Tonight, I Feel Like Larry David

Tonight, my mind’s shut. My heart too jumpy from the waiting. I feel like Larry David:

I can’t take much more of this. Two weeks six days to go, and I’m at the end of my rope. I can’t work. I can eat, but mostly standing up. I’m anxious all the time and taking it out on my ex-wife, which, ironically, I’m finding enjoyable my dogs, who keep tripping me when  I take them for their nightly walk. This is like waiting for the results of a biopsy. Actually, it’s worse. Biopsies only take a few days, maybe a week at the most, and if the biopsy comes back positive, there’s still a potential cure. With this, there’s no cure. The result is final. Like death.

SIx more days. And I shall come back to my former green obsessed self.

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What’s Sarah Thinking?

A few weeks ago, when I wrote The Environment Is Politics, I really meant it. My thoughts have been a lot on Sarah Palin, and how to best expose who she is, and what that could mean for our country, if she became the next Vice President, or even worse, President of the United States.

In case you are wondering, what has kept me busy, lately, here it is:

Please pass along to all your friends. http://whatssarahthinking.com.

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The Environment Is Politics

No time to blog. I have been taken by the energy of the Democratic Convention, and spent all my evenings glued to the TV. Nervously praying for no missteps. La Marguerite is an environment blog, not a place to share my political views. This time is different, however. I feel the big environmental challenges facing us are political issues. One only need to take a look at the past eight years, to be convinced. Eight years, during which we, the citizens of this great country, have been consistently ‘dis-inspired’, demoralized, and demobilized on so many fronts. Eight years, during which other countries looked up to us for leadership on climate change, and found nothing instead. Eight years of systematic obstruction to hundreds of good environmental proposals. Eight years of special fuel interests pulling the strings behind the scenes and imposing their wishes. Eight years, during which CO2 levels have risen steadily, past the 350 danger zone. Eight years of muffling the voices of climate scientists. Eight long years, that have dwarfed my efforts, and others’ efforts to try to heal nature.

I am ready for a change. Are you?

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McCain Hostage of Big Oil Interests

Just read the following in the Washington Post:

Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling.

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month — three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban — compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.

The American public needs to know. Please pass around, comment, blog, do whatever you can to publicize. 

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Green Girl Wannabe’s Letter to the Future President

Public letters are in these days. The desmogblog has this cool project going, The 100 Year Letter Project, where various guests get to tell their version of the climate story. The latest one, by climate scientist Simon Donner was recently featured on DotEarth. Not wanting to be left out, I have my own version of a public letter. This one is to the future president of the United States.

To the Future President of the United States,

I am writing to ask that you please hear what I have to say as a concerned Green Girl Wannabe. See, there are all these talks in the media, about us, the people not being good green citizens

Not a day goes by, without us being accused of dumping more nasty gases into the air. We are told we drive too much, cars that are too big for our own good. We consume too much electricity. We are guilty of passively supporting coal mountaintop removal in the Appalachian Mountains. We fly too much. Our houses are too big. We don’t shut off our computers at night. We should be using public transportation more. We consume too much. We use too many plastic bags. We are responsible for a huge Garbage Patch in the midst of the Atlantic. We should recycle more. We should all have solar installations on our roofs. We should stop using our dryers and hang our clothes to dry on clotheslines. We should conserve water. We should plant more trees. We generate too much garbage. We eat too much red meat. We should stop our junk mail. We should weatherize our homes. We should switch to tankless water heaters. We should insulate. We should find jobs closer to home. We should stop procreating so much. We should . . .

Do you get it? I am overwhelmed with all that’s thrown at me. I have enough to deal with as it is. I’ve got family worries to deal with, teenagers rebelling, a mother going insane with Alzheimer’s, work to be done, the angst of midlife striking, a house to keep, and not enough hours in the day to keep it all together. And now, I am supposed to become a green citizen, on top of it all. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to be green. I am convinced the human race is heading towards catastrophe, unless we all start changing our ways, quick. I just can’t make these changes right now, the way things are set up. This is where you come into play.

I need you, Future President, to step up to the challenge, and lead us all with a vision to inspire, and a plan that will make it impossible for me and my fellow citizens to fail in our green wannabe efforts. The folks at the Presidential Climate Action Project already gave you a list of 300 concrete steps they want you to take as soon as we elect you. I also have a list, of 15 things I need from you:

1. Make it harder for me to sin, and impose a carbon tax on all my bad habits
2. Have standards in place that will let me know what is green and what is not
3. Make it free for me to install solar on my roof
4. Make it possible for me to trade in my old appliances for Energy Star appliances
5. Make it hard for me to use my car, and set curfews.
6. Set the example, and be a green citizen yourself
7. Take the troops out of Irak, and train them as green soldiers to weatherize homes, do solar installs, and retrofit cars
8. Ban bad plastics
9. Impose limits on packaging
10. Encourage telecommuting
11. Cover the land with solar and wind farms, and more trees
12. Lower the speed limit on freeways
13. Build a national green transportation infrastructure of more trains, more buses, car share, bike routes, and no car zones.
14. One day a month ask your people to do one green thing
15. Sign the Basel Convention, so I can feel better about recycling my computer

These are all the things I need from you, Future President, if I am going to come through with my responsibilities as a green citizen.

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The Inconvenient Truth About America

I nearly missed it. Prad pointed out to me the just released New York Times / CBS News Poll of American voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Question: ‘What is the most important issue in deciding who you would like to see elected president?’

Democrats:

War in Iraq 36% (I) 26% (NH)

Health care 22% (I) 23% (NH)

Economy/jobs 17% (I) 18% (NH)

Environment 6% (I) 10% (NH)

Education 4% (I) 5% (NH)

National security 3% (I) 6% (NH)

Immigration 3% (I) 1% (NH)

Republicans:

National security 30% (I) 29% (NH)

Immigration 20% (I) 14% (NH)

Economy/jobs 17% (I) 23% (NH)

War in Iraq 13% (I) 16% (NH)

Health care 8% (I) 9% (NH)

Education 3% (I) 3% (NH)

Environment 1% (I) 1% (NH)

That’s the truth about what matters most to Americans. It ain’t green, that’s for sure.

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More on Plastic Bags

Another article of substance in the New York Times, this time on ‘Human Behavior, the Politics of Global Warming and the Ubiquitous Plastic Bag’. I especially like the sentence at the end. ‘Plastic bags are a small part of the picture. . . But you think, if we can’t change our behavior to deal with this one, we can’t change our behavior to deal with anything.’ I agree. The plastic bag problem is symptomatic of a set of values. The values in question are so ingrained in our modern DNA that they are almost impossible to change. I am a perfect example.

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