Yes, This Is Important

I've been thinking a lot about Melinda's recent posts about environmental social change. Read her thoughts here about how to get people to change their lifestyles, participating in your community, and how doing it alone is not enough. It's a great series of posts and it asks a lot of important questions. Why is social change important? How do we affect change? How do you build a social movement? These are questions I have been pondering myself for the past two years.

There are a lot of people critical of individual action in the name of the environment. It is easy to poke holes, to label people as hypocrites. It is easy to point out that the changes we all make are microscopic drops in oceanic buckets. But none of those critics ever have a better solution. Almost everytime I go to a lecture on climate change, without fail, someone in the audience will ask what they can do about the crisis we face. And almost always, the answer given is, "Well, the truth is there isn't much you can do aside from vote."

How is that helpful?

I remember many years ago when I saw "An Inconvenient Truth." I still remember the combination of fear and helplessness that washed over me. The world as I knew it was coming to an end, and there was nothing I could do about aside from changing a few lightbulbs or considering a Prius. After I saw that movie, I immediately went online and bought a Terrapass. Then I continued to do nothing. For about a year. Because well, there was nothing I could do anyway!

And then one day everything clicked. I realized there was something I *could* do. So, I attempted to do it all. I stopped shopping, I started air drying, I even made my own jam and butter and started taking public transit in Los Angeles of all places. And then I moved to London in order to attain a better grasp of environmental policy issues.

Almost every seasoned environmental social activist knows that none of the changes we make are enough or anywhere near enough. But we also believe that our work creates a ripple effect. It is hard to determine the exact results of social action, especially one as amorphous as the environmental social movement. But it seems to me increasingly clear that the world is growing more environmentally aware. And part of that is due in part to a growing band of environmentalists who are challenging conventional rules on air-drying laundry, increasingly patronizing farmers markets, as well as advocating for a global deal on climate change in Copenhagen. Individual action at home begets slightly more public action which begets large scale activism for international change.

Do we need a global deal on climate change? Yes. Do we need more government investment in renewable energy? Yes. Do we need higher efficiency standards? Yes.

But we need social change to get those things. We need social change to help us maneuver to a new era of renewable energy.

In the movie Who Killed the Electric Car, one of the culprits cited is the American people who were not ready for the electric car. As I drove around the city of LA, I would be haunted by this failure. I'd drop by the library where the only empty parking spot was that reserved for electric cars. I'd drive by my coffee shop and see another empty parking spot labelled "electric vehicle only." The infrastructure was there, but we had not been able to change people's behavior. Of course there were many other reasons for the failure of the electric car, but I believe that this example demonstrates the need for a social movement. We cannot transition to a new era of renewable energy without changing people's behavior.

And that's why this social movement is important. In the end it's not about the plastic bags saved or the reusable coffee mugs used though those are good things to do. It's about the large scale awareness that is gradually being generated. That's why I continue to fight and work to grow this movement.

Yes, this is important.

Transportation Smackdown

I've been traveling a lot and experiencing a number of different public transit systems. Each one has its pros and cons ... for example the New York subway is

1. Open 24 hours
2. Is super cheap (P.S. New Yorkers, stop complaining about subway fares. $2.25 is a ridiculously cheap price to go anywhere in the city.)
   
3. Nice and roomy (especially compared to the London Tube)
   

On the other hand, it is also

1. Kinda dirty
2. Difficult to get across town
3. Doesn't properly service the East Side
4. Still hasn't moved on to smart cards (Though you could also say that is a 'pro' since you know, people argue that London's smart Oyster cards are yet another way of the police monitoring our actions. To which I say, yes, but they are just SO DARN CONVENIENT!)

Anyway, I was thinking of doing a series of posts on transportation systems and then we could all vote for the best one. So I'm asking you all for your input. What are the transport systems you love? Which ones would you include in the Transport Smackdown?

Monday Non-Depressingness

So sorry for depressing all y'all with my post from Friday. I agree with many of the commenters that sometimes it is necessary to be positive in order to incite people to change. I agree that telling people The End Of The World Is Nigh is not overly helpful for a lot of people. I still remember seeing Inconvenient Truth, being COMPLETELY freaked and also feeling helpless in the process.

So I'd like to reiterate that while I think we may have to entirely change our way of life in order to deal with climate change, I also believe strongly in the power of human beings to innovate and adapt. And I don't at all believe our situation is hopeless, nor do I think the great number of changes we may have to make in the future will be all bad. Change is scary, but change is often more scary in theory than practice.

And today it's Monday. A happy Monday!

So instead of depressing all y'all, I am offering some link love to a couple posts I have enjoyed recently. Leela Raina writes "Why I Shouldn't Date an Annex 1 Guy."

And a rebuttal (of sorts) from Fergus Auld on "Why Annex 1 Guys Can Be A Good Date After All," although Fergus doesn't particularly provide a good defense of his American Annex 1 brothers. Maybe *cough* because there isn't one.

Both posts come from the blog "What's With The Climate," a forum for the environmental youth movement on the Indian sub-continent. I interviewed several people from the youth movement for my MSc dissertation, and I have to say that the work youth activists are doing all over the world is truly inspiring. If you're interested in learning more about the youth movement, check out "It's Getting Hot In Here," which is THE website for the international environmental youth movement.

Sober Friday

Well, now that the Crazy Chicken has outed me as "that annoying Bill McKibben hanger-on," I figured I might as well produce photographic evidence of my hanging-on. And maybe my annoyingness, I don't know, a picture IS worth a thousand words, right?

So yes, I met Bill McKibben at a seminar the other day. It was supposed to be a jam-packed event, but then it wasn't, which sucks for the no shows but was awesome for me because I got to ask him a few different questions and then have a short little conversation with him.

I've read "Deep Economy," before, and I have to admit, I've been a little hesitant about Bill McKibben in the past. But I have to tell you that when I met him in person, I was deeply impressed by him.

But I was most impressed with his honesty. I mean I was also depressed by his honesty, so it was sort of a cycle of impressed!/depressed/impressed!/depressed. When I asked him about the critics who say that achieving 350 ppm would be so difficult and result in such rampant unemployment that we simply should not aim for 350, I expected McKibben to offer some false assurances that getting down to 350 would not rock the foundations of the economy. Instead he said that it was a fair criticism. But that he believed the alternative was worse. And that anyone who tells you that responding to climate change is not going to be extremely hard? Is just plain wrong.

And that got me thinking. There is a lot, a lot, a lot of talk on the blogosphere about how we should live simply because it will make us happier. Or that it doesn't really matter whether we believe in climate change because we all can find reasons to "clean up the Earth." Or that any small change can make a difference.

I get where all these bloggers are coming from, I truly do. And to a certain extent, I agree. Yes, I believe that I became happier when I snapped out of my consumeristic mentality. Yes, we can all find reasons to pollute less, consume less, etc. And yes, every small change does make a (small) difference.

BUT.

I also think it's becoming increasingly obvious that responding to climate change is going to take more than turning your thermostat down a notch, or carpooling.

In fact, I can't think of a single solution to climate change that won't result in the devastation of certain sectors of the economy.

Let me provide you with an example that I have mentioned before. Britain is one of the few countries that will meet its Kyoto Protocol target. Why? Well, because Maggie Thatcher pretty much killed the coal industry.

Now, it's great that Britain is meeting its targets, no question. But the North of England is still not recovered from that devastation that occurred 20 years ago.

Yes, new renewable energy will provide new green jobs. But a coal miner can't become a solar engineer over night. Which means that unless we invest heavily in job-retraining programs and the like, we will be looking at mass unemployment in various sectors. Even if we do invest heavily in job-retraining, we may still be looking at mass unemployment.

I realize that this post is turning into one very depressing post, but I think we probably all need to face up to the fact that combatting climate change may mean massive unemployment. It might mean a serious scale-back in people's creature comforts in the Global North. It will mean that Northern governments will have to funnel a lot of money to the South for adaptation and technology transfer. None of these things are going to be fun for us in the North. Combatting climate change may very well make us less happy. It might involve way more sacrifices than we wanted to make.

Now, I'm not saying any of these things are certain. Of course they are not. It's possible that in 50 years time, I will look at this post and laugh at how bleak I was.

But I think we need to start confronting the possibility that we will have to entirely change our lives to combat climate change.

Equity, Equity, Equity

Last week, I wrote about what I believe to be the biggest obstruction in getting a global deal at Copenhagen: equity.

This week, further confirmation that the equity issue is going to derail any chance of an agreement comes from the New York Times:

Negotiators have accepted as all but inevitable that representatives of the 192 nations in the talks will not resolve the outstanding issues in the time remaining before the Copenhagen conference opens in December. The gulf between rich and poor nations, and even among the wealthiest nations, is just too wide.

Remember, the United States refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol because the protocol did not limit emissions in India and China.

Now, most of you have probably heard over and over and OVER again about how there is no point for Americans to lower their emissions if China does not because any drop in American emissions will be offset by an increase in Chinese emissions. We have all heard this meme so much, that perhaps it's not surprising to see this FT/Harris poll. According to the poll, 63% of Americans believe that China must lead the way in emissions cuts, and only 1/5 are in favor of offering aid assistance for adaptation from the developed world to the developing world.

I swear, this poll makes me want to cry.

So let me repeat a few points.

Number one, America outstrips China in terms of historical emissions.

Number two, America outstrips China in terms of per capita emissions.

Number three, America outstrips China in terms of luxury versus survival emissions.

Number four, if carbon emissions were calculated correctly* (where carbon emissions are consumed, not where they are produced), America would once again outstrip China in terms of annual emissions. China's emissions are high in part because they are responsible for manufacturing cheap crap Americans CONSUME. They are not high because the Chinese people are cruising the streets of Shanghai in their pink Hummer limos.

The country that absolutely MUST lead the way in cutting emissions is: America.

That's it.

Until America starts getting serious about cutting emissions, we will have no real global deal.

*I understand that this is a normative statement, but it's my blog.

How To Lie With Statistics

The other day, everyone's favorite Fake Plastic Fish wrote a blog post about Tapped, a new documentary about bottled water.

And then yesterday, Tom Lauria of the International Bottled Water Association responded writing:

We at IBWA participated in the filming of “Tapped” and were disappointed in how our informative comments were discarded. Do you realize 90% of bottled water companies are small, family-run businesses? According to plastic industry studies of recycling, empty water bottles are the most recycled item in single-stream recycling programs. Blogs like yours should encourage morew recycling and not discourage consumption of water — in any form. Water is fundamentally good for all people. We live in a busy world and have bottled water there when you want, regardless of what you are doing, is always a plus. If people are going to a vending machine, what should they buy? What item in the vending machine is not made of plastic? Since it all must be recycled, why pick on the healthiest beverage available, namely bottled water?

Oh boy. There are SO MANY things wrong with that statement, that it's hard to even know where to begin. But perhaps my favorite is his statement, "90% of bottled water companies are small, family-run businesses."

Oooooh, Tom, you know, I'm a girl who is a sucker for stats, and you totally NAILED me with that sexy, sexy statistic.

Except, number one, we don't know where the stat comes from. Tom doesn't link to a source, so we don't know where his data comes from. A quick Google search reveals that this is a line that the IBWA uses A LOT. In front of Congress, on their website, on YouTube videos. But I could never find the statistic cited anywhere unrelated to the IBWA.

Number two, it's stupid. So what? Most marijuana sellers could call their business a small "family-run" affair, too.

Number three, it's deliberately misleading. 90% of bottled water companies might be small family-owned businesses, but they might only account for 1% of the market share. Meanwhile, the 10% big businesses may well account for 99% of the market share. That's like Minute Maid saying that the lemonade industry is mostly small and family-run because there are thousands of kids with lemonade stands.

So just to clear up the confusion, of the top 10 bottled water brands in 2007, one was owned by Coca Cola, one by Pepsi, and SEVEN by Nestle Waters (a division of Nestle.) Only one was privately owned: Crystal Geyser.

The point is while Tom would like us to believe that the bottled water industry is really just a bunch of mom and pop outfits, that is not the case. But even if it were the case, it's not a real justification for supporting the bottled water industry. However, it is a nice illustration of why we should always be wary when industries trot out statistics, because stats can be spun in deliberately misleading ways.

Protect your right to water. Drink tap.

California, Here I Come

I'm in California for the weekend, but will be back in New York on Monday. Have a great weekend everyone, and to my Indian readers, Happy Diwali!!