It Takes Everyone - The Hypocrisy of the People's Climate March

The streets of New York were jammed with hundreds of thousands of people over the weekend. They came by cars and planes and charter buses and private fuel-guzzling jets to participate in the "People's Climate March" leading up to the United Nations' climate summit.

An estimated 400,000 people, among them big-time celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Sting as well as dozens of politicians, flooded the streets with their cardboard signs and paper fliers and Starbucks garbage to prove a point: Nobody wants to make personal sacrifices to save the planet.

From Leonardo DiCaprio who owns five big-time natural resource-devouring mansions (not to mention the fancy shmancy atmosphere-damaging private jet he flew in on... can't you sense the tears of the polar bears clinging to Al Gore's rapidly-shrinking icebergs?) to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who was adamant about how people should not have to sacrifice quality of life in order to save the planet, the whole dog and pony show leaves me wondering what the march was actually trying to accomplish.

Oh yeah... not personal responsibility, but legislation and regulation.

It takes everyone. Not just big companies and governments.  Even you and your fuel-consuming jet, Mr. DiCaprio

These demonstrators want government intervention, not in their own lives but for big ethereal super villains like Exxon and the Koch brothers and the coal industry.  Let's force these powerful entities to heed our desires by the sheer power of our numbers, witty chants, and fabulous signs!

And yet, they each individually supported big oil with their pilgrimage to New York via machines that consume the products of big oil. The Guardian reported that over 500 buses had traveled from all over the United States and Canada to bring demonstrators desperate to get their hypocritical point across: "We want everyone else to do something about this!" Actor Mark Ruffalo criticized reporters who asked celebrities and politicians about their personal carbon footprints.  It is apparently inappropriate because that line of questioning defies "the spirit of what this is all about".

Which proves in my mind that the spirit of the event isn't about exacting change. It's about whining and fuming about everything the other guy is doing without taking any personal responsibility for how each individual person contributes to damaging the planet.

Change always begins in small ways.  Change always starts with the person staring back at you from the bathroom mirror.  We shouldn't expect big corporations or developing countries or even freakin' China to work to reduce their carbon footprints if the little guy doing the screaming isn't willing to make the same changes on a smaller more personal level.

If you want to save the Earth, here are some things that each of us individually can do that might make a bigger difference than making the resource-consuming trip to New York to hold hands, carry signs, leave behind a trail of garbage, and demand action. Because really... the only people we should be demanding take action are ourselves.

1. Don't drink bottled water. The amount of energy used to manufacture, fill, and ship plastic water bottles has a major environmental impact.  Buy a good water filter and filter your own tap water.  And if you must take your water with you, carry it in a reusable bottle.

2. Reduce your commute. Live close to your place of work.  Carpool with co-workers.  Walk or bicycle when you can. If we can reduce the amount of time we spend in our vehicles on the road, we reduce our dependence on big oil companies and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

3. Ditch the plastic bags.  Not only do they junk up our planet and end up in the stomachs of marine animals, but plastic bags are made from petroleum. So when your groceries are packed in plastic bags, it's like a double whammy right in sweet Mother Nature's gut.

4. Eat local.  Not only is it a great idea to support your local economy, but when you purchase locally, your food travels fewer miles.  When food is transported in, (sometimes from other countries.  Ever wonder how we can have access to "fresh" strawberries in the middle of February?  They probably came from Argentina.) it requires extensive fuel use and considerable amounts of carbon dioxide emissions.  Buy food in season from local sources... or grow your own.

5. Recycle! I can't even believe that this still needs to be said, but I cringe whenever I see a plastic bottle or newspaper tossed aside in a trash can.  Instead of throwing out that plastic bottle or old newspaper, offer it for recycling.  Recycling uses less energy and saves more resources.  Remember that plastic bottle was once oil that needed to be pumped from the ground and that newspaper was a tree just minding it's own business and filtering carbon out of the air.

And if you aren't willing to make these small, fairly painless changes to your quality of life, please stop marching and complaining and demanding action from anyone else. Just flush the self-righteous attitude and drink your bottled water in silence.

Yard Sales and Anarchy

I'm a pretty analytical and opinionated person.  I've even recently been called cynical and grumpy and arrogant...all of which are true, at least on occasion.  But I'm human, and most humans fight the same battles.  It's just that most of them don't fight them on such public fronts.  I like to say what isn't being said, and I like to challenge people to question everything and to think for themselves.  If that makes me cynical and grumpy and arrogant...I guess I'm okay with that.

However, it doesn't take much to jump up on a soap box and complain about the ills of society and the woes of the world.  When there is so much dysfunction in society to look at, it's easy to get distracted from all the wonderful absolutely brilliantly good things that are happening, too.  So here is just one small effort on my part to blog about all that is right with the world.

Yard Sales.

Also known as garage sales, tag sales, moving sales, etc.  I saw bunches of them this weekend.  Now that the weather is warming up nicely and people are engaged in their annual spring cleaning, we are sure to see even more in the coming weeks (Goody!).  People hauling their unwanted stuff into the great outdoors, littering up their lawns and driveways, and generally stopping the safe flow of traffic.

Look at these yard sale anarchists!

You can find some pretty sweet deals at yard sales.  In fact, on any given Saturday morning in Spring you can find everything from running shoes to vintage drapes, from top-of-the-line ski equipment to power tools in their original packaging.  It's exciting and thrilling and not unlike an Easter egg hunt, but with better prizes than cheap plastic eggs (although you'll probably be able to find those, too)

I won't buy anything at the listed price.  I will haggle and negotiate and bargain my way into the best deal possible.  And I'm not afraid to just walk away if the price isn't right.

And that's the really cool thing about yard sales.  There's something you just don't find in more conventional transactions.  It's called mutual benefit.  It's the beauty of negotiation.  After a yard sale transaction, both parties walk away feeling like they got something of value, even if it's just finally clearing some space in the garage.  Often times, both parties feel like they've gotten the better deal.  They might even feel slightly guilty for conning the other guy.  Why?  Because they both profited.  They both feel like they gained something of real value.

They mutually decided on the value of an object, and they did it without any government intervention or bureaucracy red tape.  There were no fair trade laws or regulations by the National Department of Yard Sales, no price-setting monopolies or regulated markets.  In most cases, there were no income taxes to be filed or sales tax to be paid (although I'm told that in some places a citizen must actually purchase a Yard Sale permit...That does kind of make me grumpy).  Add in the feeling of moral superiority for not lining the pockets of big box retailer executives and CEO's...or draining the earth of natural resources (It's recycling at it's finest)...or supporting Chinese sweatshops...Oh! and keeping your dollars in a local economy by helping your neighbors... and it's like you've racked up extra Karma bonus points....Plus you've walked away with something super cool (like a Sponge Bob lunch box or an ugly Christmas sweater or some random picture frames).

With all of this mutual benefit and voluntary transaction and unregulated capitalism, it's amazing that our democracy hasn't collapsed.

In fact, yard sales may be the most brilliant form of citizen insubordination in the modern world.  But be careful out there.  Shopping at too many unregulated yard sales is liable to land you on the domestic terrorist list.  Everyone knows we yard sale junkies are just a bunch of anarchists!