Environmental Action
Things I’m doing for environmental causes; things you can do, too.
Daily Letters. I made a New Year’s Resolution: every day I’d write a letter to a politician, public figure, or media outlet on the general topic of climate change and the environmental. As of June 6, 2010, I haven’t missed a day. I’ve sent letters to President Obama, Vice-President Biden, Interior Secretary Salazar, Secretary of State Clinton, a great variety of Senators and Representatives (I don’t restrict myself to my home state of Massachusetts), various under-secretaries & bureaucrats…and many print outlets. Not being a broadcast media consumer, I haven’t sent as many letters to television and radio outlets as I probably ought to.
If you’re interested in writing some letters of your own, I’ve written a little primer here.
Emails, Phone Calls & Faxes. When I write a letter to a politician, it also reaches them by email and fax. In addition, I get regular emails from various environmental activist groups requesting me to contact my senators and representatives. Since I’m in Massachusetts CD 07, my rep is Ed Markey, which means the calls are pretty easy (“way to go, Ed!”).
I usually get four or five of these a week (unless we’re in crisis mode, in which case it’s four or five a day), and I try to respond to at least half of them.
Climate Concerts. Twice a year I organize a benefit concert at a Boston church, each time featuring musicians from three different musical traditions donating their artistry for the benefit of my favorite environmental advocacy group, 350.org. More information here.
Vegetable Gardening With A Vengeance. While I doubt we’ll ever get off the food grid entirely, we’re making headway on eliminating our need for outside supplies of vegetables. As of early June, 2010, we were still using saved frozen veggies from 2009 harvest — just when the garden was starting to yield again. The 2011 harvest stocked us up very nicely. Here is a link.
Water Saving. Since January 2012 I’ve been taking 4-gallon bucket baths instead of showers. I’m not sure how much water this is saving, but it’s making me feel better….and I’m clean!
Living Without Waste. I encourage you to read my friend Hema’s article on how she and her family reduced their output of trash to essentially zero.
MAN I HATE ENVIRO NAZIS. POLLUTION WILL CONTINUE. END F STORY. YOU ASSHOLES HAVE NO REAL SOLUTIONS.
This guy says we’re right in feeling sorry for Tony Hayward.
BP Spill is undeclared TVA-style initiative
July 27, 2010 Winsip Custer, CPW News Service
Following Connecticut Representative Edward Markey’s announcement on July 26, 2010 that the entire Gulf of Mexico is now a “bowl of toxic materials” the path is set for the creation of a new undeclared Tennessee Valley Authority-style initiative that will provide a new and unprecedented partnership between oil companies and the government in the war on OPEC energy dependence while curtailing global warming.
The $500 million dollar grant to USC’s Energy Biosciences Institute, the brainchild of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, coupled with gifts for algae research from some of America’s largest venture capital firms and DARPA given to the Scripps Institute in San Diego, pave the way for the shift from fossil fuels to bio-based energy sources.
“It’s been tough on the population of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida…and on the dolphins, pelicans and Kemps Ridley and other turtle species and wildlife of the Gulf and perhaps it would have been more humane to announce the plan long ago before flooding the region with oil, but how else were we going to get a deep pocketed foreign oil company to pay for the massive conversion?” said BP’s new CEO, Robert Dudley, as his words were recorded by this reporter while sitting outside his bedroom window. Dudley, a graduate in chemistry from the University of Illinois, is an alumni of one of the three institutions joint-venturing in the University of California’s Energy Bioscience Institute project: UC Berkley, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratories and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Dudley, who like BP’s “golden diviner” and key to BP’s massive investments in the deep water leases off New Orleans… geologist Jack E Golden now with Cobalt Energy and the Carlyle Group, came to BP from one of the Rockefeller “baby Standards” created by the break up of Standard Oil Company….Amoco. Dudley is believed to bring credibility and empathy to the disillusioned population of the Gulf region. “I may have been born in Queens, NY,” said Dudley. “But I grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. These new bio-fuel workers will thank us in the long run and the nation should thank us too….the conversion to a new bio-fuel economy is well under way and paid for in large part by a foreign money pool. All’s well that ends well,” my British colleagues are always fond of saying. And all those fishing Cajun’s can’t really like gutting fish and shucking oysters.”
Chicagoan and Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel who has been under fire for his rent- free use of a BP owned Washington townhouse, said “this has all been a wonderful lesson in how our international business connections can be exploited for the benefit of a better planet.”
BP’s former CEO, Tony Hayward when asked about his take on his new assignment said while boarding a flight to Moscow….”I’m a (expletive deleted) amateur compared to these (expletive deleted) Americans. And I’m surely not going to use Halliburton on any of my wells in Siberia!”
Hi Warren, this link just bounces back to an this same page with no links or text? I would also like to see the rundown on your letter writing pledge, it is an inspiring commitment. Thanks.
One solution for you, however, would be to end your use of CAPS LOCK.