environment – Don't Gel Too Soon

A New Gig and New Ways to Make Change – Care2.com

This is pretty exciting. I’m now Managing Editor for all the Causes channels at Care2. It’s a unique organization that provides essential information on critical problems and the people who want to change them. Unlike many such groups, Care2 combines information and action – offering members both the information they need on the issues they care about and the tools to take action on those issues.
I hope you’ll come by and take a look; the issues range from Environment,and Animal Rights to Women’s Rights, Human Rights, Civil Rights and Politics to Health Policy to Global Warming .

I’d be particularly grateful for your observations about the organization and its 11 million members! Comment here or write to me at cindys@earth.care2.com.

THE STORY OF STUFF: DOES IT WORK?

This film was screened in Berkeley in early December so I’m a little late (a lot late?) writing about it but it’s worth a conversation any time. The Story of Stuff *is an extremely effective exposition on the consequences of overconsumption – and the origins of the habits that led us to our current environmental crisis. It’s riveting. And most of it makes horrifying sense; it’s the accumulation of so many common sense facts that has the power.

Somehow though, I wish for a bit more. Much of the rhetoric, while the facts may be real, is intense. I keep thinking that if the data were relayed in a way that gave us a second to breathe and absorb the most impressive**, and if the relationship between government and business were described a bit less simplistically (as almost a conspiracy,) the effect would be greater. The problem is that all those businesses are where people work. The first thing many will hear when we talk about villainous companies is the threat to their livelihood. That doesn’t make the facts less true; it just means that we have to talk about the issue in ways that address these fears. Otherwise, the film provides a great vehicle for the converted but not much firepower to reach those who may buy into the issue generally but not into the condemnation of what keeps their family alive.

I’m only dwelling on this because the film is such a great tool – and its flaws will reduce its impact. Those passionate about the environment, especially now, when people seem so much more ready to listen, want to get everything into the conversation. But I’m afraid, in this very good job, they’ve included elements that will prevent those least engaged from joining the battle. Take a look – what do you think? Here’s the introductory chapter. You can see the rest here or on You Tube in chapter elements.

*Funded by the Tides Foundation

** For example, these:
*In the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s natural resource base have been consumed. *In the United States, we have less than 4% of our original forests left.
*The U.S.has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 30% of the world’s resources4 and creates 30% of the world’s waste.
*The average US person now consumes twice as much as they did 50 years ago.
*In the US, we spend 3-4 times as many hours shopping as our counterparts in Europe do.
*Each person in the US makes 4.5 pounds of garbage a day – twice what we each made 30 years ago.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH AND OUR FUTURE

OK. So I’m way behind a lot of people – including the Oscars voters, in finally seeing Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. It’s a horrifying presentation, scary and fascinating. As a video producer I’m knocked out by the craft that makes such a dry topic so interesting. As some one who’s always been politically involved, I’m mortified that this film still needs to exist and bewildered that I haven’t been more drawn into this issue. It sounds crazy, but I’ve always been so obsessed with human rights and civil rights, education and integration, war peace and poverty, that I kind of left all this to someone else.

You can’t watch this film, though, and remain untouched. A friend says that the research is too new, that other "natural" phenomena come in cycles and that we haven’t had time to be certain that this is not just part of the next one. I respect this woman enormously but I watched this film, thinking of her, and of the power of modern technology compared to the "natural" impact that generated previous cycles and I can’t make myself believe that this isn’t an emergency.

I read a lot of science fiction, and much of it is dark and apocalyptic. Resource wars, water wars, data wars — it is the future that causes the pain. But it’s also the future that’s made by us – and if even half of this film is true, we are permitting what appears to be a horrific future to emerge, despite our ability to prevent it. I’ve followed Al Gore a long time. I remember his honorable environmental advocacy all the way back to his days in the House. He’s for real, using his position in the world to turn this huge air craft carrier of an issue around. In his film, he uses the history of the smoking issue (More Doctors Smoke Camels ads that ran just after the first Surgeon General’s Report) ont he dangers of snoking, to prove that we can change minds.

He’s won the Nobel Peace Prize for his commitment and impact. Some say the Nobel committee is just poliical and that this is a lefty-gesture. But I say hats off. Where else do we have political leaders consistently leading on an issue that has no personal reward, where the only "up side" is that we might stop cooking our planet? I haven’t seen any latery.