To Till and to Tend

When I was 12, I joined my friend for a daring swim in the beautiful, albeit jellyfish infested waters of the Mediterranean.  Back then, the Israeli coast would get an annual, two-week bout of jellyfish.  I wasn’t there long enough to wait it out, so my friend and I jumped in and were undeterred by the mild stings on our bodies.  Then, I had an encounter with a jellyfish that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy – it and I met as I dove under a wave.  It, and more importantly, its tentacles, hit my face, leaving a scar that lasted years.  (Fortunately, the family I was with knew not to pee on me.)  Though painful beyond words, it was a reality of sharing an ecosystem. 

But the tides have turned – more and more people are sharing my story.  And we have climate change to thank.

As mentioned in a recent NY Times article, “(jellyfish) are the cockroaches of the open waters.”  Jellyfish thrive in weakened environments.  Scientists say that, thanks to climate change and overfishing of jellyfish predators (like tuna), populations of jellyfish are proliferating.  Not only are beaches around the world closing, but the New York City Triathletes had to deal with (and one maybe died from) the stings of this maritime beast.

Jellyfish aren’t the only living creatures that are enjoying the CO₂ filled, warming planet that humans are creating.  Already, populations of poison ivy, superweeds and disease-carrying mosquitoes are increasing, yielding greater incidences of itchy children, resistant weeds and malaria.  I am lucky enough to be non-allergic to poison ivy’s oils (so far) and the organic “farm” on which I “work” has minimal weed problems.  Still, the spread of malaria scares me – more than half the world’s population lives in malaria infested regions – and you may have gathered that I don’t like jellyfish?

Each of us will undoubtedly feel the ramifications of climate change differently.  I am fortunate that I have few to mitigate.  Yet, the global poisons of climate change exceed the stings of jellyfish, and it is for those reasons we need to act.

As I wrote in my last post ("Can Gore's Climate Proposal Take Flight"), former Vice President Al Gore has challenged the United States to transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity in 10 years. This is an ambitious goal, to be sure. Some might argue that it's an impossible challenge. And certainly, as Dot Earth writes, it is an "intentionally super-sized" challenge. [Comment 6 to my previous approach agrees]

But Gore's challenge was not intended to be a rhetorical device. Rather it is a bold and intentional departure from conventional ways of viewing environmental problems. Gore challenged Americans to stop adopting "incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests" in favor of comprehensive and strategic plans. As a Jew, this paradigm shift resonates with me.

Years ago, I had a fascinating conversation with an observant woman. She explained the emergence of her commitment to Jewish law. For years, she dabbled with tradition – perhaps she lit Shabbat candles, but still drove to synagogue; she kept kosher at home, but would eat fish outside the house. But this "ad hoc" approach to Judaism left her exhausted and confused. Every day was filled with dozens of decisions: Could she eat leftovers on her home dishes? Could she drive to a friend's house for Shabbat dinner? Ironically, she discovered that her life became simpler and less stressful when she became more observant. Now, she no longer has to rationalize inconsistencies and take the time to navigate her faith.

Perhaps this woman's journey is a lesson for what we must do as a nation. Congress is paralyzed with short-sighted and microscopic decision-making. The House and Senate have tried for months to extend existing incentives for investment in renewables – with no success. Both the House and Senate have rejected bills that would have modestly reduced gas prices by curbing oil speculation. Some of our leaders are trying to chip away at gas prices by proposing to open protected areas to drilling. Each of these ideas is fraught with debate and controversy.

The answer to high gas prices and climate change cannot be found in any one of these proposals. Our nation demands a fundamental paradigm shift. We can stop funding despotic regimes and lower gas prices – and begin to solve climate change – by eliminating carbon-based fuels from our electricity grid.

Accepting such bold and sweeping measures is not new to the Jewish people. We accepted the Ten Commandments without amendment. We were not permitted to vote to honor our parents, but covet our neighbors. And, as my friend discovered years ago, such sweeping acceptance can be liberating. If our nation accepts Gore's challenge – and commits to a virtually carbon-free economy within 10 years – we will no longer have to debate the virtues of drawing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve or placing limits on speculation. And instead we can focus on solving the crisis before us.

Click here to see a digital remix of Gore's climate challenge.

With baited breath, people around the world have been waiting for this week to arrive.  This Friday, representatives from 205 countries around the world will make their grand entrance into the Olympic Stadium.  But this year is not like all other years. Being that the 2008 summer Olympics will be held in Beijing, China, I am sure there will be extra fireworks, magical dragons and beautiful masks galore.  Being that the 2008 summer Olympics are being held in Beijing, China, some of the athletes will be wearing masks, too.  But these masks aren’t so beautiful, they’re functional.  By wearing the masks, athletes hope to keep their lungs clean of the heavy pollution and particulate matter that covers Beijing.

The International Olympic Committee knew that China’s pollution was a concern, but awarded the honor to China with the understanding that it (and issues like human rights and freedom of press) would be fixed.  Jacques Rogge, the president of the IOC, was even reported in the NY Times as saying he was confident the air would be clean because Chinese officials “are not going to let down the world.”  Meanwhile, China surpassed the US and took the gold for annual carbon dioxide emissions and China’s air and water continue to be one of the most polluted in the world.  Needless to say, since the IOC awarded China with the 2008 Olympics, little has been done to alleviate anyone’s concerns. 

So, with the Olympics nearing, China did what any nation might do: forcibly shut down nearby factories, discontinue construction and shove half the city’s cars off the road.  Though air quality did improve, it hasn’t been enough.  Now they’re attempting to alter the weather.

With the worlds’ eyes on China, solutions needed to be found and implemented years ago. But they started too late, pollution concerns remain, and China is being publicly embarrassed. 

The Olympics will come and go, but will the world learn the lesson?  Last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Sir Nicholas Stern and even some American politicians have said that we have until 2050 to reduce our carbon dioxide by 80%.  Like cleaning China’s air, such reductions in CO₂ emissions is an enormous challenge; and like China, if we wait too long it will be impossible to achieve.

Oil Energy Money supports our communal mission to combat climate change by engaging in the moral imperitive of Earth Stewardship.  As he says, "This is why, while politicians argue over the cost of climate change and who to bill, religious leaders can encourage grass roots environmentalism on a global scale."

I heard Al Gore speak two weeks ago.  For someone in my position, this was a bit like seeing Britney Spears or Angelina Jolie.  Only I actually recognize Al Gore.  The presentation was truly inspiring.  In fact, I was moved to tears.  The former Vice President and Nobel Prize laureate challenged the United States to transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity in 10 years.  And as I walked out of the auditorium, amid a mob of hundreds of other "climate fans," I believed it could be done.

As Gore noted (and the Daily Kos confirms), we have the resources and the technology.  Gore related scientific reports confirming "enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year."  Sure, we'll need to perfect transportation and storage - but the potential is there.  And with the right price on carbon, people will go the extra mile to work out the details.  In 1961 President John F. Kennedy challenged America to land a man on the moon within 10 years.  Eight years and two months later - on July 16, 1969 - the world listened as Apollo 11 lifted into the sky.  Thirty-eight years later (almost to the day), Al Gore established a goal of equal magnitude –  and I believe greater import.  For one could argue that the fate of the Earth rests on accepting his challenge.

And for at least ten minutes, I was confident that America would rise to the challenge.

 

But as the crowd dispersed along the streets of Washington, D.C., I felt my own confidence dispel.  Last December, Congress could not commit to providing 15% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.  How can that same Congress pass a law requiring 100% renewable electricity by 2018? As Hank Green of "EcoGeek" writes, this is a "football-sized" pill to swallow.  Will Congress actually prescribe such medicine for the American people?  And will the public actually take it? For although this prescription is in the long-term interests of our country, there will be many disenfranchised patients along the way.  As Green notes, the typical coal-fired power plant is designed to last 30-50 years.  Power companies will not dismantle a plant prematurely without compensation.  Sure, Gore acknowledged the need to "guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine" for all displaced coal miners, but that doesn't account for the disenfranchised factory workers – and the vested interests – in maintaining those factories.

Gore invoked the Apollo mission as an example of American determination and ambition.  Yet, in many ways, landing a man on the moon was an easier goal.  For one, as Climate Progress notes, "the countries [sic] leadership could make landing people on the moon a goal is because there wasn’t a more powerful lobby to make sure that it didn’t happen." And, as Cal Tech Chemistry Professor Nathan Lewis explains, "We already have electricity coming out of everybody's wall socket," whereas no one had ever been to the moon.  Converting the existing electricity system is not like NASA sending a man to the moon for the first time, "It’s like finding a new way to send a man to the moon when Southwest Airlines is already flying there every hour handing out peanuts."

I want to believe that Gore's vision is achievable.  After all, mankind has achieved the inconceivable in the past: Noah saved the world from destruction by constructing the ark.  What do you think? Can Gore's vision take flight – or is it simply an impossible dream?

Click here for a link to a video and text of Gore's speech.

Click here for more on Gore's inspirational campaign.

COEJL's How Many Jews Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb campaign was referenced in this great post by Simran Sehti about compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). Through this initiative, which began during Hanukkah, 80,000 energy-saving CFLs were purchased, keeping over 29,000 tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere.

A few days ago, I purchased a sandwich from a local deli. As an afterthought, I asked for an extra piece of cheese for the baby. Before I could take the slice, the counterperson smiled brightly and immediately placed the two-by-two inch square into a 16-ounce cup with a plastic lid. "Is that for here or to go?" she queried, stuffing a three-inch stack of napkins into a plastic bag. As she rang up my order, I surreptitiously returned the napkins to a receptacle on the counter. The cup, unfortunately, would have to be "recycled" into a blog post.

Last week, the G8 announced that they would (with, as the Daily Grist reports, a number of caveats) aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by fifty percent from current levels by mid-century. An ambitious goal, to be sure – yet, the scientific community has told us we need to reduce emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming. Whether the right number is fifty percent or eighty percent – the numbers are high enough to make your stomach sink and your head spin. What does it mean to cut emissions by more than half? And how can we possibly accomplish this? Certainly, how can we accomplish this when we live in a society that finds it necessary to cover a single slice of cheese with a cup and a lid?

The answer is we can't.

As long as we live in a society where a sandwich is accompanied by its weight in napkins; where a container of yogurt is served with a plastic knife, fork and spoon; and a single gallon of milk is placed inside two plastic grocery bags, we will not win the battle against climate change. Solving the climate crisis is going to require a fundamental change in our national consciousness. We must learn to rethink consumption and redefine our "needs." And we cannot simply defer to the government to make these changes.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I think of the enormity of our needed reductions. But the Styrofoam cup is half full: with so much excess, the initial cuts will be easy. In fact, a report released earlier this month by Environment America announced that simple building efficiency measures could reduce US energy consumption by 11%. A December 2007 report by McKinsey and Company identified more than 250 existing technologies and strategies that could reduce US emissions by 28% in 2030. And imagine how we can each augment these numbers with countless changes in our own lives – from taking our own grocery bags to the market to riding public transportation to work.

Indeed, America will come a long way toward addressing the climate crisis when cashiers begin to serve fries without a side of plastic. And tomorrow when I take my kids for icecream, I'll be sure to ask for it in a cone – hold the cup and spoon.

[I'd love to hear your stories about waste – and ways to get to 80 percent. Please share both your experiences with excess and helpful tips for reducing consumption in the comments below]

    I don’t knowabout you, but when I hear the word “Arctic”,the images widely circulating in the media (i.e. melting glacial ice caps and “cuddly” [now classified as threatened] polarbears desperately searching for stable ice floes), flash through my mind. However, after reading SilentSnow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic by Marla Cone (2005), I nowthink to also address the humansliving in the arctic region and how they are affected by their changing environment.

    TheInuit, who inhabit various parts of the Arctic including Greenland,Canada, and Siberia, are apeople whose culture and way of life are and have been shaped by the Arctic's habitat for thousands of years. Especially unique to them is their diet ofgame - such as seal meat and whale blubber - rich in protein and fat, which enablethe Inuit to survive the harsh conditions of their environment and preventcertain diseases of malnutrition like scurvy. If you don’t believe me, take agood look at the history of American and European polar exploration, for it willtell you of travelers from “modernized” nations who had to adopt such a diet ifthey wanted even a chance at survival in the arctic regions. Yet, these sources of food, which have alwayssustained the Inuit, today, are becoming widely seen as detrimental to theirhealth.

        Cone'sbook, reminiscent of Rachel Carson's groundbreaking SilentSpring (1962), goes beyond popular media, uncovering the presence ofthe world's chemical residue in the region's waters, ice, and complex foodchain. Even after global initiatives toreduce production of DDT,PCBs, and mercury, they haven’tdisappeared. Not only do they remain in the world at large, they disproportionatelysettle in the Arctic. Through evaporation and condensation, they arecarried north by the Earth’s water and air systems. Unfortunately, the story ofthese chemicals’ travels does not end there. Through bio-accumulationand bio-magnificationof these toxins from the environment, they build up in succession of arcticspecies along the food chain, so that the Inuit (the highest on the chain)today exceed the concentration of PCB's, mercury, and other chemicalsconsidered safe under international health guidelines. Consequences are slowlybeing seen as many Inuit children suffer from high rates of infectious diseaseslike ear infections (leading to hearing loss) and complications with braindevelopment.

In2002, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) stated that the contamination raises"fundamental questions of cultural survival, for it threatens to drive awedge of fear between people and the land that sustains them." While manyof us today in other settings can and do change our diet because of health concerns,the Inuit cannot. A few weeks ago, with the salmonellaoutbreak in tomatoes, did we not have the option of buying different typesof tomatoes or of simply abstaining from them altogether? The point is, we didnot have to radically change our eating habits and if we were to, would nothave to uproot our lives to do so.

We now need to be reminded ofwhat it means to be so dependent on our environment and the atrocity whenrealizing that formerly symbiotic relationship may need to be reconsidered. Yetagain, maybe, as Jews who draw an identity from the Land of Israeland reject the notion of completely abandoning it for security, we are moreunderstanding than we think. What weneed to do then is to connect our personal experiences to our neighbors’ upnorth and support the Inuit in maintaining their livelihoods. We can start by carefullydisposing our waste, continuing the fight for cleaner energy, and as always,educate ourselves with the latest news.

Although many of us are alreadyin the midst of our summers and are both mentally and physically removed fromthe ice, we should note that we are still in an InternationalPolar Year, ending in March 2009. Incommemoration of this year, Silent Snow has been made into a feature-length documentary(watch the trailer!) to be shown at the end of the IPY.

As you can see, information regardingtoxins and the Inuit has been around for some time. Just because we can’t see it, because itisn’t melting away or isn’t a cute, furry creature, doesn’t mean it isn’tthere. Let us take off the Arctic “goggles” we’ve allowed the media to let uswear, in order to see the bigger picture at hand.

For more, read a interesting interviewwith Jim Clark, former Alaskan King crab fisherman and lover of Inuit art andculture.

As an undergrad, my professors explained that climate change would never be solved. Politicians, after all, will only seek solutions for problems that they can tackle in four-year cycles. And people will only seek solutions for problems they can see. But carbon emissions are invisible and global warming would not affect us for generations. Or so we thought.

But now, the effects of climate change are felt on a daily basis. Global temperatures have increased by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past 100 years. This spring, an ice sheet the size of Manhattan crashed into the Arctic sea. The recent listing of the polar bear as a threatened species explicitly acknowledged the role of climate change in their decline. The genocide in Darfur is widely attributed to resource scarcity caused by climate change. In short, climate change is no longer a problem we can shut our eyes to.

Unfortunately, to many people, climate change remains invisible. As reported in Reuters, Tesco, the world's third-largest food retailer, recently announced a plan to end that. It will begin placing carbon labels on 20 products to help consumers see the greenhouse gas emissions per serving of certain items including potatoes, orange juice, cleansers and light bulbs. John Tierney, likewise imagines that consumers would change their behavior if consumers could only visualize their emissions. In a recent article in the New York Times, Tierney, highlights a number of gadgets that would help consumers visualize their emissions. One gadget, called "the Wattson" changes colors based on electricity consumption. Tierney imagines a world where people would wear electronic jewelry to report their carbon use. These flashing mood rings and pendants would immediately allow onlookers to assess the carbon habits of their peers. And, Tierney speculates, "If the delegates to future conferences on climate change are expected to wear illuminated symbols of their energy consumption, they won't be visiting any more spots like Bali."

Tierney isn't alone in trying to figure out ways to make carbon tangible. A team of four teens in England recently won a competition for their proposed invention: the "Enuffometer." The gadget would provide minute-by-minute monitoring of energy use, with results that could be text messaged to the owner's mobile phone – and remotely disconnect wasteful appliances. As the insightful youthful inventors explain, the Enuffometer helps people visualize their emissions since "people find it much easier to fight something they can see." Well put.

Carbon mood rings and the Enuffometer will likely be among the tools of the future to help us visualize our carbon emissions. But other gadgets already exist. The "Kill a Watt" helps users determine how energy is being used around the house – so that they can cut back on wasteful devices. [You can purchase a Kill a Watt (and other energy-saving gadgets) at www.coejl.earthaidkits.com.]

Those of you who read my posts know that, for me, climate change is anything but an invisible problem. To the contrary, I fear its effects are far too visible. But even I could benefit from a flashing reminder when my energy use is excessive. After all, we all need someone to remind us when we've used "Enuff."

[For more on ways that already exist to visualize the effects of climate change, read Liore's May 28 post, "Have to See it to Believe it?"]

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I'd love your thoughts on other ways we could send consumers the right signals about energy use.