Who is paying attention?

I noted that Green Change gave front page space to a September story about Greenpeace activists who won a court case in England by using Global Warming as their defense. It is nice to have an organization like Greenpeace behind you, hiring lawyers, etc.

However, the real guru of global warming is NASA's Dr. James Hansen and he has another take on this same story.


In his most recent newsletter, Hansen find it great that the British Press picked up the story and wonders why the US press ignored a similar situation here.

Why is it that the Kingsnorth case is on the front page and the 6 o’clock news in the UK, but the Wise County case is ignored by U.S. media? The damage in the U.S. case, both climate and mountaintop removal, exceeds that in the UK. A case with 20-year-olds standing up for their and future generations, against powerful interests, without support of Greenpeace-level organizations, would seem to warrant coverage. Is this a case of media, in a company-town, company-state, company-country situation, intentionally looking the other way? Or is it simply that these young people are not as media savvy as Greenpeace?

For a full understanding of the Wise County situation, it is necessary to read Hansen's previous newsletter that detailed that manner in which Dominion Coal runs a company state. I won't copy it here.. it is too long, too detailed.

At the of the commentary, Hansen asks and answers a very simple question.

When does it become appropriate for young people to become fed up with the lack of appropriate government action?

My recommendation has been that young people spend maximum effort now on the democratic
process, affecting upcoming elections on all levels, and then, after the election, demanding that those elected deliver on their promises. I have cooperated with the (nominally non-partisan) PowerVote, Virginia Powershift, ReEnergize Iowa, 350.org, 1sky.org, for example.

I have also drawn attention of youth to the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC).
Applications for training and participation in their programs can be found at (www.seac.org).

Have we reached the time when civil disobedience and organized protest against coal are the only options that we have left? It would seem that even Al Gore has begun to think that way or so says the NY Times's Nicholas Kristoff.

When we go vote down Propositions 7 and 10 on Tuesday, we need to be thinking of the alternatives. It is going to take a lot more work to make something positive happen. It may eventually mean taking to the streets... on bikes or on foot, of course.

What gets me mad?

Since yesterday, I have engaged in a bit of dialog with Ben Malkin, Publisher, Southern California Life After 50 It all started when Lisa Taylor picked up the print version of his magazine with a picture of Al Gore on the cover. However, one part of what she read in Malkin's comments on Gore and Climate Change got her so upset that she emailed her comments to a few of us.

I wrote an answer to Mr. Malkin, he replied, I replied again. Then, we agreed that it made sense to run those comments on the magazine site and this blog. I hope that it creates some discussion on several levels.

First, there is the question of how we frame our positions, and our responses, as we engage with other media. If we get it wrong, we run the risk of doing more damage than good. If we get it right, then it should be good for the Green Party, good for this country if we have the right message. In fact, good for all.

Second. there is the fact that Climate Change is surely the number one ecological issue for decades to come. Most Republicans are a no show when it is time to provide solutions. Too many Democrats are corporate sponsored hypocrites. Thus, we need to keep this discussion in front of everyone.

The discussion began with a story that you can read in it's entirety on the magazine's web site. I want to extract two sections. I fully agree with the first. I chose to respond after reading the second.

Basically, we have to come to grips with how we as humans view our relationship with all other living things—animal, vegetable, earth, air and water. Our Western culture places humans above all else. As a result we are not in harmony with our environment. There are lessons to be learned from Native American cultures about balance and harmony. Luckily, it’s not too late to learn them.

Then, he added this bit of sharply worded opinion.

Let’s make sure that the idiots who populate the Green Party never get another chance to help elect someone like “Dubya” who stands for everything they supposedly oppose. Let’s use less energy (fossil fuel) in our daily lives. It will not only save some money, it will help us as individuals pollute less.

I don't accept the blame for Gore's loss. But, that is the past and there is a future to think about. Thus, this response.

[Rolley]
I fully agree with the position you take concerning the need to do more regarding global warming. That should be obvious to all.

I don't agree with your assessment of the Green Party and what it might be able to accomplish if only people like yourself quit fighting the battles of the past and took at hard look at the current battle that you ask us all to join.

Do you really think that the current energy bill is going to fulfill all of the hype that the Democrats put around it? Do you really think that mandating a three fold increase in the use of ethanol is going to help? If you do, then perhaps you need to read this from Energy Justice. It is these very triangulated, overly hyped non-solutions from both sides of the political divide that has driven me away from both major parties and turned me into a Green Activist. There are only two good things that I can say about the energy bill. The first is that is is better than any that would have come out of a Sen. Inhofe (R-OK) run committee. Second, the CAFE fuel economy standards are good, even though a Democratic Sen. from Michicagan still voted against this energy bill.

Fundamental change will only be possible when there is a third way, an alternative that does not kow-tow to corporate special interests, an alternative that looks neither right nor left but to the future, an alternative that can say Yes to the Democrats when they get it right and Yes to the Republicans when they get it right. That alternative at the present time is only found in the Green Party. If only you can get over the battles of 2000 and start thinking about the America you want to see in 2020.

We have the energy plan that needs to be implemented. It is documented in the GP press release on the Bali Conference. "US Greens have called for an end to subsidies and tax breaks to fossil and nuclear energy industries; enactment of socially equitable carbon taxes; incentives, legislation, and reforms to provide renewable energy technologies; rejection of environmentally destructive 'alternative' fuels produced from unsustainable or toxic feedstocks; rejection of 'clean coal'; an absolute limit on CO2 emissions; reduced fossil fuel use and an 80% cutback within ten years (condensed from the Green Party platform and the EcoAction Committee's statement of goals, 2006 Earth Day Statement)."

Mr. Malkin replied this afternoon. This is why I suggested that we need to think more carefully about how we frame our messages whenever we write or respond.

[Malkin]
Thank you for reading our magazine or visiting our website.

Today I have received a blizzard or Green Party emails. That must mean someone from your group must have spotted my article and email blasted your members. Good for our web traffic, so keep ‘em coming.

While I may agree in good part with your environmental agenda, the net, net of working on the fringes politically (at least the “left” in this country) is that all you ever seem to accomplish is the election of those who stand opposed to everything you believe in. Your members seem to hate Al Gore (based on all of the emails I received) as much as the mindless extreme conservatives who attacked my article in large numbers with great and acidic gusto. The facts are that by working within the system he has accomplished considerably more than the Green Party ever has. If his “sin” has been to work within the “system”, then so be it.

In addition, what all of you seem to have overlooked is that I called the liberals (Democrats), hypocrites. They are. The new energy bill is a gutted compromise that needed Democratic leadership that was missing when push came to shove. They seem to be biding their time until the 2008 elections. Well then, I guess we’ll see then. Unless the Green Party manages to help elect another version of George Bush. You would be better served to pressure (where your #’s can make a difference in a close election) the Democrats to do more than pay lip service to reforms. Political debts do get paid if they are negotiated with skill.

Thank you again for the first clear headed and logical response I received from members of your party.

That gave me a chance to explain who really won the 2000 election.

[Rolley]
f someone sent a note that Gore did not get it, then they are not
thinking clearly. Most people in the Green Party believe three things
about the election of 2000.

• Gore won but had it stolen.
• The effect of Nader being in the race was to pull in a large number of voters, e.g. students, that would normally not have voted.
• The Democrats lost because more of them voted for Bush than anybody voted for Nader. They could not deliver their own party members.

You encourage Greens to work together with other "Progressives" to achieve our goals, but there is a history that says we do. In fact, I worked very, very hard supporting Pete McCloskey in 2006, both as a Republican Congressional Candidate running against Richard Pombo and then continuing as he threw his support to Jerry McNerney, who eventually won.

I would like to see the next target be Dana Rohrabacher, a good old So Cal snakeoil salesman, much like Pombo. He also is an embarrassment. He has been quoted as saying that Global Warming might have come from dinosaur flatulence. There are not yet any announced Democratic candidates running against him. If things stay that way, would you then support the Green who is?

I will be trying to get an answer to that question again, and again, and again.

Death of Environmentalism

One of the more important "green" statements in the last few years was the widely distributed, often attacked publication, The Death of Environmentalism by Michael Schellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. It made the point that the old practices of the environmental movement, confrontation and legal action, had run their course and that new techniques, net methods of activism were required.

I would argue that something very different is going on. The Environmental Movement is no longer such an outside thing that it only has to rely on such tactics as Schellenberger and Nordhas decry. Rather, we have gotten to the point where everyone realizes that the environmental impact needs to be a part of every decision, no matter how small, and it is being judged as not being important enough to be the major criteria for making decisions.

I understood from an email this morning that the Green Party is considering to disband the short lived Eco-Action Committee. I had similar thoughts and it should be considered, if nor no other reason that to re-justify is existence and re-focus its energy. For some, this is enough of a blunder that they are ready to leave the Green Party. I find it ironic that this happens in the very week when the opponents of Global Warming, or Climate Change if you prefer, have been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize.

I have sent an email to some of GPCA's national delegates. I did not get to them all. In that email I argued that the committee should not be disbanded, but rather provided with new leadership. When the leadership (CoCo) of a Committee does not want to do what the activist members of the committee think is important, it is a recipe for failure. Yet, time and again this is what is happening.

In the case of the Eco-Action Committee, this became a concern that by making statements regarding ecological policy and practices, the committee was over stepping its authority and infringing on the prerogative of the platform committee. Since one CoCo, Mike Ewall, is involved in both we devolved into a bureaucratic morass from which nothing emerged and the leading activists left. I did myself to spend more time focusing on the issues of water in CA rather than try to combat the party bureaucracy.

The issue was clearly stated by Mike:

I've heard plenty of ideas from people who want to write position papers and make everyone in the party adhere to them, or from those who feel that the world or mass media will care if a national committee of the GPUS takes a position on something. Honestly, I don't have the time to waste on such efforts and I've been hoping that something more productive might come out of this committee.

Mike, to his credit, offered to step aside as CoCo. I hope that someone takes him up on that. However, in response to this comment, one of the other members replied:

Dear Mike,
This is the end of the "Green" party. A bunch of extremely selfish, egotistical, politically brain dead idiots that shoot themselves in the foot even more than GWBush.

I obviously do not agree that this is the end of the "Green" party. There is a lot that is going on, but we are losing the identity that comes with having the word "Green" in our name and I am not sure that anything is going to change. Environmental action is not a driving force in the decision making in our leadership. It may be assumed. But that is allowing another party to adopt the mantle of being the "green" party, albeit a corporate green party.

I would ask our California Delegates not to vote to disband the Eco-Action Committee but rather to provide it with new leadership.

Giving it a thought

Last night, I turned on the tele during the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and listened to Gwen Ifill talk to Al Gore about his new book, The Assault on Reason.

I'm deeply concerned that the role of reason, and facts, and logic in the way we make our decisions in America has been diminished significantly, to the point where we could make a decision to invade a country that didn't attack us, at a time when 70 percent of the American people genuinely had the impression and belief that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks of 9/11.

Then, this morning, I was reading the new material at Chris Mooney's intersection and he is dealing with the same thing. The fact that the political control of the "message" is so tight that one can never allow facts to get in the way.

Maybe it has to do with media that is more concerned about ratings than about news. All of the local channels did a whale of a job this past several weeks, devoting a significant amount of time and resources to the story of two lost whales. They even named one Delta. But the real story of the Delta is that of a small fish called the delta smelt. Maybe, Delta the whale may weigh more than all of the remaining delta smelt combined and the pumping of water from the Delta toward SoCal and the farms of the Central Valley has pulled this species close to extinction.

In each case cited, the political leadership has started with the answer and selected the observations that would fit those facts. They have made a science of language to frame problems that (in the case of 9/11 and Iraq) never existed or (in the case of global warming) are too scary in their implication of political failure to allow the public to believe that they just might be true.

I don't have solutions. I have developed a fairly well calibrated BS-Meter and use it frequently. Gore says that he has some remedies, but I don't think that politicians can be the source of change. If any one institution can perform that function, it is the media and they have steadfastly refused to do more than allow the talking heads to use both sides of their mouths.

Maybe one reason for the decline in newspaper circulation is that we all know they are part of the problem.

I am increasingly convinced that we need to have a Truth Think Tank (since being from a think tank is the one way to get media attention). Anyone want to sign on?