Off to California
Just a note, I will be gone for the next week or so. I am not sure how much blogging I will be able to do, but I’ll leave it up to my co-bloggers to keep things alive while I am gone.
Have a good week.
-Eric
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on April 28th, 2007 at 12:56 am
The first environmental crisis in American history occurred in the late 1950s and early 1960s when it was discovered that pesticides were contaminating food. To Eric’s point among the earliest to call attention to the problem was a coterie of rich Long Islanders who were raising their own food and incensed that it should be sprayed with DDT by the USDA without their permission. They had ownership of the problem. Had they been the only ones to care, though, the problem would likely not have been much of an issue.
In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, brining the problem to the attention of the wider country. Shortly afterwards, someone asked her – trying to make the political personal, “Well, then, what do you eat, Ms. Carson.†(That’s a paraphrase.) She responded – I paraphrase again – “Poisons, like everyone else.â€
There were no organic grocers at the time. There was no way people could raise all of their own food.
By your logic, then, Eric, nothing should have been done. People were – as you say – “desperate to find ways to be part of the solution†– but what? You couldn’t very well not eat. And yet, the problem did not die.
People put pressure on their elected officials. They wrote their senators, governors, congresscritters, and the USDA. hey formed groups to educate others.
Kennedy appointed a special committee to review the problem. Nixon massively reorganized the federal government, taking oversight of pesticides away from the agencies that were using them and giving them to the EPA as an outside reviewer. Eventually most of the pesticides in use during the two decades after World War II were banned.
As I pointed out before, there are a number of environmental issues that fit this profile. Americans took action – and take action – against deforestation of the jungles, though there is little that they can do in their quotidian lives. (Yes, yes, don’t buy teak, but really now . . .) They worried about overpopulation for a long time, and preservation of lands far from where they lived, and they worry over the shifting baselines†used in ocean science.
I have been accused of suggesting that the world is big and handholds are hard for the individual to find. Good. I think that’s true.
And I think many Americans realize it, too.
Eric, I find your argument,
I think it is counterproductive to your own goals to tell these people this.
These people (myself included) have to believe that we are doing our part. Maybe I am delusional. Maybe all of my efforts are for naught. But, in my head and in my heart, I believe I am making a difference, and I am going to keep on pushing as hard as I can until I feel otherwise.
breathtaking in its hubris. I suspect its worded more strongly than you meant, but before you go into politics you might want to make sure that this never sees the light.
People already know the world is complicated. My lying to them won’t do me any good. And besides, there are things to be done.
on April 28th, 2007 at 12:56 am
So, what’s to be done?
Write your senators and congress critters. Elect the correct people. Make sure friends and family know for whom to vote.
[Gah! Baby waking. This will have to end soon!]
There’s been a tendency on this blog to dismiss this as something other than real activity, which I take to be part of the turn away from politics, the turn inward. This is what I mean by not engaging. All of that fear and concern shouldn’t go into buying the right things. It should go into making sure the right people are in power. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t buy solar panels – we’re starting a fund for them now that we’re homeowners again – but those need to be seen as limited actions, away from the main theater where these issues are decided.
Those concerned about global warming should not be reinventing the wheel. Look. You don’t have to make people feel engaged by getting them to buy the right things. Lots and lots and lots of people are already engaged. They are called environmentalists and they are legion. In fact, I suspect that most of the people who come to this issue are already environmentally concerned. Seems like Liz was. And Dean. Me too.
So then you give people who are already engaged direction. And I think that direction should be outward, away from the home and toward the public sphere. This is positive action, people can feel as though they are making a difference, and it’s real.
There are real issues that need to be addressed. For example, focusing on global warming threatens to fracture some of the democratic coalition – separating the rust belt from affluent coasters. How do we address that problem?
Turning this into a question of public policy also, I think, neutralizes some of politics of resentment. Consider the Hummer example. Admitting that there’s a rational basis for people to drive Hummers means looking at he problem differently. There are three modes of attack. First, one could attack the needs that owning a Hummer fulfills. That’s the method that your shaming follows, Eric. But that seems difficult – addressing long-standing American materialism and class issues is probably more than environmentalists want to tackle. So, instead, look at reducing the problems caused by Hummers – say raising CAFÉ standards – or making the owners pay – with a tax.
The approach doesn’t shame or even prohibit, necessarily. If you want to own a Hummer fine. Just pay for it. And then you can say whatever you want to say, without the rest of society becoming responsible for the costs.
Are there limits and pitfalls to this strategy? Yes. Certainly. One limit I can’t see solving: newspapers tend to focus on high school-level rumor mongering, which feeds into resentment stories such as the one about Gore’s house. How to reform the press? Beats me.
Also, it requires making political activism seem more interesting than shopping. I’m not sure how to this either. It also means reteaching that politics can be influenced. It’s telling that the argument against me – if I can restate it very vulgarly – is that it seems to make more of a difference to buy the right kind bulb from Home Depot than vote. Effecting change against something as massive as global warming seems possible to individuals. But not effecting the political process. Granted. Politics is not easy to change. But if its possible, politicians have tools at their disposal that massively dwarf ours as individual.
There’s still room for moralism here.
Yes, it seems hard to change the world. And it should be. But we’re freaking Americans. We sent men to the moon. We’ve plumbed the oceans. We’ve explored atoms. We can do this, too.
on April 28th, 2007 at 12:59 am
Eric, Word Press ate some of my posts, two that we’re supposed to go between the end of the comments in the last thread — I stopped commenting there because Word Press stopped accepting them — and the two here, where I posted instead.
I look like a schizo!
on April 28th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
To Eric: Slacker! I have it on good authority that the Internet stretches all the way to California. If I am mistaken, I’ll ask Senator Stevens to put forward a motion to add more tubes.
To Josh, et al.: This discussion is interesting given that we are all on the same side. No one here is a mole for the “other” side; we just have a disagreement about what the best course of action is. Why do I have to choose between political activism and private conservation?
Josh is right. Moving to a greener public policy is the most efficient way to solve this problem. But, short of being elected to Congress, there is very little I can personally do here. I can vote for the Democrats, but honestly, in MA, that is almost meaningless. I can write to my Congressmen. I can attend rallies. I can give to the Sierra Club and other environmentalist PACs. These are all good things that take very little time or effort.
None of these preclude me from setting my thermostat a couple of degrees lower in the winter or selecting native plants when landscaping my yard. These actions can and do have appreciable effects in my local community.
I feel a bit like Goldilocks here. Josh wants me to take the hot porridge; Dean is offering the cold, and all I want something in the middle. There is a reason why every list of things you can do for the environment includes both political and lifestyle actions.
on April 28th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I’m not offering cold porridge, I’d just prefer not to heat it with fossil fuels.
I think it’s important that we all get involved politically. I am slowly entering, one toe at a time. I really don’t like politics, but I guess I dislike politics-as-usual even more. I will be encouraging others like me to come in with me as I go.
I also think that it’s important that we all do what we can individually to reduce or CO2 output. I can’t see how this would hurt, and I believe it really can make a difference. Even if only to make us all aware of what we have done and are doing to this planet, and so we don’t look like hypocrites. CO2 output is escalating in a exponential manner, and due to process delays, even if we stopped all output today, it would continue to climb. By doing everything we can at home, it also gives us something to do while the slow gears of the big political machine turn.
This blog: It’s great to have a place where you can speak uncensored, but the personal attacks get old quickly. Let’s try to keep it positive since we’re all on the same team. I would like to hear more specific ideas about what can be done politically (especially at the local level where I can be involved), and personally (I still want to keep doing everything I can.)
on April 28th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
I’m not sure if the “personal attacks” comment is targetted at me, but I have not written any personal attacks. The “cold porridge” reference was to fit into the Goldilocks analogy. I am not saying hot or cold porridge is better, simply that I prefer mine warm. Basically, I think both you and Josh are a little bit right and a little bit wrong.
As long as people are remaining civil (and thus far they have), I would hate to see dissenting voices simply shouted down. The great thing about
free, open, civil debate is the ability to learn from others. We each give our ideas and if we are honest with one another, hopefully, we are all better informed for it.
on April 29th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
The “personal attacks” comment was not targeted at anyone in particular. I thought the porridge thing was funny, but I really don’t like cold porridge
I agree that nobody has all the answers. I want to hear more ideas, and try to keep getting better at what I am doing…
on May 2nd, 2007 at 11:26 pm
In regards to the post ahead of this one, about stopping junk mail, there is a new company calledgreendimes, which for three dollars a month will repeatedly check to see that your name has not been entered onto any new mailing lists. And will also plant a tree a month for you. Apparently, on problem with the Do-Not-Mail lists is that they are never completely up to date because we are all always involved in new transactions that generate new lists.
I have not used the service myself, yet. But Grist endorses iit — if without complete rigor — which carries some weight.
on May 3rd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
We signed up for GreenDimes about 6 months ago, and the verdict is still out on whether or not this is a success. It doesn’t seem that our junk mail pile rate has declined considerably.
Good: It appears that the number of unsolicited credit card offers is going down. (Although, my husband disagrees on this point. He thinks the number hasn’t decreased.)
Bad: We still get lots of junk from the banks and businesses where we have accounts.
Mixed: Catalogs make up the bulk of our junk mail. GreenDimes has done a good job of blocking the catalogs we’ve told them we don’t want. Unfortunately, there are still way too many catalogs it doesn’t know about. Some of this is our fault as we need to do a better job updating the service with the names of catalogs we don’t want, but at some point, I might as well save my money and notify the catalog company myself.
on May 3rd, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Good to know. Maybe I’ll save my 36 bucks until they better their process. Thanks, Vicki.
on May 6th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Also, Vicki, it appears that your warm porridge analogy works quite well. I’m not willing to go back on everything I said yet for many reasons — not least among them ego — but it looks like I need to soften my stance.
I scanned the IPCC’s Mitigation Report (pdf), which was released yesterday. Most of the report focused on large-scale structural changes, and it suggested that recycling had little effect on global warming (p. 20). But, it did conclude, based on what was determined to be (appropriately, considering your analogy), “medium evidence,” that “Changes in lifestyle and behaviour patterns can contribute to climate change mitigation across all sectors.” (p. 16.)