Looks like Obama is sticking to his words on all that is green and has nominated Ron Sims to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Sims has a long green tendency, you can read more about him and his previous work on Climate Progress.

I certainly am managing to keep the optimism going in Lew of these appointments, and it looks as if there are enough green people being nominated to make a real difference and permeate through the whole administration.

Photo credit Creative commons licence Washington State Dept. of Trans

An interesting and very creative PR stunt recently by Green peace and actress Emma Thompson, Comedian Alistair Mcgowan and Zac Goldsmith who bought a plot of land right in the middle of the proposed site for Heathrow’s third runway expansion. Not only that, but they have invited as many people as possible legally to jointly own the land with them, thus making it very hard for the government to server all the co - owners, especially if some of them don’t live in London, but in Bora Bora, for example.

Kori Brus from Conscious Earth brings up an interesting point:

Environmental responsibility is a global value requiring each person to not only act responsibly towards all other human beings, but also to extend that awareness beyond people to the broader world that we all rely on. That requires looking past narrow interests into ever expanding circles of value, and one of the most powerful ways to engender that awareness is to enable others to witness, first hand, the full scope of the world and the diversity of its people.

Airlines should be accountable for their emissions and efficiency like every other sector of society, but moving to restrict or reduce air travel per se is not part of the answer. For without witnessing the world beyond their own shore, why would a person on a beach in Bora Bora care enough about a mile of tarmac in London to play an active role in stopping it?

Although this is a very sexy pr stunt, Kori words are very wise as well. Although I do think that less air travel would mean less emissions, maybe, instead of curtailing humans traveling from place to place, less products should be flown around, and people should by local products, while still being able to go far and be involved with the rest of the world.
Protests need not only to be sexy, they need to be smart as well.

And in this case, with all due respect to Green Peace (and respect is due) I think they are slightly missing the point.

Sometimes I feel Like we live in a completely Kafkaesque world, or maybe through Alice’s looking glass.

A fine example of what would create that feeling with me is a post a read on Green leave report

Curtailing Success - Shutting down Wind Farms.

Ridiculous doesn’t begin to cover it.

This is not my own personal thought, but I am adopting it because - it makes such total sense, I am not sure why I, or very many others for that matter have chosen this line of action.
The green movement and the environmental situation is always associated with apocalyptic type scenario’s - we are headed to doom, our kids won’t be able to live on the surface of earth, there is male mutation happening due to pollution….which is all true of course unless something changes.

The environmental movement is about 4 decades old, and as such a long standing movement, with such a just cause one would have though that more people would have joined in and gotten on board - thing is - they didn’t - because it seems, fear doesn’t make people do the right thing, all it does is scare them.

The green movement needs to get some serious marketers on board, who will be able to create a positive vision - or a “prize” if you will (as apposed  to the apocalyptic notion of now) of what will happen if we do climb aboard the green train,private people, industries and governments, what kind of wonderful world will we live in?

Joel Makower says

Ask yourself: What does a world look like where former autoworkers and steelmakers are employed in well-paid jobs to manufacture turbines and solar panels, and where mechanics, electricians, truck drivers, and plumbers are working fervently to build the smarter, upgraded electricity grid needed to distribute all this home-grown energy? Where a new generation of smart buildings and electric vehicles are operating in concert on cheaper, less-polluting energy, and a new generation of technicians is needed to build and maintain them and infrastructure necessary to power them? Where every home, office, factory, and store is retrofitted or rebuilt to be as energy efficient as possible, made so by armies of newly trained workers from local communities? Where entrepreneurial companies are mining landfills in order to turn waste back into raw materials at a fraction of the cost and environmental impacts of mining or manufacturing new ones? Where food is grown and distributed regionally, reducing transportation emissions and ensuring food security, creating a wealth of jobs for local farmers, food processors, distributors, and others?

A worth while and very interesting post by all standards.

I spend a lot of time reading about green products and climate changes and the state of the air we breath and so on, like many other bloggers I know, and the majority of people taking part in the discussion are scientists of sorts or connected in more than a layman’s way to the environmental issues.
The language and terminoligy used is appropriate for that audience, but not really aproachable for the layman.
In short - the Green movement needs a makeover, and as much as I hate to say it, it needs a young, sexy and free image in order to appeal to as many people as possible.
As distasteful as it might seem to some, it should turn its eyes to ward the big bill boards and successful ad campaigns and follow suite. With out that, the chances of getting everyone and there grandmother aboard are kind of slim.

The Big Ask: Climate change, “ACT NOW!”

I found this on the Island of Doubt and thought I would get it out there a bit more via the blog.

James, the author of the Island of Doubt seems to think that other than its only draw back, being the length, this is good enough to persuade even the debunkers and deniers of Global warming.

I think this Ad is great, illustrating the problem really really well, but the thing with the deniers and debunkers is that even when they are sitting around with no water to drink, and insane weather everywhere, they will still be denying, debunking and blaming the sun.

Sad but True.