So it is a very very dark time in Myanmar–with tens of thousands dead from Cyclone Nargis, which made landfall on May 2nd.
Along with all the dark truth about how this is going to very negatively affect rather a lot of people in Burma, which is #132 out of 177 on the Human Development Index, especially in light of the current developing world food crisis, as well as some truth about the extent to which such a storm is a result of climate change, I think there’s a lot of puzzle pieces which point to hope:
See for instance, this list in the International Herald Tribune, with pledges of US$12 million and lots of logistical aid from 15 different nations. Here’s the really crazy thing. The population of Burma in 1900 was 10 million. Now it’s 55 million. If the disaster had taken place in 1900:
I don’t have the beginnings of an answer to any of these questions (ask someone with an appropriate Ph.D.). But I have a strong suspicion that the changes between the answers for “In 1900″ and “In 2008″ are solid grounds for a little joy and hope in the midst of heart-wrenching disaster.
Warning: this post contains Doom and Gloom.
Friends, over the last few months you may have noticed I’ve not been around. I have mostly been educating myself about climate change. I have noticed that there is a dramatic split in the environmental movement.
On the one hand we have scientists stating that the situation is really bad. We have people, including the General Secretary of the United Nations, talking as if it is the greatest threat since WWII and that we need to mobilise on that kind of scale. Forget the War on Terror, future global instability is going to be caused directly or indirectly by climate change. Bear in mind that the negotiations which are half-heartedly taking place are based on a reduction in the rate of increase of emissions - whereas the best science suggests that a rapid fall is actually needed. If you want to be really scared, read this report (PDF) from Friends of the Earth Australia.
And on the other hand, we have a bunch of people saying that what we need to do to beat climate change is to change a few lightbulbs. Er… hello..?
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Two weeks ago, on March 29th, 58% of adults in Australia, along with 26 world class cities and 370 cities internationally, all turned down their electricity use by turning off lights, appliances, phone chargers, and so forth for one hour, from 8PM to 9PM–calling it Earth Hour
Imagine what that must have looked like–watching Sydney, or Phoenix, or Chicago, or San Francisco, or Toronto, at 8PM–suddenly the whole city starts to go dark. Very kewl.
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I’m not sure if any of you guys have heard of or seen this cartoon. If you haven’t take a look - and show your kids.
Posted in Environmentalism | 1 Comment »Last November, we wrote about Consumer Consequences, a online game you can play which will give you an idea how your consumption levels match up with the planet’s resources. It takes about seven minutes to complete, and at the end it gives you a rating of how many earths we would need if everyone consumed at the same levels as you. In November, I was kind of bummed out to learn I was consuming 3.5 earths worth of energy, food, stuff, etc.
In the last 3 months, I’ve made a few relatively minor changes, and I’m yotta stoked to report that my consumption is now down to 2.3 earths.
If you pop over and play the game, let us know how you did. I promise no one will criticize you–if they do, I’ll just delete their comment =) (God I love that lovely all powerful blog host feeling =)
The things I worked on over the last 3 months were food and lighting and buying green. So I’ve been gradually switching to flourescent screw in light bulbs in the house. It works better for me anyway, since we’re in this ancient house with an ancient electrical system which kind of surges a little, and always makes the normal bulbs blow out really fast anyway. And I’ve been working on smaller food portions, and not driving so much, and less air travel. =) And buying just a few greener things–like greenish dish detergent and laundry detergent.
Share with us how you did, and what you have worked on, or plan to work on, to lower your consumption! And take part in the new poll on the sidebar!
Posted in Economics, Environmentalism, What can we do? | 19 Comments »First in a six part series. You can see the rest here
Posted in Economics, Environmentalism, Videos, technology | 2 Comments »I was wrong.
There, that wasn’t so difficult.
At university a lecturer told me that it was common for environmentalists to hold equal and opposite beliefs at the same time. Maybe I should have listened a little more carefully.
For most of my adult life, I’ve believed in the myth of fairtrade - which is the concept that poor farmers get a better price for their crops by encouraging thoughtful and good-willing consumers to pay a premium for their products. Initially I thought it was an idea which would change the world. Later I revised that to believe that it was at least doing something positive for the families who grew fairtrade products. At the same time I believed that there was something seriously wrong with world trade when the rich got everything they dreamed of whilst the poor suffered.
Over 15 years (and many, many others have been at it much longer), we wrote letters to supermarkets, held street protests, repeated various stunts to bring the public’s attention to the unfair way that the poorest farmers were treated and the good of choosing fairtrade. Eventually we persuaded the supermarkets that there was an ‘ethical’ market and that consumers would - shockingly - pay more for certain products. Suddenly ethical was mainstream.
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In the Fall 2007 issue of Creation Care magazine, Larry Schweiger of the National Wildlife Federation writes about the importance of outdoor play time for children. The article was entitled “Leave No Child Indoors: Time Spent Outdoors Shapes Character, Health and Environmental Attitudes.”
My mother would often say that I lived outdoors and I suspect that many of you spent a great deal of your time outdoors too. My brothers and I roamed for hours across the hills of Northern Allegheny County, climbing trees, building forts, and constructing dams in the creeks…
Researchers in such places as Chicago and Boston are studying how the nationwide childhood obesity epidemic may cause shorter life-spans for the next generation. They conclude that, while we have enjoyed increases in expected lifespan for several decades, the new lack of childhood activity and its extra pounds can lead to adult-onset diabetes and can actually shorten average lifespan from three to five years.
Parents have become unnecessarily more fearful, though outdoor “stranger danger” is nothing compared to indoor threats. The risk of kidnapping by a stranger is one to two chances in a million. Most sexual assaults on children are from adults they already know. And yet, the risk of a child communicating with a sexual predator online is one in five…
The reality of the world we live in today is that children are more at risk for predation by strangers they meet in a chat room than by strangers at the park. Spending so much time in the screen space rather than the green space isn’t something we should encourage.
So recently I found this little exercise from public radio called consumer consequences. It’s a sort of a game you play where you enter various data about yourself, like how much you drive your car, how many miles per gallon it gets, how much you fly every year, how much food you eat, of which types, how much garbage you throw out every week, how much you use public transport, how much your electric bill is on average, and so forth. Then it gives you an estimate of how many earths we’d need if everyone were consuming at the same level as you.
I was kind of bummed ’cause I got rated at 3.5 planets. Yikes. But I don’t think it took certain thinks into account–like what percentage of my food comes from food sources that would otherwise be thrown in the garbage (like dumpstering or gleaning). Ah well.
If you play, why not come back here and leave a comment about how many planetus worth of consumption you are engaging in, and how you felt about it. And any ideas you have for reducing consumption. It took me about 12 minutes.
Posted in Economics, Environmentalism, What can we do? | 10 Comments »Inspired by the Summer 2007 issue of Creation Care magazine, our family has set a goal of significantly lowering our electric bill. We started with a family meeting, where we agreed that we need to reduce our use of electricity to be better stewards of our financial resources and of God’s creation. We came up with the following ideas:
1. Use the heater less - this one will be toughest for me as I am constantly cold and I find it very easy to just turn on the heater every time I go into a room, I’m working on wearing a sweater and using lap blankets more
2. Add more compact fluorescent light bulbs - about half the light bulbs in our house are still incandescent so we will purchase several more “twisties” and work toward 100% fluorescent
3. Turn off the heated dry on the dishwasher - this will require some towel drying but it will save a lot of electricity
4. Taking shorter showers - or using less water for a bath Read the rest of this news item »