lifeinflux

I’ve spent the better part of the day reading about climate change. Sure, I already knew about global warming and its effects on the weather, fragile ecosystems, and our health. At any given time on any given news site or blog, I can read about tragedies around the world, be it flooding, poverty, or wide-spread diseases like hantavirus or malaria, that seem to be increasing as temperatures rise. I know the crucial number - 350 – and what it means. I know I should use less energy at home, drive efficiently and drive less often and buy carbon offsets. I know this. It’s been shoved at me on every website touting “eco-friendliness” out there. I know that on October 24th, there will be a 350.org campaign in 158 countries around the world. And I think all of that is wonderful. But, I have to ask myself as an individual, what can I really do day-to-day? When I hear terms like “use less energy” and “sustainable”, what do they really mean? And how do I motivate myself, much less others, to do more?

When you think about it, there aren’t any great one-stop places I can go to to give me all the information I need to make informed choices.   A google search on “saving the earth” brought up over 200 websites telling me what I should do to save the planet or giving me a list of to-do’s and that I should heed the perils of continued climate change.   Yeah, I’ve got that heeding part down. A common item on every list was converting your incandescent bulbs to CFLs.   Well sure,  I can change out my incandescent light bulbs to compact florescent light bulbs (CFL).   But what do I do with the incandescent bulbs already in my home that were here when I moved in?    Do I throw them away?  Do I continue to use them?   Which is more earth-friendly?   What do I do with the old light bulbs when they burn out?  Can I recycle them so they can be reused or turned into CFLs? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?

Time recently put out a Global Warming Survival Guide. Number one on the list was “Turn Food into Fuel”. I’m not sure about you, but I am willing to bet my neighbors and the City of Fairfax would have a knockdown drag-out fit if I started collecting corn husks and turning them into ethanol in my kitchen. The issues that could arise from that process going bad would make my neighbors shake their heads and wonder why I didn’t just cook meth instead. It would have made a smaller mess! And even Time doesn’t agree that turning food into fuel is the right thing: “Yet the eco-friendly fuel is beginning to look less chummy of late. Some of the 114 ethanol plants in the U.S. use natural gas and, yes, even coal to run the processors. And ethanol has to be trucked. Existing gas pipelines can’t carry it because it corrodes iron. Then there are the economics. Producers depend on federal subsidies, and increasing demand for corn as fuel means the kernels keep getting pricier.” But this is number one on your guide for all of us to survive global warming?

I’m not going to say Time and every other news site, eco-blog, scientist and passionate person out there to save the earth has the wrong idea. They don’t. Their collective hearts are absolutely in the right place. But I haven’t found anywhere I can go as a consumer struggling in this economy to help me do the right thing in a smart, realistic, cost-conscious way. Sure with websites like Treehugger, Scorecard, Sierra Club and others, it is easier to find campaigns to support and information to help guide me in the right direction. But it’s also time-consuming. And on a day when the washing machine is broken, I’ve overslept my alarm and Drue mentions that I’m supposed to deliver 30 brownies to the classroom and she’s supposed to wear red for a field trip (did I mention the washer is broken?) before I get to sit down and spend some time working to ensure that I have money to put organically grown, free-range, sustainable, earth-friendly, low fat/salt/carcinogenic meals on the table, the last thing I want to do is hit an average of nine sites to get answers to simple questions so that I can join the bastion of people dedicated to doing a little something to save this lovely planet where we reside. And honestly, until the collective gets together and makes some hard decisions, I struggle to accept that the small steps I, and others, take are going to make any profound change. I can’t believe I am alone in this thinking.

We’ve gone from a society where the Lord, Allah or Nature (depending on what you believe, if anything) giveth and taketh. Well, it was easy to believe that when communities pulled together for common purpose and took care of their own and before medicine took any form of higher power (and Darwinism) out of the equation. This means people live longer (good), can overcome infertility (good), and we now treat diseases that were once a death sentence (this is good too). But at that time, over-population was not a global crisis since a childless couple was just that – childless – and their avenues were acceptance or adoption as opposed to injecting themselves with a drug that could conceivably give them anywhere from one to eight kids at a time.  Now, before everyone gets all upset, I’m not here to tell you that I have anything against infertility treatments.   As a very fertile person, I have zero right to comment on the emotional hell that comes with infertility.   Nor am I going to preach that anyone, least of all the government, should cap the number of children a person should have. But it is pretty clear that we are living longer, and having more babies.   And while yes, this is a good thing, it also is a bad thing and has created a population crisis that will continue to contribute to food shortages and an inability to sustain ourselves via our natural resources.

As for the government meddling in how many children a person can have, we can look to China to see how well (or not) that has worked. China’s One Child Policy, implemented in 1979, is a sticks and carrots law that is subjected to a mere 35% of their population, and was designed as a short term solution that has had long reaching effects. Time recently did an article on the Brief History of China’s One-Child Policy and described many of the issues China currently faces because of this law. Therese Hesketh, Ph.D., Li Lu, M.D., and Zhu Wei Xing, M.P.H published their report, The Effect of China’s One-Child Family Policy after 25 Years and described in depth many of the social and economic issues currently facing China after over two decades living with the One-Child policy.  Plain and simple, restricting the number of children a segment of the population has doesn’t seem to have worked. China still has the largest population on the planet and it continues to grow, unabated and relatively unchecked. It’s pretty obvious that giving the government control of our reproduction is not the answer.

So what is? Right now, we cannot feed 1 billion people due to climate and economic problems. That number is projected to increase by at least 25 million by 2050. You may think this is not your problem because right now you’ve come home from your day at work, able to put food on your table and feed your children.

That may be true, but the reality is that may only be true for today. What about tomorrow when climate changes have drastically changed the environment on this planet? Because that is what we are talking about when we talk climate change. We’re talking about how climate change affects the planet but what we need to be thinking about is how is it going to affect me and my loved ones and their loved ones. And once we finish the six degrees of me, we find that when we tally up the loved ones we ought to be thinking about, that’s a nice chunk of the planet’s population who are going to be affected by food shortages and soaring prices for staples such as rice, wheat, maize and soybeans. Because until we put a face on climate change, until we accept that it affects me and you, and those children, and your aunt and grandma and the people down the street who rescue your trash cans every Wednesday, and the pastor and his wife and that wonderful lady who sits on her porch every day and waves to you, how in the world can we own this problem as ours? How can I own climate change as a problem that is mine?

So what do we do? Well, I could get on my soap box and preach about the downfall of society where we glorify families with 19 kids on television shows and how if you don’t carry your sustainable seafood card with you every single time you go to the grocery store, you’re wrong and bad and evil and contributing to the enormous climate change problem. I could tell you to go sign up and participate in a local action on October 24th and if you don’t you’re obviously not doing everything you can to protect and save our planet. I could do that, but I would be hypocritical and wrong (well, except for that bit about October 24th and I’m encouraging you, not telling you).

The truth is that I don’t have any answers.  However, I do have my beliefs.  I believe that it is going to take dramatic, consistent change and personal responsibility the likes of which we have yet to see from the majority of human beings on this planet to ensure we don’t hit the magic number of 350. I would know, I’m one of those human beings.  I think we’re going to have to raise our heads from the sand and accept that scarcity, renewability and simplicity are going to stop being catch-phrases and become a way of life for many of us. I believe we’re going to have to to stop worrying about things like the rights of prisoners and stop encouraging supportive environments for unnecessary and expensive litigation be it Jon’s and Kate’s ridiculous divorce proceedings or someone suing a fast food restaurant because they spilled coffee on themselves and turn our focus on issues like animal rights and accountability from companies to ensure they adopt greener business practices. I believe until Congress votes to provide the same health care to all that they themselves receive and finds a way to use our taxes on that rather than on padding their and their lobbyists already deep pockets, we’re going to continue experiencing a health care and health coverage crisis which will continue to add to the existing poor economic crisis.   I believe that we need to find ways to work with third world countries to expand viable work, healthcare, education and food shortage solutions in their countries as a solution to our own immigration problems.  I believe our social focus and monetary rewards should go to volunteers, environmentalists, and the common folks down the block doing good works for their communities rather than see glorification and millions of dollars going to athletes and Hollywood.

This is what I believe.  Will it change the world? Maybe not. But it keeps my eyes and mind and perspective focused on what really matters. And I feel, and feel very strongly, that if we concentrate on what matters most for the collective good and then apply that collective good to our personal lives, that personalizes the need for change and we act on that need. We become the people who set the precedent and do what is needed and make the good choices as consumers to help stop global warming and all that comes with it. Or we can continue to think this is someone else’s problem, and be the people who sit there and nod at the 11:00 news, agreeing that climate change is bad, before we throw our can into the recycling bin and go to sleep at night.

And as for what I know, well there is not much other than the basics of recycling and reusing and the miracle that is Freecycle.   But I’d like to know more and I’d like for there to be collective solutions that are practiced and supported community-wide to support my efforts at home.  Because while the Internet is great, we really need to start the practice in our homes and in our communities.   And, while I hate to be a bore, I’d really like to know what to do with my old incandescent light bulbs. Because while I love Treehugger’s Six Uses for Old Incandescent Bulbs, I’d also like to do something with them that doesn’t require me to super glue the bulb to myself, crafty though I may be.

Oh and while I’m searching for things, I have three words for you:  affordable organic clothes.   Seriously.