was to suggest that cities allow for a certain critical mass of human energy, fusion power for deeper, better, more finely wrought ideas and institutions. City is society. But if you’d like me to really clog the list, I could go on—and on—about the contradictions, as you say, that I see every day…..  :-)  Italy is ‘late’ in just about everything, not just train arrivals. Even though my washing machine probably uses a fifth the water and electricity of its US counterpart, and zero fossil fuel for the dryer (solar, a line off the back balcony), I have no illusions about where those dead AA batteries really wind up, at least some of the time. Not only does real progress come slowly, the curve is not always upwards, but spiky, seismic.

I worked—hard—as a carpenter building a house. The boss tore us away from our labor at 4:30 sharp every day, put a beer in each of our hands, and said, ‘Now the most important part of the day. Take ten steps back, close your eyes, sip some beer. Turn around and look at what you’ve done.’

Man, I tell you. That made the aching muscles loosen up, the mind fill with what the eyes beheld: progress, something made. And made better than before. Made, and, in the mind’s eye more brightly than before, the vision. The plan of what would become. The next day of work, and the next, until the structure be complete. And we’d move on, to the next.

What is next? And how do you know?

I’m having trouble having much sympathy for Janisse. Sure, it’s great to be self-aware. And yet this self-awareness rings hollow, like my sister-in-law, who very publicly expressed angst over whether to buy her young daughters Barbie(TM) dolls. She ended up buying the damn dolls, and all the rest of it was just wasted breath.

We can all do more, but those who understand this should have a responsibility to actually do more, rather than just talk or write about it. Angst over leg-shaving? Gimme a break!

I’m speaking at a conference (on forming co-operatives) that is 2,000 km away this November. I’d take the train, but it costs more than flying. So we’re taking an extra two weeks, and driving there and back on waste vegetable oil.

It’s not as though just anyone can do this, but people who are supposedly leading the way, who are supposedly inspiring others to do good—these people have a moral imperative to “walk the talk.”

The problems are so deep and intractable that it takes revolutionary action to change them. For example, participation in the economy: most people don’t think they have any choice but to slave for little bits of green paper, because all that they value in life comes from having these little bits of green paper.

How much money is time with your family worth? How much money is food security worth? How much money is energy security worth? How much money is housing security worth?

When Bush was first (s)elected in 2000, I began plans to leave the US. Not out of spite, but out of the feeling that in an “ownership society” country, there was no longer any room for the frugal. My plan was to live simply, but in the US, the only name for that is “poor.”

When the bombs began flying, I vowed to stop supporting the country with my tax dollars—not by being a tax resister and breaking some arbitrary laws that would end up causing me a lot of pain and suffering, but by consciously limiting my income to below the level at which taxes were due.

And guess what—the sky didn’t fall. I’m not shivering and malnourished. We “downsized” our lives, and left the suburbs (see http://www.EscapeFromSuburbia.com) for a place where we could raise more of our food. We stopped eating meat (a huge resource drain), and so have no angst over driving 60 miles for a turkey. We got rid of our gasoline vehicles and began making our own biodiesel from waste cooking oil. And even then, we bike to town and drive under 3,000 miles a year—most of those are “love miles” to visit aging family, rather than running unnecessary errands.

I’m not trying to toot my own horn here. I’m trying to say that it’s too late for “50 simple ways to save the planet.” The simple ways are not enough. It’s time for the activists to really “walk the talk.”

Please forgive me if it seems I’m being too hard on you, Janisse. But if you go speak somewhere, and anyone in the audience is doing better by the earth than you, make it a personal quest to catch up. (If many of the audience are, humbly apologize, return your speaker’s fee, and go home with a vow to do much better!)

And thank you for the small/huge step of requesting your venues use environmentally responsible practices. Perhaps you don’t have enough clout yet to politely insist on such practices; perhaps the next step would be to do so, which may also be a form of voluntary income reduction. :-)

I’m having trouble having much
sympathy for Janisse. Sure, it’s
great to be self-aware.

Exactly. Except that this isn’t self-awareness. It is a not-very-honest self-promotion masquerading as a sham quest for self-knowledge. Worse still, it’s not even FUNNY.

Does the author of the piece ever bother to so much as glance at the—oftimes thoughtful—exchanges her public upchuck has prompted? No, methinks.

...2,000 km away…I’d take the train, but…
we’re taking an extra two weeks, driving
on waste vegetable oil.

A WEEK to…drive…600 miles?? Ah. The New Leisure Class…where do I sign up?

It’s not as though just anyone can do this,

Well, anyone COULD, so long as the supply of veg oil holds out, but when we finally shut down all the McD’s and Burgies—there won’t be enough to go ‘round anymore, now will there? Or does used olive oil count?

but people who are supposedly
leading the way…have a moral imperative
to “walk the talk.”

AND drive the drive, apparently.

The problems are so deep and intractable

So let’s all go home and dowse our next well whilst watching the Apocalypse’ arrival on CNN. Powered by our private windmill.

My plan was to live
simply, but in the US,
the only name for that is “poor.”

Sì. E qui, in Italia? La parola è veramente la stessa: POVERO. Same word, different lingua…hello?

I vowed to stop supporting the
country with my tax dollars ...by
consciously limiting my income
to below the level at which taxes
were due.

That is, by lapsing into poverty…

We “downsized” our lives, and
left the suburbs for a place where
we could raise more of our food.

All fine, and perfect examples of the Stegnerian ‘HOTF’* way of life. Note too that writer’s lifelong concern with the rapacious clear-cut-burn-and-move-on cycle across the North American continent. What’s new, original, or liberated of the same sin, in YOUR migration? What are your ‘connection points’ to Society? And perchance have ya got a wee bit of extra real-estate there for me and my 800 or so nearest neighbors to come join you? Oh—and our dogs including the pair of 160 pound great danes next door, the ear-clipped rottie out back and its best buddy, the three-legged siamese? We’ll leave the flock of pigeons the siamese almost but not quite manages to catch and promise to use only extra-virgin olive oil in OUR ways of doing things.  (/s/ Loyal Oppositionist)

I’m not trying to toot my own
horn here. I’m trying to say that
it’s too late for “50 simple ways
to save the planet.”

Ah. But you are, exactly. And what’s wrong with ‘simple’ ways? Good places to start, points of entry to get under some of the edges of ingrained habit. I seem to recall a time—oh, waaay back in the last century—when people posted little signs above their toilets:

‘If it’s brown
flush it down
If it’s yellow
let it mellow’

Saved water, that simple thing did. It did.

It’s time for the activists to “walk the talk.”

And? We should follow you, out into the hinterland, the scrubbrush-scape of nary-a-connected-thought, let alone social, political, scientific, managerial, or MORAL co-involvement with daily life?

Please forgive me if it seems I’m being too hard
on you, Janisse.

We forgive you. You’re going too easy on Janisse, and in general, so this writer is endeavoring to take up some of the slack. (Wooo! This is FUNNN!)

And thank you for the small/huge step of…
perhaps the next step would
be…voluntary income reduction.

Hello? You mean we’re forgetting the whole sweep of capitalist economic reality? The time-value of money? The power of leverage? Y’know kiddies, back to Econ 1 and noting that there IS a dark side—sub-prime lending jumps immediately to mind for some reason—AND a high side.

Those of you who HAVE fled the cities and ‘burbs have already taken advantage of this, for better of for worse: you have invested yourselves, and, presumably, your capital (yes, in the money-meaning) in a new way of life. We each have some leeway to do that. If there is room for argument (there is, from this perspective) then there SHOULD be hard questions asked with respect to any proposed ‘solution’, and especially of the status-quo.

But remember to separate the factual elements of what-is, from the forces and principles at work behind them. Behavior and above all reason may redirect the latter to new outcomes, even if it won’t (and can’t) change the present state of the former. Here’s a fact: the vast majority of the people on the earth dwell in cities. And another: that majority is increasing and will continue to increase.

Hello, again?

*HOTF is Hippies On Trust Funds. Poor Stegner. May he rest in peace…

To Orion Magazine,
I am the global warming scientist friend who doubted the effectiveness of buying a hybrid car alluded to in Janisse Ray’s September/October 2007 Orion article on page 3, column 2, 2nd paragraph. 

Dear Janisse,

While I agree with the overall premise of your Orion article, In my opinion, “hypocritical” as used to describe the choir’s actions is a discouraging word.  In my opinion, the tone of your article is not likely to promote the change of behavior we would all like to see. 

And one thing about scientists, even those of us who investigate climate change, we are naturally skeptical.

I have had bad luck with batteries of all kinds.  I use them a lot at work, and they don’t seem to last too long for me.  When we chose to buy our 2nd hand Toyota Echo, 5 years ago instead of a hybrid (the devout thing to do), it was in part because I didn’t know, (and I still don’t) how long those big hybrid batteries last.  Nor have I seen any information about the environmental cost of producing those batteries in terms of mining, fossil fuels and environmental damage.  So we bought a used Echo that gets 35 to 38 mpg—different from what you implied.  Is it that much worse to have a car that gets 10-15 mpg less than yours but doesn’t have a battery?  Also the Echo is simpler, 30% less parts than a hybrid, and is less to keep up. 

I think that the “choir” needs the freedom to take the actions that it deems best and be subjected to encouragement, not criticism. For example, this year we added roofing insulation and thermal windows.  We could have bought a hybrid with these funds but what is the environmental cost of a new Japanese car vis a vis keeping the 2001 echo?  What exactly is the “best” action?  Who gets to say?

Things are not always as simple as they seem.  Case in point is the recent analysis that found that due to differences in farming practices it is less environmentally damaging for the British to eat mutton shipped from New Zealand rather than locally grown mutton. 

Sure we can all do better, but in my opinion, the tone of your article does more to shame and discourage the converted rather than to encourage them.  The tone is, “its just never enough, is it”?? 

Trying to wean ourselves to a lower fossil fuel diet is like being on a low-calorie diet.  It is very difficult to say no to the many temptations offered by our industrial society.  It is hard not to eat that brownie on the table at the Janisse Ray event.  But compassion and encouragement rather than shaming is a better approach to offer to those of us faced with trying to fend of middle aged spread in addition to excess fossil fuel consumption. 

your scientist friend.

Jeff Chanton

“Should enviros be eschewing travel and canceling conferences?” Yes - If travel is incongruent with one’s talk - localize the talk. Here’s a contradiction: Why is travel to exotic places a regular feature in the Sierra Club magazine?

“Is the path to a greener world a narrow one that demands saying “no” to many of the goods and comforts to which we’re accustomed?” I suppose one can always question what they are “accustomed” to. It depends on the willingness to explore the “unaccustomed.” There was a time when much of what we are now accustomed to, was not a custom. SUVs, automatic dishwashers , bottled water, fast food….etc.

“Or is it better to consume some resources in the service of a larger battle?” I guess this question really boils down to defining service and battle. “war talk” Dropping the A-Bomb was justified in the service of a battle. Everyone finds a way to justify anything and it’s always to serve what one believes is true.

21 SOLUTIONS? to Save the World………

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3783