• Five places to go before global warming messes them up. I’ve been to two of the five, but it’s the two that are in the United States. 02/23/2009
• An Historic Mandate for Clean Energy.

  Our country is in a tough spot. Our outdated energy infrastructure and reliance on fossil fuels are damaging the economy, endangering our national security, and threatening the planet with an unprecedented environmental and human catastrophe in the form of climate disruption. But these challenges also provide an opportunity to move forward, as wind, solar, and efficiency projects can happen quickly. Barack Obama and the new Congress can help the United States fulfill its potential to again be a world leader in the provision of clean energy. It’s our job to hold their feet to the fire and ensure they do so.

  Related: Bill McKibben on President Obama’s Big Climate Challenge. 11/05/2008
• Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, writes an open letter to the next President Farmer-in-Chief. “This, in brief, is the bad news: the food and agriculture policies you’ve inherited — designed to maximize production at all costs and relying on cheap energy to do so — are in shambles, and the need to address the problems they have caused is acute. The good news is that the twinned crises in food and energy are creating a political environment in which real reform of the food system may actually be possible for the first time in a generation.” 10/10/2008
• The World is Flat author Thomas Friedman’s new book is titled Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution — and How It Can Renew America. The Huffington Post has the roundup and some videos. “The book’s main argument is that the convergence of global warming, global flattening (the rise of middle classes all over the world), and global crowding (the population boom) is driving five key trends that will define the 21st century. Friedman argues that those five trends — energy and resource supply and demand, petro-dictatorship, biodiversity loss, climate change, and energy poverty — have all been driven past a tipping point such that they have created a new era of history: the energy climate era.” BONUS: From now until August 4, you can download The World is Flat audiobook in it’s entirety for free at Friedman’s website (it’s a hefty $39 on iTunes)! 07/26/2008
• Leading scientist John Holdren says “global warming” is not the correct term to use; he prefers “global disruption”. “‘Global warming’ [is] misleading. It implies something that’s mainly about temperature, that’s gradual, and that’s uniform across the planet… In fact, temperature is only one of the things that’s changing. It’s a sort of an index of the state of the climate. The whole climate is changing: the winds, the ocean currents, the storm patterns, snow packs, snowmelt, flooding, droughts. Temperature is just a bit of it.” 07/04/2008
• James E. Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who helped catapult global warming into national consciousness nearly twenty years ago, has renewed his call for action. “‘If we don’t begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next several years, and really on a very different course, then we are in trouble,’ Dr. Hansen said Friday… ‘Then the ice sheets are in trouble. Many species on the planet are in trouble.’” 06/24/2008
• Feeling a little “green” burnout? That Buzz in Your Ear May Be Green Noise. “If even well-intentioned activists are feeling overwhelmed, the average S.U.V. driver must be tuning out. And some environmentalists fear that the public might begin to ignore their message before any meaningful change can be accomplished. For them, it’s a time to reassess strategies and streamline their campaigns before it’s too late.” Unfortunately, we will still need to be “green” long after the trendiness wanes. 06/15/2008

Easter and environmentalism

I figured that since I posted quotes for the previous two days of Holy Week, I’d post one more. Besides, this one is too juicy to pass up.

“Those who do not understand the link between the Easter message and ecological problems, do not understand anything of either. Environmentalism in itself is of course no utterance of Easter faith. Many non-Christians are concerned about this. That is only right and proper. A monopolizing of these earthly cares by Christians is out of the question. There is environmentalism without Easter faith, but no Easter faith without environmentalism.” Herman-Emiel Mertens, Not the Cross, But the Crucified: An Essay in Soteriology, p.207)

I came across that passage over at Sustainablog. Although the quote is taken out of context (which makes it difficult to understand Mertens’ argument), I find the connection between Easter (i.e., the risen Christ) and environmental action compelling. What do you make of it?

• The powerhouse Southern Baptist denomination has signed a new-and-improved “Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change”. “Jonathan Merritt, a young leader who helped inspire the new declaration, expressed his motivation in language that resonates deeply with Southern Baptists: to trash this beautiful planet – which is God’s handiwork and declares God’s glory – is like tearing out pages from the Bible.” 03/10/2008
• Welcome to the Table: The Green Evangelical Movement. “If these green evangelicals are beginning to embrace terms like ’sustainable,’ ‘green,’ and even ‘carbon neutral,’ but still shudder at the sound of ‘environmentalism,’ are we really all sitting at the same table? Or are we sitting at completely different tables, looking at the same evidence, but pretending to ignore each other’s solutions?” 02/28/2008
• What Does the Present Owe the Future? from Dot Earth, the New York Times’ new blog that “examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits”. From the article: “Scientists found that it would take at least 20 or 30 years for the climate to measurably ‘notice’ the difference between freezing greenhouse emissions now, or having a global fossil fuel party — with everyone jumping in Hummers and jacking up thermostats. So it is all about our legacy in the end.” 11/09/2007

Blog Action Day – Making effective transportation choices

Today is Blog Action Day, a day when “bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind.” This year’s issue is the environment. Participating bloggers are encouraged to write about any topic relating to environmental issues. Because I have recently been looking for a car, today I’ll be writing about making good choices in regards to transportation. To do so, I will be enlisting the help of a wonderful book called The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices.

The aforementioned book lists the following five things as “priority actions for American consumers” in regards to transportation:

Choose a place to live that reduces the need to drive.
Living closer to work and stores will cut down on your commute, which can significantly affect your overall health and sense of well-being while at the same time benefiting the environment.

Think twice before purchasing another car.
Buying a new car sends an indirect message to auto manufacturers to keep making new cars. “When you picture that new car in your driveway, imagine instead the four tons of carbon and nearly 700 pounds of ordinary pollutants pumped into the atmosphere as a result of its manufacture.” If you do buy a new vehicle, make an effort to ↴

Choose a fuel-efficient, low-polluting car.
Choose a type of car that meets your everyday needs, and then look for the most fuel-efficient and least-polluting car in that class. I have been looking at cars for a couple of months now, and I am looking seriously at the Toyota Yaris. The 2008 model Yaris has the best fuel economy of any non-hybrid car. The idea here is this: do research! Don’t just buy a car on a whim because it looks cool; consider its impact. These sites are a good place to start: FuelEconomy.gov, GreenerCars.org, and UCSUSA.org

Set concrete goals for reducing your travel.
Create a “travel budget”, and try to reduce the amount of driving you do by 20%. Log your daily trips and odometer readings. If you reduce your driving by 20%, you’re lowering your household’s total contribution to global warming and air pollution by about 5%.

Whenever practical, walk, bicycle, or take public transportation.
I am lucky that my church is only about 6 blocks from my house, so walking is an appropriate option. If walking or bicycling aren’t serious options, consider taking the bus or train instead of driving to lessen your impact on the environment.

• Fenway Park is getting on the “green” bandwagon. “The nation’s oldest active ballpark may vend beer in corn-starch-based cups, serve local, organic food from concession stands, add solar panels, and even initiate a new tradition: a fifth-inning recycling stretch.” 10/02/2007
• Grist.com offers an incredibly detailed list of articles called How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic which contain responses to the most common skeptical arguments about global warming. This could come in handy. 09/23/2007
• The authors of Freakonomics have a new article in The Times Magazine called “The Jane Fonda Effect”. If you haven’t read Freakonomics (and I suggest you do), this is a good introduction to their style of economic investigation and problem-solving. “[People] prefer a measurable risk to an immeasurable uncertainty. (This condition is known to economists as ambiguity aversion.) Could it be that nuclear energy, risks and all, is now seen as preferable to the uncertainties of global warming?” 09/16/2007

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