Anyway

Posted on the Green Lent blog this morning was an article by Sharon Astyk from Georgia Interfaith Power and Light called "The Theory of Anyway." In a word, she argues that all the things we try to do as environmentalists--garden, or bike, or live in small houses--are not just things we are doing because of peak oil, or climate change, or environmental justice, or survival. "We would like," she writes, "to think of ourselves as moral people, but we tend to think of moral questions as the obvious ones: 'Should I steal or pay?' 'Should I hit or talk?' But the real and most essential moral questions of our lives are the questions we rarely ask of the things we do every day: 'Should I eat this?' 'Where should I live and how?' 'What should I wear?' 'How should I keep warm/cool?' We think of these questions as foregone conclusions - I should keep warm X way because that's the kind of furnace I have, or I should eat this because that's what's in the grocery store. [The] Theory of Anyway turns this around, and points out that what we do, the way we live, must pass ethical muster first - we must always ask the question 'Is this contributing to the repair of the world, or its destruction?'"

Christianity in America did itself a grave disservice when it relegated its concept of "moral values" toward issues of sex and drugs and away from issues of food, community, and economy. Among other things, this focus has made it easy for many of us, for a long time, to turn a blind eye on our own sins while pointing with laser sharpness at everyone else's. By turning morality into a set of simple rules--don't smoke, drink, curse, do drugs, or have sex--we have made it easy for ourselves to think we are righteous while actually living exactly the same as everyone around us. And I'm not referring to the divorce rate, which is no different among churchgoers than anyone else, or to any of the many sexual scandals among church leaders over the years. I am referring to our houses, and our food, and our toys, and our cars, and our neighborhoods. I am referring to the fact that we live in mansions and drive big cars and buy lots of cell phones and computers and are fat. I am referring to the fact that we eagerly make use of many more resources than we need while others are hungry, and poor, and - to us - invisible. I am referring to the fact that we live in neighborhoods where everyone looks just like us, out in the suburbs where the air is less polluted and the water is clean, and we pretend there is no where else we could have lived. I am referring to the fact that we have forgotten the truth about sin: that it's not a personal choice or an instant of action, but rather something integral to the way we are - to the way everyone around us is - and that is precisely why it's so hard to stand up against. If we want to live in a way that is right, not just for us but also for our neighbors and for the world, we will have to live in a way that is fundamentally different from how we have been living. Not because that's what we have to do to survive, at least until the problem gets fixed and we can go back to the way we've become comfortable. But because the way that is comfortable is not always right, and the way other people live is not always right, and because we are beginning, slowly, to realize at last that the way we have been living is not at all right. And having realized that, we can no longer pretend to be innocent.

slaves to the automobile

This morning on the way to work, while I was riding MARTA, I continued my reading of Jane Holtz Kay's The Asphalt Jungle. My reading this morning was in chapter 5, which discusses the health effects of our car culture. From accident-related deaths to chronic back problems to obesity to asthma, an astonishing range of human health problems can be traced, at least partly to the car.

Ironically, I got off the MARTA this morning and took a deep breath of the worst air in the nation. Atlanta's air quality was very unhealthy this morning. The immediate cause was the forest fires in southeast Georgia, but the car, of course, is what drives our air so close to the breaking point.

And the most startling thing about all these car-related problems is how blind we are to them. Noise pollution is viewed in terms of protecting drivers from the noise of their own cars, not protecting neighborhoods from nearby traffic. Accidents are judged in terms of "deaths per mile" rather than total deaths (which at publication of the book had not decreased despite improvements in driver education and car safety). And air pollution is measured by slight increments toward a federal standard that is probably not strict enough to truly eradicate pollution-related disease. Ultimately, all these factors come back to one fact: we can't imagine life without our cars.

The most telling of Kay's arguments in my mind was how quickly we rush to defend the car against all accusations, despite all evidence to the contrary. She writes:

Where else but behind the wheel is inattention so fatal? What other momentary distraction becomes a crime with such lethal consequences?...Reactions to daily life are dangerous behind the wheel...For the truly "defensive" driver, the car is no agent of freedom...but a constricting test of concentration. On the road we forfeit the otherwise forgiveable right to muse, to fantasize, to fight--to live. (106-7)

What a world it is, where we glady acquiesce to such an inhuman rule. St. Paul talks in his letter to the Romans of our choice as humans to offer ourselves in servitude to what we want to obey, either sin or righteousness. We moderns, I think, have willingly made ourselves slaves of the car. The irony is that we call it freedom of the road, and can't imagine living without it.

happy bike to work day!

Today is national Bike to Work Day. Happy cycling, everyone!

And all you SUVs: keep off my road. (At least today.)

algae biofuel production

Great article in the oil drum today on biofuels from algae ponds. I've occasionally heard talk about algae being the answer to all our fuel problems. I've been curious about it for a while, because some of what I've heard sounds very legitimate. But apparently, alas, like all technology, its bark is bigger than its bite.

My favorite part of this article is the final paragraph:

There are no silver bullets, no winner-take-all technologies, no technological fixes; the solution to our energy and environment crisis can only come from, in order, 'demand' management, efficiency improvements, and new energy supplies, to which, maybe, algae processes can contribute.

This was a nice encouragement for me this morning as I turn back to my day job of demand management. I'm off to form a new vanpool, and get ten more cars off the road.

gas price at record high

This chart requires no explanation. I was pretty excited when I heard the price this morning--it's gone up a penny since yesterday. Record price, record climb...this could be the moment we've all been waiting for. And yes, I know it's mostly a shortage at the refinery level. But still. I really do think we could be watching the downturn from the peak right now. The funny thing is, nobody seems to really be noticing. Like frogs in hot water, we boil away in our happy motoring utopia. For now.

what I had in common with Jerry Falwell

Most of the google-driven hits on this blog are a search for the phrase "christian environmentalist." I find this encouraging, because it wasn't that long ago that this phrase was, in the minds of most people, a paradox. The growth in the past few years of a rising tide of Christian environmentalists is just one of many signs of how the face of American Christianity is changing. But I felt that change more powerfully than usual yesterday, when I heard about the death of Jerry Falwell.

I've never been a fan of Falwell, neither his preaching nor his politics. When I was a student at Sweet Briar College, just fifteen miles from his home and the seat of his Liberty University in Lynchburg (which we jokingly called Jerrytown), I was occasionally fascinated and more often repulsed by the hold that his opinions and charisma seemed to have over many in the community. I even attended his church once, just to see what the attraction was about. But I couldn't see it. I was, in fact, so disgusted by the experience that I walked out in the middle of the sermon, although I can't remember now why. I was a college student then, and even more opinionated and idealistic (if it's possible) than I am now.

But hearing of his death, I was surprised by my own reaction. I was touched, and even a little saddened. Not because I'll miss his voice or his opinions in any political or theological arena--I doubt he's ever said anything I really agreed with. But, well, perhaps simply because he was a person, and despite my general dislike of him, his death made me recognize what I do have in common with him. It made me think, too, that our commonalities might be even bigger than the obvious fact of our humanity.

Falwell was the founder of the Moral Majority and one of the leading voices that paved the way for the marriage between evangelical Christianity and politics. The danger of this marriage is easy to see in retrospect, especially in light of some of Falwell's own remarks about it. (His infamous comments about 9/11 come to mind.) But are my own political remarks really so different?

I like to think that my political positions are founded on love and concern and not on laws. But the truth remains that much of my thinking is based on the desire to apply what I believe theologically in the political realm. This is a necessary activity, and an important one, but it is also inherently dangerous.

The danger is not just that we will fall into judgment based on what seems to us to be the clear dividing lines of political righteousness. The greater danger is that we will begin to believe that there is, even in some small way, salvation in any political or environmental or human solution. The danger is that we as Christians will forget where our true loyalty lies, and think of ourselves as citizens of a country--or a planet--instead of a Kingdom.

Father Stephen writes in his post on this subject of a moment that heralded the end of a different era, that of Soviet Russia:

Shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union, on one of the days in which the Politburo stood atop Lenin’s Tomb to watch the parade of Soviet military might pass by, a priest came bursting through the crowd with a handcross in his hand. He shouted, “Michail Sergeivich! Christos Voskrese!” And he was not shot or hampered in any way. It was the signal of a change in that regime.

There are still plenty of politics in America’s religion, and plenty of religion in America’s politics. There is far too little proclamation to George W. and anyone else in power, “Christ is risen!” Or a recognition by our culture of the significance of the statement.

But Christ is risen, the significance does not depend on anyone’s recognition. Christ is risen, and everything else has passed into shadow beneath the power of the Cross.

And this is the true message of Christian environmentalism, as it is the glorious message of every Christian. Christ is risen, and all things are changed. Christ is risen, and the world is redeemed. Christ is risen, and we are honored with the task of working out that redemption in our lives, in our neighbor's lives, and in the life of the world.

the interdependence of everything

Here's another example of why species preservation is so important. It's easy to mock the doomsaying cry of environmentalists calling for the salvation of some insect you've never even heard of before you discovered it was in danger of extinction. But, despite all the work of science, the interelationships among the millions of species on our planet is still an utter mystery. Who's to say that some endangered mite isn't the key link in the chain that supports our own survival--without our even knowing it? Who's to say what the precise fingers are that God uses to uphold the spinning circles of the world?

renaming glacier national park

I hesitate to post about this kind of thing. It seems too much like sensationalism, a call to action with tongue in cheek. But what do you think? Is it entirely out of proportion to be thinking about renaming Glacier National Park due to the imminent diseappearance of its glaciers?

Never having visited it, I'm completely at a loss for an appropriate new name.

the next great wave of green

I was debating with a group of friends over the weekend on what the next greening industry will be. The current one, we agreed, is architecture and development: for developers, new urbanism is the latest thing, and for architectures, LEED is hot. (Or, as the case may be, cool.) But--despite the growing popularity of hybrids and CFCs--most industries don't seem to have jumped on the green bandwagon yet. So, we were wondering, what will be next?

I couldn't decide at the time, but I found my answer in the news this morning. Yahoo is joining Google in a race to be greenest, and I think that Grist's David Roberts is right: technology is the next wave of green. Technology companies have a lot more than just good press to gain by going green. There's little argument that green technology could--and should, and probably will--be the next industry boom, and there's plenty of push for developing new and greener technologies in every industry, from architecture to transportation. But there's more to it than that. The truth is that, while we need new technology, we also need to take better advantage of the technology we do have. There are hundreds of ways in which we could be saving exponential amounts of energy and resources each year just by taking full advantage of existing technology. And nowhere is that wasted effort more obvious than on the internet.

Take paper as an example. I've mentioned before the preference of ebooks over paper books from an environmental standpoint: much as I love the smell of books, at some point we have to recognize the benefit of storing and exchanging information in a way that doesn't require using up precious trees. And there are thousands of other ways we could use less paper by taking advantage of online resources. Emails have mostly replaced post mail for general communication, but in my office--and probably in yours as well--there are still hundreds of things that have to be mailed with an original signature, hundreds of records that have to be printed out and kept filed as a hard copy, hundreds of letters that have to be sent just for form's sake. And this, quite simply, ought to change. With the potential to back up digital information on multiple servers in different locations, there's rarely a real need for information to be kept on paper. Let's the save the trees for something more important.

What's great about this is the fact that so much of the technology is already there. Most bills can be paid entirely online, without ever being mailed at all. Many books are already available as ebooks, and they're usually cheaper than their hardbound counterparts. Wikipedia has more updated information than any printed encyclopedia could hope for. Even with the internet running off a grid powered entirely by coal and gas, it's still far better for the environment than putting all the same information on paper. Not to mention that it's cheap and available to everyone, worldwide, all the time.

I'm dreaming of a brave new world...

...designed by science fiction writers. Orson Scott Card, the brilliant author of Ender's Game, has some great ideas about how to improve our zoning laws and neighborhoods. I don't think he fully understands the real reasons behind high oil prices, but I like his method for replacing big-box retail with local grocery stores. What I like about his idea of computerized stock is his ability--the hallmark of a good science fiction writer--to think through the all the implications of existing or feasible technology. Card is one of the best science fiction writers of our time because of his ability to imagine the potential of technology in practical ways. We need more of this kind of thinking applied to the real world.

Glenn Beck's special "Climate of Fear"

Here's more evidence of the conspiracy to suppress anyone who questions the consensus view on global warming. All those climate scientists are trying to shut up the naysayers (because they make so much money off selling...carbon offsets? Or something like that).

Yes, Virginia, that was sarcasm. Sometimes I can't help myself.

But in all fairness, I should admit that I didn't watch the show. Then again, nobody else did either.

more thoughts on my personal carbon footprint

This is the sort of question that keeps me up all night. Should I shop online or at a local store? Does the packaging used in shipping from Amazon outweigh driving three miles in a biodiesel car? What if I can bike to a big-box store (like Border's) but have to drive to a local store?--which one should I shop at then? How many friends do I need to bring in my car to make the longer trip worthwhile?

At last, good old Umbra at The Grist is addressing this question. Except that he's not really answering: apparently there's no scientific consensus on whether online or in-person shopping is better for the environment. And considering all the factors that go into that decision, it may well be one that always has to be made on a case-by-case basis.

In the meantime, I'll try not to lose sleep over it. Because if I stay up all night reading, then I'll just have to buy more books sooner. Which I really should just be getting as ebooks anyway instead of using all that paper. Oh, dear...

economy and energy

The fourth IPCC report came out on May 4. One of its most pertinent--and, to me, surprising--points was the statement that there is "substantial economic potential" for the mitigation of carbon emissions. In other words, we can eat our cake and have it too.

It's a nice idea, and one that's gaining a lot of ground in recent years. Last week I attended a presentation by the Clean Air Campaign in which the presenter claimed that the mindset of big business is slowing shifting from one of "pollute in order to get rich" to one of "go green in order to get rich." Like I said, it's a nice idea.

But is there any reality behind it? As far as the mindset of big business goes, I don't think so. Sure, Walmart and Home Depot are outdoing each other to sell CFCs. Toyota is the highest-selling automaker right now, mainly because of its hybrids. And the state of Deleware is contemplating building a wind farm. These are good things, but compared to the big picture, I'm not sure what they really show. Walmart is still shipping its goods all over the world, and most new hybrids don't get as good mileage as my '83 diesel (even running on 100% biodiesel). As for the wind farm, I don't have anything negative to say about wind--except to point out the fact that it's neck-and-neck under consideration with a coal plant and a natural gas plant, so it might not ever get built. But overall, I don't think the mindset of business is changing, except in response to an increasingly green consumer base. Which is good as far as it goes, but the consumer base is fickle, and the mindset of business leans whichever way the wind is blowing. Whether it's harvesting that wind or not.

None of that, however, has anything to do with the more important question, the one really being addressed in the IPCC report, of whether it's possible to mitigate our carbon emissions without suffering a dramatic economic downturn. Not being in any sense an economist, I'm not in any way qualified to answer that question. But being--at least in some sense--a Christian, I have to question the mentality that measures quality of life by economic growth. As a Christian, I am required to care about the poor. But I am equally required to care as little as possible about my own riches or poverty. As far as it applies to me, economic concerns can't be the first priority in the question of whether to mitigate my own carbon usage. I don't need any more cake.

the green economy

I just found my new calling in life. The first thing I read this morning was this report, and, well, what a great idea! I could start a program that would train urban youth for green-collar jobs.

There goes my free time...

petroleum fast

I had a scary revelation last week.

I keep harping about how easy it is to reduce your carbon footprint: change lightbulbs, ride your bike, turn off your A/C, blah, blah, blah. And I do believe that's true, because I'm doing it, and it's not hard. At least not right now.

But I was thinking about the goal of reducing emissions by 2% a year, which will bring us to the gold standard of 80% by 2050. And it suddenly hit me how much easier the first 2% is, or the first 5%, or the first 10%. At some point, you reach the end of the low-hanging fruit and have to start really making, uh, sacrifices.

For example, take transportation. Switching to biodiesel was easy. For a couple as young and spontaneous as Matt and me, moving into the city, within easy biking distance of work and walking distance of a Marta stop, was also easy. This has reduced our carbon emissions by a lot more than 2%, so theoretically it ought to let us off the hook for a while. But, well, is there a place we ought to quit with something like this? What, for instance, do I do about my friend in Chicago who's asking me to come visit her? Do I use an extra two days of vacation to spend 64 hours on the train, just so I can use a little less energy? Or do I spend half the price and a fraction of the time so I can fly?

The questions I have to ask myself in a situation like this bear striking resemblance to the questions that Christians have grappled with throughout history. At the Orthodox church we've been attending, we've been introduced to the traditions of ancient Christian disciplines that have mostly fallen by the wayside in our ultra-convenienced world. Disciplines like fasting or written prayers have been part of Christian heritage for a long time, until our modern individualism rejected them. Rediscovering them, I find myself repeatedly faced with the same dilemma: should I follow the fast to the extent that the church recommends? How often during the work day should I read prayers? To what extent am I personally able to sacrifice, and to what extent must I balance my own weakness with the discipline I seek to follow?

For now, whether it refers to fasting from food or to fasting from petroleum, this question remains, for the most part, unanswered. It probably will take a lifetime of living to enable me to answer it fully.