By Leslie Berliant •
March 30, 2009
This weekend, I went to a gathering of 50 people interested in advocating for clean energy in the United States. I rode my bike there. At least a dozen people commented on what a “good girl” I was for doing so.
We poured ourselves coffee and tea into paper cups. We ate our potluck lunch on paper plates with plastic forks. We grabbed our bottles of water. We wiped our mouths with paper napkins and we grabbed our packets of printed materials to talk about how we could help push the federal government into making clean energy a reality, starting with identifying ‘green’ businesses to be our allies in this campaign.
By Zachary Shahan •
February 21, 2009
We know that we are supposed to do what is good for the environment. We know that the time we live in requires a great change in what we consider to be normal lives. We have inherited living habits and basic expectations about what we should have in our lives from the grand developments of the last one or two hundred years.
These developments made our lives much easier and more comfortable (in some respects) but they also pulled from the Earth and pulled more than we could initially see. We now see that we have pulled more, and polluted more, than we should have and that our great systems need to innovate further if we are going to continue on in anything similar to the world we live in now.
In the meantime, we know that we have to change. Our systems have to change, and in order for that to happen we need to change.
So far, there is not much new in what you are reading. However, there are many options in how we view this demand to change.
1) We can take the view, that many of us here today are taking, that we have to change in order to ’save the world’ (the world as we know it).
2) We can take the view that we need to change because it is our personal responsibility to not live beyond our means and since we are currently living far beyond our means we need to change.
3) We can take the view that this life of ours is more than a physical experience, more than a brief human lifetime, and this challenge is a challenge we are facing for the purpose of spiritual development. It is this option I am going to elaborate on.
By Dave Harcourt •
November 5, 2008
Almost a third (28%) of South Africans have not heard about global warming or climate change while over a half considered their knowledge as “hardly anything” or less.
The Human Sciences Research Council, a South African parastatal, conducts human sciences research in support of the growth and development of the country. Their 2008 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) collected information from a representative sample of over three thousand people. One of the modules of the survey explored issues such as knowledge and concern about climate change, perceived causes and impacts, where responsibility for action lies, and the level of support for interventions.
The results show that South Africans are poorly informed about climate change and its implications. They lack a full understanding of the impacts it is likely to have on their lives over the next few decades. This hints at difficulties that will be encountered as South Africa addresses climate change.
Respondents identified food security (15%), temperature (13%), disease (13%) and the standard of living (11%) as issues that would be effected by climate change. Issues with less direct impact on the individual, such as storms, floods, and loss of biodiversity, were not identified as frequently.
