If you’re curious about the economy, this is worth a listen. It is a recording from 5 years ago by Senator Bernie Sanders grilling Greenspan on his economic policies. Even though most of us had a blindfold on, some like Sanders saw the error in his ways. Sanders is a guest on the Thom Hartmann radio program every Friday for a segment called brunch with Bernie. As bumper sticker exclaimed, “Right side of the dial for the left side of the brain”. Have a listen, it’s a great and powerful rant

sandersongreenspan

My sister-in-law lives across the street from Caryn and I, and the other day I let her out the door carrying a huge load of kids-stuff; Caryn noticed and exclaimed “Ryan! Come on! Aren’t you going to help her out?” So I guiltily ran outside and grabbed some of the stuff she had, and commented to her, “nothing like a little bit of forced chivalry eh?”

So how about a little bit of forced environmental etiquette? Well, whether we like it or not, or even realize it, this economic downtown could be a breath of fresh air for the planet.

So finally we let the bears run free, this is great news for nature. Many elders have suggested that the world needs another depression to cure a culture that has lost its way. That is awfully tough medicine, but perhaps a small dose is needed? Experts who agree that a depression is on it’s way, don’t imagine it will last as long as The Great Republican Depression of the ‘30’s, but even a short one could give our culture a well needed reboot that could launch a brand new operating system that is much more efficient, stable, and sustainable than the one we currently maintain. It might be the only way to clear this virus before it turns terminal.

To keep up the medical metaphors, Thom Hartmann recently suggested that a planet with rapid extinction of large mammals is like a human with organ failure. It is really bad news that a recent study determined that 25% of the worlds mammal species are at risk of extinction; and that is a very conservative number; in reality, it might be much higher due to limited data on marine mammals.

“The financial crisis is nothing compared with the environmental crisis,” the deputy head of IUCN’s species program, Jean-Christophe Vie, told BBC News.

I don’t think it’s one or the other, I think it’s both-and. It seems that we might need one crisis to help out the other. I am generally known as an eternal optimist, but have found myself quite worried and anxious about the recent world news. It’s easy to get sucked in to a state of fear, and even easier to spread it as I know I have been doing unconsciously lately. I recently caught myself, honestly observed my actions and fears, and am now quickly reforming my thinking around this situation to adopt and share a more optimistic view. So it’s not one crisis over another, but one crisis to help another! It takes two to tango.

Endless financial growth is like an addiction. I was once addicted to the idea of making bottomless passive income and read all the Robert Kiyosaki financial books. Fortunately it was a short phase and I moved on before it consumed me (and hence the planet). The world has a great many people addicted to cash right now, and many are being forced to quit cold turkey. They might kick and scream a little on their road to recovery, but they too will see the light of day once the withdrawals stop. Many others don’t have bottomless cash but still manage to spend every cent they earn (and more) on consumables – they too may be forced to kick the habit. The withdrawals, whether you are a multi-millionaire, or in the middle class average, will come in the form of relinquishing your attachment to material goods. You can never get enough of what you don’t really need. You can never get enough, has been the theme since Reaganomics was born almost 30 years ago; and the crux of that lesson, what you don’t really need, is being taught right now.

Our culture is based around competition, we teach our children this from a very young age. Children are naturally very cooperative, but adults instill a competitive nature with scores and gold stars at an increasingly young age.

Competitive nature combined with greed has created this economic crisis, and the current market crash could be just what the planet needs, a last minute out before we reach an environmental tipping point. Despite the crime that media tends to focus on during hard times, I believe instead it will open up an overwhelming flood of human compassion and bring the world together in cooperation rather than competition. It will lead to community gardens, sustainable technological research and implementation, bicycles on the streets, revival of small businesses, and on and on. Maybe the tipping point will be one away from greed and toward a green future; that is my vision, and it’s an optimistic one.

WIRED magazines latest headline is as follows, Attention Environmentalists: Keep your SUV. Forget organics. Go nuclear. Screw the spotted owl.

Whew! Just wanted to share a few thoughts that might unwire a few of these front cover claims (although the big corp might have won my dollar by buying the magazine, I won’t necessarily buy all the jargon claimed by it).

There are ten instructions to action suggested by the magazine, I will comments on each. There are many great points, ones I am in total agreement with, but in general these are shortsighted, cut carbon at all costs solutions that will perhaps benefit the current generations, but may leave the future ones in a jam.

1. Live in Cities

The current suburban model in North America, and many other countries who are following in our footsteps, just does not promote a sustainable way of living. Check out this map representing the amount of CO2 emitted per househould in the greater San Francisco area. I think it paints a pretty clear picture.

I’ll let Alex Steffen use his words to firm up the point, “Billions more people living in suburbs and driving SUV’s to shopping malls is a recipe for planetary suicide. We can’t even afford to continue that way of life ourselves.” Ahh the American Dream. But perhaps if everyone traded their grass lawns for vegatable gardens, and took their grid dependant homes off the grid with sustainable energy technology that is now available, we’d be going in the right direction, the extreme commuting is another story.

2. A/C is OK

This is an interesting analysis, and important to consider. Generally what they are hinting at is that it takes more energy to heat a home than it does to cool one with A/C. Good point, but don’t run with it, be conscious, whether you are heating or cooling; a few degrees either way makes a big difference.

3. Organics are not the answer

After the catchy title above, they go on to wisely say ,Organic produce can be good for the climate, but not if it’s grown in energy-dependant hothouses and travels long distances to get to your fridge. What matters is eating food that’s locally grown and in season. The other point under the organic is bad heading is that of the cow. First regarding dairy. “So it takes 25 organic cows to make as much milk as 23 industrial ones. More cows, more emissions.” It is a valid argument, but many other things must be taken in to consideration. I will still stick to buying local, organic milk sold in glass jars, over drugged up industrially produced milk from far away sold in plastic jugs. The third point is that of beef, again they say organic is worse. Perhaps they are right, but please do the homework for each situation. A local chunk of hamburger is much greener than those industrial patties that are raised on farms where tropical rainforest used to live, then shipped overseas to your belly. Increasingly, I am leaning towards the vegetarian route, not because of the poor little cow, but because of a myriad of environmental reasons; WIRED gave the interesting stat that meat eaters produce 1.5 tons of greenhouse gas per year more than a vegetarian. Hmmm, good healthy food for thought.

4. Farm the Forests

This is the first point that really made me cringe. The basis of the argument is that trees begin to lose the capacity to absorb as much carbon at about 55 years of age. If that fact is taken without any other considerations, then the math seems intriguing. But as Alex Steffen, from World Changing commented, “But even if WIRED’s math were correct, this would still be a crap fix for climate change. Chopping down forests causes massive soil erosion and leads to desertification, making repeated tree plantings a dodgy prospect. As monocultures, tree farms are far more vulnerable to pest infestations. And batches of trees planted at the same time are more susceptible to wildfires, causing the carbon they’re supposed to be sequestering to go up in smoke. I think the cut carbon at all costs attitude needs a little adjustment before all the trees are killed.”

5. China is the solution, Not the problem

My knowledge is somewhat limited on this one. Wired states that 35% of the world’s solar cells are manufactured in China, and that they may be banking big on the green energy revolution. My suggestion, is that whatever product you are purchasing, consider a locally produced one over the Made in China stamp.

6. Accept Genetic Engineering

Again, my knowledge is too limited to comment on this one.

7. Carbon Trading Doesn’t Work

Tricky one no doubt. First off reduce (by far the most important of the 3 R’s), then if you still pollute from frequent travel, offset using high quality, gold standard offsets. That is the route I will continue to take until the better route WIRED suggested is a reality, which is a tax on fossil fuels.

8. Embrace Nuclear Power

Again Steffen said “That’s short term thinking. If we invested the money that we would spend on new nuclear facilities more wisely (and eliminated subsidies on fossil fuels), alternatives like wind, solar, hydroelectric, and wave power could deliver a clean-energy future more cheaply and probably sooner, without any of the security and or health risks of nuclear plants”. Consider Thom Hartmann’s argument in his book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, “power producers have argued that they can label nuclear power as green, since, they say, it produces no air pollution. (This overlooks the fact that it takes 18 years of continuous operation before a nuclear plant begins to generate new electricity” the first 18 years it’s just producing an amount of energy equal to that used to mine and purify and transport its uranium fuel and to construct and maintain the plant itself.) He also adds this statement which is the true crux of the situation, “What happens when the oil runs dry, when we no longer have stored up ancient sunlight? Where will the solar cells (or uranium) come from? This is a problem that environmentalists need to research and examine seriously.

9. Used Cars, Not Hybrids

“A new Prius would have to travel 100,000 Miles to achieve the carbon savings that come from driving a 1998 Tercel.” The math here in WIRED makes good sense; we unfortunately can’t buy ourselves out of the situation. But be careful, WIRED suggests you should “Keep your SUV”, now that doesn’t mean that you can go run off and buy one!! My worry is that this article will be glanced over by most, and not critically examined enough to make informed decisions.

10. Prepare for the worst

WIRED, “62 years before atmospheric carbon will reach critical levels even if drastic steps are taken now.” Creating fear among the people will never work. I want to finish this post with a quote that is near the beginning of a book I’m reading right now called The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, by Thom Hartmann. “The reason most solutions offered to the world’s crises are impractical is because they arise from the same worldview that caused the problem. As you’ll see in this book, recycling won’t save the world, birth control won’t save the world, and saving what little is left of the rain-forests won’t save the world. Even if all those good things were fully implemented, our fundamental problem would still remain, and will inevitably be repeated. Even cold fusion and the elimination of the need for oil, with free electricity for everybody, will not save the world. Nothing but changing our way of seeing and understanding the world can produce real, meaningful, and lasting change…and that change in perspective will naturally lead us to begin to control our populations, save our forests, re-create community, and reduce our wasteful consumption.” A hint at what is involved in this perspective change is suggested in this last quote from Audrey Kitagawa, “it means that what we must do as global citizens aware of what is going on in the global landscape, and we must turn that searchlight inwards, to do the ceaseless, fearless, self examination to see not only what must be changed, but how we must change.”  (my italics).

I’d love to hear your comments…everyone has a different point of view, and they’re all important to consider.

Much love folks…

There is a commonality I have noticed between Lamborghini’s and Cigarettes, and no it’s not that I had to look up both words for correct spelling. I was riding from a venue in Toronto to my hotel a couple months ago, and rolled past a Lamborghini dealership where they were having a little party in the parking lot. They were chatting, hanging out, having a good time, and many were smoking. Now, where I live in Vancouver, it has become increasingly out of fashion to smoke, almost to the point where you are looked down upon or cast out, or given demeaning looks. I’d hate to be a smoker just for those reasons, let alone all the health risks. I think this opinion of smokers is becoming quite common in many parts of the world, especially where the habit is now banned from public places, even bars, which I think is fantastic!

It seems I am beginning to feel the same way about Lamborghini’s as I do about cigarettes. Why would you inhale toxic chemicals in to your lungs on purpose, and why would you spew out high doses of carbon from your 650 HP engine. It just doesn’t make sense anymore. Sure cigarettes were a brilliant concoction at one point in history, and there is no doubt that sports cars have brilliant engineering, craftsmanship, and thought behind them; but times change. Take for instance this following excerpt from a fantastic book I am reading right now called The last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (this won’t be the last I speak of this book, it’s fantastic, actually order a copy right now!!):

Increasingly, the stories we’ve been telling ourselves for centuries are now moving from the useful to the not useful category. An example of such a story is the biblical order to have as many children as possible. In the days of Noah and Abraham, the tribe with the largest number of young men to create an army was usually the tribe that survived. Be fruitful and multiply was a formula for cultural survival, even though in nearly all cases it then led to and when you run out of resources and living space, kill off your neighbor and take theirs.

Sure, there was a time when cruising around in a Lamborghini smoking a cigarette would present an image of exclusivity, but the times, they are a-changin’.