KC Climate Protection Forums: Last 35 Posts

harison on "How to Use This Forum"

harison — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:45:03 +0000

good stuff people will like it any way thanks for the article
===================
harison
http://www.goinggreenbuzz.com

Yango on "Natureduca"

Yango — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:44:00 +0000

Educative Ecofarm&Garden by Capacitation Theoric/Practices at childrens,youngs,adults on nature and environment,incluyed workshops in nature plenity enthorn;cooperatrive-mutualist operational system with ecuanimy,equitative uses modes

JerryShechter on "Climate Protection Plan Progress Report"

JerryShechter — Tue, 01 May 2007 01:53:56 +0000

The Kansas City, Missouri Climate Protection Plan Progress Report was submitted to the Mayor and City Council for adoption on Thursday April 12, 2007. The Progress Report was accepted by Resolution 070436. The report is too large (23 pages) and has too many graphics to post here. For a pdf copy of the report, visit the City's Climate Protection website at: www.kcmo.org - Click on Site Directory and then click on Climate Protection. If you have any problems, please get in touch with me.

Gerald Shechter, Sustainability Coordinator
Kansas City, Missouri Office of Environmental Quality
Gerald_Shechter@kcmo.org
(816) 513-3401

admin on "The Idols of Environmentalism"

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:44:54 +0000

Please comment on this excelent article below. Thanks, Marty Kraft
==============
The Idols of Environmentalism
Do environmentalists conspire against their own interests? First in a two-part series.
by Curtis White
Published in the March/April 2007 issue of Orion magazine
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/233
Art by Robert and Shana Parkeharrison

For part two of this two-part series, see The Ecology of Work.

ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION proceeds apace in spite of all the warnings, the good science, the 501(c)3 organizations with their memberships in the millions, the poll results, and the martyrs perched high in the branches of sequoias or shot dead in the Amazon. This is so not because of a power, a strength out there that we must resist. It is because we are weak and fearful. Only a weak and fearful society could invest so much desperate energy in protecting activities that are the equivalent of suicide.

For instance, trading carbon emission credits and creating markets in greenhouse gases as a means of controlling global warming is not a way of saying we’re so confident in the strength of the free market system that we can even trust it to fix the problems it creates. No, it’s a way of saying that we are so frightened by the prospect of stepping outside of the market system on which we depend for our national wealth, our jobs, and our sense of normalcy that we will let the logic of that system try to correct its own excesses even when we know we’re just kidding ourselves. This delusional strategy is embedded in the Kyoto agreement, which is little more than a complex scheme to create a giant international market in pollution. Even Kyoto, of which we speak longingly—“Oh, if only we would join it!”—is not an answer to our problem but a capitulation to it, so concerned is it to protect what it calls “economic growth and development.” Kyoto is just a form of whistling past the graveyard. And it is not just international corporations who do this whistling; we all have our own little stake in the world capitalism has made and so we all do the whistling.

The problem for even the best-intentioned environmental activism is that it imagines that it can confront a problem external to itself. Confront the bulldozers. Confront the chainsaws. Confront Monsanto. Fight the power. What the environmental movement is not very good at is acknowledging that something in the very fabric of our daily life is deeply anti-nature as well as anti-human. It inhabits not just bad-guy CEOs at Monsanto and Weyerhaeuser but nearly every working American, environmentalists included.

It is true that there are CEO-types, few in number, who are indifferent to everything except money, who are cruel and greedy, and so the North Atlantic gets stripped of cod and any number of other species taken incidentally in what is the factory trawler’s wet version of a scorched-earth policy. Or some junk bond maven buys up a section of old-growth redwoods and “harvests” it without hesitation when his fund is in sudden need of “liquidity.” Nevertheless, all that we perceive to be the destructiveness of corporate culture in relation to nature is not the consequence of its power, or its capacity for dominating nature ("taming," as it was once put, as if what we were dealing with was the lion act at the circus). Believing in powerful corporate evildoers as the primary source of our problems forces us to think in cartoons.

Besides, corporations are really powerless to be anything other than what they are. I suspect that, far from being perverse merchants of greed hellbent on destruction, these corporate entities are as bewildered as we are. Capitalism—especially in its corporate incarnation—has a logos, a way of reasoning. Capitalism is in the position of the notorious scorpion who persuades the fox to ferry him across a river, arguing that he won’t sting the fox because it wouldn’t be in his interest to do so, since he’d drown along with the fox. But when in spite of this logic he stings the fox anyway, all he can offer in explanation is “I did it because it is in my nature.” In the same way, it’s not as if businessmen perversely seek to destroy their own world. They have vacation homes in the Rockies or New England and enjoy walks in the forest, too. They simply have other priorities which are to them a duty.

THE IDEA THAT WE HAVE powerful corporate villains to thank for the sorry state of the natural world is what Francis Bacon called an “idol of the tribe.” According to Bacon, an idol is a truth based on insufficient evidence but maintained by constant affirmation within the tribe of believers. In spite of this insufficiency, idols do not fall easily or often. Tribes are capable of exerting will based on principles, but they are capable only with the greatest difficulty of willing the destruction of their own principles. It’s as if they feel that it is better to stagger from frustration to frustration than to return honestly to the question, does what we believe actually make sense? The idea of fallen idols always suggests tragic disillusionment, but this is in fact a good thing. If they don’t fall, there is no hope for discovering the real problems and the best and truest response to them. All environmentalists understand that the global crisis we are experiencing requires urgent action, but not everyone understands that if our activism is driven by idols we can exhaust ourselves with effort while having very little effect on the crisis. Most frighteningly, it is even possible that our efforts can sustain the crisis. The question the environmental tribe must ask is, do our mistaken assumptions actually cause us to conspire against our own interests?

The belief that corporate power is the unique source of our problems is not the only idol we are subject to. There is an idol even in the language we use to account for our problems. Our primary dependence on the scientific language of “environment,” “ecology,” “diversity,” “habitat,” and “ecosystem” is a way of acknowledging the superiority of the very kind of rationality that serves not only the Sierra Club but corporate capitalism as well. For instance:

“You can pump this many tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere without disturbing the major climatic systems.”

“This much contiguous habitat is necessary to sustain a population allowing for a survivable gene pool for this species.”

“We’ll keep a list, a running tally of endangered species (as we’ll call these animals), and we’ll monitor their numbers, and when that number hits a specified threshold we’ll say they are ‘healthy,’ or we’ll say they are ‘extinct.’ All this is to be done by bureaucratic fiat.”

I am not speaking here of all the notorious problems associated with proving scientifically the significance of environmental destruction. My concern is with the wisdom of using as our primary weapon the rhetoric and logic of the very entities we suspect of causing our problems in the first place. Perhaps we support legalistic responses to problems, with all their technoscientific descriptors, out of a sense that this is the best we can do for the moment. But the danger is always that eventually we come to believe this language and its mindset ourselves. This mindset is generally called “quantitative reasoning,” and it is second nature to Anglo-Americans. Corporate execs are perfectly comfortable with it, and corporate philanthropists give their dough to environmental organizations that speak it. Unfortunately, it also has the consequence of turning environmentalists into quislings, collaborators, and virtuous practitioners of a cost-benefit logic figured in songbirds.

It is because we have accepted this rationalist logos as the only legitimate means of debate that we are willing to think that what we need is a balance between the requirements of human economies and the “needs” of the natural world. It’s as if we were negotiating a trade agreement with the animals and trees unlucky enough to have to share space with us. What do you need? we ask them. What are your minimum requirements? We need to know the minimum because we’re not likely to leave you more than that. We’re going to consume any “excess.” And then it occurs to us to add, unless of course you taste good. There is always room for an animal that tastes good.

We use our most basic vocabulary, words like “ecosystem,” with a complete innocence, as if we couldn’t imagine that there might be something perilous in it. What if such language were actually the announcement of the defeat of what we claim to want? That’s the worm at the heart of the rose of the “ecologist.” It is something that environmentalism has never come to terms with because the very advocates for environmental health are most comfortable with the logic of science, never mind what else that logic may be doing for the military and industry. Would people and foundations be as willing to send contributions to The Nature Conservancy or the Sierra Club if the leading logic of the organization were not “ecosystems” but “respect for life” or “reverence for creation”? Such notions are, for many of us, compromised by associations with the Catholic Church and evangelicalism, and they don’t loosen the purse strings of philanthropy. “Let’s keep a nice, clean scientific edge between us and religion,” we protest. In the end, environmental science criticizes not only corporate destructiveness but (as it has always done) more spiritual notions of nature as well.

Environmentalism seems to conclude that the best thing it can do for nature is make a case for it, as if it were always making a summative argument before a jury with the backing of the best science. Good children of the Enlightenment, we keep expecting Reason to prevail (and in a perverse and destructive way, it does prevail). It is the language of “system” (nature as a kind of complicated machine) that allows most of us to feel comfortable with working for or giving money to environmental organizations. We even seem to think that the natural system should work in consort with our economic system. Why, we argue, that rainforest might contain the cure for cancer. By which we also mean that it could provide profitable products for the pharmaceutical industry and local economies. (God help the doomed indigenous culture once the West decides that it has an economy that needs assistance.) Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth may have distressing things to say about global warming, but subconsciously it is an extended apology for scientific rationality, the free market, and our utterly corrupted democracy. Gore doesn’t have to defend these things directly; he merely has to pretend that nothing else exists. Even the awe of Immanuel Kant’s famous “starry skies above” is lost to modern environmentalism, so obsessed is it with what data, graphs, and a good PowerPoint presentation can show.

In short, there would be nothing inappropriate or undesirable were we to understand our relation to nature in spiritual terms or poetic terms or, with Emerson and Thoreau, in good old American transcendental terms, but there is no broadly shared language in which to do this. So we are forced to resort to what is in fact a lower common denominator: the languages of science and bureaucracy. These languages have broad legitimacy in our culture, a legitimacy they possess largely because of the thoroughness with which they discredited Christian religious discourse in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But many babies went out with the bath water of Christian dogma and superstition. One of those was morality. Even now, science can’t say why we ought not to harm the environment except to say that we shouldn’t be self-destructive. Another of these lost spiritual children was our very relation as human beings to the mystery of Being as such. As the philosopher G. W. Leibniz famously wondered, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” For St. Thomas Aquinas, this was the fundamental religious question. In the place of a relation to the world that was founded on this mystery, we have a relation that is objective and data driven. We no longer have a forest; we have “board feet.” We no longer have a landscape, a world that is our own; we have “valuable natural resources.” Even avowed Christians have been slow to recall this spiritualized relationship to the world. For example, only recently have American evangelicals begun thinking of the environment in terms of what they call “creation care.” We don’t have to be born again to agree with evangelicals that one of the most powerful arguments missing from the environmentalist’s case is reverence for what simply is. One of the heroes of Goethe’s Faust was a character called Care (Sorge), who showed to Faust the unscrupulousness of his actions and led him to salvation. Environmentalism has made a Faustian pact with quantitative reasoning; science has given it power but it cannot provide deliverance. If environmentalism truly wishes, as it claims, to want to “save” something—the planet, a species, itself—it needs to rediscover a common language of Care.

THE LESSONS OF OUR IDOLS come to this: you cannot defeat something that you imagine to be an external threat to you when it is in fact internal to you, when its life is your life. And even if it were external to you, you cannot defeat an enemy by thinking in the terms it chooses, and by doing only those things that not only don’t harm it but with which it is perfectly comfortable. The truth is, our idols are actually a great convenience to us. It is convenient that we can imagine a power beyond us because that means we don’t have to spend much time examining our own lives. And it is very convenient that we can hand the hard work of resistance over to scientists, our designated national problem solvers.

We cannot march forth, confront, and definitively defeat the Monsantos of the world, especially not with science (which, it should go without saying, Monsanto has plenty of). We can, however, look at ourselves and see all of the ways that we conspire against what we imagine to be our own most urgent interests. Perhaps the most powerful way in which we conspire against ourselves is the simple fact that we have jobs. We are willingly part of a world designed for the convenience of what Shakespeare called “the visible God”: money. When I say we have jobs, I mean that we find in them our home, our sense of being grounded in the world, grounded in a vast social and economic order. It is a spectacularly complex, even breathtaking, order, and it has two enormous and related problems. First, it seems to be largely responsible for the destruction of the natural world. Second, it has the strong tendency to reduce the human beings inhabiting it to two functions, working and consuming. It tends to hollow us out. It creates a hole in our sense of ourselves and of this country, and it leaves us with few alternatives but to try to fill that hole with money and the things money buys. We are not free to dismiss money because we fear that we’d disappear, we’d be nothing at all without it. Money is, in the words of Buddhist writer David Loy, “the flight from emptiness that makes life empty.”

Needless to say, many people with environmental sympathies will easily agree with what I’ve just said and imagine that in fact they do what they can to resist work and consumption, to resist the world as arranged for the convenience of money. But here again I suspect we are kidding ourselves. Rather than taking the risk of challenging the roles money and work play in all of our lives by actually taking the responsibility for reordering our lives, the most prominent strategy of environmentalists seems to be to “give back” to nature through the bequests, the annuities, the Working Assets credit cards and long distance telephone schemes, and the socially responsible mutual funds advertised in Sierra and proliferating across the environmental movement. Such giving may make us feel better, but it will never be enough. Face it, we all have a bit of the robber baron turned philanthropist in us. We’re willing to be generous in order to “save the world” but not before we’ve insured our own survival in the reigning system. It’s not even clear that this philanthropy is a pure expression of generosity since the bequest and annuity programs are carefully measured to provide attractive tax benefits and appealing rates of return.

Even when we are trying to aid the environment, we are not willing as individuals to leave the system that we know in our heart of hearts is the cause of our problems. We are even further from knowing how to take the collective risk of leaving this system entirely and ordering our societies differently. We are not ready. Not yet, at least.

For part two of this two-part series, see The Ecology of Work.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/267

In the next issue of Orion, Curtis White describes an environmentalism built around changing the nature of work.

Curtis White's essays have appeared in Harper's Magazine, the Village Voice, and In These Times. He is the author of The Middle Mind, Requiem, and earlier this year, The Spirit of Disobedience. He teaches at Illinois State University.

arshu123 on "How to Use This Forum"

arshu123 — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 18:19:09 +0000

Hi Friends,

I am taking notes on things that GOV should do to avoid Global warming.

http://globalwarming-awareness2007-arshad.com/

Please help me expand the topic.

Thanks!
Arshad

JerryShechter on "KC, Mo Climate Protection Plan Progress Report"

JerryShechter — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 22:05:57 +0000

The Kansas City, Missouri Climate Protection Plan Progress Report has been submitted to the Mayor and City Council for adoption. A presentation will be made to the Council at its Business Session on Thursday April 12, 2007. The report is too large (23 pages) and has too many graphics to properly post here. For an electronic copy of the report, in pdf format, send an e-mail to:

Gerald Shechter, Sustainability Coordinator
Kansas City, Missouri Office of Environmental Quality
Gerald_Shechter@kcmo.org
(816) 513-3401

admin on "KC Star Climate Change Response - Start Here"

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:56:04 +0000

This forum is divided into seven areas of conversation, see below. Use the search to find topics too.

ENERGY - http://www.allspecies.org/forum/forum/1
TRANSPORTATION - http://www.allspecies.org/forum/forum/3
SEQUESTERING GREENHOUSE GASSES - http://www.allspecies.org/forum/forum/2
POLICY & EDUCATION - http://www.allspecies.org/forum/forum/5
WASTE STREAM - http://www.allspecies.org/forum/forum/4
MULTIPLE TOPIC ISSUES - http://www.allspecies.org/forum/forum/6
VISION - http://www.allspecies.org/forum/forum/7

KC Star Climate Change Site
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/special_packages/changing_climate/

MartyKraft on "Candidate Climate Protection Question:"

MartyKraft — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 00:30:03 +0000

Climate protection may well be the most important issue of the last 10,000 years.

Mayor Barns and the City Council adopted a resolution and started a planning process to significantly reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses within city government, other institutions and among citizens. As mayor what would you do to continue and enlarge this process and how would you begin immediately upon taking office to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Realizing that we will have to use less energy how would you encourage greater neighborhood vitality through the changes that will follow?

TomNeff on "Policies We Might Change"

TomNeff — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 04:27:36 +0000

Personally, as much as it is a landmark, light pollution is pollution.

HEY!! Why doesn't Channel Five go LED if they are going to continue to put lights all the way up! That would be a tremendous reduction in use and, would surely pay for itself in very short order. I am not certain how "robust" LED systems have gotten thus far but, worth checking into

To take it a step further, what about all of those beacons on top of towers, any "channel signs" or back-lit signs the City uses, and any other similar uses...

TomNeff on "Deconstruction lucrative for a Non-Profit in Oregon..."

TomNeff — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 04:17:49 +0000

Our United Villages, a non-profit in Portland, Oregon completely supports their operations through the income produced by their Rebuilding Center which conducts deconstruction services in the region.

http://rebuildingcenter.org/

TomNeff on "Article on Thin Film Solar Deal 2-7-07"

TomNeff — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 04:10:09 +0000

"ECD Ovonics Announces Agreement for a Joint Venture Between United Solar Ovonic and Tianjin Jinneng Investment Company in China for Assembly of Thin-Film Solar Modules"

http://www.uni-solar.com/uploadedFiles/MediaCenter/FeaturedNews/Tianjin%20JV-020707.pdf

TomNeff on "Links - Pew Center on GCC & World Resource Inst."

TomNeff — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 04:00:32 +0000

The pdf file called "Getting Ahead of the Curve: Corporate Strategies That Address Climate Change" prepared for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change October 2006 by Andrew J. Hoffman of the University of Michigan, can be found here:

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/PEW%5FCorpStrategies%2Epdf

The World Resources Institute has a series of documents associated with the "GHG Protocol Initiative" that provide measurement and adaption concepts for the business community.
http://www.wri.org/

ronmclinden on "Live Closer to Home"

ronmclinden — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 20:00:15 +0000

There's a lot of GHG emissions associated with how far we travel -- also what modes we choose and how fast we go, of course.

There's also a lot of transportation-related GHG emissions wrapped up in everything that we purchase.

Take a look at this article, "Living Closer to Home," on the Sierra Club website:

http://missouri.sierraclub.org/thb/conservation/consumption/live-closer-to-home.html

A public awareness campaign about the GHG emissions and other costs of going farther than we have to go -- and buying products from unnecessarily far-off places -- would have positive benefits.

The purchasing part could be presented as "buy local" and most people would see it as an economic development campaign instead of climate protection -- and that's not bad.

MartyKraft on "Feet First District"

MartyKraft — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:16:59 +0000

We could start by giving the pedestrians and bicyclists the right of way and giving tickets to motorists who do not. There might already be a law in KCMO that says that motorests must stop for pedestrians stepping off the curb at the corners.

ronmclinden on "Feet First District"

ronmclinden — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 18:38:47 +0000

In the "Policies We Might Change" thread I introduced the concept of a "Feet First District," and Brent added his thoughts. See

http://www.allspecies.org/forum/topic/10?replies=10#post-16

A "Feet First District" would be a part of the city within which walkability and bikability -- rather than SOV mobility and free-flowing traffic -- are the principle design criteria where streets are concerned -- a district within which the "success" of a street is measured by how well it serves non-motorized people.

The FFD should extend well beyond a few isolated enclaves within Downtown, Westport, the Plaza, and Brookside. (When it comes right down to it, those enclaves aren't all that friendly to non-motorists.) It needs to be much more expansive than that -- initially including much of Mayor Barnes' "River-Crown-Plaza" corridor. We should publically claim (and informally "mark") our "territory," and then work with (or, if necessary, against) the city's traffic engineers to make every street and sidewalk and (especially) intersection within the FFD "friendly" to all citizens, especially citizens who don't happen to be "wearing a car" at the moment.

Part of our vision should be that the city will formally embrace the FFD concept and actually "post" the FFD with appropriate signage as upgrades are made. (I'm reminded of signs I saw posted, affirmation-like, all over Baltimore ten years ago: "Baltimore: a City that Reads.")

And part of our vision should be that the FFD be expanded over a period of a decade or two to include all 320 or so square miles within the city limits.

MartyKraft on "Coming Home to Eat Challenge"

MartyKraft — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 02:58:41 +0000

Simple Cheap Solar Collector

One of the quickest, simplest most inexpensive ways to begin cutting greenhouse gas emissions is to put an old fashioned solar collector in your yard by creating a vegetable garden. You will be taking the suns energy and turning it into energy to run your body. That energy takes you anywhere you wish to walk or bicycle. It allows you to think up other ideas for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Your extra vegetables become diplomatic community builders with your neighbors. In the process, you save the fossil fuel it takes to bring you food from California or New Zealand. The garden is the perfect place to mulch your leaves in the fall while learning the wisdom of nature which we have ignored too long.

jgt on "A question about hydrogen production"

jgt — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 22:45:37 +0000

I am having a hard time googling something about hydrogen production from electrolisis and would like some help finding the answer.

The question is how much hydrogen must be produced by how much current passing through how much water to produce the equivalent of one liter of gasoline for an internal combustion engine?

jgt on "Coming Home to Eat Challenge"

jgt — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 10:13:06 +0000

I attended the conference, Coming Home to Eat, this weekend. While I was there I encouraged participants to visit this site and use it to express their issues, and hopefully make connections. I also told folks that we should each create one post on the site as a way of introducing ourselves and our interests/concerns.

My area of concern is that the issues of global warming and lack of sustainable practices is a symptom of a bigger problem. The larger issue is the human tendency to be self important and self centered. The idea being that we use our sense of self importance to justify our exploitations, and the unsustainability of this means that it is really our self-centeredness which is unsustainable.

We also need to move from exploitive capitalist models of business and economy to sustainable models based on collaboration and consensus. We would like to develop a program that provides young people with this kind of an experience that deals in sustainable agriculture.

I have a daughter that is a junior in high school and she and I have been brainstorming on this project together. She has mentioned the project to a teacher at her school that is the sponsor of an environmental club there. This teacher has expressed interest in the project and we are planning to have this teacher to our home for dinner in the next couple of weeks to discuss things and do more brain storming. Anyone else that is interested in this idea will be welcome as well. Our feeling is that the more input and collaboration that we can generate the greater the consensus and the more sustainable the solution.

katiegrotegut on "How can we really get to people?"

katiegrotegut — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 22:29:19 +0000

Thanks for letting me know, and pardon me! I had no idea it was a prejorative term, I just thought it was descriptive! I think there are at least a few people in this group who know I'd be the last person to want to offend anyone. Hopefully my ignorance and "insensitivity" won't put anyone else off reading the rest of this post, which is from Phelps. The information is probably some of the most important I've read during my masters program, and Phelps seems to concur. I wll not use the word again. That being said, getting people to change their values, priorities and behavior, even in their own self-interest, is often thought to be invasive and angers the very people who need to be reached, lending a negative conotation to the term, and requiring delicate skills in the task itself. However, I am not aware of the term's exclusive use by those who would suppress positive change.

ronmclinden on "How can we really get to people?"

ronmclinden — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 09:05:14 +0000

I haven't read through Katie's entire post -- didn't get past the first paragraph, actually -- but let's please not talk about "social engineering."

While that term might be technically accurate, more often than not it's used in a pejorative way by people who have a vested interest in not implementing positive change.

In everything we say and write we need to be very sensitive to the "connotative" meaning of words as well as the "denotative" meaning. That's Semantics 101.

katiegrotegut on "How can we really get to people?"

katiegrotegut — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 07:36:33 +0000

Ron, you are talking about social engineering. Phelps sent a summation out on a 300 page book that focuses on this exact subject. It's called Americans and Climate Change. Closing the gap between science and action, a synthesis of insights and recommendations from the 2005 Yale F&ES Conference on Climate Change.

It is in PDF form, and I can send it to you if you want, but it might be easier to review Phelps' summary, which isn't exactly short.

KCCP Participants,

¥ou may be well aware of the recommendations from Americans & Climate Change. After wading through 221 pages, I found the following excepts quite illuminating. I share them below, along with the recommendations summary, because I think they can help as we determine our next steps.

Phelps Murdock

Excerpts From
Americans & Climate Change

Closing the Gap Between Science and Action
Recommendations from 005 Yale F&ES Conference on Climate Change

³Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A portfolio of 64 technologies now exists to meet the world¹s energy needs over the next 50 years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling of the pre-industrial concentration. Every element in this portfolio has passed beyond the laboratory bench and demonstration project; many are already implemented somewhere at full industrial scale...It is important not to become beguiled by the possibility of revolutionary technology. Humanity can solve the carbon and climate problem in the first half of this century simply by scaling up what we already know how to do² (Science, Vol. 305, No. 5686:968).

Many at our Conference, including major donors and foundation representatives, said that environmental organizations have simply not done a good enough job of working in partnership with each other on climate change whether combining resources or crafting a common, mutually reinforcing, message on the issue. (p. 67)

The recommendation recognizes, however, that there are also dozens of profit and not-for-proit entities already retailing ³carbon offsets² or green energy produced from renewables. Some analysts have raised concerns about unevenness in the verification standards and quality of these offsets. (p. 70)

So while there is no shortage of emerging certification and logo efforts, there may be an opposite problem: too many of them, which diffuses resources across many initiatives rather than concentrating them on one or a few that could break through to attain consumer awareness. This proliferation of initiatives can simply be confusing to the consumer. (p. 71)

Those working to promote societal action on climate change need to do a better job of formulating goals that are capable of promoting convergent strategies by dispersed and often uncoordinated actors, and commensurate with a real solution to the problem. In order to guide and motivate needed actions, these goals should be generated collaboratively, scientifically calibrated, quantifiable, trackable and easily expressible. They should include not only emissions targets but also, given the crucial importance of ³public will,² attitudinal targets. (p. 80)

It is difficult to create urgency about avoiding something unknown and unknowable and to craft communications that motivate action on this diffuse basis. And yet, as far as we know, we may be currently and inadvertently crossing thresholds we do not recognize entraining irreversible consequences. (p. 83)

One leader in the ³carbon finance² arena described a private meeting with an elected official who is active in the legislative maneuvering on climate change. In the course of that conversation, the official had an epiphany that intensified his sense of urgency. The turning point was the financier¹s mention of ongoing plans to construct nearly 120 traditional pulverized coal-fired power plants in the U.S. alone over the coming years (sending U.S. coal use up at least 40 percent over the next twenty-plus years). China reportedly has plans to construct four to five times that number. These plans create a surprisingly narrow window of opportunity to act if one wants to reduce emissions. (p. 84)

³Achieving climate targets that account for, say, the risk of disintegrating ice sheets (Oppenheimer, 1998; Hansen, 2003; Oppenheimer and Alley, 2004) or for large scale extinction risks (Thomas et al., 2004) almost certainly requires substantial and near term emission reductions. For example, to constrain global-mean temperatures to peaking at 2° C above the pre-industrial level with reasonable certainty (say > 75%) would require emission reductions of the order of 60% below 1990 levels by 2050 for the GWP-weighted sum of all greenhouse gases...If the start of significant emission reductions were further delayed, the necessary rates of emissions reduction rates were even higher, if the risk of overshooting certain temperature levels shouldn¹t be increased (den Elzen and Meinshausen, 2005;Meinshausen, 2005).

Meanwhile, in interpreting the authors¹ bracing conclusion, it is worth noting that even the +2° C (+3.6° F) global average warming ceiling cited here may prove too lenient to prevent ice sheet melting, widespread coral bleaching, ecosystem disruption, agricultural losses and other adverse consequences. That +2° C rise, incidentally, would be over three times the warming experienced in the 20th century. (p. 92)

Some find that while agriculture, terrestrial ecosystems and forests may yield interim productivity gains up to some difficult-to-estimate temperature threshold before turning negative, other sectors like coastal and marine ecosystems are more likely to experience damages even during initial temperature increases. (p. 93)

The variable that turns out to have the greatest impact on an individual¹s belief about the national seriousness of climate change is the ³certainty² with which he or she holds the other beliefs (i.e., how certain are they of the existence of global warming, the role of human causation, the efficacy of remedial steps). This suggests that a potential civic engagement strategy might invest less in persuading those who don¹t believe that global warming exists, and relatively more in strengthening the ³certainty² with which those who already believe some aspect of climate change, perhaps through provision of accessible scientific information. (p. 96)

The facts of climate change cannot be left to speak for themselves. They must be actively communicated with the right words, in the right dosages, packaged with narrative storytelling that is based rigorously on reality, personalized with human faces, made vivid through visual imagery and delivered by the right messengers. Doing this will require that climate change communications go from being a datapoor to a data-rich arena. Social science methods have not been adequately applied to date and that must change, given the stakes. (p. 97)

If Americans perceive their reference point to be the status quo of a fairly stable, hospitable climate, these findings could be interpreted to posit, subject to testing, that they would be less likely to invest in costly emissions reductions efforts with a higher probability-adjusted payout in the future than to take what they regard as a sure gain (i.e., keep the money they would have otherwise invested in emissions reductions). If, on the other hand, they can be induced to recognize that we are already in a domain of losses by virtue of past emissions and the adaptation ³overhang² they have created, then Americans may be more inclined to invest in more intensive emissions reductions efforts that hold out the chance of stabilizing greenhouse gases at a non-dangerous level in the atmosphere. (p. 102)

Science Recommendations

Recommendation #1: Create a new ³bridging institution² to actively seekout key business, religious, political, and civic leaders and the media anddeliver to them independent, reliable and credible scienti€c informationabout climate change (including natural and economic sciences). (p. 110)

Recommendation #2: Reorient research priorities on climate change to be more responsive to society¹s information and decision-making needs, including greater emphasis on impacts, local consequences, timing, nonlinear risks, adaptation, and solutions. (p. 115)

Recommendation #3: Strengthen citizen-science initiatives on climate change so as to build greater public engagement with the conduct of climate change science. (p. 116)

Recommendation #4: Identify and execute feasible, high-level actions that could modify the financial and reward structures within academia most responsible for inhibiting: a) interdisciplinary and problemoriented research on large-scale, urgent issues like climate change; and b) faculty and PhD student engagement in public communication, policy-making and other public service arenas. Recruit key influencers to meet with university presidents, university funders, and other influencers in furtherance of this objective. (p. 118)

Recommendation #5: Identify mechanisms to preserve and advance the integrity of the publicly-funded scienti€c research enterprise, especially on climate change. Shine a public spotlight on the process by which the federal science agenda is developed and funding choices are made. (p. 119)

Recommendation #6: Convene one or more dialogues free of economic and political compromises to undertake a fundamental redefinition of the climate change challenge in light of its urgency. (p. 119)

News media Recommendations

Recommendation #7: Educate the gatekeepers (i.e., editors). In order to improve the communication of climate science in the news media, foster a series of visits and conferences whereby respected journalists and editors informed on climate change can speak to their peer editors. The objective is to have those who can credibly talk about story ideas and craft reach out to their peers about how to cover the climate change issue with appropriate urgency, context, and journalistic integrity. (p. 126)

Recommendation #8: Enhance the scientific competence of journalists. (p. 127)

Recommendation #9: Initiate a climate change weekly column. Find a newspaper willing to devote a weekly column to the issue of climate change and help them syndicate it to others or work with one of the large newspaper chains to provide a larger multi-newspaper platform. Recruit a talented and ambitious writer and give him or her, in effect, a virtually unlimited budget to pursue the story. (p. 129)

Recommendation #10: Invite the media in. (p. 129)

Religion & Ethics Recommendations

Recommendation #11: Religious leaders and communities must recognize the scale, urgency and moral dimension of climate change, and the ethical unacceptability of any action that damages the quality and viability of life on Earth, particularly for the poor and most vulnerable. (p. 136)

Recommendation #12: Religious leaders and communities should establish or expand religious coalitions on the environment and convene dialogues to develop common understandings and resources specifically on the climate change issue across different religions and moral
traditions. (p. 136)

Recommendation #13: Religious leaders should reach deep into their memberships to communicate the scale of the problem and the vital moral imperative of addressing it. (p. 137)

Recommendation #14: Religious leaders and communities should communicate their concern for urgently addressing climate change to the nation¹s political leadership and broader public. (p. 138)

Recommendation #15: Recognizing that business leaders are well positioned to promote receptivity to climate change messages among certain religious constituencies, create new opportunities for dialogue on climate change between business and religious leaders and communities. (p. 138)

Recommendation #16: Establish religious outreach efforts on climate change tailored specifically to certain regions of the United States and their own religious traditions, especially the U.S. South. (p. 139)

Recommendation #17: Continue to develop and expand the field of Religion and Ecology, and its ability to unearth the commonalities across religions on matters of ecology and to supply language, concepts and textual support to religious leaders who want to articulate environmental issues to their constituencies (see www.environment.harvard.edu/religion.) (p. 139)

Recommendation #18: Reach out to seminaries and other religious training institutions and encourage them to incorporate climate change into their curricula for new religious leaders. Provide education on climate change to current clergy via continuing education and other means. (p. 139)

Recommendation #19: Establish religion-science and religionenvironmentalist partnerships on environmental issues. (p. 140)

Politics Recommendations

Recommendation #20: Design and execute a ³New Vision for Energy² campaign to encourage a national market-based transition to alternative energy sources.Harness multiple messages tailored to different audiences that embed the climate change issue in a larger set of co-benefit
narratives, such as: reducing U.S. dependency on Middle East oil (national security); penetrating global export markets with American innovations (U.S. stature); boosting U.S. job growth (jobs); and cutting local air pollution (health). (p. 149)

Recommendation #21: Recast climate change as a moral and faith issue, not a scienti€c or environmental one. Catalyze a broader coalition of allies around this moral common ground. (p. 151)

Recommendation #22: Increase the emphasis on adaptation and preparedness for climate change, both because it is warranted based on climate change we are already committed to, but also because it could be a back door to a more reality-based dialogue about mitigation. (p. 152)
Recommendation #23: Recruit a group of party elders from both parties who are less ensconced in the gridlock of today¹s Washington, D.C., and would be more able to work together to promote constructive action on climate change among the incumbents in their party. (p. 152)

Recommendation #24: Convene a group of political scientists, elected officials (and their staffers), and campaign operatives to conduct an analysis and dialogue about the connections between systemic problems in democratic governance in the United States and climate change. For example, how do campaign €nancing, redistricting and the lack of competitive seats and other factors in€uence policy performance on climate change? (p. 153)

Entertainment & Advertising Recommendations

Recommendation #25: Create a new overarching communications entity or project to design and execute a well-financed public education campaign on climate change science and its implications. This multifaceted campaign would leverage the latest social science findings concerning attitude formation and change on climate change, and would use all available media in an effort to disseminate rigorously accurate information, and to counter disinformation in real time. (p. 159)

Recommendation #26: Undertake systematic and rigorous projects to test the impact of environmental communications in all media (e.g., advertising, documentary, feature film) on civic engagement, public opinion and persuasive outcomes. Use these to inform new creative work on multi-media climate change communications. (p. 161)

Recommendation #27: Embed messages about climate change into a variety of existing communications channels, such as weathercasting and entertainment vehicles. (p. 162)

Education Recommendations

Recommendation #28: Improve K-12 students¹ understanding of climate change by promoting it as a standards-based content area within science curricula and incorporating it into other disciplinary curricula and teacher certification standards. Use the occasion of the state reviews
of science standards for this purpose, which are being prompted by the states¹ need to comply with the Fall 2007 start of high-stakes science testing under the No Child Left Behind Act. (p. 169)

Recommendation #29: Organize a grassroots educational campaign to create local narratives around climate change impacts and solutions, while mobilizing citizen engagement and action. Kick the campaign off with a National Climate Week that would recur on an annual basis. (p. 171)

Recommendation #30: Identify and execute opportunities to incorporate climate change content into instructional technologies, devices and software products, including video games and educational simulations such as SimCityTM. (p. 173)

Recommendation #31: Create a variety of academic and non-academic competitions centered on climate change, or harness existing competitions by introducing climate change as a topic. (p. 174)

Recommendation #32: Following the trend toward niche channels and narrowcasting, create a TV show or entire channel dedicated to educational and engaging coverage of all dimensions of climate change, ranging from the natural sciences to policy developments in the United States and abroad. (p. 174)

Business & Finance Recommendations

Recommendation #33: The Business & Finance working group at the Conference composed an eight-principle framework, and proposed that it be disseminated broadly to trade associations and individual business leaders (especially at the CEO and board level) as a set of clear and feasible actions that businesses can and should take on climate change. (p. 181)

Recommendation #34: Create and fund an R&D organization to undertake and disseminate credible and independent studies of the economic impacts of climate change on business sectors and specific businesses at a level of detail sufficient to affect decision-making. The organization would complement this data by also offering credible information on available solutions, especially energy efficiency investments with rapid paybacks and high rates of return. (p. 185)

Recommendation #35: Launch a certification program and logo signifying climate-friendly products and services, or rationalize such efforts already in existence in order to concentrate consumer awareness and purchasing power on behalf of climate change mitigation objectives. (p. 186)

Environmentalists & Civil Society Recommendations

Recommendation #36: Create a broad-based Climate Action Leadership Council of 10-12 recognizable and senior eminent leaders from all key national sectors and constituencies to serve as an integrating mechanism for developing and delivering a cohesive message to society about the seriousness of climate change and the imperative of taking action. The Council would include leaders from business, labor, academia, government, the NGO sector, the professions (medicine, law, and public health) and community leaders. They would be chosen on the basis of their credibility within their respective communities, but also across
society at large. (p. 192)

Recommendation #37: In order to scale up and bring in the required resources, expand the number of donors who understand the urgency of climate change and work with them to identify action-oriented grants consistent with their funding mission and style. (p. 195)

Recommendation #38: Create an environmental corps of college students to lead research and action on climate change. This would range from promoting greenhouse gas reduction pledges by their respective colleges and universities to undertaking action beyond their institutions. (p. 195)

Recommendation #39: Create one or more competitions among the 200+ U.S. mayors who pledged to voluntarily ful€ll the Kyoto Protocol target, whereby their cities would seek to best one another on some specific and measurable climate change-related metric, such as the most
compact €uorescent light bulbs installed within a year. (p. 195)

katiegrotegut on "Waste management strategies"

katiegrotegut — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 07:20:37 +0000

I also want to point out how behind we are in the US. We've been trying to decide if climate change is real, and if so, how we can slow it down. But here is what Asia Pacific countries are doing. It just puts things in perspective.

Table 2.1 Measures to cope with impacts of climate change in selected Asia-Pacific countries
Bangladesh
Preparation of NAPA; construction of flood and cyclone shelters, coastal embankments,
rainwater harvesting,saline tolerant crops;drainage control
Bhutan
NAPA 2006 highlighting actions such as artificial lowering of Thorthomi lake,early warning
systems, rainwater harvesting, landslide and flood control; mainstreaming climate change
adaptation in national planning
Cambodia
Completion of NAPA and identification of additional adaptation programmes of action
Indonesia
Setting up of a special division on adaptation within the ministry and a working group on
adaptation
Maldives
Integrating adaptation in infrastructure development;relocation of people from vulnerable
islands to less vulnerable area;protection of coastal areas including airport
Mongolia
Phase 3 of National Action Plan on Climate Change listing various adaptation measures
Nepal
Water resources development plan
Philippines
Early warning systems and provision of seasonal climate advisories; public awareness
activities;risk management framework including national hazard planning and stakeholder
consultations; integrated impact and vulnerability assessment in most vulnerable regions;
hazard mapping
Sri Lanka
Development of drought resistant and flood-tolerant crops and changing cropping
patterns; sector-based adaptation plans; rainwater harvesting; rehabilitation of irrigation
infrastructure
Thailand
Emergency response measures to cope with droughts and floods
Viet Nam
Vulnerability and adaptation assessments in selected sites; assessment of technology
needs for adaptation;disaster management plans and adaptation framework

< http://enviroscope.iges.or.jp/modules/envirolib/upload/535/attach/02_national-perspectives.pdf.>

katiegrotegut on "Waste management strategies"

katiegrotegut — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 07:15:49 +0000

I asked David Dods if anyone has offered to form a subgroup on waste management. I am all for this, and am surprised that we aren't further along on it. I worked with Dwayne Walker at OEQ designing and implementing a KC internal recycle program, meaning the recycling of paper, cans and plastic, and supplying information, organization, tools and equipment and supervision for all buildings and departments that belong to the city. I designed a nice outreach PowerPoint to educate and inform all city employees. Its been sitting on my hard drive since June. We were all ready to submit bids and get going on the initiative, when the City Manager got wind of a MARC grant for lots of money. By the time we got that written and submitted and then recieved the result, quite a bit of time went by. Then it was months before schedules and other things allowed Dennis to get back to Mr. Cauthen for input on the future of the program. We have just gotten the OK for all the funding (I think). I have received a lot of enthusiastic input from city employees about this, and we learned a lot about what it will take to implement this successfully. One of the things I think I can offer our work group, is the PowerPoint. Perhaps we can all look at it, at least. If anyone has a suggestion for how this might be put to work for us, let me know.

I also submitted a short article on a group of californians who made a pact not to buy anything new for a year, except where it affects health. We all should be familiar with Cradle to Cradle, by Bill McDonough. However, I think it will be awhile before we get a majority of Kansascitians to embrace the 3 R's as trendy.

I also came across the US Department of Energy¹s Industrial Assessment Center's (a network of 30 universities that have conducted thousands of ecoefficiency audits in a wide range of SIC (Standard Industrial Classification) codes) top 10 low cost actions to that would produce the greatest immediate impact as cost and ghg cutting measures by industry, and I want to share them because I love their elegant simplicity.
10. Have management climb on the roofs
9. Utilize free cooling
8. Monitor and limit ventilation
7. Periodic "dumpster diving" by management
6. Remove water and disposal costs from overhead accounts
5. Establish corporate policy for buying most efficient components of new systems
4. Get plant workers involved in efficient operations
3. Consider contracting out maintenance issues which "just never get done"
2. Increase resources committed to "Diagnostic PM"

ronmclinden on "How can we really get to people?"

ronmclinden — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 03:55:28 +0000

Years ago there was a campaign for a local bond election that featured a grandmotherly woman (gesturing with an umbrella for emphasis) asserting, "I'm voting FOR the bonds."

Picture a slightly overweight man proudly boasting, "I walk to work every day. (Well, OK, I don't have enough time to walk ALL the way, so I hop a bus to get there quicker.)"

ronmclinden on "How can we really get to people?"

ronmclinden — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 03:48:29 +0000

We need to figure out how to really reach people -- how to get them to not just change what they do (i.e., make better choices with respect to GHG emissions), but to change their ways of thinking about things so they make better choices without even knowing they are doing it.

Can we create some messages that are so unavoidable, so compelling, so "sticky" -- and yet, so non-threatening -- that people will pick up on them?

ronmclinden on "Waste management strategies"

ronmclinden — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 03:22:31 +0000

Let's quickly get beyond "waste management" -- which has come to be a euphemism for "hauling trash away" -- and concentrate actually reducing the use of resources for things that quickly become classified as "trash."

ronmclinden on "Policies We Might Change"

ronmclinden — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 03:11:51 +0000

Katie quoted from Grist (above):
"Tonight, the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks in the City of Lights will go dark for five minutes to draw attention to energy consumption."

Surely some creative "use" of the lights on Channel 5's "eye full" tower might be devised.

MartyKraft on "Policies We Might Change"

MartyKraft — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 02:34:48 +0000

We need to legalize backyard clothes lines in any neighborhoods that outlaw them.

katiegrotegut on "Policies We Might Change"

katiegrotegut — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:54:51 +0000

More emulatable policies and ideas.

Sarah McGauhey and Kyle Glover have a project for 2007: generate absolutely zero waste, no garbage, nothing. According to the Globe and Mail, the project has changed how they shop, eat and work. “Adjusting is hard,” Ms. McGaughey says. “You can’t get hungry in the middle of the night and go to the convenience store.” Read more at Say no to Trash. ::more

Of course, it's a hard sell to the world's poor.

katiegrotegut on "Policies We Might Change"

katiegrotegut — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:51:16 +0000

Policies we might emulate

Paris Exposed
As world awaits climate report, French capital sends a message
from Grist
All eyes are on Paris this week as the world waits en retenant son souffle for tomorrow's release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. (That means "with bated breath." We love the Google!) So Paris, ever obliging, is doing a banana dance to keep the masses entertained. Tonight, the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks in the City of Lights will go dark for five minutes to draw attention to energy consumption. The symbolic gesture "is not an exercise without risk," says a worried grid operator, "but we will do our utmost to prevent a blackout." President Jacques Chirac is also going dark, grimly warning the U.S. to join Kyoto or face a European carbon tax on imports. While no such tax exists yet, Chirac says it's "inevitable." His term ends this spring, but his potential successors are also leaning green. Says Daniel Richard of the French chapter of WWF, "The French are waking up to the reality of environmental destruction."

straight to the source: The New York Times, Katrin Bennhold, 01 Feb 2007

katiegrotegut on "Policies We Might Change"

katiegrotegut — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:45:08 +0000

Howdy,

How does one start a citizens advisory committee? And is there a centeral list of those that already exist? What are some other tools for public engagement?

Katie

katiegrotegut on "Neighborhood Centered Community"

katiegrotegut — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 23:38:05 +0000

Howdy. I'm making up for lost time.

Localized energy production is not only important but a necessary goal, and all these ideas are just wonderful. But remember that we are part of a vast system. Berkabile said that what happens in KC (and elsewhere) caused the problems in New Orleans. For example, planning on creating local energy to power something like the internet, relies on the ability of other communities around the world to send and receive as well. The point is that we must think and behave like a large organism when it comes to interacting with the global community. It's very different than being a self-sustaining small community. We are a society that depends on a grid. Perhaps "Neighborhood Centered Community" might be better described as a "Neighborhood Community Node" ?

As you all know, the entire country, globe, must move toward alternative and benign energy to prevent collapse, or go back to developing the type of survival skills used by communities before the industrial revolution, when economies of scale didn't exist. But those skills depended upon known and for the most part predictable natural environments. Its very different when your wet region suddenly becomes drought stricken, runs out of water (depleted glacier melt and aquifers) or a warm region is suddenly too cold to grow things. We can't depend on technologies or skills that work in climates we are used to. We are already in the early stages of climate change and the science is showing it occuring much faster than expected due to unforeseen positive feedback loops. Shouldn't we begin to look further at technologies that have been used for survival in regions where ingenuity has overcome hardship? How do we grow local food if 80% of the weather is too cold or hot?

Furthermore, can we expect anything to be predictable? Yes - the nature of man. We must avoid finding ourselves in a them or us situation. All must share. We can lose sight of this issue when we start thinking incrementally. I agree with the proposal that neighborhoods will become central to society once again. But we live in a different and interdependant world. Many mistakes were made back in the day, because other's needs weren't considered. This social issue is huge. I recently read that the difference between today's wealthy conservatives, poor conservatives and progressives goes back to social structures in England between the British and the Scotts/Irish, which were carried over and are manifested today in the US according to geographical settlement patterns 300 years ago.

Again, we need to think globally while acting locally. While our community learns behaviors that might help it survive and slow further damage, the point of all this is to get the KC region to wake up, but part of KC's problem, is that it and other communities in the region, tend to be insular in the first place. I'm concerned that we don't lose sight of the big picture in the process.

To see what the rest of the country is planning, may I suggest we get into those rocking chairs and read the brand new national carbon reduction strategy. Yesterday, the Sierra Club joined with the American Solar Energy Society (ASES), Representative Henry Waxman, and the nation's preeminent climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, to unveil a new report authored by ASES that outlines how America can reduce its carbon emissions by 60-80% by 2050. The peer-reviewed report, titled "Tackling Climate Change in the U.S." is now the official Sierra Club global warming strategy, and consists of 9 reports that cover topics ranging from hybrid vehicles to wind power. It is a huge pdf file, but very informative and a good primer for the workgroups. I don't have a URL. Google "Tackling Climate Change in the U.S.; Potential Carbon Emissions Reductions from Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy by 2030"

Pam is right. I mean Akasha. We need to get radical. But that means, to get off of fossil fuels, yesterday. To become climate neutral yesterday. The fact that the CEO of KCP&L is on the steering committee is a huge step. I wish our first goal is to help him see the error of implementing this new coal-fired power plant. An about face would make him famous! Set an example! And find an alternative that puts KC squarely on the path to sustainability.

Perhaps one of the goals for our group, and which is doable with any luck, is to work on Bill Downy. Present him with alternatives that are too good to turn away from. If we could get him to sequester his carbon output, reduce his company's waste, would be a pretty significant chunk of "change". This idea is one of endless numbers of overlaps with other groups, specifically energy, that we are always faced with, and I wish this weren't the case, even tho manageablility is important. I'm glad we have this forum to share ideas accross the board.

Katie

patspring on "Neighborhood Centered Community"

patspring — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 03:30:57 +0000

Localized energy production:
Here's one small idea that came to mind as I read your posting, Marty. The internet reduces the need for transportation -- we can transmit our thoughts without moving our bodies to meet with other people. But it won't work without electricity. So a neighborhood might want to generate its own electricity for that, and for other uses as well.

How about a community gym where the treadmills & other machines are all hooked up to a power storage device? I know very little about electrical power management, but I do know that individuals can generate electricity to feed back into the larger grid ("run the meter backwards"). I certainly would exercise more if I knew I was creating electricity for my neighborhood!

If I could, I would make some watts right now sitting on my bum at the computer. I picture a little treadle device under my feet, which I could happily pedal as I read, or write, or do otherwise stationary things. Some people might prefer a rocking chair.

How much power could a rocking chair generate? I don't know. But I just bought myself one of those windup flashlight/radio thingies and it runs for quite a bit longer than the time spent winding it up.

Pat

TerryWiggins on "Let's get radical"

TerryWiggins — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:16:48 +0000

Here's another possibility, that KC could emulate. A friend just sent it to me from Yahoo news:

California may ban conventional lightbulbs by 2012

By Bernie Woodall Tue Jan 30, 9:05 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California lawmaker wants to make his state the first to ban incandescent lightbulbs as part of California's groundbreaking initiatives to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The "How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act" would ban incandescent lightbulbs by 2012 in favor of energy-saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs. . .

A number of years ago, maybe as long ago as the 1970's or 1980's, I read psychological studies that indicated that people changed their attitudes after changing their behavior. As I recall, these studies were done in regard to Affirmative Action laws, and found that people who were initially against the laws changed their attitudes after working under them. So, initial opposition doesn't mean that people might not learn that they can do better, even though sometimes the better behavior has to forced onto some of them.

MartyKraft on "Let's get radical"

MartyKraft — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:46:02 +0000

Akasha

I can understand your frustration. You have seen what can be done and know that your life is not restricted by environmental laws that protect natural systems. We have the communication tools with TV, radio and newspapers to educate people in a very short amount of time if the media owners would choose to work for the public good in this way. I think the Star is going to have an article and start a blog on climate change this Friday 2/2. Maybe the other media will follow suit.

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