Quote of the Day

"Many of man's activities are conditioned by his cultural environment, and satisfied by certain interrelations with it. The term environment here is not intended as a metaphor: when man comes into the world he rapidly comes into contact with things, people and ideas outside himself. If a man lives among  people, these are part of his environment s much as the local geology, or plant life, or the weather. If he lives in a house, this is part of his environment. If he is taught a religion, this too is part of environment, since his behaviour and activities are conditioned by the forces which he believes act upon him rather than by those which the sceptic may recognise" - Colin Renfrew. The Emergence of Civilization, 8.


I like this quote; it recognizes the importance of structural and cultural impacts on the human environment. It's a bit too structuralist. I like to think that people have a more agency than he permits with this sentence, but the general idea is spot on for anyone to whom environmental justice matters!

Lock 'em up

Why would they focus on education, on the environment, on clean public transportation when they can reserve the majority of their budget for cops and prisons! What good could fostering community and increasing our educated population do for safety! Funding more green jobs, parks, clean-burning buses, and thus improving air quality couldn't possibly do anything to keep Angelenos in better health or give them cleaner, safer streets. Supporting more cultural activities? Giving youth more opportunities? You must be crazy! Our tax dollars should be used to keep us in perpetual check. What we need are cops! Clearly, they are doing great things for our city.

Heal The World

I'm still sad about MJ's death...A true genius.

Insightful words for greenies:

There's A Place In Your Heart
And I Know That It Is Love
And This Place Could Be Much
Brighter Than Tomorrow
And If You Really Try
You'll Find There's No Need To Cry
In This Place You'll Feel
There's No Hurt Or Sorrow

There Are Ways
To Get There
If You Care Enough For The Living
Make A Little Space
Make A Better Place...

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

If You Want To Know Why
There's A Love That Cannot Lie
Love Is Strong
It Only Cares For Joyful Giving
If We Try
We Shall See
In This Bliss We Cannot Feel
Fear Or Dread
We Stop Existing And Start Living

Then It Feels That Always
Love's Enough For Us Growing
So Make A Better World
Make A Better World...

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

And The Dream We Were Conceived In
Will Reveal A Joyful Face
And The World We Once Believed In
Will Shine Again In Grace
Then Why Do We Keep Strangling Life
Wound This Earth
Crucify Its Soul
Though It's Plain To See
This World Is Heavenly
Be God's Glow

We Could Fly So High
Let Our Spirits Never Die
In My Heart
I Feel You Are All My Brothers
Create A World With No Fear
Together We'll Cry Happy Tears
See The Nations Turn Their Swords Into Plowshares

We Could Really Get There
If You Cared Enough For The Living
Make A Little Space
To Make A Better Place...

Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me

IOU

CA Budget cuts will

• Reduce per-student spending by $448 - cutting K-12 spending by $3.8 million
• Eliminate the Healthy Families Program
• Make Medical significantly more complicated; dental and eye exams will no longer be convered
• CalWORKS will be reduced by 4% even though it has been frozen since the 2004-5 fiscal year
• Benefit corporations: "Eighty-seven percent of the benefits from credit sharing will go to the 0.03 percent of California corporations with gross incomes over $1 billion" ("To have and Have Not")
• Potentially close 220 parks, including Will Rogers or hand them over to the Federal gov They say this is a last resort. Who knows. I think WR will have a chance...Palisadeans can fight for it, and they have the money to win if necessary. Sadly, saving it would probably be at the expense of parks in neighborhoods who are hit hardest by the budget cuts - those of the poor and minorities. I love Will Rogers, I must admit.
  

Margattack and me at Inspiration Point, Will Rogers State Historic Park, Pacific Palisades, CA

These cuts would obviously have devastating effects on the most vulnerable Californians, particularly students of all ages. But as of today, July 1st, the senate and Gov have not passed the budget, which could end up hurting us Californians even more. John Chiang, the state controller who issued my lovely unclaimed paychecks last year, is prepared to dole out IOUs by tommorrow, July 2nd.

Hey CalGrant recipients,
Did you need that money we promised you? About that. We're in a bit of a squeeze here. How's about a nice IOU?
Sincerely,
Your ELECTED officials.

Good luck paying your tuition with an IOU.

The CA budget proposes to cut non Prop98 General Fund spending for k-12 education by 19% while only cutting Corrections and Rehab by 8.7% (Summary of Major Changes..., 33,38). We seem much more willing to anticipate crime than to prevent it. Cutting per-student spending, shortening school years, closing parks, decreasing jobs and complicating and eliminating health care? Less education, less green space, less income, less health. Less, less, less; cut, cut, cut.

What does this have to do with going green? We are maintaining a system that prioritizes corporations over laborers, prison beds over child health care, everything over education. Even prop 98 has not cured our notoriously troubled public schools. I fail to see how this will free us from the habit of fast tracking environmentally unhealthy and ethically unsound development and industry. I can't imagine how it will encourage or enable people to green their own lives. As a self-proclaimed environmentalist, I refuse to limit my understanding of the environment to bioecology and saving the rainforests. While those are essential, the social aspects - education, efficient and clean mass transit, safe neighborhoods, equitable access to resources - all enable an harmonious lifestyle, at the very least, by allowing people to care about their environment. This budget just might suppress a lot of the individual-level environmental enthusiasm that has recently arisen.

It is as though the state, that distant, powerful, too-irresponsible body of governors, has attempted to make its subjects as desperate and high-risk as possible so that it can fill the $34 million in contracted out of state prison beds for which their 2009-10 budget calls.

I have become so disenchanted with politics lately. Bush, Schwarzenegger, Villaraigosa, Obama, Jindal. At least we can claim ethnic diversity. Finally, we can celebrate equality. We have conquered our vile prejudices and can now see that under no circumstances does skin color or national origin prevent politicians from spewing out equally ludicrous bullshit to every corner of the world.

I wish I could spare my eyes the pain of having to witness my home wrestle a seemingly unconquerable giant. With blurred vision and a tired mind, we appear to have stopped fighting, slowly but surely accepting our decline from mansion to a ramshackle hut so dilapidated that its resident family has plummeted through the floor gazing upward though a cracked foundation at a structure too blighted to hope for reconstruction.

Public Transit

I have made a resolution to take the bus or subway somewhere. I will save on gas. I will reduce my single occupancy vehicle use. I'm scared, I'll admit. I think I'll have to start with a buddy project. I'll propose a public transit adventure with the girls. I want to be able to navigate the city by MTA by the time Helen and Ben get here on July 17th. Booyakasha. Goal #1 set. Goal #2 - accomplish goal #1.

I "do" Green

"I don't do green." That was my father's response. I had planned to bake him a treat for father's day, and, knowing that he hates surprises, I asked him ahead of time what he would want. The decision - cookies. The victim - environmentalism?

I buy as high a percentage of organic foods as my budget allows, so most of my food is organic, all natural, or has some other environmentally friendly aspect, such as rain forest alliance certification, fair trade, locally grown, free range, no preservatives or artificial ingredients, etc. So I explained to him that any baked good he received from me would be as green as possible without any effort on his part.

I have to buy my own groceries because my parents refuse to "go green". My dad has some sort of superiority complex when it comes to socially and environmentally responsible, healthy foods. I think he reads my grocery independence as a declaration of self-righteous pomp. It's patrially true: I can't eat fast food and meat from tortured animals; my conscious won't allow it. I prefer to support families instead of corporations. I don't want pesticides and synthetic chemicals in my body, in the earth or on my mind. So I made up my own mind and took responsibility for myself. I don't know why it irritates him so much. What does that even mean? to not "do" "green"? What does it take to convince people to "do" what is simultaneously better for themselves and for the earth, and therefore for their children and grandchildren? It baffles me that people can be so adamantly against something that is harmless to them. It's not like my dad benefits financially from maintaining an unjust system (as many people do).

I want to show him the documentary Renewal. Maybe that will touch his religious side and convince him that there is merit in the environmental movement. I have to learn to speak to people in their own language. We shall see.

greenrelay.org

greenRELAY.org

www.cbecal.org - where I intern.

Check it out.

Huffington Post Review: Obama's First 100

Today, The Huffington Post published an article re: environmental progress in Obama's first 100 days as president. It is aptly entitled "Obama: Clearing the Air in 100 Days" (by Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang).

Few who care about revolutionizing how human beings impact the environment can deny that Obama is a godsend compared to George W. Bush, whose career goals didn't particularly mesh with those of "environmentalists."

The article points to the EPA's declaring global warming a "threat to public health," so that "the federal government can use the Clean Air Act to cut greenhouse gas emissions."

It emphasizes Obama's apparent devotion to creating green collar jobs, uniting environmentalism and the workforce, "Central elements in the American economy that had been at war for decades."

By increasing efficiency standards, reviewing Bush's decision to prevent 13 states from cutting emissions, and by showing "the biggest polluter--the auto industry and utility companies--that he is serious," Obama is bound to save the world.


Maybe I'm a bit dramatic. I suppose the only part of the article that irked me was this:

"The U.S. Agency for International Development supports efforts to improve lives across the developing world--including places where cars and electricity are rarities but where twig- and dung-burning stoves emit tons and more tons of black carbon into the atmosphere, increasing global warming. The agency could send $20 solar-powered cooking stoves to villages in Africa and Asia."

As an anthropologist in training, that statement "improve lives across the developing world" is unsettling. What does it mean? Will sending cheap solar-powered cooking stoves improve the lives of African villagers? Or does it serve to ease the conscious of the highest polluting countries, a symbol of aid and sympathy that allows us to ignore all of the other things that developed countries do to keep developing countries in this position?

Must villagers change their traditions even though it is we Americans who have contributed significantly more to this global crisis?

What will having them import foreign products do for their economic and political position? for their relationship to local materials and resources? I don't see it improving it, and I do think that's an important consideration.

How will these $20 stoves be made? by whom? where? with what materials? If you're selling it for $20, what is the production cost? Changing the efficiency won't change the fact that a product is mass produced or exported, which has a lot of environmental implications, especially for labor conditions, materials and transport methods. It is reasonable to question this. The cheapest commodities usually have roots in questionable labor and environmental practices.


I am not against solar power, reduced emissions or higher efficiency. Obama's actions show a change from Bush. Is it progress? Of course. But, does it show a change in environmental thought? I just don't see his plan as particularly comprehensive, nor do I feel it to be as revolutionary as this article makes it sound.

It operates within the same general framework and political economy that sets up these power dynamics between developed and developing countries in the first place. No, I don't expect Obama to revolutionize the political economy (although he sure made out like that was his goal.)

The article doesn't mention Obama promoting attitudes about "the environment" as an issue of natural resource access/property relations, as an issue of racism and inequality, as a serious human health issue (Swine Flu!), which would be real change.

It touches on jobs, which is great, but it doesn't touch on the politics of food production and how factory farms are subsidized by the US government and our tax dollars. It doesn't discuss how industrial and chemical plants, and other environmentally hazardous industries, are disproportionately placed in minority neighborhoods, the neighborhoods of people with a weaker political and economic voice. It only seems to address issues of consumerism while ignoring the sociocultural constructs that allow these patterns.

It has a very top-down approach to "cleaning the air." Then again, he is the POTUS, so I don't know how he could do otherwise.

"The Climate won't wait..." Neither should Obama, and neither should we. I just think there are a lot of issues that Obama's plan doesn't look at as "environmental" that should be considered as such. Maybe it just hasn't come up yet (although, with swine flu, factory farms should come up!!)

It has indeed only been 100 days. Let's hope for more change.