Just thought I’d share my thoughts…

…oh and, if there were a street sign for the last 8 years it might’ve been:

or…

I have been reading and seeing a lot recently about whether the green building movement is a fad or is here to stay, whether global warming is a myth, and how builders and owners are considering green measures only if there is a monetary reason for doing so.  There is controversy in other areas outside of green building, including paper or plastic, whether to buy organic food, and what to do with all the environmentally unfriendly stuff we’ve accumulated over the years.  Not to mention what do you do when you want to do the right thing, but you can’t afford it?

I’VE HAD ENOUGH!!!  It is time for a different perspective, one very different from our usual ego-driven, myopic view of what effects ME, and only ME.  Here are some thoughts that I think help put things into perspective (at least for me):

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Throughout the course of our life and our efforts, we have to step back and look at how effective we are at achieving our goals, how far our good intentions are actually taking us, how “green” our lifestyles are. We have to look at how much our green actions are doing to really protect and conserve the environment. At the same time, if we are trying to be a part of this green movement (which is growing in name, in respect, and, to some degree, in overall influence), we have to step back and evaluate the trajectory of the green movement, how effective the overall movement is in making our dreams of a safe, secure, sustainable, lively, and vibrant environment a true reality.

To be honest, I have been involved in the green movement since childhood and am fairly “extreme,” sincere, or devoted in my efforts to be green and to do my part. Nonetheless, I just moved to Poland from the U.S. and I have found that I have habits and ways of thinking that are greatly less sustainable, less environmentally sensitive, than the normal, average Pole who does not have any special care or concern for the environment and may just have the vaguest sense of what the “green movement” or “green living” is.

Why the great disparity in our actions and ways of life, despite the fact that I am the “green”?

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While twentysomethings may be the cheerleaders of the green movement, a new report from i-com reveals that the ranks of actual users of green products are grey haired and wrinkled.

Both male and female groups 55 years and over reported above average usage of environmentally friendly home goods. Leading the way was the 55-59 year-old female demographic, who was more than twice as likely as the average consumer to use green products. Males 65-69 years old were second, more than 1.7 times as likely to use than the average American.

I don’t find this terribly surprising for a number of reasons including what the survey found out: 50% of non-adopters cited high prices as the main factor behind their decision not to purchase green products. As is well know, the bulk of this country’s wealth is concentrated in the baby boomer generation. If you were lucky enough to be born in the first half of the boom (and now find yourself wondering why your kids have such trouble getting ahead in a vastly different economic landscape than the 60s and 70s) then you know what I mean.

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But then it has been around with us since just before Earth Day 1990. A lot of water have since passed under the bridge. Save the forests; there is a website and a rave blog too: 50 Simple Things.

Eco-friendly shopping, for instance, may be fashionable, but critics have argued it won’t reduce global warming. What has been the role of the Green Movement in ecological modernization?

Since the early 1980s, green as a political ideology championing ecological and environmental goals, has given the face of the Green movement a newer look, but not without the usual controversies: global warming, biofuels, or “agro-fuels” in more fluent eco-speak, solar-powered future, etc.

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But in 1989, one brave woman who we now know as Wangari Maathai, dared the then Daniel arap Moi government at the same park and took a heavy beating, spending time in hospital. Then and now, Uhuru Park, has been the darling of environmentalists and politicians in Nairobi alike. For politicians, it is where declarations on Grand Marches to Freedom have been made to the people; for environmentalists, Nairobi’s only serene recreational public park with an artificial pond, is too valuable for just being a talkshop. It is where Freedom for the Planet, ala Wangari Maathai, began. She almost single handedly stopped the Moi regime from putting up a 60 story business complex as a gift to the ruling KANU party and the world noticed her work that started in 1977 with the formation of the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots environmental non profit.

The Face of Environmentalism in Africa
Maathai is the face of environmentalism in Africa. No other African environmental activist has won as many accolades, including the Goldman Environmental Prize, as she has and when she in 2004 bagged the Nobel Peace Prize for her lifetime struggles and achievements for a greener Africa and the world her countrymen and women thought one of their own had finally been recognized by the global community. Shalini Ramanathan, a clean energy advocate, writing in Grist calls her “outspoken, accomplished and passionate” about the environment and what she stands for. The British Broadcasting Corporation has called her a leading campaigner on social matters.

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In the first week of February, we explored and compared methods of public transportation around the world.

This week, from February 18-24, we’d like to introduce a topic that’s a little more personal. How do people in different nations view the environment and environmentalists?

To help answer this question, our correspondents around the world will shed light on four areas:

• traditional cultural views: how different cultures see nature and the environment
• attitudes on the street: what the average person has to say about environmentalists
• levels of activism: how environmentally active people are in a particular country
• motivation: what local environmental issues are making people talk

Hopefully, over the course of the week, we will have a better appreciation of the emerging environmental consciousness around the world.

We also hope to bring you, our reader, eye to eye with people of many nationalities to explore what environmental issues motivate each of us to care and inspire us to take action.

As always, please freely contribute your thoughts and observations as we explore attitudes toward the environment and environmentalists around the world.

Before continuing, once again I’ve produced a podcast on this subject, so if you don’t have time to read, tune in here: This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

Now, 86 year old Dr. James Lovelock, pictured at the left, has written a book, The Revenge of Gaia (Penguin Books 2006), where he makes no bones about it - nuclear energy can save humanity, and “there is no sensible alternative to nuclear power if we are to sustain humanity,” a quote taken from the pages of the World Nuclear Association’s web pages.

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Paul Hawken spoke in San Francisco last Friday on the final stop of his book tour, as a part of the Long Now Foundation seminar series. In his new book, Blessed Unrest, Hawken describes the global movement, which he declines to give a name, toward environmental and social justice. In a 60 minute speech and Q&A session, Hawken proffered an explanation for what is transpiring.

Hawken told a story of how Ralph Waldo Emerson was inspired by Antoine and Bernard Jussieu in Paris and subsequently wrote Nature. He then told how a college-aged Henry David Thoreau was inspired by Emerson and wrote Civil Disobedience, and how Rosa Parks then read Thoreau's essay the summer before she refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus in 1955. He was describing the networking and the roots of the collective conscious that he calls the “curriculum of the 21st Century”.

Hawken observed that the common thread between the literally millions of organizations in the movement is that, although they all have different ways of expressing their goals, none have contradictory values. They are all, in unique ways, exhibiting moral opposition to an unjust state. He quoted Thoreau: "If the government is unjust, the just man is in jail." Hawken described an atomized, bottom-up collection of organizations working to put down the injustice that permeates every institution, everywhere. He told of how the movement, like the immune system, categorically identifies and destroys disease (or the disease destroys it).

Next came the exciting part as Hawken explained that in the last five to ten years, as a result of the Internet and new ways of communication, the connections among groups and people in the movement have accelerated with unprecedented speed, causing a shift in the balance of power. He used the example of how text messaging technology is disrupting the censure control of the Chinese government, leading to growing unrest and protests the government can't control. A once subdued and contained environmental and social justice movement is now gaining rapid ground the world round.

Over years of collecting data and conducting research on social movements Hawken has come to the conclusion that this is a movement of its own kind, and more powerful and larger than any other. It's not an ideology or an “ism”, but, rather, ideas and solutions to the problems of injustice. It is a movement for “what is right”, and one that can't be broken apart, because it was atomized from the beginning. It's a movement that is dispersing conglomerations of power. Finally, it's a movement that no one saw coming, and that is manifesting in new resources, swift action, and real change.

Hearing Paul Hawken's words solidified the feeling that there is value in our time. It made up for feeling isolated and overwhelmed in the face of mounting consumerism and environmental pressures. He refused to predict what would happen, but instead relayed an image of the scale of the movement and the power that it holds. Hawken offered a beacon of entry to the long, extended green consciousness that will span well into the future, with or without us.

The first chapter of Blessed Unrest is available in an adapted version at Orion Magazine. A videocast of the lecture is available online for Long Now members.