Today's output from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute’s state-of-the-art HEMMED (High-Energy Meta Mojo Elucidation Detector) machine is a high-pitched squealing noise that sounds suspiciously like an alarm. But the sound it is making is a little too much like your neighbor's car alarm that goes off at 10:00 every night and that you have learned to ignore. *
An article last weekshowed up in my local newspaper with the headline "Will Gulf Leak spur social movement? (subheading: "In 1969, a smaller spill in Santa Barbara helped kick-start Earth Day)":
In 1969, Sen. Gaylord Nelsonwas so moved after seeing the devastation of an oil spill off the California coast near Santa Barbara that he called for a national teach-in on the environment. The following year the resulting "Earth Day" kick-started the modern environmental movement and shaped the way Americans thought about their air, water and soil.
Forty years later, the magnitude of the Gulf oil spill far exceeds Santa Barbara's spill of up to 100,000 barrels, but there hasn't been a comparable societal transformation.
Last week, legislation imploded in the Senateto reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, derailing environmentalists' top goal, and no national consensus has emerged to move America off oil and other fossil fuels into clean energy. Even a new more modest Senate bill, aimed at boosting energy efficiency and preventing oil spills, faces an uncertain future.
Leaving aside for a minute the insulting suggestion in the subheading that modern environmental movement was a "social movement" like using Facebook or tweeting...
Okay. Sorry. I can't leave it aside. Because, unfortunately, that is what the mainstream media thinks of stories about the environment and stories about Green Energy and Green Jobs and Climate Change and Blatant Disregard for Common Sense Leading To "Unfortunate" Oil Spills (here and here).
A discussion on the environment shouldn't open with a comment making it sound like a puff piece to fill up the local paper ("What are you wearing to Earth Day this year?"). It is the most important issue facing our nation and our planet. And it really needs our attention NOW. (To be fair, the article is better than the headline as is often the case).
Energy...our creation and use of it and addressing the repercussions from that creation and use have to be Job One. Now. As in NOW. Or more succinctly: NOW!!!. (Sorry, I flunked Low Key 101 and tested out of Subtle 201 so that I could take In Your Face 301. No wonder none of my college credits transferred when I moved to North Central Blogistan from More Middley Blogistan).
Maybe the problem is that it is a huge topic and we have lots of words for the different components of it and the media is not seeing a critical mass of interest.
- Global Climate Change
- Sustainability crisis
- Oil spills
- Natural Gas fracking
- Coal mine collapses
- Air quality
- Water quality
- Sustainable Energy
- Green jobs
- Reduced consumption
Energy and the environment cannot be separated from each other because how we generate and use most of our energy in 2010 is harmful to the environment. As a matter of fact, all current energy generation methods are harmful to something in one way or another. The only way to address this is to deal once and for all with our use of energy and our willingness to turn a blind eye towards how we extract non-renewable resources from our earth and how the byproducts of our energy use harm the earth.
At Blogistan Polytechnic Institute, it is not an accident that our Progressive Agendahas these three points:
- People matter more than profits.
- The earth is our home, not our trash can.
- We need good government for both #1 and #2.
One more quote from the newspaper article:
Gaylord Nelson's speech calling for a teach-in came eight months after the January 1969 spill, and the resulting Earth Day didn't take place until more than a year later — April 1970. And it was not until 1981 that Congress imposed a ban on offshore drilling along most of the nation's coastal waters, an action widely attributed to the memories of the Santa Barbara spill a dozen years earlier. The moratorium endured for a quarter century, until Congress lifted it in 2008
Here was Gaylord Nelson's hope for Earth Day:
"a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy and, finally, force this issue permanently onto the national political agenda."
And here is my hope:
We need more than an Earth Day...we need an Earth Millennium.
Let's push for a Progressive Agenda that gives more than just lip service to:
"The Earth is Our Home, Not Our Trash Can"
Right now the Senate is just fine with doing nothing on the Energy and Climate Change bill that it has been considering for the better part of a year (and that we have been waiting for since 1969). Let's turn up the heat so that they know we have waited long enough.
Working towards a goal of Sustainable Energy is good for our planet, our health, our economy and our nation. Let's build a critical mass of support that can't be ignored. Let's finish Gaylord Nelson's agenda.
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Happy Tuesday Thursday to everyone! And fist bumps!
*(This diary was originally posted on Tuesday morning and deleted because I could not stay and tend. Apologies to wader who commented in the diary before my schedule change occurred.)
UPDATE 8/3/2010: Reid Delays Vote on Oil Spill Until September at Earliest:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced today that he will not hold a floor vote on an energy and oil spill response bill this week, the latest delay in a months-long effort to pass legislation to address the massive disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and reform the way the country uses energy. With the delay, the package cannot be considered until Congress returns in September from its summer recess.
"Since Republicans refuse to move forward with any meaningful debate, we will postpone tomorrow’s votes on energy until after the recess," Reid told reporters in the Capitol today. "In the interim, we will continue to work to get Republican votes for a strong bill that holds BP accountable, creates jobs, lowers costs and protects the environment."
UPDATE 8/4/2010:
If you wonder how you can get people interested in caring about our planet, from Progressive blogger and Fred Whisperer addisnana in a story she posted Wednesday (speaking to some folks gathered near the booth of a mining advocate at a local festival):
"It's not about regulations but about enforcement. There will always be some who comply because it's the right thing to do, corporations or dog owners. And there will always be some who don't comply. Maybe they love their dogs, or if they are corporations, maybe they love their profits. But you are asking us to believe that no corporation would knowingly pollute the drinking water of all these fine people listening to us. I find that really hard to believe. For a big profit or a small fine I think they wouldn't care a bit. I find that really deeply disturbing. Will you be here with your booth when the ground water of all of us here is polluted? Will the corporations be here or will they be like that CEO from BP who just wants his life back?"
Common sense talk leading to common goals. Let's start building that critical mass one Fred (or group of Freds) at a time.
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Crossposted from Blogistan Polytechnic Institute (BPICampus.com)
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