Living the American Green

Today, there are a few amazing videos that we need to share with you, our loyal reader.  Both of these should be watched all the way through.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThWXNa8onKk&watch_response]

Pity the fool!  Yeah, we are going to be seeing that an awful lot in the next couple of months on the TVs, we imagine.  Now watch this little scene, something even Mr. T can be proud of when it comes to amazing gratuity.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NI6iu7e91Y&feature=related]

Now, for the final trick!  The somehow tying all this back to something vaugly to do with green energy.  As you know, no matter how obtuse the start point, we always find a way to get back to some message that we should take home about mother earth.

Thinking…

Thinking…

Thinking…….

Nothing.  We can’t distill a single important point from either of those videos, except that Mr. T’s version of masculinity matches up pretty well with the two dudes going at it in the second video.  Green Messaging Fail.  But man, do we enjoy snappy one liners at the end of fight scenes!  Challenge to the people: fit some sort of green message to the bizarreness generated by today’s youtube links.  GO!

That’s what you create when you don’t sign up for the We campaign.  You make Al Gore cry.

We signed up for the We organization yesterday, because we love Al Gore and don’t want to hurt his feelings, and because the television ad buy we saw told us too.  At first blush, it looks really in depth, and we are a big fan of the solutions page (check it out!)

However, we aren’t exactly sure what signing up for the We campaign does for the world.  Growing the list is good.  Giving that little bit of extra weight to the campaign.  But this thing begs the question: How do we get on-line organization to manifest itself into actual change?

For example: the We crew have a wonderful list of success stories, but we aren’t sure what we did to help with them.  Does writing to congress people directly effect anything?  We have certainly been trained to think that it doesn’t, and we must confess that our letters to congress people have not only been universally ignored, but the opposite thing has happened every time we made the effort.

But, for the sake of an argument, lets use the We program for a test of one person’s agency, shall we?  For the next month, we are going to do everything they ask for us.  Every Email, we will forward.  Ever congressperson, we will call.  Every letter, we will write.  And we will keep you up to date on what we get from it besides a little bit of smug satisfaction.

At some point, do we call something like this a case of strange bed-fellows or some mis-appropriation of the green ethos?  Since we’re pretty sure you people never follow the links we throw up, a quick summation of the Politico article that your not going to read: There’s an anti-immigration group that believes that Immigration means more people in America and that more people in America means more development, which means more forests getting bulldozed and more strip malls getting thrown up.  Thus, immigration is bad because… that’s right, it destroys the environment!

Now, as good liberals, we can all just assume that we are working from the standpoint that the immigration is bad argument has some holes.  And, in a globalized economy, we’re pretty sure most environmentalism is going to have to focus on a larger picture view of whats getting bulldozed.  So lets drill down on a very specific part of this logic: Not in My Back Yard environmentalism.  We know we can get people to get all ginned up about the beautiful and scenic lake near their house, but not about the huge destruction of the rain-forest.  And we know it works as a motivational tool: just look at the problems people have with Wind Turbines or Solar panels.  The big issues are that they are ugly and mar the pristine sites people are used to looking at.

I know you don't want people calling you a NIMBY, but...

Having just come back from California where there are huge numbers of wind turbines on the desert hills, we can safely say that they look pretty cool, but even if we spot the point about attractiveness the whole thing misses the point.  The anti-immigration folk are tapping into the old version of environmentalism, one that both we and the folks from Break Through agree is obsolete.  At this point in the game, we can’t afford to look at nature as something that is separate and more equal to humanity.  Its not a distinction we can continue to make.  Sure, no one this side of Ayn Rand wants to see Sequoia Natural Park bulldozed and replaced by parking lot, but we need to realize that we got to keep developing along the scale of the population.  Vertical Farms and other intelligent design schemes (withing the confines of the natural environment, perhaps?) can make the long term goals of halting global warming etc. into something manageable even as we accept the fact that our own back yards might be changing.

We have dutifully tried to write a post a week-day in this space, if nothing else to make us be less shy about putting things out to the world.  However, starting today, part two of Absurd Vacation Month kicks in for us here at The American Green.  Thus, we will be out of commission for a bit, and not posting as regularly.  In the mean time, here is an amazing Opinion article from the Times that fits in with the Green Theft Auto theme.  Sort of.  Cheers, and happy July!

After thinking about yesterday’s blog post a little, we decided that it gave rise to a pretty good idea for a new video game spin off.  Imagine with us here: Green Theft Auto.  In look and feel, the game plays much like GTA 4 (by which we mean: BRILLIANTLY), and probably takes place in a major city.  However, for the feel, and because it makes the most sense with our liberal agenda, we envision the game being in Berkley, or maybe San Francisco.

So, much like GTA, you can sandbox your way across the city to your hearts content, but here’s the catch: your character has to pay for gas, as seen by a meter ticking away your money every time you are in a vehicle.  So, if you take public transit or ride a bike, the meter stays still, but time spent after hijacking a sports car and tooling around will bankrupt you in no time flat.

And then there is the storyline.  Much like in GTA, your character begins small, working as a local Greenpeace activist.  To begin climbing the  ladder, your missions would include things like beating up/ bicycling over ten people flyer-ing on the streets or picking people up in a hybrid vehicle (stolen) and delivering them to picket outside city hall.

Soon, the people higher up the ladder start to take notice, and you find yourself busting up the rival farmers market so that your co-op can maintain dominance, or planting a bomb in a delivery truck filled with Poland Spring water bottles.

Along the way, you can customize your wardrobe with the appropriate earth friendly ware/old tie-dye tees, or participate in side missions that involve destroying as many gas-guzzling Hummers as you can in a five minute period, or stealing choice hybrid vehicles for an avid collector.

Through more advancements, and maybe some framing of others for over-pollution (via some devious night-time dumping missions?), you move toward positions of leadership in the crazy green-tinted world.  You steal the prototype of the electric car, hijack a plane and crash it into a coal power plant, and conceive of a way to dye the entire San Francisco bay green (ironically poisoning the local wildlife.)  Finally, in true Green Theft Auto style, you are confronted with a final choice: do you shut down the local Nuclear power plant because of its environmental risks, allow it to continue on after procuring a precious part to allow it to function cleaner, or intentionally trigger a horrible meltdown that will rid the earth of the horrible people that you have encountered on your journey?

Only you can make this final decision, and all of your actions to date will weigh heavy on your mind as you grapple with the fate of millions.  If you win, you get to become Al Gore.

Speaking as members of the Video Game generation, we are very predisposed to try and “win” whatever it is we are doing.   From standing in line to building the best sandcastle, points and rules and regulations and winners come natural to a crew that grew up with things like the Atari, Super Nintendo, and the 360.  (side note: we realize that we have now “grown up”, and we should not be listing the 360 as part of the childhood list.  You know what?  Bite Us.)  This is all well and good for much of the time, but driving around cape cod this weekend has revealed a nasty underside to the video game mentality.

A serious concern of the hybrid era: the propensity to try to maximize gas mileage at the cost of paying any sort of attention to the road.

The Video game Era is upon us

The reality of driving the sweet little hybrid civic that we’ve been tooling around in all weekend is the hypnotizing affect the MPG meter can have.  If you’ve never seen ‘em, there’s a running tally of your current Mile Per, plus a measure of how much the battery is assisting versus charging.

Needless to say, this has me coasting for as long as possible, accelerating slowly to avoid wasted RPMs, never using the breaks, and generally driving like an asshole.  But the reward of our trip meter popping up from 44.6 to 50.0 is just too good to pass up.  We’ve been taught that every video game has a perfect run, a maximized high score, and constant readings on progress can lull you into that video game mentality like whoa.

We see a not too distant future in which we choose to coast through a few kids because their combined body mass does less to our overall statistics then coming to a full stop.  All of those maternal censor groups who are afraid that GTA IV is breeding violence, look out!  You are going to have kids wrecking more havoc then you can possible imagine just to eek out the victory in the Gallons Used weekly commuting poll.  Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

One final note: sticklers might have noticed that the picture here is, in fact, from the Toyota Prius, not the Honda Civic.  The Prius’ dash is just as video-game-esq, but at least other drivers can Identify the Prius on the road and give them a wide berth.  No such luck for the Camry.

Just want to point out something that might be missed in the general rundown after today’s policy speech.  We imagine there will be a lot said about his Iraq policy points, as well as his statements on increased foreign aid.  But the thing that jumped out to me was the promise of an 80% reduction of carbon emissions by 2050.   What does this mean, exactly?  Well, coming on the heals of the G8 summit, when it was agreed to set a goal of reducing emissions by 50%, that promise takes on a new and important significance.

Given that the G8 rule is basically toothless, with no real penalty for the countries that choose not to play, America needs to spring out in front of this thing.  We have no idea if the 80% number is enough to save the world, nor do we know if the 40 year time frame is soon enough.  However, we do know that an American president jumping out ahead of the curve is a good sign.  Considering our role on the national scale, its important that America push hard to be ahead of every single benchmark that the world decides on, as this is the only way that we will have the cred to push other countries in the right direction.

We aren’t scientists (though we might be trying to become scientists), but we are news-heads, and one of the things about news is that rhetorical shit like reducing carbon emissions by 30% more then the promised amount is a GREAT way to push the discussion.

We will admit that the intricacies of the housing mortgage market are a little over our head. We tried to keep up as Bear Sterns fell, the economy went into the toilet, and Sub-prime moved into the common lexicon. What we really don’t get, though, is the part where the government steps in and injects huge steaming piles of cash into markets that otherwise were going to completely crash.

Ok, that’s not true… we get it. You don’t want huge markets to free fall, as the people at the bottom are likely to get crushed. But if the logic is to protect the little guy at the bottom:

Take the news coming off the weekend. The Government is prepared to spend billions bailing out the monster companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To quote the NY times article quoting the Fed: (the Fed) ” made its decision ‘to promote the availability of home mortgage credit during a period of stress in financial markets.”’.

Ok, fine, lets say for a moment that we do want to promote the availability of home credit. Is the best way to do that really to bail out companies that have does such a bad job of this process that they are about to fall apart? Why not give that money directly to the people who are getting slammed by this downturn? The market is always the be all and end all organizing power behind these decisions… except when it fails in this seemingly epic way.

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The 34th G8 summit wrapped up this week in Japan. First, take a look at the image on the home page of the website. We don’t know if you can see the words next to that little eco symbol down there, but it says: “The volume of the image files is controlled to reduce electricity consumption.” Really?? The G8, the eight largest industrial powers in the world, are claiming green cred because THEIR .JPG IMAGE DOESN’T COVER THE WHOLE PAGE?? REALLY?

Ok, sorry about that. This looks like about the most blatant opening salvo of misdirection ever, but lets take a look at what the G8 actually agreed to DO whilst sitting around in their amazing Japanese hotels. Lets ask Wikipedia!

“G8 leaders agreed on the need for the world to cut carbon emissions blamed for global warming by at least 50 percent by 2050 and for each nation to set its own target for near term goals. The communiqué represents a small step forward from last year’s call to “consider seriously” such long-term cuts; but environmental activists and leaders from the developing countries were disappointed, describing the statement as a toothless gesture”

The good news is that we are no longer “seriously considering”, we suppose. Plus, the USA agreed to sign on to the treaty. The bad news is that it doesn’t really say anything. Each country can set its own target for near term goals? Bold. Really bold. We have a guess about the short term – five to ten year – prognosis for all of these Allegedly Great Eight.

We guess we don’t really understand the goals of the summit. After reading through the list of agreements and back pats that made up the Environmental decisions, it looks like there are a lot of “we acknowledge” statements, and a lot of “if nations want” bars being set. Seems, at the best, toothless. Wikipedia IS always right!

2050 is a long way away, and most everyone that pays attention to this sort of thing thinks that 2050 will be way WAY to late. We havn’t even capped our Carbon Emission output, let alone find a way to start to lesson it. But, lets imagine what it would take to get us back on track. How about trusting in SCIENCE?!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px9jcA4decA&eurl]

About a year ago, my good friend Sam Berger forwarded me an article (as he is want to do) about a current hot button issue: that from a top down perspective, the Hummer was more efficient and more environmentally friendly then the Prius. At the time, I had heard this meme a few times already, and had always been doubtful about the statistic validity of the Pro Hummer argument. But something about the note the guy added when sending it to Sam (who then forwarded it to me) pushed a button. Sitting at work (back when “work” meant answering phones) I dashed of a three page poorly spelled rant poking as many holes as I could in the argument, and just like that: a pet peeve was born.

Well, what do you know, the crap concept has re-emerged! The Hummer V. Prius myth is to the environmental movement like the Obama is a Muslim/doesn’t wear a flag pin emails are to the political left. Do you respond? Try and provide counter facts? Write the sender off as a moron? Burn something to the ground? Long story short, I just got another email, from another intelligent and well loved person in my life, this time a member of my extended family, about how, when you squint at the numbers JUST right, the Hummer comes out ahead on some bizarre cost/environmental analysis. It was passed along with the classic “can this be true?!?” note, but it was still passed on, meaning that someone is having some doubts.

So I decided to update my old rant for today’s post, but then when I started doing research again, I found this article on Slate’s The Green Lantern which slaps the idea around more eloquently and with significantly better research then I could hope for. For those of you not familiar, Green Lantern is like a Green version of Myth-busters, and it rocks. So, enjoy, and going forward, if anyone suggests that the Hummer holds a candle to… well… just about any car out there in terms of efficiency, punch them in the mouth and then show them this article.

(Editors note: The people who read this space regularly might have noticed our oscillation from posting as a We and as an I. The royal we, designed to include the entire Living the American Green brain trust, is for large sweeping points that all the co-conspirators in the group probably agree on. The individual I voice is reserved for things that frost my shorts. You almost certainly don’t care, but it’s been something that has been worrying me a fair amount. For some reason, I feel that you need to know these things.)