What's all the hype about?

Date: Christmas 2007

Location: Northwestern Pennsylvania

Michelle: “I almost bought everyone in the family carbon offsets for Christmas!”

Uncle Jim:  “Aahh, Michelle, are you ‘going green?’” “It’s all hype, it’s just another way to make money. Don’t buy into it.” 

Michelle:  “Umm…the sea levels are rising! We’re all going to be under water soon!”

Uncle Jim: “It’s just the natural cycle of the Earth.”

Cousin Justin: “Duh, Michelle, don’t you know the Earth has cycles, why do you think the dinosaurs went extinct?”

Michelle: “Well, I didn’t buy the offsets. It would have been expensive buying for eight families…”



From left to right, Kyle Petty, Me, Uncle Jim, Justin.
In 1991, Uncle Jim took us to get
Kyle Petty's autograph!
p.s. I no longer support NASCAR.



 How do you react to people who don’t support your  lifestyle?  Was I wrong to not argue back?  The conversation was all quite jovial, but in the end we disagreed, and each holiday some type of green argument arises.  I continue to check up on Justin to find out if the engineering program he is enrolled in at Penn State is incorporating sustainability into his courses, and in return he taunts me about going green.

 In a recent essay, “What the Earth Knows” written by Robert Laughlin, the co-recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics, Laughlin claims that small things people are doing to reduce their carbon use and energy consumption are hardly making an impact on the earth and the planet will continue on long after humans are gone.  He takes the stance that Earth doesn’t care about our hybrid cars or turning off our computer monitors or wearing more layers of clothes instead of turning up the heat. He states,

“These actions simply spread the pain over a few centuries, the bat of an eyelash as far as the earth is concerned, and leave the end result exactly the same:  all the fossil fuel that used to be in the ground is now in the air, and none is left to burn.” 

 He is saying that all of the government regulations, laws, mandates, etc. that countries around the world are implementing are futile.  So is my Uncle Jim right, then?  Is it truly all hype and a way to make money off of people’s love for the earth? In other words, is it all just an elaborate and well-orchestrated scheme to fleece hundreds of hard-earned dollars annually from my bank account?



Laughlin supports his argument by debunking the IPCC climate studies and squashing the green movement.  Here are some of his reasons:

·  The studies are subjective.

·  The studies have had trouble showing global warming occurring in the present-day.

·  A problem greater than decreasing greenhouse gases is “human population pressure.”

·  Scientists are providing a lot of data but people are having trouble understanding the data. A problem he states is common for climatology in general. 

·  Finally, he provides two and a half pages on geological time, “Climate change…is a matter of geologic time, something the earth routinely does on its own without asking anyone’s permission or explaining itself.”



Projected global surface warming published by the IPCC.

I get his argument and I believe it.  More articles like his are necessary to get the truth out to the public.  The IPCC studies are both respected and questioned by many. For the most part, I believe global warming is occurring, but can also see the earth in the big scheme of things. The carbon footprint calculator I used a few weeks ago now seems to me to be irrelevant.  But the ecological footprint, a tool that is not a know-all, end-all, yet does goes beyond just carbon; looks at the overall affects of human’s actions from water to goods and services.  And that’s were my beliefs are really held…beyond carbon—living on a healthy planet.

Even though the earth has natural cycles where climate changes, species go extinct, etc, it doesn’t mean that people should create an unhealthy environment for the inhabitants. IS IT all just an elaborate and well-orchestrated scheme to fleece hundreds of hard-earned dollars annually from my bank account?  Maybe not directly, but industries have benefited from the climate change propaganda. I myself have blurred the lines between sustainability and climate change.  Having respect for life is the drive behind my beliefs and moral stance on being more sustainable.  I don’t want to preach about my beliefs, but I feel as though it should be mentioned in my blog since they are the basis of my decisions to try to be more sustainable. I respect other people’s beliefs, including my Uncle Jim’s (snicker) and I think it’s learning about our differences that actually pushes us to search for what works for each of us.

Three simple things I believe:

1. I grew up on the land some (I’m one-eighth Seneca) of my ancestors inhabited.  They gave thanks to people (society), earth mother, waters, fish, plants, food plants, medicine herbs, animals, birds, four winds, thunder, sun, grandmother moon, stars, enlightened teachers, and creator. Living in harmony with each other and giving thanks were important to their culture.  A famous quote my mom used to share with me growing up, “…chiefs consider the impact of their decisions on the seventh generation yet to come.” I want my nieces and nephews to be able to have kids who are healthy and can drink the water, eat the food, and breathe the air without fear of ingesting harmful chemicals.
  
2. For the first 11 years of my life, I attended a Christian church, and I was taught that everything on earth is a blessing and to treat it with respect, e.g., don’t put nails in trees—something my parents had to tell me repeatedly while building forts in the woods near my house.  I see how ancestors' culture and beliefs conflict with my Christian upbringing, but I'm a Christian who has found some common ground with the Senecas—respect and consideration for others. 

   

   Sled riding with friends and a blow-up whale
   can be enjoyed at any age. 
   Just don't eat the acid rain snow!

   
   
3.  I spent my childhood playing in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania.  Nature was what I had access to and what I loved.  Each spring my dad would take me and my two brothers hiking in the forest. We would drink water straight from the streams.  We'd cross country ski down empty trails in the winter, enveloped in the soft quiet snow.  In the summers my friends and I would lay in the fields for hours looking at the stars and talking about life. It's hard to imagine what the Alleghany will look like twenty years from now.  The natural gas industry has already started to pollute the land and water. I love the outdoors and would hate to see beauty of The Allegheny destroyed by industry. Furthermore, I don't want pollution to affect my general health.While this is what I believe, I am a typical American, but am striving to be better.  I take really long showers and can occasionally be found on the golf course (a huge water consumer and pesticide user).  I think Laughlin has a tremendous argument, and that people have BOUGHT into “going green” but it’s more than just that; it’s about having respect and compassion for life on earth. 

For more specific information on chemicals and pollutants, please see the page “Chemicals and Pollutants” at the bottom of the blog (updates to come November 8, 2010).