Thankful For...What Exactly?

A man died yesterday, a security guard at Wal-Mart. He was run over by stampeding shoppers as the doors opened for Black Friday shopping. I haven’t felt this much shame for being an American in a while. What does this say about us to the rest of the world?

With the desire to grab that bargain, save that extra dollar, shoppers lost sight of fundamental values, common decency and the value of life. A man died today because people trampled on top of him just so they could get that Xbox or flat screen TV cheaper. I wonder if those people who got their bargains and walked away from the store with their bag of goodies felt it was worth it? I wonder when they install their new flat-screen TV and throw the empty boxes away, if they will sit back and think, “a man died today because I stepped on him, along with hundreds of others, so I could enjoy this new TV?”

I wonder if they think about, because I think about it. As we all should. I wonder because I question whether or not I am complicit in that man’s death. I looked at all the ads the day before yesterday and wondered what I might buy for cheap. I thought about going to my local Wal-Mart or my local Best-Buy in the darkness of night and wait in line for hours till the doors open. I wonder if, in my zeal and excitement to beat everyone else to my coveted bargains, I would have raced into that store no matter the cost. I wonder whether or not I would have stopped and helped the man up or would I have simply lifted my foot and stepped on him.

It’s easy for all of me, who wasn’t there to judge and tell myself, “I wouldn’t have done that…I would have stopped and helped the man up.” But I don’t know myself well enough. I don’t know if I would have had the ability or the wherewithal to stop breal free from being swept up in the crowd and help the part-time security guard off the floor. I’m sure that the people there, people who were part of the crowd and may even played a part in the man’s death rationalized their actions. “I didn’t see him.” “I didn’t know he was there” “It was crazy, I didn’t know what was going on.” “I may have stepped on his hand, but certainly not on him.” No one’s guilty if everyone is, goes the thinking.

I did some research and found that the self-storage industry (where people rent storage units to store things they can’t fit in their house) is a $20 Billion Industry. To put that into perspective, the film industry makes about $9-$10 Billion annually. That’s every movie made in America. The coffee industry makes about $11 Billion annually. That’s every cup of coffee sold in the world. In other words, the self-storage business is big business. Why is that? Well, because people have stuff they can’t keep or don’t want in their house, but they don’t want to get rid of. So, they rent a storage facility where they can put their stuff. Of course, there are exceptions, people are forced to move to a smaller house and self-storage spaces are used as temporary places for people to put their things. I’m sure this is happening all over now with people losing their homes due to the housing crisis.

But more often than not, the self-storage industry thrives not from temporary costumers, but from permanent costumers, the kind who pay year after year, even upgrading to bigger spaces when they run out of room in their smaller storage spaces. So, I ask again, what does that say about us to the rest of the world, especially those living in poverty? I can only speak for myself, but I know I feel a sense of shame. That as a consumer culture, our houses aren’t big enough to store everything we own? That we must rent space somewhere else, in order to put the stuff we can’t have in our house.

And what about the collapse of the housing market? It’s easy to point fingers at the Fannie Mae’s of the world and assign them the blame. Or the greedy house buyers who turn and flip property as if they were pancakes. But what’s also happening is that people are living beyond their means. The housing market provided the necessary incentives and resources to buy a bigger house. Why buy a bigger house? Well, because we’ve run out of places to put all our stuff. Stuff we keep accumulating and storing or simply throw away. And why not buy a bigger house? It’s easy enough. So, yeah, why not get a brand new house and get into even more debt?

Paul Simon expressed these sentiments best when when he wrote a song called, "An American Tune." He wrote:

"And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
but it's all right, it's all right
for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong"

And in the end, does our consumption make us any happier? Do our purchases give us peace of mind? Do they enrich our lives? I certainly have time and time again felt the sting of buyer's remorse or even the numbness of nothing when using or gazing upon my new purchase. It certainly does not equal the mirth I feel when I am with friends or family, the joy of travel, experiencing new things. I know it all sounds touchy-feely and borderline "liberal", but is that new video game or pair of shoes make you feel that much happier? Is it really worth it?

So then, what is the point? The point is, we have a problem with our stuff. We can’t afford it, we borrow too much pay for it, we buy too much of it, we have no place to put it, we don’t really need it, we want it when we want it and demand it to be high quality and cheaper, and we don’t really care who or what it effects when it’s made or what happens when it’s thrown out. That’s us. That’s America. It’s why some people hate us.

And I have to be honest, right now, with the death of the Wal-Mart security guard, a man named Jdimytai Damour on our hands, a death caused because people couldn’t be bothered to stop and help him up so that they could shop, I hate us. We have to do better.

Global Warming 101

We set out a few months ago to create a very unscientific experiment to hear what exactly the "man-on-the-street" knows about Global Warming. We interviewed and filmed people from all over the world and asked each person two fundamental questions, 1) What is the biggest problem we face with regards to Global Warming and 2) What is the solution?

The results we found showed us that despite the fact that people knew about Global Warming and its effects, there was no real consensus as to what the biggest problem is or what the eventual solutions are. This, in our opinion, is an alarming reality as I mentioned in the last blog entry, which is that if the issues are diffused, then it will be harder not only to find the solutions, but which problems do we tackle first.

But you be the judge and let us know what you think.

So, what is FIND THE SOLUTION?

What have I been cooking up in my underground laboratory for the past six months? What is Find The Solution? The solution for what? Climate Change? How is that possible? Surely, you say, climate and the environment are complex systems. What’s happening to them is an even more complicated state of affairs. How can there be a single solution that fixes everything? The answer, believe it or not, is simple; we need to rethink our energy policy.

That’s the solution…rethinking our energy policy. By doing so, we can fix not just climate change, but also many of the current crises that the world faces. Crises that include energy dependence, the collapsing economy, limited resources, modern fundamental extremism, political turmoil, bio-diversity loss, and eventually wiping out poverty across the globe, saving millions from death due to malaria, AIDS and other communicable disease and peace and prosperity for all.

But hey, don’t take my word for it. Read Jeffrey Sachs’, COMMON WEALTH or Thomas Friedman’s HOT, FLAT and CROWDED. They’re the experts. They're saying exactly the same thing. I’m merely standing on the shoulders of giants. So, thank you and good night. My work here is done.

What? What’s that you ask? How do we do that?

Fine, I’ll tell you. FIND THE SOLUTION is a 2-Phase plan that involves a National Environmental Summit and the creation of a Global Initiative. I can already see your eyes getting sleepy reading this. And seeing the length of this piece doesn’t help either, I’m sure. But bear with me, there’s a point to it.

First, some background. The environmental movement has done an incredible job of raising awareness and spearheading local, national and global causes in order to bring the world’s attention to both general and specific needs with regards to global warming. Organizations like GreenPeace, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have done tremendous work in championing the helpless and downtrodden to lift their plights to the world’s consciousness. Al Gore deserves the Nobel Prize he has received along with the UN’s Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in laying out the groundwork of what we face as nations and as a planet. But with literally millions of environmental groups and organizations out there, the fundamental problem of climate change, namely CO2 emissions have yet to be really addressed. Why is that?

With the multitude of organizations and groups raising awareness about the multitude of problems that we face, with regards to climate change, the central point becomes diffused. In other words, though people are aware of the problems, they don’t know which problem to focus on. And the problems, including pollution, melting ice caps, limited resources, overpopulation, biodiversity loss, severe weather changes, food production, water shortages, etc., are big. Now, if we had all the money, time and energy in the world, we could fix every problem. But we don’t. So, what can we do? We can realistically fix only a few things at a time. But, which problems do we fix first? How do we prioritize all of these very dire issues so that we can focus on one issue at a time? What is the greatest problem we need to fix first?

The answer is Global Warming. What causes Global Warming? CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases. I’m hoping at this point that you probably already know about how global warming works, so I'm not going to waste any more of your time with explaining how greenhouse gases affect water molecules in our atmosphere and zzzzzz... But the simple fact is this, CO2 remains the biggest factor in the warming of our planet. It is the driving force in the collapse of our environment and must be dealt with. Because even if we fix the water shortage problem, we still have a collapsing environment. Even if we fix overpopulation, we still have a collapsing environment. Even if we save every species on the planet from the brink of extinction, we still have a collapsing environment. So, by default, Global Warming due to CO2 emissions becomes the biggest problem.

What is the solution to ending CO2 emissions? Easy, stop using carbon-based fuels like oil, coal and natural gas. But is it so easy?

Coal and oil, despite what the news is telling you, are actually quite cheap. A ton of coal costs $90.00 a ton at current market prices. A ton of rice is $780. A gallon of gas is cheaper than a gallon of Poland Springs or a gallon of coffee from Dunkin Donuts. A gallon of oil has the energy equivalent of 700 people. Think about that. Something that takes 700 people to do, a gallon of gas would be able to do in a much more efficient, quicker and cheaper way. Oil and coal have been very good to us in the past. It’s what drives our growth and economy and made us the world leader we are. But like Old Yeller, our trusted friends oil and coal, who got us out of some tricky predicaments and helped us through tough times in the past, have both developed rabies. And we need to go out back and shoot them before they hurt anybody else. It’s painful, but necessary.

And so, what was once easy has become out-dated and dangerous. The sooner we all understand that, the sooner we can start to rethink our energy policy. Plus, the very real truth is that oil is a finite resource. We are eventually going to run out of oil. That’s a fact no one argues. Whether this happens in 10 years or 200 years no one knows with absolute certainty. But when it runs out, we are faced with two very distinct futures. One where we can work together now and fix the issues we face, to live in a world that looks like similar to “Star Trek.” Or do nothing, wait till we run out of oil and live in a world similar to “The Road Warrior.” Take your pick.

Find The Solution starts where the environmental movement has become ineffective. It is, in a sense, a post-environmental movement. Find The Solution is movement that focuses on action and promise. It moves away from the doom-and-gloom and the rhetoric of the yesterday’s environmental movement. Find The Solution ignores the argument of skeptics and acts from a perspective that takes into the account the realities of what is going on with our planet at this very moment.

If the fact that ice caps are melting at a rapid rate is something no one can argue (that it is actually happening), then the argument becomes what is the cause of it? One can logically conclude that if man is not the cause of it, then it is happening naturally. If it is happening naturally, the further logical conclusion is that something very bad is happening naturally. The question then becomes, do we sit and wait for Mother Nature to take its course, or do we do something about it? I opt to do something about it.

Phase 1

We start with a plan. Google has just released their Clean Energy 2030 Policy. This is one of many Renewable Energy Plans out there that include work from the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), The Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) an even T. Boone Pickens' Plan for wind and natural gas. Google’s Plan is a concise Renewable Energy Plan that is sensible, realistic and achievable. I recommend you read it. It also has clear advantages over other plans in that it comes from Google, a name everyone can trust and has no partisan ties. (For as much good as Gore has done for the environmental movement, he might be doing more damage now by the mere fact that he is who he is and there are a lot of Americans who associate global warming with his politics and therefore relegate climate change as a political issue…it’s not).

With the Google Clean Energy Plan as a blueprint, an Environmental Summit would be instituted (hopefully on Earth Day 2009). This summit would include the country’s greatest thinkers and policy makers with regards to climate change. Policy makers like Schwarzenegger, Bloomberg and Boxer, scientists and climatologists such as James Hansen and Heidi Cullen, environmental groups such as the NRDC, the EDF and the Sierra Club, authors and economists such as Thomas Friedman, William McKibben and Jeffrey Sachs. The list goes on, but in essence, anyone who has a clear voice as to what the issues are and what the solution can be are invited. This summit would have the very profound job of creating a piece of legislation that would be presented to the President and Congress as a law to be enacted. This legislation will answer any and all questions as to who pays for it, what it will do, how it will affect each American, how it will be implemented, etc. This legislation will be complete, current and concise, leaving no room for doubt. At the end of this summit, we will hope to have a piece of legislation that the entire environmental community will have signed off on.

Phase 2

The next step is to then take that piece of legislation and sell it to the American public with the intent of galvanizing everyone to get behind this bill and force our government’s hand to pass it as law. We do this by creating a non-profit organization that spreads the word and raises awareness of the legislation. We will film the proceedings of the summit and document everything that transpired. This documentary will be free to anyone interested in watching it. But in essence, the documentary will be a giant commercial for the legislation. The organization will also have the responsibility of explaining every aspect of the legislation in clear, concise ways so that everyone will have an understanding of what is in the bill, what we are asking our government to do, how it will work, how much time it will take and what it will cost us.

We do that by utilizing the entertainment industry to spread the word. We will call on the film and television industry to mount a media campaign akin to the propaganda films of World War II. These short films, which can be shown in movie theaters, on TV or on the Internet, will have the challenging task of explaining seemingly difficult terms or ideas such as carbon sequestration, cap-and-trade, etc., in a creative, fun way. Films will be funded by the organization, but it will be up to the filmmakers to come up with the ideas to make the mundane, exciting and fun.

We will then call on the music community to give free concerts. These free concerts will do several things. First it will raise awareness of the legislation and what needs to happen to get it passed in Congress. Second, though free, we ask one thing from each audience member. That is, to write a letter to the President or to their Congressperson demanding them to pass this legislation. The information of what to write will be posted on the organization’s website and everyone will be charged to write this letter as their ticket of admission to the concert. This will have a double-sided result in amassing large numbers of letters asking our lawmakers to pass the bill and also, in essence, ‘trick’ our audience members into becoming radicals.

So, as an audience member, they will have the opportunity to see their favorite band for free, all they have to do is write a letter. But the hope is that in writing a letter (the old fashioned way), audience members will ask the right questions of themselves as to why this letter is so important. If their interest is piqued, then they are already on the road to becoming an activist. And it’s easier to become an activist if everyone’s an activist. These concerts and events will have the galvanizing effect of reaching critical mass and start a movement akin to the Civil Rights Movement. Once critical mass is reached, then our government will have no choice but to pass the legislation.

The Internet will also be used as tool for awareness. By creating a comprehensive website, which would have information about the legislation, allow access to the documentary, the short films and other service announcements. It would link to other environmental groups’ sites, in order to provide more information on every topic dealing with the environment. It will also post all information for upcoming events and concerts and how to gain access to them, giving everything needed to write letters and the contact information of representatives to Congress. Social networking sites such as FaceBook, Digg, Twitter and others will be utilized to spread the word of upcoming events and calls to action.

And in that way, we change our course, away from the catastrophic conditions that await us if we do nothing and takes us towards a better, cleaner world. A world away from coal-based energy, a world of green jobs, a world of green innovations and new technologies, a world of economic strengthening, a world of thriving biodiversity, a world of more intelligent uses of our resources, a world where if we do this right, we can use the already in-place machine of social movement to tackle the other great problems that the world faces, problems like crushing poverty, water shortage, cancer, Malaria, AIDS and overpopulation. A world that's well...kinda like Star Trek.

One-World Thinking

As some of you may or may not know I have spent the better part of the last 6 months putting together a project dealing with finding a solution to Climate Change. It’s a fairly involved endeavor, something which I hope to share with you in the future. But before I do, I wanted to express to you all my current thoughts on the new world we live in and the idea of One-World Thinking.

With the election of President Obama, the realities of our new world became achingly apparent to me the moment he stepped onto the stage at Grant Park in Chicago to the cheers of thousands. His demeanor was serious and it was evident that he immediately felt the burden of the presidency on his shoulders. It was and continues to be a great day for America that a black man, who a year ago had no chance of wining the highest office in the land, did just that. It had the instant effect of galvanizing the country, waking up from an 8-year nightmare and washing away our collective sins to the rest of the world.

But what is the new world we have inherited? The dawn of a new day brings to light the realities of what our new President and his fellow Americans face. A collapsing economy, two wars with no definitive end, our education and health systems in need of serious overhaul, our infrastructure in ruins, our shattered collective emotional health, our tainted standing as a world leader with Russia (a growing military threat), China (a grown economic threat) and Iran (our ideological enemy) at the gates. And all this with the clanging chime of doom that climate change brings.

I have had the good fortune in the last few months to be able do a fair amount reading and reflection on the state of the world we live in. And though by no means do I claim to be an expert, I feel I have learned a thing or two. And I’d like to share them.

The first comes from an announcement yesterday from England’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he called for a new Global Society. He said,

"The alliance between Britain and the U.S. -- and more broadly between Europe and the U.S. -- can and must provide leadership, not in order to make the rules ourselves, but to lead the global effort to build a stronger and more just international order.”

He went on to list 1) terrorism and extremism and the need to reassert faith in democracy 2) the global economy 3) climate change 4) conflict and mechanisms for rebuilding states after conflict and 5) meeting goals on tackling poverty and disease as the great challenges we face.

Worlds away, with a difference in tone, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao proclaimed that,

“rich nations must abandon their "unsustainable lifestyle" to fight global warming and give more help to poor nations...”

And if you didn’t get what he meant by rich nations, he meant the U.S.

The fact of the matter is, we Americans live unsustainable lives. We do this because it’s what we’ve grown up to believe. “The American way of life is not negotiable.” George W.H. Bush said that…at the Earth Summit in 1992 no less. The American way of life is what drives the economy, it’s what creates growth, and it’s what has made us the economic and military power that we are. It’s also the reason why all those challenges face us now.

The ugly truth is this: we are the cause of everything wrong with the world right now.

We and more specifically our consumption and “way of life” are the cause of global warming, the two wars, the failing economy and everything else that ills the world today. Of course, I’m generalizing and certainly other G-8 countries aren’t blameless. But the burden of guilt lies with us. Especially when we represent 4% of the world’s population and use 25% of the world’s resources. The numbers just do not add up.

Still don’t believe me, take Darfur.

You all, by now, I hope, have heard of the atrocities and genocide happening there. It’s an unbelievably complicated situation that seems to have no livable solutions. How can we be complicit in something so far removed from our everyday life? Let’s follow the money. We buy and consume. We demand what we want, when we want it and for cheap. We feel it’s our God-given right. If you don’t believe me, press PAUSE on your iPod for a minute and reread the sentence. So, where do these cheap and wonderful things come from? Well, from far away exotic places like Malaysia and Taiwan and Mainland China. You remember China don’t you? They’re the country of 1.3 billion people with a growing middle class. A middle class we created with our spending. That’s correct, China, as we know it now, would not exist if it weren’t for the “American way of life.” A middle class that threatens to out-buy, out-spend and devour the limited resources that all of us will soon be fighting for. Limited resources like oil. And where does China look to find the much-needed oil to feed their growing economy? Along with other places…the Sudan. And suddenly, the Sudanese government has all the money and weapons it needs to annihilate their age-old enemies. Did we pull the trigger? No. Are we complicit? You tell me.

What about Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan? That can’t be our fault, can it? In a way, yes. Certainly the evils of an Osama Bin Laden or a Mullah Mohammed Omar are present day, horrifying realities that we must forever contend with. They are extremists who spread their hate, call for jihad and a return to 7th Century living that denies the rights of women, freedom and progress. We didn’t breed their hatred towards us, but we had a hand in allowing them to express that hatred. How? By filling our cars with the oil we buy from the Middle East. The money that we use to buy gasoline, in an indirect way, goes to fund the madrasahs that teach Muslim extremism all over the world. Some of these are the same madrasahs in the Peshawar region of Afghanistan that tolerate and even celebrate extremist groups like the Taliban and yes, Al Qaeda. We are, in a very real way, funding both sides of the two wars. Did we spread the hate? No. Are we complicit? You tell me.

But what about the poverty in the Sub-Saharan region of Africa? How is that our fault? If you believe in Climate Change and global warming, then we’re certainly not helping. Our consumptive habits play the biggest part in the world’s climate crisis. The “American way of life” has created a demand for energy and output the world has never seen. By now, I hope we’ve all seen what that energy demand has done to the world. Melting ice-caps, bio-diversity loss, polluted rivers, destruction of pristine rain forest to name but a few effects of our way of life. But more specifically, global warming and climate change hits the poorest of the poor faster and harder than the countries actually creating the problem. Normal weather cycles change. Drought and a limited water supply have devastating effect in the Sub-Sahara. Something as simple as access to clean water prevents starving Africans from drinking and growing their crops. This creates a famine that breeds starvation, malnutrition and, if they’re lucky, death. It breeds contempt for those in power, civil unrest and international crises like Somalia, Ethiopia or Darfur. It devastates families, villages and countries across the Sahel like the plagues of old. Did we take the cup of water away? No. Are we complicit? You tell me.

So, are you depressed you at this point? Don’t be. There’s hope.

His name is Obama. Obama gets it. He understands this new world we’re living in. It’s an idea I am calling ONE-WORLD THINKING. It’s a way of thinking that needs to permeate every corner of our planet. That everything we do has an effect somewhere else. That what we buy here, affects factories in China. That what China builds there, affects an acre of tropical rainforest in Indonesia. That what Indonesia cuts down affects Tanzania. That what happens in Tanzania comes right back to us. We are all, in this world, complicit and have responsibilities to everyone else living on our planet.

And that’s the word we need to focus on, responsibility. What struck me most was what President-Elect Obama spoke of when he said,

“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.”

That’s about as eloquent as it gets.

We all must take responsibility in bringing our country back to greatness. Both Prime Minister Brown and Premier Wen Jiabao were, in essence, saying the same thing…the world is looking to us not for leadership, but to take up the mantle of responsibility. The responsibility for the world’s collapsing economy, the responsibility for the chaos of our two wars and the growing hatred for America, the responsibility for the those 1.6 billion people living in poverty on less than $1 a day, and profoundly, the responsibility for the destruction of our environment. The moment that we accept this responsibility and put into action a clear, decisive plan to fix these problems is the moment when we will achieve greatness.

We will once again become the great shining, beacon that we once were. I believe we can do this with One-World Thinking. That if what we have done creates negative effects for us and the rest of the world, then the reverse is also true, that what we are capable of doing can also have positive effects for us and the rest of the world.

Think about it the next time you buy something made in China or the next time you buy flowers imported from Ecuador, think about it the next time you fill up your gas tank, think about it the next time you feel the urge to replace your iPod. Think about the alternatives instead, do I really need to buy this thing, can I buy it locally, can I use public transportation instead of the car, and can I live with my old iPod?

Let me step off my soapbox for a moment to confess my sins. I am guilty of all these things. I am complicit in the destruction of our environment, the death of innocents and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the collapse of our economy. And please do not mistake me for an Obama disciple. I’d like to remind everyone who doesn’t know me well that I voted for the other guy.

But what I saw on election night inspired me. It crushed my cynicism and gave me that thing that I had heard so much about, tossed around and used as a catch phrase, as an ad campaign, as foreign an idea to us as the possibility of change, the idea of hope.

I am inspired because that’s who we Americans are, not the fat, lazy, stupid, stereotype that the rest of the world make us out to be. That what makes us great is not our military power, our strong dollar (despite the economic crisis), our popular culture, nor even our version of democracy. What makes us great is the IDEA of America. It’s what the rest of the world looks to us for. That somewhere in this world, there is a place where the impossible is possible. That somewhere in this world a black man can become President, that he can stand in front of thousands and tell us,

“…the answer that led those who have been told for so long, by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve, to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.”

And so, the greatest of our responsibilities lie in living up to the promise of the idea of America. Let us move forward and follow the lead of our new President. When he calls on us to pitch in and work, do so with pride and a clear vision of the fortune and greatness that await us. When he calls on us to sacrifice, follow the well-trodden path of Americans before us who sacrificed for their country. And if nothing else, spread the word that change can only happen with honest work, self-sacrifice and sharing the burden of responsibility.