More Armchair Activism!

I'm guessing most of you have seen this, but if you haven't, please help  Colin aka No Impact Man out. I know everyone's raring for the three-day weekend, but it's just cutting, pasting, and emailing, I swear! By the way, non-Americans, you aren't exempted. Colin is asking that you still send an email putting in the subject line "From a world citizen to whom American policy makes a huge difference."

Here's Colin's plea:

I really, really need support from all of you today (and I'm unashamedly bribing you with the offer of free Reverend Billy DVDs). But first I have to give you some background. Just read the bits in bold if you're in hurry.

Next Friday, May 30, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York's Eight Congressional District has kindly agreed to meet with me in his New York office. As one of his constituents, I intend to ask Representative Nadler to support an effective global warming mitigation policy that is based not on what is politically possible but on what is scientifically necessary.

More specifically, I intend to ask him to:

Introduce, as soon as possible, a non-binding resolution to the House of Representatives asserting that we need a climate change mitigation policy with a goal of no more than 350 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide (read why here). Furthermore, the resolution should say that the United States must collaborate with the international community to achieve an effective successor to the Kyoto Protocol that will achieve the 350 goal or better (depending on how the science progresses).

Pledge to support the 1sky.org policy platform that also includes creating five million green jobs (through, for example, weatherizing our buildings and manufacturing solar panels and windmills), and placing a moratorium on the building of new coal power plants.

Pass on to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter addressed jointly to her and Representative Nadler, in his position as Assistant Whip, asking them both to push for the introduction of new and the strengthening of currently pending climate change legislation to reflect the crucial 350 goal. This means, at the very least, aiming for an 80% reduction in climate emissions below 1990 levels by 2050 and a 25% reduction by 2020.

Now then, here's how I was hoping you could help. My dream is to present Representative Nadler and Speaker Pelosi with between 350 and 3,500 (10 x 350) emails of support for these policy objectives.

Can you help? All it requires is a cut and paste job (see below).

Fellow bloggers: would you be willing to pass this request onto your readers?

Everyone: would you email this around and get your friends to pitch in?

Two bits of good news:

Representative Nadler has been an ardent supporter of environmental issues ranging from the thorough cleanup of the World Trade Center site to securing federal funding for state conservation and wildlife grants. He received a score of 95% for his voting record in the 1st session of the 110th Congress from the League of Conservation Voters.
Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping have provided me with five copies of their new DVD, What Would Jesus Buy (watch the trailer here). I'm going to give the DVDs to people who send in their emails of support (the 1st, the 35th, 100th, the 350th and the 1000th).
Here's how to send in your email of support:

Simply cut and paste the below, making sure to substitute in your name, mailing address and email address, and send it to noimpactman+nadler+pelosi@gmail.com (it looks like a weird email address but, don't worry, it will work).

Dear Representative Nadler and Speaker Pelosi--

Thank you for your hard work on behalf of the people of the United States. It is indisputable that the health, happiness and security of the American people depends upon the well-being of our planetary habitat. It is also indisputable that the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases is causing changes in our habitat that will adversely effect Americans on every level--from our health to our economy.

On May 30, Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man will visit Representative Nadler to express to him support for a number of climate change mitigation policies that are much stronger than those currently passing through Congress. Please consider this a letter of support for the measures Colin Beavan will be advocating.

Specifically, I support Colin Beavan in requesting that Representative Nadler and Speaker Pelosi both, together or separately:

Introduce, as soon as possible, a non-binding resolution to the House of Representatives asserting that we need a climate change mitigation policy that accords not with what is politically possible but what is scientifically necessary--a goal of no more than 350 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide (read why here). Furthermore, this resolution should assert that the United States must collaborate with the international community to achieve an effective successor to the Kyoto Protocol that will achieve the 350 goal or better (depending on how the science progresses).

Pledge to support the 1sky.org policy platform that also includes creating five million green jobs (through, for example, weatherizing our buildings and manufacturing solar panels and windmills) and placing a moratorium on the building of new coal power plants.

Push for the introduction of new and the strengthening of currently pending climate change legislation to reflect the crucial 350 goal. This means, at the very least, aiming for an 80% reduction in climate emissions below 1990 levels by 2050 and a 25% reduction by 2020.

Yours sincerely,

Your Name

Your Address

Your Email

Armchair Activist Challenge Wrap Up

Well, today is March 31st which means that this challenge is officially coming to a close. I say officially because I hope to continue writing letters and signing letters until my hands fall off!

This challenge was ... a lot harder than I thought it would be. It turns out finding petitions and such to sign for fifteen minutes a day is hard. It also turns out that I (get ready for this) don't know everything about every single issue out there! I know, I know, you're shocked and appalled.

But the point is, while I went in assuming that I would be well-informed enough that I would never just mindlessly click and sign, I found that much of the time I didn't have anything to add to the conversation. I don't know anything about grey wolves except that they were until very recently endangered and under federal protection.

This challenge also gave me a greater appreciation for lobbyists if you can believe that. I know, I know, lobbies are evil. And it is true that many lobbyists are corrupt and that lobbyist influence on Washington has been especially problematic in recent years. But the truth is, lobbyists are not inherently bad.

In fact, lobbyists are designed to help citizens because it's impossible for the average citizen, even the average informed citizen, to keep abreast of every political item going on that would be of interest to them. A "good" lobbyist represents the people's interests in government.

I'm glad I have Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, Greenpeace, etc representing my interests. I'm glad that those lobbies exist because frankly, I needed their action updates desperately. I need them sitting on Congress' head, paying attention when a bill comes up that would be of interest to me. I need them telling me what's going on right now and when I need to be calling my Senator.

So I actually think that lobbyists have their place and value. I think the problem we run into today has less to do with lobbying in general and more to do with the fact that we treat corporations like individuals. But corporations aren't like people. Corporate lobbies represent the best interests of a corporation, not the best interests of people. Unfortunately, many times the best interests of corporations run completely counter to the interests of people. (There's a really boring movie about this called "The Corporation." I don't really recommend it because I thought it was dry and I fell asleep halfway through it, but it was certainly very educational.)

So I don't really know what the answer is, but certainly my realization as to the necessity of lobbyists further reinforced my belief that very little in life is truly black and white.

Anyway, this month was definitely a learning experience for me. There were a lot of failures. Many of my personal letters to small businesses never got answered. And I'm not going to lie, the sting of California's Air Resources Board gutting the ZEV program was bad. And no, I did not feel better because "at least I did something."

But activism is a life-long thing. You are always going to win some and lose some. And I do feel confident that the more people who get involved, the more we'll start to win.

Stay tuned tomorrow for my most difficult monthly challenge yet! I can't wait to tell you guys all about it.

More Armchair Activism

I'm trying not to inundate you guys with petitions to sign, but as most of you know, my March monthly challenge is 15 minutes of armchair activism a day. I feel so strongly about today's petition that I wanted to pass it on.

If you are a California resident, please go to the Union of Concerned Scientists Website and sign the petition directed at California's Air Resources Board demanding that they save the Zero Emission Vehicles program which is in danger of being significantly watered down.

This is something I feel very strongly about. Electric vehicles are ALREADY a technological reality. The reason none of us are zooming around in electric cars has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with car and oil companies who stand to lose greatly when electric cars become widely available. So, please, sign the petition, and then go watch Who Killed the Electric Car. Preferably with plenty of hard liquor. Because you're going to need it.

Food For Thought 2

My uncle works in the dry lands of India doing watershed development. Water isn't the sexiest of issues for Non-Resident Indians, and so when my uncle speaks or does fundraisers, he's often asked, "Why water? Why not women's literacy or something like that?" To which my uncle invariably replies, "If people cannot EAT they don't have much use for reading."

Yesterday I talked about how most first world citizens have their basic needs met, yet still live in a state of uncertainty. While this is true, what I failed to mention was that for many Americans, secondary needs such as health care and affordable education are not being met. Why is this important? Because, simply put, if people are sick, if they are going into debt to pay medical bills, or college tuition, they aren't going to care so much about global warming.

In fact, according to a 2005 Nicholas Institute poll, when voters were asked what issue was the most important to them personally, the environment ranked last at ten percent. The economy/jobs ranked first at 34%, health care came in second at 25%, and Iraq came in 3rd at 22% (Break Through 32.)

Honestly, the most surprising thing about that for me? Is that a whole ten percent of voters chose the environment. Because as concerned as I am about the environment, if I'm being honest, I'd probably choose health care as my number one issue.

So what does this mean? Does it mean we have to wait around until we solve health care before doing anything about the environment? No, of course not. The real answer is that we can't afford to pick and choose one most important thing. It's all important. The more confident people are in the economy, the more likely they are to start looking outward more, and the more likely they will care about the world they live in. Getting out of Iraq means that money will be freed up for things like tackling our debt, or fixing health care. Healthier citizens have more energy to focus on such things as the environment.

As for my uncle, once his NGO had time to tackle the most urgent water needs, they did start a woman's cooperative. The women are learning important skills from reading to sewing to even using computers. Most importantly, they have learnt to make and sell products so they can earn a living, and be guaranteed fair wages. Here is a reusable bag one of them made:

Ecological AND empowering for women! What could be better than that?

Food For Thought (Metaphorical Not Literal)

I've started reading Break Through by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger. Nordhaus and Shellenberger definitely challenge conventional thinking, which I love, and so far its been an extremely thought provoking read. I'd like to quote a couple paragraphs which I found particularly compelling:

It is not just environmentalists who misunderstand the prosperity-fulfillment connection. In private conversations, meetings, and discussions, we often hear progressives lament public apathy and cynicism and make statements such as "Things are going to have to get a lot worse before they get better." We emphatically disagree. In our view, things have to get better before they can get better. Immiseration theory- the view that increasing suffering leads to progressive social change- has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Progressive social reforms, from the Civil Rights Act to the Clean Water Act, tend to occur during times of prosperity and rising expectations- not immiseration and declining expectations. Both the environmental movement and the civil rights movement emerged as a consequence of rising prosperity. (Break Through 36)

A good argument that frankly, rings true to me. When I think of the grand majority of social contract programs, such as the NHS in Britain or the United States' Medicare program, they were birthed during times of rising prosperity. Nordhaus and Shellenberger use Maslow's hierarchy of needs to explain this phenomenon. When times are tough, people are more concerned with their basic needs: food, housing, etc. In more prosperous years, people are more likely to look outward to the good of society.

Okay, so for the sake of argument, let's posit that what Nordhaus and Shellenberger say is correct. Let's say that things do need to "get better before they get better." Where does that leave us today? Most first world citizens have their basic needs met, yet still live in a state of doubt and instability that is likely preventing many people from looking outward more. Is there a way we can harness the uncertainty of these times into positive energy? Or ... are we screwed?

Give Me More Petitions People!!

I am now signed up for ...

MoveOn
MomsRising
Greenpeace
Care2
CALPIRG
NRDC
Union Of Concerned Scientists
It's Our Healthcare
Sierra Club

And probably more I have forgotten about.

And yet, I am running out of petitions to sign.

So if any of you have a cause/petition/etc, let me know! I'll sign it! (Unless your cause is like, killing baby seals or something. In which case, I won't.)

Updating Goodness

Hey guys! I'm back! I decided to do Melinda's Technology Challenge, so I spent 43.33 hours without my TV and internet! (I did use my car, and car radio, cell phone, and kitchen appliances though.) I thought about going the whole 47 hour weekend, but finally at 8:20 PM I couldn't stand NOT KNOWING WHAT WAS GOING ON! So I fired up the TV and the internet to find out what I missed. (Turned out, not a whole lot.)

Anyway, it was an interesting challenge. It turns out that I use my computer/internet for just about everything and am pretty darn unproductive without it. So I spent most of the weekend reading and drinking cups of tea. On the whole, not a bad way to spend a weekend!

The Technology Challenge is one of four challenges I've been undertaking (well I guess five if you count Freeze Yer Buns which I don't really at this point.) I really like challenges, because even if I don't meet my goals, I think that by setting the goals I get further than I would have otherwise.

For example, while I haven't met all the goals I set for Chile's Stress Less Challenge, I have taken more time to appreciate the little things in my life.

The Armchair Activist challenge is also going well though I am finding it's not easy to come up with fifteen minutes every day. But what I like about this challenge is that, even after 9 days, I feel more connected to things going around in the world around me. The other day I spent my fifteen minutes talking to a girl in front of the Trader Joe's who was trying to get a petition to the State Legislature signed for a high speed train between LA and San Francisco. Now, you've got to understand, people have been talking about that high speed train since the dawn of time. So we Californians do tend to dismiss the LA-SF train as something nice that will happen about the time when world peace is achieved. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the train is very likely going to be on the ballot in November. As in 8 months from now. And that if the measure succeeds, certain regions could be connected within the next couple years.

But the train still needs legislator support. So, if you're a Californian, please sign the petition at Calpirg.org and tell your state legislators that you want to finally, finally!, make the high speed train between Los Angeles and San Francisco a reality.

Wherein I Officially End An Important Relationship

Crunchy Chicken made my fifteen minutes of armchair activism fairly easy this morning, with her most recent campaign to fix the farm bill. I urge you all to write your representative about this. The farm bill doesn't get much attention, which is weird considering how it almost single-handedly directs how agriculture is conducted in this country. Crunchy makes it super-easy for you too providing a template and everything. I took her template, and tweaked it a little to talk about how modifying the farm bill is good for California as well as the rest of the country.

Speaking of food, I gotta tell you, I never, ever thought of myself as someone who could cook before. Oh, I could follow a recipe, but to me there's a keen distinction between following a recipe (which anyone who can read can do) and cooking. I could do the former, and I could do the former well, even for complicated dishes. But I did not know how to cook the simplest dish.

But ever since DeSloFooMo, I've been forced to learn. Now that frozen or one-serving meals are pretty much verboten, if I want to eat, I have to do more than microwave. And I gotta tell you, that what started as a personal campaign against waste has become much more. It's not just that frozen meals produce a lot of trash, they have a lot of preservatives and sodium. And frankly? Now that I've started to remember what a home cooked meal tastes like? Well, Lean Cusine just doesn't compare.

On Wednesday night, I decided to try out a turkey-bacon chili recipe for the first time. I left out two spices I didn't have, and subbed in five others that I did have. Six months ago, I would never, ever have thought to defy a recipe. That would be blasphemy! I would have hurried off to the store and bought the two spices I didn't own, and never thought of adding anything else. But, now those once-weak cooking muscles are much stronger, and I'm no longer afraid to use those muscles. It's exciting to take a recipe and "make it my own," as Simon Cowell would say.

Fast-forward to Friday, when I handed a bowl of my chili to a co-worker of mine. "Wow," she said tasting it. "You know, I'm a Texan, and so I'm a huge chili snob. This? Is good chili."

Wow. No one ever complimented my microwaving skills like that!

So, sorry, Lean Cuisine. You probably have been wondering why I've been avoiding your eye in the grocery store. Why I ignore your calls. You send me coupons (5 for $10!) and I am still not enticed. And well, you've been good to me in the past, so I feel I owe you an explanation.

It's like this. We had a good run. But frankly, I've changed, and you ... well you haven't. It's not your fault, exactly. It's me. I want more than what you could provide me. I want food instead of maltodextrin and xanthan gum, and taste instead of cardboard. You were convenient, Lean Cuisine, but you didn't have much else to offer. So it's over. Don't try to call me or email anymore. Let's just agree to go our separate ways. No muss. No fuss. Breaking up is never easy. But it's time.

Armchair Activism #2

So, I decided to go for a more ... attention-grabbing method in today's armchair activism, since I'm dealing with a bigger company, and I think that with bigger companies it's good to differentiate yourself. Will it get results? We'll have to wait to see. Here it is:

Trader Joe's! You know how I love you, and yet lately I feel like you've become like that boyfriend that I love, but that still always disappoints.

Yesterday I walked into your store and saw that you were selling your insulated bags in PLASTIC SHRINK WRAP! Plastic shrink wrap, Trader Joe's! Wherefore has thou forsaken me?

The whole POINT of reusable bags is to lessen plastic and paper waste. There's not a safety or hygiene reason for plastic shrink wrap around a reusable bag, so please, Trader Joe's, don't keep breaking my heart.

Sincerely, Arduous

And now I'm off to enjoy what little weekend there is left. Happy Sunday, all!

Psst, Logan, I'm dedicating this post to you!

Armchair Activism #1

So, the votes are in and you overwhelmingly voted for MaArAcMo, or the Armchair Activist Challenge! So every day this month, I am going to spend 15 minutes a day on armchair activism, whether that be signing email petitions, or writing local businesses or calling my Congresswoman.

I also want to credit Melinda at Elements of Time for this idea. Melinda actually makes it really easy to be an armchair activist, so for any of you who are interested in playing along at home, here is a list of websites that she's provided. I have subscribed to some of these lists already, but you can bet I'm going to get subscribed to all of them now! Thanks, Melinda!

But for my first day of armchair activism, I'm going to go local. See, yesterday, my co-worker was going out to our local frozen yogurt joint, and she offered to pick some up for me, and in a moment of weakness I agreed. I know, I should have politely declined, what with the fiesta of bacon that I'm enjoying now. Plus, when people pick food up for you, you can't control things like whether or not the yogurt will come with a plastic lid, or whether they will bring back 50 plastic spoons. But it was FRIDAY and it was FROZEN YOGURT. How could I pass it up? Plus, it's supporting a local, small business! That's always good, right?

Well, when she dropped the frozen yogurt off on my desk, I very much wished I had passed. Not only was there a plastic lid, but the frozen yogurt was in a styrofoam cup. And THEN on TOP OF ALL THAT, they wrapped some of the cups (though thankfully not mine) in aluminum foil. I mean, seriously, who does that?!  

Now I guess I didn't remember this because I rarely go to our small, local frozen yogurt place because, well, I'm a Pinkberry fan (which, I guess,  is also actually local if not small anymore.) And when I do go to this frozen yogurt place, I tend to follow Vanessa's dictum and get a cone. But I don't want a small, local Los Angeles fixture to go out of business. I just want them to use less waste. So today I wrote them this letter:

Dear Owner:

I was excited to enjoy your yogurt this past Friday, but dismayed when I realized that you put your yogurt in Styrofoam cups. As I’m sure you are aware, Styrofoam is one of the worst containers for the environment as it never biodegrades and remains in the landfill indefinitely. I’m asking that you consider an alternative such as paper cups for your yogurt.

I understand that sometimes Styrofoam is cheaper than paper, but as a customer, I would be happy to pay the few cents more per cup of yogurt, and I would bet that most of your customers would agree.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration of this matter.

Sincerely,

Arduous

I'm going to print the letter out on Monday and mail it out on my lunch break. I also included my email address, so I'll be interested to see if I get any sort of response.