Global Oil Addiction (i.e. Wake Up!)

Transparency is a harsh mistress.

As promised - proof a relapsing Oil Addict. Yes, during the Low Oil Challenge, a friend of mine traveled to Boston to be part of a baby shower for a married couple with whom we are close friends. I thought that the fact that I was wearing a Live Green shirt would drive home the shear surrealness of the event.


Oil hits Fort Walton Beach FL, Azure Resort - CNN iReport

(Embedded video removed at reader request)

Accountability is even harsher.

Do we call this hypocrisy? Madness? Grandstanding? All of the above?

Possibly. More than anything else, I call it evidence of how dysfunctional things are.

Case in point - the cost of this car trip to Boston per person? Factoring in gas and sunk costs (prorated car payments and insurance), $76.65 each. If we had taken the train and rented a zipcar to get down to the baby shower - the socioeconomic impact (or cost as they say) to us would have been $170.90 each.

That's right - we live in such a skewed world that it costs more to be responsible.

And what about CO2 emissions? To push two bodies from DC to Boston; Boston to the Cape and back; and back to DC...

In a Automobile only: 564 lbs of CO2*
In a Train to Boston and back, and a car to the Cape and back: 440 lbs of CO2*

Considering that CO2 is trading for about $6.35 per metric ton (or 2200 lbs), there's hardly any significant price impetus for me to have chosen taking the train vs. driving.

My point? Until we stop hiding the total cost of unsustainable energy systems, how can we really expect people to choose differently? And when the actual negative ecological and social impacts are so far-reaching, so complex and so devestating that its difficult for us to put a monetary value to them - then we need to do more than just change price signals.

We need to shut the system down outright.


*Do your own math on carbon emissions here:
http://www.epa.gov/oms/climate/420f05001.htm
http://www.buses.org/files/ComparativeEnergy.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak

On Oil Spills, responses and the battle for credibility

Today's post is in the form of a poem. I hope you enjoy.

April Two Zero
Can you recall?
When BO and BP
Went to the Ball

They oiled their pelicans
And shredded their work
Lied to the media
And played quite the Jerk

Stunning scientists, pundits,
Young shrimpers and old
With the fishiest story
That’s ever been told

“Why one thousand,
No five, or maybe five more?
But not ten or fifteen.
And none on the shore!”

“And do not listen”, they clamored
“To the man in the back,
His numbers are quacky
He’s certainly a hack.”

And when the man in the back
Had made quite a scene
And burst on the stage
With a look oh so keen

The crowd in their caution
Looked round about
And between authority and power
They scarce hid their doubt

“The numbers I’ve crunched!
The data I’ve chewed!
Reviewed all the tapes!
And counted all oil spewed!”

His figure, they asked
All the voices in the crowd
“Where is it? How big?”
With a shout oh-so-loud

“Why look down”, he said
“On the carpet you stand.
It won’t fit on a stage
Not a number that grand.”

And at once they looked down
At the expert’s wild queues
Their hearts skipped a beat
And then fell in their shoes

“How enormous!” “How impossible!”
“How hard to believe!”
“Is this really quite possible,
Or do you aim to deceive?”

“Oh no!” shouts the scientist
“I dare not do that.
Gentle-men and women -
What you use as a mat

Is a mere estimate they say
A Conservative Sum
Not to get you riled
Feeling antsy or glum

I apologize for the confusion
Delay or the bore
For eeking this out was, well
Quite the chore

But a billion odd barrels
Between you and I
Is hardly a thing
To even bat an eye

So go back to your homes
And worry not a wink
You’ll soon get your own oil
Out of your kitchen sink!”

Low Oil Challenge, Day 8

Updates about my trip to Boston are coming - including photographic evidence of a relapsing oil addict (yikes!).

In the meantime, chew on this: an article about the health and environmental impact of an American cow. People asked why giving up meat was part of the Low Oil Challenge - well, each cow uses about 284 gallons of oil to raise to slaughter. That's about 6 months of driving for the average American.

When you conisider that au naturale, a cow uses zero oil to become fat and delicious enough to eat (eating grass and not corn - or dead cows), you can start to realize just how big of a problem this might be. And the positive impact that cutting American agri-beef out of your diet can be.

http://redgreenandblue.org/2010/06/05/beef-is-the-worst-why-put-oil-on-your-bbq/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+redgreenandblue%2Forg+%28Red%2C+Green+and+Blue%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

P.S. Personally, I advocate for free-range, grass-fed, organic, no antibiotic bison. It is QUITE tasty.

Live Green's Low Oil Challenge, Day 2

Here's some motivation from another amazing blog - Capitol Green Girls. How much starker the dangers of from oil are when we realize how little we have in tools to fix the damage it causes?

Take These Lemons and Shake Up Green Business

The Gulf of Mexico has been destroyed to the point of no return in many areas -- and that in turn means coastal economies will suffer, including the Louisiana economy already devastated by Katrina. We've been lied to, continue to be lied to, and most likely will be lied to in the future because those of us who were privy to inside information knew the dramatic effects that were taking place in the water, the toll that would be taken on marine wildlife, and the actual events taking place versus those reported in the media. There's not much that can be done now with a polluted water column suffering from toxic shock. What we can do is use this as an opportunity to reinvest in an area that desperately needs it. Forget the emergency funds. Don't worry about businesses that can't possibly be salvaged. Now is the time for new businesses to emerge -- with a greener focus. Those poor souls along the coast won't be able to repair their ways of life or their businesses for quite some time if at all, but they can venture out into new branches of economy.

Dispersants are a joke, but there isn't any one proven solution to patching up a gaping and disastrous, toxic hole in the middle of a water body that stretches past several states. Ironically, despite decades of drilling and the inventions of supercalifragilistic new products every day, the global community is still without adequate repair products. The best we have are: chemicals just as bad as the oil floating on top of the water -- but no one discussed the potential harm they pose to undersea marine life, plugging up pipes with old junk, and of course antiquated booms that are the equivalent of a bunch of toddler floatee wings strung together in the water to prevent the oil skimming the surface from going on shore. Right there. That's an open forum for commerce -- to invent something that takes all others out of the equation while being environmentally friendly and actually helping the problem instead of just sidestepping it.

There are many ways to build businesses around such catastrophes -- to show how green works and that it does work in the face of tragedy. We can focus on more than the Gulf of Mexico slip up. We can invest in other areas downtrodden with less than green circumstances. We can capitalize on ways to help those trying to enhance the country with better, greener opportunities. There are so many untapped intellectual resources out there, but fear and apathy stand in the way. Until we get government to subsidize such endeavors, until we get venture capitalists to see the worth in green economy, until we take that step toward our own inventions, businesses and hopes, we will still be mired in a sea of toxic greed.

Live Green's Low Oil Challenge, Day 1

For those not in the know, Live Green has thrown down the gauntlet about our unsustainable energy situation and our addiction to fossil fuels. In their two-week Low Oil Challenge, participants will seek to not purchase any new durable goods, eat vegan and not buy gasoline.

While I am not able to perform the challenge to the letter (I have to drive to my day job, and I'm not really cut out to be a vegan). I am going to be cutting meat out of my diet, dropping imported food (my apologies to Chilean farmers) and minimizing my driving - in addition to buying nihil novo (nothing new).

I'll keep you posted about interesting developments, but I have to say that I expect that it will put me further down the road towards living sustainably. And that is definitely a good thing!

Reflections on the Green Innovation in Business Unconference May 27, 2010 – Washington, DC

Having recovered from putting in my eleven hours at GIBU on Thursday (yes, 8AM – 7PM thank you), I wanted to offer some reflections on what came out of it.

For those not in the know, the GIBU is an amazing workshop that travels to multiple cities throughout the US which allows participants to discuss sustainability issues that are relevant to them and work collaboratively towards their solutions. This was year two for GIBU, and for me (which qualified me as a wily veteran, I suppose). I frankly favored the format this year over last years – primarily because we were given the expectation of a final product at the end of the day which helped drive fruitful, goal-oriented discussions.

(what’s an unconference?)

As a brainchild of the Ashoka Foundation and EDF, the focus of the workshops is on innovative solutions to real challenges. I spent my day facilitating a discussion on Sustainable Education (which should come as no surprise, really). What was particularly interesting is that it evolved from a high-level focus on training at all educational levels (from kindergarten to professional) into a project designed to radically reinvent public education at the K-12 level. The idea that came out was a “School without Boundaries” – a learning lab that would teach environmental science, Green practices, local farming, energy system maintenance in addition to the core curriculum of math, English and the like, but that required no school building.

Essentially a potentially mobile learning environment, localized within a community, that would inculcate the skills necessary for the students to effectively participate in a resource, energy and ecologically constrained 21st century. With a heavy emphasis on learning through service, students would help improve their own communities ecologically and economically. Furthermore, it would also equip the students with the necessary skills to actively compete in a global Green economy – which is particularly crucial when we realize that over 60% of all American students never receive a college degree. All in all, such a school is a hands-on, collaborative engine for the rapid dissemination of sustainably-oriented learning into society that would also make the communities in which it was embedded more sustainable.

I’d say that qualifies as an innovative solution to a real challenge.

The question that struck me was how to take such a model and apply it to a professional environment. Yes – it would be easy to dismiss such a notion as impossible, until you realize that in order for businesses to stay competitively sustainable in the 21st they must have methods to on-board near-continuous improvements in their ecological impact.

The business of staying-in-business is already highly dependent upon skill improvement and professional development – and the demands to adapt are quickening even for “traditional” skill sets. Add the critical need for sustainable or Green skills and knowledge, and business of staying-in-business will require a significant on-going commitment towards sustainability education; whether it’s bringing training in from outside the organization, or from the company-wide implementation of ideas developed internally. Human enterprise must make strong investments in its own survival in order to last during the difficult times of the 21st century. And in an Age of Information, levels of knowledge enterprise-wide will differentiate the fit from the also-rans.

Confessions of a Fossil Fuel Addict

I look out into the world and watch the slow spread of oil across the Gulf of Mexico creep across the collective consciousness of the country like the dawning realization of a drunk who’s just rammed his car head on into a family van. The screams and spinning wheels prying awake his dulled sense of culpability, and his capacity to grasp consequence.

And to put what’s happening there any less lightly would taint my credibility as a reporter on things sustainable.

Let’s really confront what we’ve done here, as a consequence of our addiction to fossil fuel. We’re looking at the probability that most, if not all, of the Gulf of Mexico will be contaminated with oil for centuries. We can probably write off any chance of the seafood in the Gulf being edible for humans again for a significant fraction of our lifetimes. This assumes, of course, that much sea life is even going to survive. The Gulf of Mexico already has a mini-crisis with low-oxygen levels creating localized Dead Zones (thanks to unsustainable farming practices) – spreading millions of barrels of oil over the Gulf will cripple the normal chemical exchanges that oxygenate ocean water. So it’s entirely possible that the Gulf itself will turn into the new Dead Sea.

And no – we don’t like to hear bad news. And as a professional in a field already overburdened with a reaction against negative environmental messaging (i.e. “you’re wrong and what you’re doing is bad”), I am keenly sensitive to people’s poor psycho-cultural reactions to negative reinforcement. But just as any sensible parent would take preventive measures, however harsh, to ensure their children don’t run out into the street – so too must the environmentally-minded cry foul when the truly foul doth occur.

There are times when only hard medicine will cure the disease. And this surely is one of them.

So let me start this by saying – “My name is Andrew Moore. I have a problem. I am a fossil fuel addict. My irresponsible choices helped create this crisis. If I want to stop this from happening again, I have to make better choices. My future, my children’s future, and my planet’s future depend on it. I want to quit fossil fuels, and I want to quit them forever. And I want to start Today.”

If we won’t own our demons, how to do we expect to conquer them? As Green a life as I strive to live, I still have to take my share of responsibility for what’s happened. And while there are certainly those who are more responsible than others (and they will be held accountable in more ways than one), I refuse to play the hypocrite and shy away from my own culpability in this catastrophe.

So here’s my challenge to you, gentle reader. If you look at this news unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, and feel even a fraction of the rage that I feel watching an entire ecosystem threatened with annihilation, then I call on you to take ownership of what’s transpired. Take a long, sober look in the mirror and admit the role you’ve played in causing this to transpire.

And if that hard dose doesn’t make you want to make some changes in your life, then my fellow citizen of this tiny blue marble: I don’t know what else will.