the help to act on ideas

“We’ve found that it’s hard to get off fossil fuels by living on our own renewables. Nuclear has its problems too. So what else can we do? Well,how about living on someone else’s renewables?”- MacKay, 177.

When looking at using other’s renewables, there is a possibility of working together to  benefit everyone. MacKay talks about population density and how relying on other countries who have the space to create more energy should be looked at for solar power. Deserts like the Sahara being used to create this energy by building up to more than the world’s consumption is also brought up. The ideas to help preserve and create more energy are there, we just need a world effort to act on these ideas to make a more efficient and sustainable future than would be beneficial for the world.

Since we have all been a part, more or less, in creating the hole we are in, the only way to bring ourselves out would be an effort from all sides. The focus needs to go greater than just one nation, because this cannot be done alone. To use the resources the world has left to make things right, there needs to be an agreement, a shared goal that we can work together to reach.

This reminded me of last term when I had been researching South Asia. There was one man from India who created a water cleaning system that was affordable to maintain, and helped provide clean and safe water for many villages. Although he had helped out many people, the majority of India is still suffering from water contamination because the government does not focus as much as it should be on installing filtration systems, much less spend money on it.  On top of this, people are not educated in their communities on how they can remain sustainable.

That’s how we are in our green movement. The ideas and materials are there, there just needs to be a focus on educating people on how they can be sustainable, and showing them that their effort really does make a difference because we will not make the significant change we need without their help.

changing things from home

“Our way of living is damaging our life support system”, Deep Green. What has become apparent is that we need to be doing more than just the little amount we have been told would make a difference, when really it is not making the kind of change we need. To actually reach  the change that we need to make in order to conserve our life support system, we need to be looking at our lifestyles and break down each piece of our living so that we know what it is we can change. From what we have read and discussed in class this week, we have spoken about different areas of lifestyle including heat and transportation. 51% of energy goes into buildings alone. Knowing this, we should be making a conscious effort to see what we can change in our own homes, including vampire electronics. Something as simple as unplugging electronics that use a lot of energy and turning down our heat makes a big impact. Switching to newer, more energy efficient appliances may be costly, but will be more of a possibility for many in the future.

“we don’t think about energy use much, until we pay the bills”, Deep Green.

What seems to be a major issue with many in changing their lifestyles to become more sustainable, is the thought that it is more expensive. In some cases it may be, but especially with being more sustainable within the home, it is the opposite. If people were more informed of this, it would be more attractive to change their lifestyle so they would not only be making a difference, but benefiting themselves financially. The misconception of sustainable being thought of as expensive is what is holding many back from taking the effort to change some habits or even think about inexpensive acts that will benefit them more than they know. In class, our concentration on the numbers alone from Mackay’s reading is what gave me a much better understanding of knowing what different numbers I can be contributing and how far we are from minimizing our footprint as a nation. Having all this information makes it easier for us to set goals for ourselves.

making an impact

In MacKay’s section “motivation”, he talks about the debate between wind turbines and nuclear power, and the different opinions of them while addressing that they do not actually discuss numbers to give us an idea of just how big of a problem some things are.

“This heated debate is fundamentally about numbers. How much energy could each source deliver, at what economic and social cost, and with what risks? But actual numbers are rarely mentioned. In public debates, people just say “Nuclear is a money pit” or “We have a huge amount of wave and wind.” The trouble with this sort of language is that it’s not sufficient to know that something is huge: we need to know how the one “huge” compares with another “huge,” namely our huge energy consumption. To make this comparison, we need numbers, not adjectives.” – MacKay, 3

The fact that we have been listening to other people’s opinions about how bad something is rather than knowing about it  for ourselves is probably why some do not always listen. To hear something is “really bad” can mean different things to different people, so it needs to be put in a way that we all understand. McKay also mentions how we need to be aware of how even though we say “every little bit helps”, if everyone only does a little, then we will on make a little bit of a change. For the state we are in we need to be making a larger impact, which will probably require changing many lifestyles completely. The problem with this is that we are too comfortable in our lifestyles, we have fallen in a routine that when someone says something is “making a huge impact” and “every little bit helps” , it will make us opt for doing only the smallest amount we can contribute just to stay in the comfort of our lifestyles. Many, including myself, would turn off their lights and unplug their chargers thinking they are making some kind of huge impact, but really it is only a small portion of the damage being done. McKay also mentions companies like BP and how even though they may sound like they are great examples in this green movement, their changes to be viewed as a more eco-friendly corporation is actually only a small change that everyone buys in to when we should be questioning just how big of a change they actually made.

“BP’s website, for example, celebrates the reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution they hope to achieve by changing the paint used for painting BP’s ships. Does anyone fall for this? Surely everyone will guess that it’s not the exterior paint job, it’s the stuff inside the tanker that deserves attention, if society’s CO2 emissions are to be significantly cut?” McKay, 3

To make a larger impact we need to start questioning what is already being done, instead of believing everything that is told to us. To make a larger movement, people need to be aware for themselves the impact that their lifestyles are making and how they can make a large impact of change, instead of just sticking with the small. We need to make living simple lives seem more appealing than the consumer’s lifestyle, which will be a never ending battle with corporations.

Taking Notice

“Stop, stop,” she said. “I can’t use these names in my article.” I asked why not. “Because Americans have never heard them.” Blessed Unrest, 127

The fact that America does not acknowledge the many people who play a huge role in social movements, is devastating.  We have been talking in class about how although big names like Stephen Biko are acknowledged for their large roles in social movements, we do not pay much attention to all of the people that help in the movement. If it weren’t for them, then leaders never would have become leaders, and those movements would not have taken place.

“We memorialize the well- known murders of South African activist Stephen Biko and rubber tapper and environmentalist Chico Mendes, yet people in the movement are killed and intimidated every day.” Blessed Unrest, 145

Maybe the reason why many people do not believe they can make a difference is because of the leaders that are the head of large movements. It may be hard for, let’s say, an everyday, working class woman to relate to a  powerful speaker who has a lot of experience with different organizations. We do not always see ourselves in these strong leaders, so at time it may be hard to think of ourselves as being qualified to be a part of organizations or movements. If people like the group of average, college students from a university  who helped end apartheid are portrayed more, that could be more inspiring for a lot of people. Not to say that leaders are not inspiring, because they are and are a huge part in any movement, but the average person who is working two jobs and going to school, or a man who works at a grocery store may be more inspiring to some because they see themselves in those people.

Today in class we had Professor Brower come speak to us and she mentioned how she was disappointed that her mother was not portrayed more in the Monument film about her father. She had said that her mother played a large role in influencing her father and was inspiring, yet she was not in the film.

I have always seen leaders as an important part of society, but I never have seen myself doing some of the things they do because I can’t always relate to them. But hearing about groups like the college group that played a role in the end to apartheid was inspiring to me and was something that was relatable that I could see myself doing.

Slavery still present today

“We have long lived in a world where everyday objects embody labor in another corner of the earth. Often we do not know where the things we use come from, or the working conditions of those who made them.” Hochschild, 6


We usually think of slavery as something of the past, something we have overcome. Even though we have come a long way since then, there are roughly 12-27 million people that are still in slavery today which was brought up in class during our discussion on abolition. Between 600,000 and 800,000 are trafficked internationally, and about 17,500 are trafficked to the U.S. It does not help that we are a consumer driven nation, constantly demanding low prices. But if we are not paying full price for the product, then someone else is. The point of slavery is to increase profit with paying little to nothing for labor. We should be making an effort to find where our products are being made, and by whom because we could very well be supporting slavery and not know it.


I read this article a couple months ago about young girls from West Africa who were brought to the U.S., their parents were assured that they were going to receive a better education. Instead they were forced to work long hours in a braid shop, enduring all kinds of abuse while none of their customers knew that they were actually slaves.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/02/slave.labor.ring.busted/index.html?iref=allsearch


This article scared me into the realization that while something as simple as getting your hair done could be helping support someone else’s suffering. The majority of today’s slaves are said to be in Asia, where about 9.5 million people are slaves in agricultural, industrial or sex work. Hmm…isn’t Asia where most of our products made? Something to think about.

"Brute Beasts"

“Exterminate all the Brutes” by Sven Lindqvist had one section in which he described the brutal massacre of the Tasmanians. The colonists came and continually moved in on their land, pushing them out of their native land and treating them as “brute beasts”. As the population of whites continued to grow and push out the native Tasmanians, they were forced to steal and fend for themselves and in return were punished for their attempt at survival.

“We Europeans were modified and improved descendants of the Tasmanians. So according to the logic Darwinian patricide, we were forced to exterminate our parent species. That included all the ‘savage races’ of the world. They were doomed to share the fate of the Tasmanians.”- Lindqvist, 114

This way of thinking could be compared to what happened during the Holocaust, Rwanda, or any genocide. It is the idea that there is a superior race, therefore justifying wiping out a group of people. This does not just happen because it was “destined” to, it was the belief that the natives that were invaded were simply in the way of what the “superior” race wanted, and because the natives were considered “savages”, it was passable to wipe them out completely. Because they lived differently and did not look like Europeans, they were like animals in the colonist’s eyes.

This reminded me of how we had read about barriers between cultures, and how this is a good example of how the unfamiliar instills fear, creates hate and makes us act out of hate. Like we had discussed in class we cannot push the ones who did this to the Tasmanians into a different category, pushing them away from us as if they were so different. What would we have done if we were there and were brought up to believe that this act towards those different than us was acceptable? I am in no way trying to justify what had been done, but it is something to think about. Not being familiar with different cultures and thinking there is a superior race are how the problems started. Although we have moved away from the idea of some groups being “savages”, we still have not completely moved out of the mindset of there being superiority between different cultures and races.

Breaking Barriers

Martha Nussbaum writes in “Cultivating Humanity” about recognizing humanity and not letting nationality, class, or ethnicity create barriers between each other. She goes on to say that we should still be focusing on “the self” and everything that surrounds it, which leads to humanity itself. Humanity should be the main focus as it encompasses all nationalities, classes, and ethnicities. The only thing stopping unity within humanity is the barriers people place between themselves and other cultures. The lack of education concerning cultures that is not one’s own is what creates this idea of superiority. It is difficult to not be prideful towards something that one was first exposed to and is the most familiar. Because of the lack of knowledge, there is a lack of understanding, meaning an unwillingness for acceptance. The only way to move humanity forward in uniting and finding a center is to be educated so that we may accept and have a better understanding for each other’s differences.

“Imagine that all human beings are limbs of a single body, cooperating for the sake of common purposes.” – Nussbaum, 64

Because humanity is like a single body, it will never work properly and serve its’ main purpose unless the “limbs” fully cooperate and work together to form a single movement. If the limbs are not moving together but in different directions, then the body is going nowhere. Rather than building these barriers there should be an embracing of differences, otherwise there will not be any improvement within humanity.

“We were born to labor together, like the feet, the hands, the eyes, and the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To work against one another is therefore contrary to nature, and to be angry against a man or turn one’s back on him is to work against him.”  Nussbaum, 64

There is a reason for our differences, so rather than work against them, they should be used towards a greater purpose since that is what they were intended for by nature. To go against that is to go against ourselves in the end. If our main issue towards breaking our barriers is lack of understanding, then it is our job to be educating one another to save humanity.