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Global Warning - Jul 30, 2005 - Printable Version
- So You Say You Want a Revolution? We all Want to Change the World
by Robin Buckallew
I lay awake in the early morning, listening to the muted hum of the air conditioner, feeling the soft, cool, comfortable breeze playing over me as I slowly awoke. I lay there quietly in the early morning light, letting the thoughts play through my mind, and contemplating the myriad of challenges that confront me each day. As usual on such a morning, one of the first thoughts to confront my sleep-addled mind was "why in the world does the neighbor have the air conditioner on when it is only 64 degrees outside?" Through my open window, I could hear the air conditioner work non-stop, and I spent a few precious moments thought wondering just how low the thermostat had to be set to keep it in constant labor on such a cool morning. All around, on every side of me, air conditioners filled the morning air with sound, doing their level best to outcompete the chirping birds and the whirring insects. This is the same symphony that greets me every morning from April to October, at which time the air conditioners retire, beat a retreat in the face of the muscle of the ever-present heater, determined to defeat the "chill" of air that is still much warmer than the summer air conditioning temperature. Frankly, it gives me the creeps. For those of you who read my last column, I briefly touched on some of the reasons that I feel we are out of touch with the rest of the world where the environment is concerned. Not the least of the things that keep us out of the loop is our overweening concern with our creature comforts, not to mention our ever larger, ever more expensive, ever more disposable toys. This column, I intend to address some of the things that we, as average citizens, can do to attempt to push our country back in the direction of developing increasing sustainability. Our government isn't listening to our environmental groups anymore, and the environmental movement has been declared (prematurely) dead. It is up to you and me to revive it, and make the government sit up and take notice. After all, they work for us.
I wish I could tell you I'm not going to start off by being silly and obvious, but I can't tell you that, because I am. Step number one: VOTE. Silly? Yes. Obvious? Yes. So, why are voter turnouts so low? There are many reasons, and many excuses. Reasons include ridiculously long voter lines, the need to take off work when you don't have any leave (hourly employees particularly have difficulty with this) and difficulty of access to out-of-the-way polling places in low-income neighborhoods. Excuses are even more common, but mostly boil down to two biggies: lack of choice among candidates, and feeling that your vote won't make any difference anyway. In 2000, I heard it repeated ad nauseum: there was no difference between the candidates, so there was no reason to vote. Without going through the usual exercises to demonstrate that there were indeed some significant differences among the two main candidates, I will dismiss that excuse with a giant snort. In 2000, the political spectrum ranged from Ralph Nader through Al Gore and George W. Bush all the way to Harry Browne and Pat Buchanan. If you are trying to tell me there is no difference in that slate of candidates, you haven't done your homework. The slate for 2004 was similar. So what if voting for a third party candidate seems futile? Not voting at all is even more futile. At least if you vote for Nader or Buchanan, you have made your voice heard. You haven't wasted your vote, you've used it to express your opinion. And here's a shocker: the amount of people that didn't vote in 2000 could possibly have sent one of these men to the White House. Feeling ashamed yet? You had the choice, you simply didn't exercise it. Your vote doesn't make a difference? No, singly it probably won't change the outcome (though some local elections have been decided nearly that closely); but since there are so many out there choosing not to vote, the vote you are casting is saying, "I don't give a damn what you do to me, what you do to the country. Do what you will, I don't have an opinion. I don't care". And the candidates we continue to get are the candidates that we deserve. You think we can't make a difference? The fundamentalist religious right is a minority in this country - at best 20% of the adult voting population. They have swung the political spectrum in their favor. The last two elections were close, decided by small vote margins.
Now that we're past the silly and the obvious, that which is taught to you in junior high, we can move on to specifics. My correspondent who inspired the last column had a second part to his question: what can we do to influence policy? The environmental community has a slogan, a nice soundbite to address just that issue: Think globally, act locally. But just looking at this soundbite tells us nothing. Act locally - what the faulk does that mean, anyway? Hmmm - according to American Heritage Dictionary: act n. the process of doing or performing something; local adj. of or pertaining to a particular place; not broad or general, not widespread. Seems clear enough. We need to do something, and we need to do it at home. (Great, seems easy enough. Hand me the remote control, I'm going to start zapping!) Whoa, not so fast. When I said act, I meant something more than just flicking the wrist. I meant involvement. Commitment. Bravery.
For the past 30 years, a great deal of environmental policy has been implemented. Regulations have been put into place to protect our water, our air, our soil, our food, our endangered species, and hopefully, our health. This has been one of the most successful approaches to environmental protection worldwide, now we are being urged to drop this technique in favor of something known as "voluntary compliance". This is the idea that the companies, if told they are doing things that aren't healthful or sustainable, should have the choice of whether or not to comply with basic principles of environmentally sound practices. The assumption is, if you give them the option, they will choose to do the right thing. They will be good citizens of the global community. There is only one problem. The reason we had to implement regulations in the first place was the lack of environmental citizenship from industry. Now we are told that things are different, there is more information out there, the companies know better what is necessary, and are eager to be on board. How true is that? Let's look at just two states: California and Texas, the two largest states in the contiguous US. Both states are heavily industrialized; both states are heavily populated. Both states have suffered immensely from poor air quality. California is backward-looking, approaching the problem with regulation; forward-looking, progressive Texas has reduced regulations in favor of voluntary compliance programs. Pop quiz: Which state has the city with the dirtiest air in the country? Which state has recently had one of its dirty air cities removed from the list of cities that don't meet clean air standards? The answers: Houston, TX has the distinction of having the dirtiest air in the country. San Diego, CA was recently removed from the EPAs list of cities that cannot meet clean air standards (a monumental achievement, to be sure). Texas has widely touted its voluntary program, giving many Governor's awards to companies that have committed themselves to working for clean air, and voluntarily following more sustainable practices. There's only one catch: the awards were given to companies simply for making the commitment; many of them never followed through. But now they get to list themselves as being committed to clean air, clean water, etc., and can get lots of PR from their award from the governor. Regulations work. We should not rush to abandon them.
Now, what can we do? You've been writing your Congressmen, you've e-mailed the President, you've signed petitions, and still Congress continues to pass bills diminishing the environmental protections. You donate to the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, and you put your recycling bin by the curb. Now it's time for the hard part. For the past three decades, we have been handing most of the environmental work to a handful of large, national organizations who have devoted their entire life and fortune to resolving this problem. They lobby Congress, they restore wildlands, they make TV commercials, and we know they do good work. After all, we get regular letters in our mail from them telling us they do good work. We're proud of them. What more do we need to do? Simple: put down your checkbook, roll up your sleeves, and get ready to get dirty. We all need to be in this fight, and quit leaving it to the overburdened, underfunded national environmental groups. This fight needs to be brought right into our backyards, and we need to influence policy at home. For the past three decades, most of the major work has been focused nationally. The states were often at odds with the environmental movement, fearing that any regulations, any protections would limit their ability to compete with other states in the battle to attract business and industry. The corporations have happily set states against each other, seeing who will lower the bar the furthest, and then siting their company where they intended to site it, anyway. So, the federal government has been the mainstay, setting a minimum standard below which no state could fall. We have relied on the federal government to do what the states couldn't (or wouldn't). It has been difficult to shift that focus, but it appears that at this time, this has to happen. The federal government is no longer accessible. They are no longer allies. The states have become the haven that many are now looking at. But perhaps there is still another level. Many of us live in cities, towns, or villages. Our municipalities are the first order of business for most of us. If you are busy, have a family or a job, commitments in your local community, you can't just pick up and run off to Washington D.C. every time a bill is being debated. You don't have the money, the time or the training (not to mention the clout) to begin lobbying federal representatives. So, you lobby your neighbors. Start at home. Many of the most daring, bold innovations these days are happening at the levels of cities. So, start of by going to your City Council meetings. Take a handful of friends along. Chances are, you'll outnumber nearly everyone else there. Don't be afraid to ask questions, speak up. Find out what your City Council is up to, and learn how it affects you. Then, after you know what proposals they are considering, research them. Do they want a new landfill? Check out the site they are considering. Check out the companies that are bidding. Make sure you have all the knowledge you can get. This doesn't require a degree in science, in fact, it doesn't require a degree in anything. But if you feel incapable of expressing yourself well, make friends with others locally who are better speakers or who have the necessary expertise to work their way through the most complicated arguments for and against the proposal. Many people who have made big differences have started from no more knowledge base than you have now - maybe not even as much. They have learned rapidly, and focused their energies. Lois Gibb was not anyone that much different than the rest of us - an average, everyday homemaker who just happened to find out she was living next door to a toxic waste site charmingly called Love Canal. The rest is history. She put down the cookie sheet, and began tirelessly advocating. The nation noticed. Congress noticed. The President noticed. Eventually, laws changed.
Suppose you don't make a difference. You attend City Council, you speak up, you present facts and figures, and they still take that idiotic action you were set against. You fume and stomp your feet, you pronounce them all corrupt, and you go back to your home and start yelling at your TV every night during the news. Well, okay, that might work for a couple of days. But that really isn't the answer. There is a better one. Declare your candidacy for the City Council, and run a good campaign. Urge your friends and neighbors to stand for a difference, and vote for you. Most people scoff at the idea of entering politics, but the City Council isn't like becoming President. Nobody knows you, you say? Well, how many people do you think knew your current City Council members before they announced their candidacy? In fact, how many people do you think know them now? They are your neighbors. They are not mysterious, specially endowed or specially selected people sent from on high. Chances are, they decided to run for office the same way - because something annoyed them so much they wanted to have a say. And there they are, and there you could be.
Suppose you don't really want to do the political thing, you think that's a great idea, but it isn't who you are. Is there nothing you can do? Of course there is. Again, to be obvious and silly: write letters. Write letters to your representatives. Phone up EVERY TIME there is a bill being considered that you are interested in (this isn't easy - there are hundreds of bills every session - but with enough dedication you can find out about those you are interested in). Talk to your friends and neighbors, and get them to call or write. Write your local newspaper. If you live in a state that has initiative, write your own policy, get it on the ballot, and get people to support you. This will be hard work, as many of the policies you will be interested in passing will have people who are equally interested in seeing that they don't pass. They may be better funded. They may have more clout. You may find yourself frazzled and frayed by the battle, and by trying to round up funding from other interested people. Many doors may slam in your face, and you may suffer personal attacks on your character. Think you have no skeletons in your closet? Begin working on something like this - you'll be surprised at what comes out. Even those "skeletons" that have been in plain sight for years will be found and dug out, so be sure you have a great support group and that your family and friends will stand by you. This is the part where you will need courage. Take heart - many such battles in recent years have ended in a surprise victory for the underdog, the ordinary citizen, against industry. Not all, by any means, but a surprisingly large number.
Of course, there is one thing you can do without getting politically involved. You can recognize that your every action counts as a vote. With every purchase you are making a statement. Every time you fill your car with gas, you are voting for more roads and against mass transit. You are voting for the war in Iraq, oil slicks and the executions in Nigeria on behalf of Shell. Every time you shop at Wal-Mart you are voting in favor of sweatshop labor and offshoring of jobs. Every time you buy meat at the grocery store, you are voting in favor of factory hog farms or corporate agri-business. With every dollar spent, you are casting a vote for what you want, and how you want it. Our commercial habits are sending a message, loud and clear, to Washington and to Wall Street - keep the status quo coming, and give us a lot more of the same! This is a particularly difficult thing for most people, because it involves rethinking a whole lifetime of habits that we really don't think too much about any more. Many of our buying patterns are routine, and we don't stop to think about the purchases we make. Once we do, and we start researching, we realize some shocking things. I don't want my chocolate habits to support cigarette companies. I don't want to buy coffee that causes destruction of the rain forests and hastens global warming. I don't want McDonalds or Wal-Mart or Disney or Clear Channel to get the message that I want what they want. But every time I buy their products, that is exactly the message they get. So now, I try to think about such things. I choose one thing at a time and work on that habit. Once I have consciously changed my buying habits on that thing, and the better habit is second nature to me, I begin to work on another. It's much less overwhelming than trying to change it all at once.
In recent months, I have heard a great many protest songs being sung. I have seen the words of protest songs old and new posted regularly on the Internet. Now I am going to say to you, and to your friends - forget it. It isn't the songs, and it never was. All the changes that we have seen in the world, all the changes that came out of the various movements of the 1960s and 70s, had nothing to do with the songs. The songs were merely a form of communication, a morale builder. The real changes came only because of the bodies. The bodies at Kent State. The bodies of the slain civil rights workers in Mississippi. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. John and Robert Kennedy. Flag-draped coffins returning from Vietnam. Black bodies hanging from trees in the Deep South. People put their bodies on the line, they risked everything. Sometimes they lost. Eventually, all these bodies were too much to bear, and things began to change. Now, we have the backlash, and we are losing all that we gained to the corruption of big money and big business. Now is not the time to clothe ourselves in comfort, to hide our heads from truth, and to sit back and let someone else do all the work and take all the risks. We have to take a stand, and commit ourselves to what we believe in. But please, I beg you, be careful. This time, let's make the difference with living, breathing bodies. How much better for us all to be together at the end in one helluva big victory party, not a wake.
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