Find an action. Shout 350. Tell us about it! 7

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1. 

   human power Posted 8:30 pm
   23 Oct 2009

   Events like this really depress me. This is not a circus, our lives, or at least our children's lives, depend on this generation getting off of our collective hineys every day to get carbon neutral. My goodness, here in Eugene, OR they are offering FREE PARKING for CARS at the city-sponsored event. FYI, in the Pacific Northwest we have abundant hydroelectric power (which we waste like there is no tomorrow), so our main contribution to climate change is driving. I guess it may be a failure of my imagination, but I cannot see how driving to a party is going to contribute to arresting climate change.
   
   Come on, someone please post something to cheer me up.

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2. 

   human power Posted 8:42 pm
   23 Oct 2009

   I just realized how brilliant my city's event is. Eugene's event will be held indoors; many of the people who drive to this event will undoubtedly contract the flu (quite widespread here) and thus will not drive next week as they will be home in bed. I personally don't think this is a very nice way to reduce emissions, but I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.

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3. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 9:06 pm
   23 Oct 2009

   We are having a blue line march in Olympia Washington, leaving from 1:00 P.M. at the farmers market down a convoluted route the fourth street bridge. We are going to dress in blue, and wave blue banners and march through all the streets that will under water. Sorry human power, but we are going to have fun AND fight evil. We don't find the two mutually exclusive, don't believe we have to give up dancing until the day big coal and big oil are defeated.

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   1. 

      human power Posted 10:11 pm
      23 Oct 2009

      Good on you Gar. Believe it or not, I do enjoy a good celebration and public party. It's just that I am soooo tired of all the civic greenwashing around my brown town. For example, Oregon placed in the top five states for "energy efficiency". However, looking at the study, it only considered things on paper, not actual use. So, we have decent building codes; big deal when most of our structures predate insulation, huge amounts of work has been done sans permits and remodeling does not require retrofitting. In fact, the residents of Eugene use over twice the electricity per person as the last city I lived in in CA (almost identical climates). We have decent emissions standards for autos thanks to CA, but everyone drives SUVs to the coast/mountains every week. Nine months of the year I am virtually alone on the poorly maintained bike paths.
      
      That said, let's get enthused and enjoy our victories, but let's not pretend that sustainability is a brand you can buy at the warehouse store. We simply cannot shoehorn our energy-intensive American habits into a sustainable living arrangement. We can all do much better than we are; I know because I was once privileged to live in a city where over 90% of all personal transportation needs were met by bike. Perhaps because of this experience I don't get very excited by the sight of a few bikes in a parade even though I know we will have to start with a few in order to get a movement.
      
      Have a fun roving dance. It sounds like fun.

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4. 

   Steven Earl Salmony Posted 9:11 am
   24 Oct 2009

   Will we look back to this day, October 24, 2009, and say triumphantly, "This was the day the world finally changed as it must if humanity is to save the future for the children from distinctly human-driven, patently unsustainable overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities which can now be seen overspreading the surface of Earth....recklessly dissipating its resources, relentlessly degrading its ecology and irresponsibly endangering life as we know it?"

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5. 

   Billhook Posted 5:14 pm
   24 Oct 2009

   The BBC website's total coverage consists of 6 photos of sparsly attended events. The photo taken in Berlin had a caption remarking that the number 350 had been chosen because "an overwhelmong number of scientists" believe that it is the atmosphere's safe upper limit for CO2.
   
   The quotation marks were the BBC's idea.
   
   So can anyone say where this scientific opinion has been tested, or is this just unwise hype on the organizers' part ?
   
   Overall, the general lack of electronic media coverage implies that minor-scale local non-disrupive demonstrations are utterly ignorable.
   
   If just one person had, say, peacefully unbolted an electricity pylon that carried power for a major point-pollution source, and had then fought the case as an issue of preventing-greater-harm, now that could well become really inspiring world news.
   
   Here in the UK a coal train was halted (by the correct red-flag signal) and then occupied and partly offloaded, with the team facing their arrest and trial resolutely.
   They were not aquitted, but nor were they greatly penalized, and the case gained major UK publicity.
   
   I don't advocate violence at all, but there is I think a common law duty to act to prevent genocide (by famine) particularly when it is led by the policies of ones own country.
   
   Regards,
   
   Billhook

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6. 

   Delay And Deny Posted 10:55 am
   26 Oct 2009

   The most significant environmental action occurred on 10/26 in California.
   
   This harbinger of change demonstrated that the most egregious forms of air pollution -- diesel and other toxins from trucks -- can be completely eliminated from dense metropolitan areas:
   
   http://www.visionmotorcorp.com/Tyrano_Introduced_by_Arnold_Schwarzenegger.htm
   
   "(Business Wire)-Vision Industries Corp. (OTCBB: VIIC), producers of the zero emission, plug-in electric/hydrogen fuel cell hybrid, TyranoTM semi truck, are pleased to announce that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger introduced the TyranoT to the people of California, at the East Steps of the State Capitol building in Sacramento, the morning of Oct. 20, 2009."

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