Mr. ReddHedd and I were watching the 1000 Places You Should See Before You Die show on the Travel Channel the other day. This particular episode was set in Australia, and what struck me — beyond the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef from the air — was how much concern all the Aussies had for environmental issues. Tour guides, forest rangers, sure…but also the guy who walked with the show’s couple to the top of the Sydney harbor bridge, folks at the beach, you name it.
I always feel like I know so little about the rest of the world from my little perch in West Virginia — never more so, though, when I see how other nations are addressing environmental issues in a much more proactive way. The more I have thought about this, the more I wonder why it is that we are so damned hard-headed in this country about environmental issues. Sure, I know there are corporate pressures and a President who has a cozy relationship with the oil industry, among a whole lot of other factors…but honestly, shouldn’t we wake the hell up at some point?
Maybe it is that Australia, as an island continent, surely feels the impact a lot more urgently than we have — but we have coastlines, too. But the island nations across the South Pacific and Micronesia have been dealing head-on with the impact from rising seas the last few years — and they have been shouting warnings to the rest ofus that we truly ought to start heeding.
Of course, they’ve had to deal with the ozone issue, too, and have been urging everyone to wear good sunscreen for ages, so perhaps it is that the Aussies have just been on the edge of the wave (so to speak) of environmental damage and its day to day impact.
Whatever the cause, I thought a regular conversation on environmental issues would be a great idea for all of us. And I wanted to open the floor to whatever is on your mind with regard to the environment. n=1 has been talking quite a bit about the potential for a flu pandemic — a subject about which I would like to know much more. Kirk Murphy has been chatting about organic food standards, something that we all ought to care about — but with all the conflicting information swirling around from all sides on this, it can be tough to understand what is and isn’t safe for you to eat. We’ve talked about bee colony decimation – and recently, I heard about a professor at WVU who has found some intriguing information about some causation possibilities for this, and a possible solution (with whom I have worked, by the way, in the past on a criminal case, and I happen to know he’s been working on this bee issue for ages — and he’s a great guy to boot).
There is a lot at stake with every choice we make — from working on better renewable energy sources to green housing to recycling to making better choices from the get go. I thought we could all talk a little about that today and see where that takes us down the road.
In the meantime, enjoy some clips from a wonderful Miyazaki film — Princess Mononoke. The music alone is worth it. But the message regarding the choices we make, and their long-term impact on the world around us, is worth the watching and the thinking.
Related posts:
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search
where’s dakine?
Elliott @ 1
Moving slowly today. ;})
I don’t know if our planet can take another year and a half of Bushthink. I hope there is some serious discussion about what we can do this summer at YK2.
We have to be exteremly careful even close to home Christy. One of the things that scares the bejaybus out of me with this push on for “liquid coal” is how the coal companies will use it as another excuse for their mountain top stripping mines. I know they are doing that cr*p in eastern Kentucky and the current governor is quite complicit (as are the senators and representatives). And this is after all the land devestation out in the western part of the state with Mr Peabody’s strip mines and the “world’s largest shovel.”
Given the number of towns that have totally fouled water supplies, I am just dumbfounded at how willingly the politicians and powers that be at all levels sell out the future.
Loo Hoo. @ 3
planet will be fine — life is hardy and it’d be really hard to kill it *all* off. And we’re not in any particular danger of blowing the planet up itself. (I think I know what you’re saying, just wanting to be clear about where the danger is.)
Where we are in danger is of radical changes to the basis of our life. A mass extinction event would leave us all in some deep trouble.
People just want a sustainable environment.
Hi CHS, I’m about to walk almost a mile to the grocery store. I moved from NYC to Columbus a year and a half ago, but I still haven’t bought a car.
Funny, how things are in Columbus, OH. Everybody drives everywhere. Some streets don’t even have sidewalks. And I regularly have to jump out of the way/be aware that just because you have a walk sign, does not mean you can safely walk. Right on red is prevalent, and many people just look to see if cars are coming from the other direction before they stephon degas to make the Van Gogh.
Where I work people tend to be Republicans (commercial mortgage banking company). They tend to be (sardonically) proud of the fact that not much recycling goes on here.
“That’s why we’ve got landfills!”
Oh boy, big wildfire here in North San Diego County. Winds too.
to respond directly to Christy’s questions, one of the images I hold when trying to understand this all is that the planet has transitioned to being a garden. We’re actually responsible for the whole thing now just like I’m responsible for the state of my garden. Sure, we’ve got a patch of wilderness in the back where some foxes live and we don’t spend much time, but that doesn’t mean our property is “wild”.
And the planet’s in the same state now … we’re the gardeners and it’s up to us to take care of it. If I dump the oil from my last oil change out front, I’m not gonna get much corn out of there next year … And I ain’t go no one but myself to blame …
Here in Vermont, we’ve got a great environmental bill that passed the house and senate but our governor vetoed it because it removes a sweetheart deal he made with our local nuclear plant, bringing their taxation up to the same level as other energy companies.
Rat-bastard.
Right now there’s a push to override the veto, but it’s going to be a close call, even with strong majorities in both the house and senate.
And now we’ve got people claiming that nuclear power is great because it doesn’t cause global warming.
Rat-bastards.
–julie
That’s a fascinating article about Dr. Armine that you linked to, Christy, using the wisdom from the ages to help effectively, hopefully, solve the problem. Thanks.
I blame Katrina.
Julie Waters @ 10
Julie,
I agree with your perspective on nuclear power with one caveat. Or maybe a couple of caveats. IF (very big IF) they can develop a way to clean up nuclear waste and make it non-toxic then MAYBE plants could be built with a whole lot of other restrictions on locations fail safes, etc.
Given that there’s not much chance of any of that happening…
A headline with a little something for everyone…
Tribes learn of grave desecration during 1990 logging near Cheney
GHWB no doubt…
What are your thoughts about peak oil? Please read this article that appeared in The Inderpendent two days ago: World oil supplies are set to run out faster than expected, warn scientists
Hey Christy–I was in Australia a couple of years ago to give a speech on nanotechnology and healthcare. Trying to notice what might fit as an icebreaker, I was stunned to find that my upscale hotel toilet didn’t have a flush lever like the ones we’re used to in the States, but two buttons on top — two: one for a “half flush” and another for a “full flush.” It seems that the Ozzies are desperately (and appropriately) afraid of running out of fresh water. They are completely surrounded by salty water that wants to encroach on their water table and they have relatively little capacity to produce fresh water naturally. As it turns out, nanotechnology offers several approaches that could ultimately solve the problem; but they probably have to hold-out for several decades for any of the nanoapproaches to bear fruit. So, one reason they’re more sensitive to environmental issues is that they are in a more perilous position than we. (Of course, they’re also somewhat less tolerant of abject idiots who run for office.)
I think reading Jared Diamond’s Collapse will tell you a lot about why Australians are more aware of environmnental issues than we are. While parts of it are beautiful, much of the country is difficult to live in and has a very fragile ecosystem. Rabbits have been an ecological disaster there, as has the disappearance of the predator species and the resultant population explosion of kangaroos. The farmland, as Dr. Diamond describes it, was “mined”, the topsoil is largely gone in many farming areas, and there isn’t enough soil being built up naturally to replace it.
We’ve been blessed with a continent that has pretty much supported our needs. When it hasn’t, we’ve had the technological means to change it. When that situation changes, I suspect attitudes will change. At least, I hope so.
Former Bush Aide Fights Nickname: Gov. Privatize
Solving problems this way just creates more problems for them to solve the same old way…
Christy, I went back and read the report from Media matters you referenced the other day, and even though this is a little off topic, I really must link to it: The Progressive majority – conservative America is a myth
It is a must read. Very solid report and well documented.
I blame Reagan.
Reagan’s revolution was to knock the pride out of the average person and set the culture of celebrity and dollar worship to full tilt boogie mode. Consumerism, not citizenship, became the new raison d’etre; the quantity of a person’s portfolio, not the quality of a person’s ideas, became the measure of a human being’s value.
Regular people get the message: shut up and buy this, shut up and donate to this, shut up and vote for this, shut up and watch this. There are people who count, and there are people who don’t count.
We also get the message that we are not worthy. How dare you expect to be paid $400 to drop all your other appointments and give one person a hair cut? That is the underlying assumption in the smug John Edwards haircut “controversy” that only people who make amazingly more than $400 a day seem to care about.
We Americans are not expected to think. We are expected to watch. Even in “town hall meetings” when a regular person asks an unacceptable question, everybody gets nervous until it’s over with.
What has this to do with detachment from the environment? I think everything. Aristocratic thinking instills a sense of unworthiness in the non-aristocrat. With that comes the sense of disability, of powerlessness.
It isn’t that Americans don’t care about things like the environment. It’s that we don’t believe in things like our own power.
Loo Hoo. @ 8
Oh dear do keep us posted and stay safe and if you have to evaculate promise you won’t wait as long as that rascal daredevil Howie did when the LA hills wildfire kept moving on nearer and nearer to his home. ;~)
neokneme @ 12
Please don’t blame me (Katrina is my first name!).
Gore.
sofistic @ 19
Here are some other HUGE myths about corporate crime.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 23
I second the nomination!
I’m going to be involved at the local level with land and watershed preservation. At the end of this month I’m meeting with the director of a local organization that is very well know in the environmental community, and now they want to become a household name. I’m going to be doing their marketing so to speak.
The first thing I’m going to propose is developing a relationship with the local independent chefs who have an established relationship with the local organic farmers. There’s a Farm to Fork event the chef’s are sponsoring, and I want the land trust group to be involved with the local restaurants that week and introduce themselves. There’s a common goal running between the land preservation group, the local chefs who source their supplies locally and the organic farmers.
This is a first step since they want to go mainstream, and let’s face it, dining is. I’m going to use the event feature on Facebook to see what kind of results a listed event gets. It would broaden the appeal for the land preservation group and the chef’s beyond their e-mail lists. It will be interesting to see the results of this. I told Pach I would share the results of this with him.
On a more serious note than my reply to neokneme…
I firmly believe that every little bit helps while we are prodding the rest of the country to wake up to the need for sustainability. I’m trying to change my habits whenever possible. My current thing is (and don’t laugh, I am the Mom of a four year old) to reduce my use of ziploc bags. I had gotten in the habit of using them for everything, especially when cooking. They really do make the best marinating bags. Yes, you can wash them, but I am just trying not to use them and use things I can wash easily instead. Makes packing lunches, snacks, etc. a little more time/space consuming, but I try imagining a pile of all the baggies I am not throwing away.
Now I have to find some reusable grocery bags I can really deal with. Any suggestions???
Many of us have been screaming ourselves blue about “ecology” since the sixties.
I just got home from the farmer’s market where I had an extended conversation about the bee colony problem with the family that sells honey. I planned on following up on the latest news, but of course, FDL has the up-to-the-minute scoop!
Thanks Christy!
Oklahoma kiddo @ 23
Hear! Hear! The current issue (May/June) of the Sierra Club magazine has a lovely full page excerpt from former President Al Gore’s fine new book The Assault on Reason that includes a sweet color photograph of this great American. Imagine you can find it online at their site.
What Democrat out there is a real friend to Mother Earth?
Millineryman @ 26
Wow, Millineryman, what a great idea, what a great place to start!
Just for you guys I asked my brother in law about his bee hives, how they’ve been doing this year. They lost 6 out of 7 and they’re not sure why. This is rural Connecticut.
Oh dear moderators – just saw that I neglected to close my ital on my comment at 30. So sorry – don’t know how to fix it. :~(
[My direct apology to Citizen Jane. It is an uncomfortable position to find one’s self in I’m sure…]
An as yet unnamed storm is the subject of this artist’s piece…
The Handwriting on the Road: An Artist Draws the Flood Line
New York Islands indeed…
Woody’s song also has these lyrics..
Mother Earth is telling us she is weary. She wants Gore.
Elliot 32_Thanks, it seems like I’m the common denominator in this tale so I’m going to choose to do something about it.
As an ex-pat Aussie, I can say that the reason Australians are conscious of the environment is because it’s visibly falling to bits around them in a way that even city-dwellers can’t help notice. In fact there’s a whole chapter on Australia in Jared Diamond’s book Collapse.
It’s always been a very dry continent – much of it is desert and what’s arable has always suffered from major droughts every decade or so. Whenever there’s an El Nino in the Pacific, all Australia’s water ends up in California. With global warming, the droughts are getting more frequent to the point where dams supplying major cities can cope only with drastic water use restrictions.
At the same time, unsustainable farming practices such as overuse of artesian water and excessive clearing have lead to huge amounts of farmland being ruined through erosion and salt retention.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 36
She should have been more specific because she got gore — in Iraq.
egregious @ 33
From this Wikipedia entry, it appears that two big causes of honey bee population loss are American foulbrood (AFB), a form of bacteria, and dysentery. Connecticut, with its sometimes harsh winters, might be prone to the latter especially.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D….._honey_bee
Elliott @ 39
Uh, Elliot, that would be the evil Mother Barbara Bush gore in Iraq.
In the article Christy referenced, Professor James Amrine of WVU said he is certain that 70 percent of the CCD is caused by mites and the pathogens they carry.
OfT:
Kagro X at L’Orangerie has a great sum-up of the organizing resolution of the Senate. Might be worth bookmarking for those moments when folks complain “But if we kicked Lieberman out of the party, we’ll lose our Democratic majority and Harry Reid will be Minority Leader.” As many know, that won’t happen. But, RGJoe will remain chair of his current committee, despite his party change.
I thought folks might want an intelligent summary of the possibility of control-change, so future discussions don’t degenerate into “WILL TO!” “WILL NOT!” as they always have the potential to do….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXtUaxvqoAc
Here are some good links to what is happening with forces in the environment…
Solar Monitor
This will become increasingly useful over the next 5 or so years as the Sun’s magnetic field progressively inverts.
World Earthquake Monitor
Hey — new quake off the coast from Jane’s old place…
“Man is faced with an ecological crisis. This crisis has developed as a consequence of increasing mismanagement of the world environment and unrestrained growth of human populations. It not only threatens his chances for achieving an adequate standard of living for the present human population, but also threatens his chances for continued existence as a species.
“The warning signs of this crisis appear in specific problems such as the imbalance of food production and human population growth, the reduction in productivity of major areas of land and water due to pollution and mismanagement, the gradual change of regional and global climates resulting from urban activities and agricultural practices, the destruction of important wildlife species and disturbance of natural biotic communities, and the increase in number of pests and disease organisms…
“At the very least, their existence [these problems] contributes to much of the current political discontent in the world.”
Dynamic Ecology 1973
newspaperbrat @ 41
I
sitstand correctedCujo359 @ 17
There was a report on NPR this morning about how well adapted camels are to Australia, and how some of them have gone “wild” and are thriving. Well, riding a camel is no picnic, but it beats trying to ride a kangaroo. . . .
Bob in HI
Fire’s under control now. Closer than I thought, newspaperbrat. Thanks.
newspaperbrat @ 34
At your service, npb! Italics fixed.
Loo Hoo. @ 49
phew!
Best thing on the environment is that Al Gore’s movie has generated a lot of public interest and conversation. Biggest thing in environmental consciousness since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring?
Bob in HI
http://earthhour.smh.com.au/
2 million people turned off their electricity in Sydney for Earth Hour. There was a 10 % drop in energy consumption.
Will some politicians please translate into votes and hop on it already?????
Mark B is right – water is a big issue downunder. Here is SE Queensland we are down to under 20% capacity in the reservoirs with no relief in sight. The Aussie’s track record on the environment is mixed. PM John Howard like Bush blew off Kyoto and the major export of this country is coal (also its major source of fuel for electric power generation).
The Aussies are also shifting to the big gas guzzler SUVs despite fuel prices that average about 10% higher than California’s (as best I can tell – converting US dollars per US gallon to Aussie dollars per litre makes my head hurt).
The Pacific islands north and east of here are in serious trouble from the sea level rising, some are only a meter or two above sea level and are already suffering saline intrusion into their water tables.
That all said, the Aussies are becoming more environmentally conscious – everyone has “green bags” for shopping to replace plastic, and we are all putting in rain water tanks to supplement the city water.
terri @ 53
Bravo! I wish we could do that here….
….like whenever Bush is on TeeVee.
New Post by Ian
neokneme @ 55
Here is a kid who has Bush down wonderfully though the voice is said to be Will Farrell’s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0PMbpRe208
The bottom line is we are shitting in our mess kit, and we can’t do that for very much longer. That doesn’t mean the Earth will end, however, as the doom and gloom crowd likes to tell you, it just means that the human race’s days on it are numbered – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, not for the planet.
In my honest opinion, as a scientist and an environmentalist, the sooner we go the better. We’ve done little to this planet other than show how fast we can damage it. If we go by cutting our own throats, or by finding other worlds to spread out to, so be it. But the planet cannot sustain the growth of the species at the rate it is growing and the rate it is consuming resources it is now.
Not even alternate energy sources are going to fix that. Don’t forget manufacturing and our disposable society, those have enormous ecological impacts, well beyond day to day energy consumption. The hallmark of the industrial age, the interchangeable part, also led to the throwaway product. We don’t fix anymore, we toss it out and buy a new one.
The bees are like canaries in a mine. They do not thrive in artificial environments crammed altogether and trecked long distances in trucks and then fed artificial food for our pleasure. We have billions and billions here this summer. Christy, I sent you via email some photos a few weeks back of some of them on the wildflowers. They are feeding on all of the wildflowers this year, because we don’t have a drought going on, and they are happily taking baths in the puddles.
I’m so glad we’re going to be talking about this regularly. Thank you Christy, this is vitally important.
I think damage to the earth’s environment is the number one threat facing humanity, and all life on earth. A poster above said, life is tough, it won’t be destroyed, and I believe that’s true; all life will not be destroyed, but life as we know it – fish, insects, birds, bees, mammals, could easily become a part of the past – just like dinosaurs. It’s sad to think that of all the wonderful plants and animals that now flourish, perhaps cockroaches and rats will remain.
I live in a beautiful place (Vermont) where I am reminded every day of the richness and abundance of the natural world. It sickens me that we are destroying it with our greed. I think you have to start with personal decisions: like the ziplock bags, cloth bags for the grocery store, not driving, buying no pesticides, boycotting companies like Kimberly Clark who boast of cutting virgin boreal forests to get ultra soft throw it away kleenex. We need to stop throwing this abundant planet away. We need to care for it.
We each need to start with our own choices, then look around to see what else we can do. Wean yourself off of convenience. Rethink everything. And then, help educate people around you. There is an incredible amount of ignorance and denial out there.
I think your idea about a regular ecological post is a great idea.
Bugboy @ 58
How very Vonnegut of you. Agree.
newtonusr @ 62
We need to realize that we are a product of the earth. We don’t own it. We come from it. We are it. It is us. The sooner human beings stop denying this, and stop creating fantasy explanations regarding our existence, the sooner we’ll have a chance. Native Americans realize this, we immigrants are still so ignorant.
As far as peak oil, I guess it’ll be a good thing when it runs out, seeing as we’ve used oil to cause so much damage. An woman from an environmental group came door to door yesterday and she said that they’re lobbying our governor to reduce CO2 emmisions by 2050. I’m thinking : too late.
Please, President Gore. No time to hang back. You’ve got to step into the fray again. Let us elect you one more time.
I have spent my entire career in environmental law — about 3-1/2 decades now — but for me the issue of the day is pandemic flu preparedness. Or the lack thereof.
Tomorrow (Sunday paper) the Register-Guard newspaper in Eugene, Oregon, is going to publish a long op-ed piece on how pandemic flu plans are either non-existent or not made easily available to the public. As a result, the community cannot know what to expect, cannot offer its own suggestions (such as when and for how long schools should be closed), and does not realize the seriousness enough to do home planning, such as setting aside weeks of food, water, and supplies.
The online version of the Register-Guard comes out about 12 noon on the day of publication, PDT.
carolyn urban @ 64
We’ll all know when President Gore decides to get in – he’ll drop a few lbs. and we begin that day.
LS @ 63
I’m convinced the rejection of evolution and descent of man from apes is part of this denial. How else can you explain the disconnect when they say they “believe” in evolution, but not when it comes to man’s origins?
Fantasy explanations, however, ARE a part of that existence, and we should not deny them. They are not mutually exclusive ideas, it is fear that polarizes the concepts. Even the Native Americans had fantasies of their own.
I’m with you Prof, but clearly we can expect nothing from the government in terms of directions or aid. Everyone needs to inform themselves, try FLU WIKI for a start- and then put some kind of emergency planning and preparation in place for yourself and your family
Bugboy @ 67
Is it possible, and I mean this, that the Fundies hidden secret is that they believe that their Lord will just “heal” the place? We’ll get up one am and it’ll be sweetness and white light?
Bugboy @ 67
Of course they did/do. I just think humans (all humans) active minds can’t handle that they are connected to everything. They always have to create duality. Native Americans do have more of a sense of connectedness and respect for nature, but of course they love their stories too.
Prof @ 65
This is one of those issues that drive you crazy. It’s not preventable, of course, but there are plenty of things that can be done to minimize the impact. As a country, we seem to be going out of our way not to do any of them.
newtonusr @ 69
More likely, they believe they will disappear and all the sinners will be left here to rot in hell. Does that mean they believe earth is a form of hell? Maybe that explains their lack of desire to get real and help the earth.
newtonusr @ 69
One can only imagine what the fundies have talked themselves into. They are not alone, however, the world is stuffed with cultures that have convenient solutions to problems, usually involving the afterlife.
When you accept something, anything, as an article of faith, you enter dangerous territory. Someone needs to keep the sharp objects away from them.
Sounds about in line with the Apocolypse prophecies and the Rapture bit fundies love to rattle on about. Since according to them? After hell on earth for a few centuries, God will show up raise a hand. Then judgement will happen. People get shuttled to their places and the earth gets ‘reborn’ all fresh and new. So the sullying going on now supposedly doesn’t matter.
Nasty concept that.
LS @ 72
Until the blessed moment, though, they have to breathe, too.
newtonusr @ 75
Yeah. They are blessed, and so they’ll have just enough god-given oxygen until they leave and go to their real “shining city on a hill” in outer space or something. :)
It’s unfortunate that religion has almost universally served as an instrument to consolidate power, rather than as a means to bring strength and guidance to society.
We must not confuse the abuse of that power by the Church and its followers with the good works religion has done for mankind, both on a personal and societal level. It provides strength for people who fail to find it within, and it provides aid to those in need.
But it has also provided the means to slaughter untold millions over the ages.
Once again, as a scientist and an environmentalist, I cannot believe that religion would persist if it served no other purpose than to curse man with its trappings.
newtonusr @ 66
Uh, Newtonusr I kinda like the way Gore looks but ya know Tipper will help him slim down in time to travel to Europe to give his acceptance speech when he receives the Nobel Peace Prize in the Fall.
ReElect President Al Gore in 2008! Accept no substitute, lightweight or not. (g)
I don’t know, the minute Al Gore decides to run, he’ll have people telling him what to do. I think he’s happy calling the shots, and he’ll lose that the minute he calls it. He can do more outside the system, which is what he’s proving right now.
Please get off the weight comments, people.
Loo Hoo. @ 49
good to hear ….
Thanks so much, Christy, for mentioning my whining about pandemic flu preparation. One of emptywheel’s blogging compatriots on The Next Hurrah, DemFromCt, is an excellent source for pandemic flu preparation and the blogosphere. He is serving as a guest panelist on the HHS blog Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog. The HHS doesn’t have nay blogging experience, and the bloggers are really putting it to HHS. But it appears to be Katrina all over again, and each and every one of you should be very worried. Flu Wiki is a wonderful group blog which has, in my novice view, sensible and pragmatic planning advice and toolkits.
I took my own blog private yesterday since I’m the target of some hate, but if you email me I’ll be happy to let you into the blog, where I maintain a pretty extensive health resources links list and blog about patient safety and healthcare quality, among other things.
If you can, take a look at the HHS blog and the Flu Wiki blogs and get involved.
Thanks so much for mentioning this! I really appreciate it!
The most effective thing that any of us can do for the environment is to have two or fewer children.
The second-most effective thing is to support education of girls and women, and the ability to control conception, for all women everywhere.
All our environmental problems would be much easier to deal with if there were far fewer humans trying to scratch a living out of this, the only planet we’ve got.
Prof @ 65
That’s good to know – I’ll look for the story. Are you commenting on the HHS Pandemic Flu Leadership blog?
The explanation for America’s blindness to environmental destruction is very simple: Worship of the dollar is our primary value, and all other values are subordinate. From the formation of the colonies to the declaration that all white male property holders are created equal to thousands of southerners defending slavery because abolishing it would endanger a way of life (revenue stream) to the genocide of the native population ’cause they were just using the land for a “game preserve” to the great flight of the privileged from our decaying cities, it’s always been clear that any activity that got in the way of an individual’s chance to “get ahead” was to be viewed with hostility. That attitude has only changed marginally. Our current efforts at environmental protection focus on important but minimally effective (and not-too-inconvenient for our corporate power structure) measures like post-consumer recycling, small increases in home and auto energy efficiency, and carbon credits for airline flights. The astounding environmental destructiveness inherent in our “way of life” remains, challenged only at the margins.
Since no one’s commented on Princess Mononoke, I feel obligated to do so.
It’s a favorite at the Laszlo household.
Haven’t read all the comments yet, but thought I would give my cents worth.
Here is Aus, it is true, we have dual flush toilets(watter is BIG issue here is S.E Queensland), supermarkets encourage ‘green bags’ and are talking about charging for plastic bags. We also have two bins, one for rubbish the other for recyclable stuff(paper,cardboard, glass and plastic bottles). So we are trying.
Our current govt (hopefully changing in elections later this year) wants to spend billions on nuclear power plants (GRRRRRR). Don’t think is is very popular, but they are using climate change as the excuse. I would have thought it made more sense to spend th money on R&D of renewable power that leaves no toxic residue. To me nuclear power only changes one monumental problem (climate change ) for another(waste).
Bugboy @ 79
Bugboy, it pains me to disagree with a scientist, much less fellow activist and firepup but hear me out.
IMHO if Al Gore can be persuaded to run for President he represents the most qualified and experienced and intelligent Commander in Chief to occupy the White House since at least the FDR era.
He has served in the House, the Senate and two Vice Presidential terms. He was elected president and had the cajones (unlike the good Senator Kerrey) to represent We the People all the way to the US Supreme Court to fight for the people’s choice.
Mr. Gore is uniquely qualified to clean up the rat’s nest that has infested our body politic by the current criminal cartel Bush/Cheney have wreaked on We the People at home and abroad. This great American has the intellect, experience and exceptional moral character to choose a cabinet that reflects his character and expertise.
Equally important he is the only qualified potential candidate whom governments and peoples worldwide know and hold in high esteem, respect and trust. In short, he is our last best hope to restore dignity, confidence and peace at home and throughout the world.
Why settle for less when the well being of Mother Earth and all life, great and small are at risk of world wide destruction beyond our worse nightmares.
I’m just sayin’ what is obvious to this ole brat, nothin’ more. Perhaps Rev. Deb or other theologians can address the moral or theological arguments for the debate.
N=1 @ 83
Haven’t done so yet.
If you have a public e-mail address, I’ll send you a copy. Otherwise, link will be up tomorrow.
Prof @ 88
Thanks – I can’t remember if my email is public here or not. I’ll look for the link tomorrow at any rate.
Gore should take more credit for Clinton’s success as a leader because he knew back then that sooner or later someone has to take away the punch bowl.
An environmentally conscious activist like Gore could stand up to Big Energy like no one else if only he could handle a woman for a boss.
Clinton/Gore — ha ha!
Try walking everywhere. People used to do it all the time.
Today is grad day at the University. Being an old recycler and after being reminded by my son of the days when the students left, the dumpsters were full I decidecided to make an inspection. It’s been a decade or more since Iv’e made the dive and let me tell ya, recycling 101 is a failing subject by this generation. Details aside, the programs that have been in place are not decreasing the waste stream, period. ‘Old recyclers never die they just keep diving & diving’.
Did you say pandemic?
How about here, for starters? or here?
DemFromCT @ 92
Great to see you here, Dem! Whew – an expert!
Christy,
How about a twofer? Occasional posts on the environment would be prime, but occasional book salons on the same might be sublime.
Recently I’ve come across two authors whose excellence has been unfortunately overshadowed by the overwhelming PR effort being run by the “Al Gore for President” non-campaign. (I’ve never experienced such hyper-kinetic activism in my life not being married to the idea that someone wants to get back into the seat of power.)
***
The first of these two books, “Hell and High Water” by Joseph Romm is discussed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_and_High_Water
The second, which I was mesmerized by, is “With Speed and Violence” by Fred Pearce, about the mind-boggling potential for “tipping points” controlling the Earth’s climate in the future. http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/for…..re_id=3505
Of course I only make these suggestions because it’s summer… I’m lazy… and I’ve already finished these books.
dakine01 @ 13
How does that differ from any other fuel source? IF they can develop a way to make gasoline use with zero emissions, then MAYBE we wouldn’t need to worry so much about fuel economy, etc.
If nuclear power wants to make nuclear power safe, then they should go ahead and -do- it and then get back to us. In the meantime, we have options for solar, wind and biofuels that some people are using when nuclear power tries to bill itself as a “clean” industry.
I was in Oz twice over the past 30 or so years, once while on R&R from Vietnam, and then a second time when on TDY-temp duty-at an american site near Alice Springs. One thing that I noticed while there-actually very hard not to-was the truly massive numbers of rabbits. This might be somewhat hard to believe, but almost every day/nite people went out with M16’s to go on rabbit hunts, mostly because they were actually getting into rather sensative equipment and destroying it. It is quite an amazing sight to see an area of about a square mile, and seeing nothing but rabbits, no ground, nothing but moving fur. I also spent some time at a station(ranch/farm) in the outback while on R&R, and saw what a real rat infestation was like. There have been some programs about this, and I am sure that somewhere on utube there is a video of it, but to see this, rats everywhere, in the thousands, was unreal. While I saw big rats in Vietnam, those were loners, these rats were small, and in everything. I also seem to recall that cane toads were imported into Oz, and now they too are raising havoc thruout Australia. So the people there have a really good idea what can happen when animals and plants are introduced into an ecosystem. I also saw what can happen when an animal gets introduced by accident, when I was in Guam, they had-and still do have-a huge problem with snakes-there were none in Guam until brought in possibly by cargo ships during WWII. Now the big problem is keeping the snakes off the planes, esp those headed to Hawaii, as there are also no native snakes there. One can also see what happens when snakes-pythons-got out into the everglades-remember the picture of the snake that tried to swallow a gator, that was all over the news. I also remember there being some wild monkeys that live in a swampy area in Florida, they were either released or got loose, and so now Florida has monkeys, and large snakes to compete with the locals.