Opening spaces for ourselves

Honestly, I am pretty tired (for now, at least...but I don't think I will be rejuvenated any time soon) of talking about the role of "government", "industry" and "education" to addressing the problems we face. We always hear from the industrial and corporate world, "Well, if the governments only did this, this and this, things would be okay," or "We need to deregulate," and so on and so forth. Government, on the other hand is dependent on the private sector more than ever before, whether it is for election campaign expenditures, taxes, war machinery, or whatever. Education seems to be the default answer to everything...and it's true. I do not disagree with that. Education (which to me means at bare minimum being equipped with knowledge and communication, cultural, analytical and critical skills that we can distill into critiques, appreciation, and wisdom to advocate for change, take action, tear down oppressive systems and forge ones, big or small, based more humane and ecologically sensitive values, and being able to live at peace with ourselves, our families, and communities...and not just something that provides us with a resume so that we can get a job...it is clear that this isn't what our government thinks of the role of education) seems to be the default fallback for all conversations: "If we only educate people differently, or better, things will change." Well, no duh. But education and changes to it also take time to unfold, all the while while ecosystems are being destroyed, waters polluted, and more and more people getting obese by eating shitty food.

And so, I hear this government/industry/education discussion all the time...and barely anything changes. For example, let's talk about something that we all relate to--food. You all probably know or have heard of Jamie Oliver, the sustainable and healthy food advocate from Essex. His awesome work and efforts have won him great recognition and publicity--a TV show, and the 2010 TED Prize. I encourage you to watch his talk below.



Oliver is energetic and passionate. Watching his talk makes you want to jump up and do something. Oliver has done a tremendous job at figuring out systemic problems in food production and service in the US and elsewhere, and has talked passionately about how government and corporations need to change. In response, he gets something like this: "Tomato sauce on pizza is a vegetable, says Congress." Now, I don't want to hear about the lobbies, about government intervening in our lives, and such. We all know about this. And so given this mess, what can we do? How can we open spaces for ourselves to create movements, change or tear down "the system", find the chinks in the armor? I am inspired by JR, a photographer, graffiti artist, activist, and winner of the 2011 TED Prize. Watch his amazing talk below.



There seems to be something so unique and different and exciting about JR's approach to awareness and engagement. It seems that his approach touches at something deep and fundamental and raw. And clearly, he is changing communities, and the world. I wonder, how can we jump on a different wagon of engagement and activism, rather than the same, old approaches that always seem to get diluted?

Occupy it all, fear nothing

I went to Occupy Ann Arbor yesterday, a movement in solidarity of the Occupy Wall Street movement. There were about fifteen of us just sitting and talking, holding signs, learning, and sharing stories. We managed to attract the interests of several people walking by, as well as a few car horns.

I wondered, though, why there weren't more people out there, showing support. The message of Occupy movement is something that most all of us can sympathise with, even though some people have portrayed it as some sort of hippie sit-in. I asked David and Heather (the two people to my left in the photo) about this, for it is something I have been thinking about ever since talking to Avik about getting the more "comfortable" people out in protest against continuing ecological degradation and the deviousness of government and corporatism. (These are the people that comprise the middle to upper middle class in the US, those that have enough money to pay the mortgages, have their two cars, two children, and food available from just a few miles of driving.) Are people just not getting the memo?

I am convinced that we live in a state of constant fear. Fear was instilled in us to convince us of the Soviet threat during the Cold War, fear was instilled in us to keep us quiet and keep debate to a minimum when invading Iraq, fear was used as a tactic in response to addressing the housing mortgage bubble, fear was used on us when the government said that AIG was "too big to fail," and fear is being used on us in the politicians' and financiers' responses to the Occupy movement. Fear is being used as a tactic in response to addressing the most obvious and large scale of socio-ecological issues, like climate change. "Things can't change, because they will get worse. We'll lose jobs, and our economy will tank. So just keep doing what you're doing," we are told time and time again. Consequently, we fear that speaking up will make us lose our income, and that we won't be able to pay off our bills and support our families if we do so. We are slaves to fear.

Heather said something very profound. She said that fear is a more primal state of being than what is needed to address the issues that face us. What we really need right now is compassion, and the energy, solidarity, and action that comes out of a compassion towards people's lives, and the Earth that supports us. Instead, our primal beings are catered to when fear is used. Compassion is a higher state of being than is fear, and therefore, it is more difficult to be compassionate than it is to be in fear. Then again, straight-laced people, who have "listened" and done everything they have been told to do by the corporations and the government are losing their livelihoods, and are being kicked out of their homes. These are the people that will hopefully join the Occupy movement. 

At Liberty Plaza, showing support. From left to right: Katie, me, David, Heather, don't know, don't know.

The Occupy movement is ostensibly one whose message is as clear as it is vague. What is clear is that most all of us have continued to be duped by "the system," that grand government-industry-military-corporate complex. Many have worked with the ideals that this country has "epitomised," and yet have been left behind in the name of continued centralised power, centralised money, and the too-big-to-fail mentality. On the other hand, the vagueness of the movement's message allows people to bring in their own views and own concerns to the table. Rather than a singular issue movement, the Occupy movement represents a vast spectrum of anti-corporate, anti-government sentiment.

In the end, however, as this trash-free journey has made me realise, change comes from within. It is very easy to point fingers to the government, or to Goldman Sachs, or those other sleazebags on Wall Street, who are sociopaths of the highest calibre. But this country is at least semi-democratic. (Do not be fooled into thinking that this country is fully democratic.) So where have we gone wrong? How could we have let this happen? We have not had actual guns to our heads forcing us into this situation. Somewhere, we have lost sight, we have lost track, we have not paid attention, and we have let the power grab happen. The corporations have, on the other hand, not lost track, and have continued to pay attention. It is only then that they have such a power hold over this culture. We must find the chink in the armor.

I am fascinated to see how this unfolds.

(I will be away from the blog for a week. Tune back in on Saturday.)

What if you don't live in Ann Arbor?

While many of us do appreciate living on Earth, enjoying and wondering about its beauty and mysticism, what concerns us mostly is what surrounds us--it is our immediacy that is most important to us. As Wendell Berry has said in The Long-Legged House (an absolutely exquisite book of essays), he cares more for Port Royal than he does for the State of Kentucky, more for Kentucky than for the US, more for the US than for some other country, but he cares as much about the Earth as he does for Port Royal. The trick is reconciling your behaviour in your place with what your hopes are for the world.

I have written and said several times, including in my last post, that living trash-free is purely an expression of my appreciation for where I live, for it is the least I can do to fully appreciate where I live. But such an appreciation can be difficult given how communities are set up in other parts of this state and this country. While talking to Will yesterday morning, he asked me what I would do if I wasn't in Ann Arbor? Now while this question is purely speculative, it is an extremely important one, for Ann Arbor isn't the only place on Earth contributing to ecological degradation.

Honestly, I don't know what I would do if I lived elsewhere, because I don't know what those other places are like. But there are some key features of society and culture that I have been able to assimilate in the past year and a half, and if one was to do anything about social and environmental injustice, ecological degradation, living in a way that treads more softly on the Earth, it would be to think about and act on these cultural phenomena.

First, our individual and collective behaviours stem from a deep-rooted unappreciation materially for where we live, in time and space. For those of us who are privileged, why do we want more material? While physical things are limited, as any conservation law would say so, and while physical things have the potential to scar the Earth, the spiritual journeys that we can all take can lead to emotional growth unbounded. This growth, this learning, does have significant physical impact, but hopefully in a good way.

Second, this culture erects barriers between those that are privileged, and those that are not. These are physical barriers, political barriers, and emotional barriers. We build highways and box stores using eminent domain only in places that cannot afford monetarily to put up a fight. We cite landfills and incinerators in places already downtrodden. When a homeless person approaches us, we don't seek to understand why this person is homeless.

Third, this culture has continually centralised decision-making, and we have given away much responsibility such that we are reliant on others for many of our basic needs. While this can be fruitful to a certain extent, claiming back that responsibility, and being able to live without being impacted or influenced by major corporations and corrupt governments becomes more and more difficult. Goodwill and compassion seems to be rare with these elites. We lose our power as individuals and small collectives of people.

All of these thoughts will most certainly play out in different ways depending on where we live and who we are surrounded by. And so while it may be difficult to live trash-free in some other places, there is so much more that can be done, given an understanding and appreciation of place.

Blind and/or psychopathic

Today, I want to write in response to a comment I received on my post The chink in the armor, a couple of days ago. Here is the comment.

"Kyle, as you may have gathered from the rest of the blog, Darshan wants to replace corporations with a pre-industrial anti-human "society," or, ideally, with the extinction of humanity. He doesn't want to live in a world with complex things like cars and computers--he wants to live in a world where rocks are afforded the same status, dignity, and moral weight as humans. Everything he ever writes expresses a deep hatred for humanity and freedom, and a love of totalitarian destruction of civilization."

Of course any thoughts contradictory to the status quo trample on the freedom of those who have benefited most. These are the "free" who have given themselves and their kin the "freedom" to destroy. Such sentiment comes from a deep psychopathy - of remorselessness, of insensitivity, of violence.

Freedom is a contradictory notion because we afford freedom to those most powerful, and then oppress other people to deal with the situations we've created for them. No better example than Delray in Detroit, where years of neglect and injustice by the powerful have put people in a situation they cannot escape from. In essence, the freedom of the powerful takes away from the freedom of the not-so-powerful. Many might say that people are free to do as they please. If someone doesn't like where they live, they can pack their bags and move away. Such thought comes out of either an ignorance of the world, or a knowledge that those being oppressed cannot be let free, because if they are, they might tell everyone else of the reality of their situation, making others want to take the powerful down. So instead, the powerful act innocent about the state of other people's lives and the environment, and live their lives as if nothing is wrong. Such an existence is devoid of even the basic moralities we would hope anyone to have.

In general, we are always told we have "freedom". We are free to vote and choose leaders to serve us. We are free to spend money in the way we choose to. But that’s where the train stops, because all the while, we have created behemoth structures and organisations, and even larger problems. When it comes to addressing these bigger issues, we are intimidated, beaten down and told that the problem is too big for each one of us to address. In a sense, we are told to make choices for ourselves, and just forget about the bigger picture. I've realised that we are given freedom when that freedom serves in the interest of behaviour that inevitably leads to ecological harm, but if we were to take a stand against this, we are labeled “tree-huggers” and “job-killers.” There is then an inherent contradiction between independence of choice, and the powerlessness to solve big social and environmental problems. We have the freedom to “consume” but not the freedom to change what it is that drives ecological degradation. 


Our right to freedom does not allow us to freely destroy. There is almost a libertarian sense that I get from hearing some people speak, how entitled they are to their possessions and belongings. What they fail to notice are the extreme injustices that lead to their entitlement. Those that support large corporatism are those that have benefited most from it; they aren't the ones living in Delray or Sumpter Township or Fox Township or the Niger Delta. When you disaggregate the costs and benefits, a feature of large corporatism, you disaggregate your ability to perceive wrongdoing. Or maybe it is the other way around. Actually, that's probably how it is.

People have today been enslaved because of circumstance. Many people actually believe that "working in sweatshops is better than what they would be doing anyway." How do we come to accept this? Why should sweatshops be the best people can be afforded? Because there is a hierarchy of power in this world. People at the top would not have it any other way. They want to keep you and me from speaking up against the injustices we are inflicting on the environment and people living in that environment. This is the corporatism that must fall.

And so my intention is a resolute take down of a system of society that on its face is one based on concepts of "justice" and "equality", but in the end is one of a subtle yet debilitating oppression, and the complex web of corporatism and government, the way we've structured them right now, does exactly that. The "humanity" we've created for ourselves blasts this Earth and its people to smithereens. This is not the humanity I subscribe to.  

One thing no one can argue with is the physical finiteness of this Earth. Conservation of mass, energy, and atoms dictate it. What this means is that if there is 100 of something, and I take one of them, there are only 99 left. Yet we act as if we can take all 100 with the blind faith that there are 100 left. Unfortunately, such people do not understand basic truths about nature. This is the physical world. Well, what about the emotional world, the spiritual world? There is luckily an infinity here, because we can always be kinder, we can always be more just, we can always show more love. What limits us is just the breath in our body.

The problems we face are of our own doing. Cutting down trees remorselessly for biofuel plantations and blasting through soil to get to tar sands are a rape of the Earth and its people. They are a result of mental and emotional constructs of society and economy influencing our physical presence in this world. And the only way they can be fixed is by fixing the source of the problems - this society, this culture. This is a culture that is founded on benefits for some, costs for other, and a privileged dishonesty about these costs. Thest costs move beyond just cost on human lives - this culture is oppressive and violent.

I like to ask myself the following. At what cost am I able to live the way that I do? Taking coal from underneath the ground inevitably degrades the ground, because we are incapable of doing anything benign. We are incapable of not leaving a trace behind. Instead, we pillage and plunder, and we'll blow the tops off of mountains. And the people that are doing the blowing up do not care, because they aren't the ones living in the valleys of West Virginia. They are probably living in their suburban homes, with their well-manicured lawns and big cars. They likely produce two trash cans full of toxic waste a week. No one would live in the place they degrade. Only psychopaths have the ability to somehow convince themselves that they are working in the best interests of other people, when they clearly are not.

We act far from "civilised" in the true meaning of the word. We act in ways that are indicative of moral and spiritual voids, ones that we feel we must fill with materialistic junk and physicality. The culture we live in depends on the Earth more so than any other culture in history. We use almost every element on the periodic table, we extract more and more petrochemicals and cull virgin forests and use more water than ever before. Exposed here is a deep contradiction that the privileged seem to not want to appreciate. In their efforts for "conservation," they use. In their use, they degrade. Technology as we conceive it is founded fundamentally on use of material, not on personal development and education. And yet it is a culture that degrades this Earth exponentially and categorically.

Things don't have to be this way. If we were to take a deep look around us, to observe, and really observe, and think about the complicated systems at play, we can boil much of this ecological injustice to very simple things, but things that would take diligent effort, thought, and consciousness to address. Or we can buy into what those that are privileged want us to think - that just because you are afforded the luxury of a car or computer or home, that things are good everywhere else. Of course, people have a tendency to surround themselves with people that are similar to us - similar in socioeconomic status, people of similar skin colour, people of the same political leanings. Perfect. This is what the oppressors want us to be like. They do not want us to think about what is wrong, they do not want us to look to the other side. Delray is cut off by I-75. Landfills are placed many miles from where we live. Africa is several thousand miles away. Sweet. Out of sight, screw what is happening there. This is a reality we are forced to believe. A reality of mirrors. We see ourselves, and then others like us. We do not see the other side.

And by the way, if you are going to bash my writing and thoughts, at least have the courtesy and courage to tell me who you are.

The loss of nuance

With the scale and vastness of the problems that face us, it is difficult to not view these problems as monolithic problems. This is not to say that "poverty" or "climate change" as problems are disputed. But what these problems mean for different people, in different places, is different. This is something we cannot get away from, and something that comes up time and time again in thinking about sustainability. What this means is that the outcomes of these problems in different places is different, and it depends on where you lie socio-economically, and so forth. Climate change means something for us here in Michigan than it does for those in Zimbabwe. Consequently, how to deal with the problems changes depending on where you are.

But if you were to hear any politician or any large engineering firm PR person speak, you would think that they have the answer to the problem (however they choose to define it). You might hear someone say, "What we need are two hundred solar energy farms in Arizona, and all of our problems will be solved," or "We need to create a large entity that will regulate and oversee how things happen on Wall Street, and our economic problems will be solved." You might notice that party A wants to do B, and party Y wants to do Z - it's simple black and white. Party A thinks that B should solve it all, and party Y thinks that Z will solve it all. The real issues, and the real solutions, are more complex, and more nuanced than this.

And so this sort of rhetoric is dangerous for many reasons. First, it makes us think that the problems are monolithic. Second, it makes us think that the solutions to those problems are monolithic. Third, it makes us think that they have the solutions (to the problem that many times they created in trying to solve other problems), not us. Fourth, it reduces our thinking to sound bites and Tweets. The problems we face are because of the loss of nuance - the bulldozing of unique places and cultures to give them all the same feel, the homogenisation of tastes and of "development." This is why people think that lawns in Phoenix are okay. 

The loss of nuance is seen in our education, in which we are trained to be one thing or the other, a doctor or an engineer, or a sociologist for that matter. We've applied the same mentality of "secularity" of science and technology to our society and to education, and we are now seeing the outcomes of such a mentality. The problems we've created for ourselves (yes, we) are so vast and intricate that there cannot be blanket solutions. Yet at times what science and technology, government and industry want to do is to centralise these problems, and apply blanket solutions.

As a first step, we must get rid of this reductionism in our lives, though, and not bin ourselves as A or B, but rather a complex melding of A and B, as well as C and D. To give you something to think about, complete the sentence for your life -  "I am not solely an engineer (or whatever you are), but I am also..."

Money - Scott Russell Sanders on the paradoxical nature of money

For today, I wanted to share with you a paragraph of an essay I just read by Scott Russell Sanders, called Breaking The Spell Of Money, in Orion Magazine. I encourage you to read the whole essay, eloquently and thoughtfully written, by clicking here.

"The accumulation of money gives the richest individuals and corporations godlike power over the rest of us. Yet money itself has no intrinsic value; it is a medium of exchange, a token that we have tacitly agreed to recognize and swap for thins that do possess intrinsic value, such as potatoes or poetry, salmon or surgery. Money is a symbolic tool, wholly dependent for its usefulness on an underlying social compact [emphasis added]. It is paradoxical, therefore, that those who have benefited the most financially from the existence of this compact have been the most aggressive in seeking to undermine it, by attacking unions, cooperatives, public education, independent media, social welfare programs, non-profits that serve the poor, land-use planning, and every aspect of government that doesn't directly serve the rich. For the social compact to hold, ordinary people must feel that they are participating in a common enterprise that benefits everyone fairly, and not a pyramid scheme designed to benefit a few at the very top. While the superrich often pretend to oppose government as an imposition on their freedom, they are usually great fans of government contracts, crop subsidies, oil depletion allowances, and other forms of corporate welfare, and ever greater fans of military spending."

Money - An exploration

I have been told time and time again that economic arguments to action are those that are most convincing to people of all sorts - individuals, neighbourhoods, cities, governments, and corporations. In the end, and in the beginning, the economy we talk about ends up representing our values through amounts of money. Much of this blog has been devoted to the choices we make in our lives, and what drives those choices. Money is a key determinant of our choices, and therefore, I will be exploring the notion of money - what it means, how it functions, how it shapes our thinking and collective action, and what this means for the air we breath, the water we drink, the food we eat, the land we stand on, and all sentience and non-sentience on this Earth.


I started writing down some of my thoughts about money last night, and I realised that just like my other threads of thought, my thoughts on money are rudimentary. I am no economist, but I do use money, as do most people around me, and therefore, each and every one of us is in the position to think about what it represents to our lives. I will start off this series with just a few thoughts, which I hope to build upon in the coming weeks.

We feel that money is a good representation of our value to society, and the value of society. The government feels that as long as the pot of money in our country continues to grow, this is good thing. But while those that earn a lot of money may be nice people, just because money exists somewhere out there, and is continuing to grow, doesn’t mean anything for those that are continuing to face continued degradation – the poor, the environment. What has Wall Street done for you lately? On the other hand, what has the ever-present volunteer added to your life? Maybe with time and compassion, the impact of the volunteer is much more meaningful to you than an investment banker that is trying to add to the country’s GDP. In the end, maybe the most valuable experiences we have are dictated more so by the true connections we make with people and place, not by a dollar value we can assign to them. The notion of traveling at home is just one example of this. Many of us can spend a few hundred dollars to constantly go somewhere, and be a stranger. But we can also choose not to spend the money, and instead be a neighbor, a community member, a volunteer, an organizer. Of course, these choices don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but you know what I mean.

I hope to hear your thoughts on this series.

Some thoughts on control

One of the central themes that has come up to the surface in thinking about trash, waste, and ecological harm is the notion of control. Control comes in many flavours and shades, and operates (or not) at scales ranging from extremely macroscopic (large government, transnational organisations), to extremely microscopic (the self, our being).

At times we feel as if we are in control of our lives, and at times we feel like we must move with the macroscopic flow of our societies, regardless of how we feel. At the largest level, control operates at the scale of government and industry - laws and policies dictate what is acceptable and what isn't, what will be mass produced and what will not. In this situation, there is very little that each one of us can do. It is as if decisions are made for us; for example, the electricity we use will come from coal, and there is very little I can do to stop that. Either I can choose to be a part of it and use electricity, or I can somehow choose to opt out. (This I explored in a previous post a few days ago.) Another example is that of the large economy - if the "economy is down," society is down, people lose their jobs, and that means we as individuals are down. Many people feel that there is little that we can do individually to change the situation, apart from debate with people, and hope that the imaginary forces of the market do their thing. They feel that we have to wait and hope so that the "economy is up," and so that we can resume the normalcy of their daily lives. Indeed, it seems to them that we are in control of our lives when the collective we are in, our communities, neighbourhoods, and societies, are "stable" as defined through neoliberal economics.

What we've done then is given up the power of decision-making to people that work in government buildings and boardrooms. We have given them proxies to provide us with the only choices from which we must choose. We have become reliant on others. For example, if you are fortunate enough to have enough money to go grocery shopping, you have a large variety of things to choose from. Yet what is provided to you is defined by the proxies we (the collective) have given to others to make decisions for us. You are thus provided with foods sprayed with toxic chemicals, uber-processed, and full of empty calories. This outcome not only negatively impacts our bodies, but also negatively impacts the environment. Unfortunately, the choices we are being presented are those which will continue to degrade our land, our air, our water. (This is obvious with continued expansion of something like oil exploration.) What is left then is a very small space within we can operate and exercise control. We are left with only unpalatable choices. Now, while I cannot expect everyone to be an activist (that would be awesome, though), I can encourage people to make responsible choices for themselves and the environment in the small space in which they can exercise control. Most all of us, especially those who are able to access this blog, are completely and totally empowered to exercise more responsibility toward the environment in our daily lives, and serve as role models moving forward.

"In being forced to do what is right...

men lose the dignity of being right." ~Wendell Berry

Laura Smith and I were talking last night after a long and thoughtful day in Detroit. Laura is a PhD student in architecture and environmental psychology, and is an interior designer, too. We talked about environmentalism, ethics, and personal motivation. Laura knows a lot about personal motivators for action related to the environment. She said that the two biggest drivers for positive environmental feelings are time in nature, and having a role model to look up to. Of course, what are not motivators for people to change their behaviour are policies, governmental or private, that are enforced top-down, particularly because most all of these policies are based on incentives (here, here, here, here), which don't convince people that the flaw is something deeper than where they choose to spend money, or something like that.

But what may be more of a barrier is the forcefulness associated with policies and law. In no way am I saying that environmental law is not necessary, but the pride of individuals rests in their ability to make choices for themselves. An apt example is the raising of kids, particularly in their teenage years. Deep down, most parents do know what is best for their kids, and they do tell their kids what to do and what not to do. But in being told what to do, there is almost an automatic reaction on the teenager's part not to listen to advice or orders, even though it is in their best interest to listen. That begs the question, How is it that we may have a world in what people choose to do themselves is what is the right thing to do? I know some might think that "right" is a subjective word, and there may be many "rights." Yet, it is clear that most all ecological and social harm has arisen from people doing the "right" thing, be it for themselves or their families. When I say "right" choices, I mean choices that respect and dignify not only people's immediate families (other people), but others (including nature), too.

This drives at a fundamental ethic in which tradeoffs, something I will write about in a day or two, are a thing of the past. Of course, a changed education stemming from a changed ethic seems like a way in which minds can be shaped from the very beginning. There would be no need for laws governing the sanctity of a river or of the air. What this necessarily results in is a reduced goverment, a reduced oversight, and a reduced need to be forced to do something. These are all things that all of us can agree are good.

We cannot wait

I do not intend this post to be in any way discouraging. Rather, I hope it lays out, to some extent, why it is that matters need to be taken into our own hands, yes, yours and mine.

I had a wonderful day today, which was spent talking with Patrick about the issues raised because of individual action and the arguments for it. One of the major questions that has come up during this past months is, Why focus on individual action? Getting organisations that have impacts much larger than my own to decrease their environmental impact by even 0.01% will dwarf anything I have been able to do over the past fifty-four weeks. I agree. That would be wonderful to do, and I encourage all of us to continue our efforts to do so. The obvious way to get such organisational change is government policy. People might think that we should focus our efforts on getting some national or regional policy passed. Yes, we should, and I encourage all of us to continue our efforts to do so. People have told me that there need to be "incentives" to change behaviour, or at least some policy that pushes people to change their behaviour. Yes, that is needed.

However, my questions in rebuttal are these - Who is going to get the government to enact policy, and what exactly is the nature of that policy? What ethical (and consequently legal and economic) foundations are those changes in behaviour going to be adopted on? Any change that stands a chance at truly addressing the nature of the problems that face us will necessarily require a fundamental rethink of our ethical structure. Furthermore, "incentives" are introduced all the time in our country, and are as quickly taken away - take for example production tax credits for renewable sources of energy. Given the magnitude of the issues that face us, "incentives" that have the potential to be taken away are in some sense a waste of time in trying to get passed, particularly how the sausage factory of the government is adept at watering policies down to be mere lip service. The changes that are required in our society need to be durable.

As I have written about previously, any durable change (here, here, here) that comes can come from nowhere but from our own lives. It is our choice. It is through the collective projection of our lives outwards that we currently allow the existence of ecologically destructive organisations and governments. Also, I highly doubt that a large fraction of people in the US will be willing to do something because the government forces them to, particularly when it comes to the environment. As Professor Andrew Hoffman said, "There’s a segment of the population that sees environmentalists as socialists, trying to control people’s lives."

It is clear to me that not everyone thinks that environmentalists are trying to control people's lives. What that means is that each one of us can be that example, to these people, at least, that shows that making the meaningful changes in our lives is not only necessary, but also doable.

Further thoughts on risk

I have written about risk previously (here, here, here), which stems primarily from our limited mental capacities and a carelessness toward potentially disastrous outcomes. People take risks only if the desirable outcome provides much more "good" for them than "bad." Yet the way we have structured our society is that the potential good, or profit, is always concentrated, and the risks are diffuse and spread out over everyone else. The way corporations and government is set up is that those that make the decisions are furthest away from the non-desirable outcomes of an action, i.e. the risks. For example, after the BP-Macondo Well oil spill, their ex-CEO Tony Hayward, although having been battered in public, got a huge severance package, and millions of shares in BP. What about the risks of oil and exploratory drilling? Well, the Gulf of Mexico and the people and nature there will be bearing the worst outcomes of risk for many years to come. In this case, the risks of drilling exploratory wells were made evident by the spill. But do you know what? Even after the most disastrous oil spill in US history, Transocean, the rig operator, gave bonuses to its top executives for its "best year for safety in the company's history." Here's what an article from The New York Times says...

"Transocean moved on Monday to contain the damage from its description of 2010 as a good safety year, which appeared in a securities filing on Friday disclosing that its top executives received about 45 percent of their targeted performance bonuses for the year. 

Ihab Toma, Transocean’s executive vice president of global business, said in a statement on Monday that 'some of the wording in our 2010 proxy statement may have been insensitive in light of the incident that claimed the lives of 11 exceptional men last year and we deeply regret any pain that it may have caused.'"

When a nation decides to go to war, the risks and non-desirable outcomes of such a decision - potentially increased taxes, deaths of men and women, ecological destruction - are thrust upon the people of the nation, particularly the nation in which the war is being fought in. Those that made the decision to go to war do not ever go to the front lines; they are probably playing golf while others risk their lives for someone else's ego.

We've all heard about the precautionary principle - if an action is potentially dangerous, don't do it. Such is the argument made to stop using the atmosphere, the land and the water as dumping grounds, but to no avail. But it isn't that we aren't implementing the precautionary principle at all. Derrick Jensen argues that the way the precautionary principle is currently implemented is that if any action harms the profits of corporations, that is deemed potentially dangerous, and we don't do it. What if we were to, as Jensen suggests, move the burden of the risk is moved from everyone else to the one who is actually making a profit? People may argue that we have laws in place that "hold people accountable for their actions." Well, it is never the richest or most powerful person that gets into trouble. The less well off does, however. In fact, many leaders have immunity, and that immunity exists because no one would be willing to make decisions that are risky unless the immunity existed.

On rights, conveniences and obligations

I want to continue my thoughts from my last post on obligation. I particularly want to focus on the obligations that we must assume given our rights and conveniences in this world.

I am no expert of history, and no expert of international affairs. I know little of the governance structures that exist in many parts of the world. Yet it is is undeniable, to me at least, that as time has moved on in our societies, the rights granted to people by their governments have on the whole increased. (Libertarians may not think so.) Women have the right to vote in most parts of the world now, and much of the world has adopted some form of democracy. The list of human rights has increased over time, it seems, and for good reason. I find it difficult to comprehend and swallow the many violations against the sanctity of the world propagated through war and similar crimes. Increasingly, rights have the character such that they are applicable to all people living in a jurisdiction, and that is an absolutely wonderful thing. These are rights that confer upon all of us the access and ability to partake governance, which affects our daily lives. (Many of us do not exercise these rights, but that is a different story.) At the same time, we have had a proliferation of "convenience" in our lives. We have made it a priority for ourselves to make convenience more convenient, to give more and more people more and more access to more and more things. We have become so accustomed to convenience that we think it a human right to have access to these conveniences. In fact, many people have said that access to the the internet has become a fundamental human right. 

The right to open a business that violently extracts natural resources exists for all of us, and although there are laws such as NEPA that do require us to "consider" the environmental impacts, the environment has been continuously degraded over time. In fact, as long as there is a "just" compensation to the affected people for pollution and environmental harm, such activities can go on. Our legal system is set up such that we have obligations to people, but no obligations to the water they drink, or to the land they stand on, or to the air they breathe. As long as the impacts of our actions can be monetised to a value that other people accept, those impacts can be made to occur. Given extremely toxic amounts of pollution, people may reach a settlement and leave to find a new home. But what about the old home? What about the river in which was dumped PCBs? Our right to compensation has come at the expense of the environment. Many of our rights and conveniences have come with increasing detriment to the environment.

As we have moved through time, we have continued to provide others with proxies to provide us the basic necessities of life - our rights and increasingly our conveniences. As the number of these proxies has increased, we have lost our connections with the elements that provide for us and sustain us. These proxies have been provided to the government and companies, and we feel that their only job is to serve us and to secure our rights and conveniences. Yet I do not believe that the list of our obligations, as citizens, has grown in proportion with the list of our rights and our conveniences. The right to vote has not come with the obligation to vote, at least in the US. No one can deny that the convenience of a new laptop is benign on the environment, regardless of whether or not we feel it is a human right to have access to the internet, and still we have no obligation to make sure it isn't harming people before we buy it, or after we are done using it. As I wrote a couple of days ago, our increased mental and emotional capacities place on us the burden of obligation. We must expand the scope of our obligations with every increasing right, with every increasing convenience. Rights exists only because there is land beneath our feet, water to drink and air to breath. Conveniences only exist because nature provides us the materials for them. Obligations will allow us to fully realise the impacts of these rights and conveniences.

On my declining faith in government

I was at the EPA National Vehicle Emissions Testing Facility the other day when it was announced that there would be a new "public-private" partnership between the EPA and Chrysler to develop hydraulic hybrid technology for light duty vehicles such as minivans. The EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, was there along with Chrysler Chairman Sergio Marchionne introducing a "new model relationship" between the government and corporations - one in which the government and industry will work hand-in-hand. I was particularly surprised at how many times Jackson called residents of the US "consumers." The newly elected Lieutenant Governor, Brian Calley, was there as well, speaking about how his "family of five consumers" would benefit greatly with this new product. I got the feeling, along with my friends who agreed, that the tone of the government, represented through Jackson and the EPA, was markedly subservient to Chrysler and "other corporate partners." That seemed to rub us the wrong way, given that the EPA is a regulatory agency, whose job it is not to compromise and work with industry, but to set "acceptable" (yes, a loaded word that I will talk about in another post) standards within which industry can operate. Jackson also said the following: "Hydraulic hybrid vehicles represent the cutting edge of fuel-efficiency technology and are one of many approaches we’re taking to save money for drivers, clean up the air we breathe and cut the greenhouse gases that jeopardize our health and prosperity. The EPA and Chrysler are working together to explore the possibilities for making this technology affordable and accessible to drivers everywhere. This partnership is further proof that we can preserve our climate, protect our health and strengthen our economy all at the same time.” (emphasis added by me)

President Obama, in his weekly radio address to the nation, today declared that the United States can "outcompete any other nation on Earth," in what The New York Times called a "pro-growth, pro-trade message that is likely to be at the heart of the State of the Union speech he gives to the Congress on Tuesday." Obama went on the say (with emphases added by me), "We’re living in a new and challenging time, in which technology has made competition easier and fiercer than ever before. Countries around the world are upping their game and giving their workers and companies every advantage possible. But that shouldn’t discourage us, because I know we can win that competition. I know we can outcompete any other nation on earth. We just have to make sure we’re doing everything we can to unlock the productivity of American workers, unleash the ingenuity of American businesses and harness the dynamism of America’s economy." He went on to say, about his trip to Schenectady's GE steam-turbine plant, “This plant is manufacturing steam turbines and generators for a big project in India that resulted from a deal we announced around that trip — a project that’s helping support more than 1,200 manufacturing jobs and more than 400 engineering jobs in Schenectady,” Mr. Obama said. “Good jobs at good wages, producing American products for the world.”

(I will stop short and not talk about new Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's announcement during his State of the State speech this past week about the new bridge between Canada and the US.) I have written at length in other posts about how the government has been as complicit in environmental harm and degradation in the past; these recent announcements do not change my viewpoint, but rather lend evidence that indeed, the government is as short-sighted as corporations are. The government views us, people, people with thoughts, emotions and feelings, as consumers. We are viewed as consumers that only do our rightful duty when we consume and produce and grow, not thoughts, emotions and ethics, but physical products whose presence almost inevitably degrades the Earth's capacity to sustain those very governments. We are at a point in time when simplicity of thought and rhetoric and broad brush strokes cannot allow us to comprehend the full impacts of our actions. More fuel-efficient cars do not mean lesser environmental impact. The economy, the way it is currently defined, cannot protect our health and climate if it grows. There may have been a time when we could have used simple equations such as "more = good." Unfortunately, ecology, the environment, people, emotions and spirit cannot be reduced to an equation.

On morality and individual action

After meeting with Professor Victoria Johnson on Friday, I have been thinking about the role of individuals in being able to drive organisational change surrounding the environment. And so I apologise if this post, as well as yesterday's, seem out of place, and unnecessarily weighty. I do want to emphasise that I have experienced only positive energy since starting this project, and that is unequivocally encouraging. Yet at the same time, it is hard not to notice the constant lethargy and inaction on scales larger than those I currently operate in and influence. I am hopeful for action, but that does not mean that I do not speak out against what I see as a continuation of behaviour that has inevitably led to the dire state and inertia of society today. As I mentioned yesterday, the failures of government to protect its people and the Earth that feeds them are plain to see. The almost invisible walls between government and private corporations have allowed governments to advocate for the legitimacy of existing large, environmentally destructive corporations. At the same time, corporations have used the minimal (and appeasing) governmental regulations that do exist to operate without consciousness. Consequently, they have been successful in degrading, polluting, and wasting away the precious and mystical gifts nature provides for us and all else. Corporations have defined the details of acceptable ways to live, only to serve themselves, their hollow egos and deep pockets. What is lost through corporate mentality is the understanding of nuance - of place, of people and of feeling. But here we are, in a world of ever-increasing "knowledge" and ever-increasing environmental degradation. It is easy for me, and for us, to blame large corporations and politicians for the situation that faces us at the steps of the future. What we forget is that it is us that lend legitimacy to these organisations, institutions and corporations. The moral fabric upon which they operate is defined through the collection of our moralities. However, in the process of the weaving of the fabric, individual moralities are averaged out, resulting in a destructiveness that was from the outset unthinkable. Regardless, our continued patronage lays the foundation for their continued existence. While I do not argue for violent anarchy, I do stand for action according to the highest moral ideals. These ideals may never be reached, yet we should never be satisfied with where our moralities currently lie. Such action, introspection and self-exploration will allow us to present ourselves as "whole before the world."

On individual action

I started this project close to ten months ago now and thought it would be a project for myself, not in any selfish way, but rather a way to see how far I could go, and to see how much further I needed to go, to be a responsible citizen toward both nature and people. Such individual actions are prevalent throughout the world, and many people undertake adventures involving sacrifice out of religious belief - Catholics give up for lent, and many people in India fast once a week to understand and appreciate food. These actions aren't necessarily undertaken for the environment, although everything has an impact. Rather, these actions are for self-learning and exploration, and to understand and internalise the value of what we have. It is easy for us to get devalue what we have when we have. Real value is felt when we are deprived. At the same time, individual action and sacrifice can be undertaken to show some things are not valuable, but rather degrade the value of everything else because of their existence.

What this project has turned out to be is a commentary on how we have continuously degraded, pillaged and plundered this Earth, a home not only for us, but for fish, microbes, animals, air, water and land. Saying no to trash has meant that I am saying no to consuming objects, and saying no to the extraction of materials that has gone into making those objects, and saying no to how the lives and ecosystems those materials have been extracted from have been negatively affected. It is plain to see these things; you do not need a degree in aerospace engineering to understand ecological harm, social harm, disrespect and tyranny. Sure others will say that good is coming out of our actions, and maybe to some extent there is, somewhere, for someone. But the world we live in is unequal, and where there is a winner, there is a loser. Maybe this loser doesn't have a face, a name, or a home, to you, and maybe this loser lives several thousand miles away. But that doesn't take away from the fact that there is a loser. Governments and organisations shy away from large-scale, sweeping action, because "we don't know all there is to know about what the problem is, and what the end impacts are going to be." In response to this, I would say that I do not need to continuously try to reduce uncertainties in our understanding of negative impacts - all that matters is that there is a negative impact. Negatively affecting the life of even one ecosystem or even one individual is still a negative impact. What if the person affected was you? What if you were the one that wasn't "fortunate" enough to be born in the most powerful nation in the world?

We live in a world where other people tell us what is good for us. Advertisers, marketers and corporations convince people that they are worthless if they do not buy into the frenzy that drives a capitalist society, and an increasingly capitalist world. At the same time they stamp on the voices of those who feed the frenzy - those working in the sweatshops, and those whose homes and forests are demolished so that we can live the way we do. To take a stand against this flies in the face on everything our society is founded on - excess, greed and violence. But how can one person's actions affect the machine of extraction, consumption and degradation? How can one person's actions change the mindset of organisations, institutions, governments and countries whose foundational ethics necessarily result in ecological harm? What is the least one person can do to affect the behaviour of these entities? The ideas that now commonplace and accepted, such as democracy and civil rights were once novel and lambasted. It is the action of individuals, most unnamed, that have forged societies that accept these values. Individual activism has always affected communities of people. We live in a world today of bitter political divide, with lofty rhetoric and little action. Barriers have been erected between people that cannot even guarantee the civility of discussion. Corporations add continual weight to these barriers, because their existence depends on the maintenance of the status quo. There can be no faith put in the supposed "goodwill" of corporations and large organisations, and there is continuously declining faith in the ability of our government to do anything at all. So who is left? You, me, and our idealism.

On corporations the corporate culture

"When Salt Lake City was established, the Temple of Latter Day Saints was built to be the tallest building in the city. Then, when strong government was established, the Salt Lake City Capitol Building was built to be taller than the Temple. Now, you see financial, commercial and corporate buildings that are taller than the Capitol. What that tells me is that in the beginning, people treated their religion as the entity that exerted the most influence and power on society. Then, strong government overtook that influence. Now, it seems that people feel that corporations are the most influential segments of society. And if we want to deal with large social issues, maybe corporations will exert the most influence on the outcome."

~Matt

I was watching Frontline on PBS last night. The show, titled "Flying Cheap" explores the complex relationships between airline carriers and their regional contractors, as well as with government regulators, around issues of aviation safety. (I encourage you to watch it online, for free, on the Frontline website.) In an effort to make flying cheap, it is quite evident that safety has been compromised upon, and a sad example of this is the crash of Continental flight 3407 in Buffalo. In fact, Continental had contracted this flight out to Colgan Air (a regional carrier), and at the same time were not to be held responsible for the safety of the flight. Colgan Air was being paid for the completion of flights, incentivising flying when it was probably prudent not to do so. Behaviour of captains was affected to the extent that first officer calculations on gross take off weight were modified and forged to make it seem that flights were conducted safely and responsibly, when in fact, they were not. Complaints of the first officer were dismissed, while in Congressional hearings, Colgan Air defended the integrity of the captain. Regional airline trade groups have stressed that safety has not been compromised upon, ever. In speaking to a family member advocating for improved security and safety of regional carriers, the President of a regional carrier had the temerity to say, after one of the first Congressional hearings, that "It has been fixed." Of course, this is a lie. How do you fix a corporate culture?


It has been shocking to me to read about the events leading up to and following the BP-Macondo well blowout, as have been chronicled through in-depth interviews of survivors of the rig explosion. (Click here to see interactive maps and graphics of the blowout.) In a presentation by Professor Winter, who is heading up the federal disaster commission looking into the investigation, and a recent National Geographic article by Joel Bourne, I became aware of the hasty, reckless, careless and insensitive decisions that were made by BP, Transocean and Halliburton with the Macondo well. Furthermore, regulatory policy for oil drilling is primarily set by the industry itself, with much of the expertise in drilling and oil recovery lying in industry, and with the (of course) huge number of former industry officials now in government. (The same is true for the Federal Aviation Administration and regulatory policy for airlines; the FAA works for the airlines.) In the end, corporations work for themselves. 


In a friend's experiences dealing with the aviation industry in heading up the effort to set a greenhouse gas emissions standard for international aviation, in fact, corporations and companies crave regulation - a regulation will set a legal limit within which corporations and companies can operate, often, almost always, to the detriment of society and the environment. Furthermore, when we patronise corporations, we patronise also the regulatory structure and government institutions that hold corporations accountable. Unfortunately, even though we want the government to work for the people, it is quite often the case that the government works for industry and profit, with revolving doors between government and industry. Indeed, the corporate culture can permeate government culture. What this means is that we must be responsible ourselves, and take up the cause to fight such collusion, while at the same time reducing our reliance on this culture.

On compromise and the environment

(I have changed the Comments settings so you don't have to register to post comments...)

Compromise is a part of daily life for most of us - we compromise on where to go to get a beer with friends, we compromise on what experiments to try in the lab, we compromise on who cleans what room of the house. These are not compromises on values and ethics and approaches to life, per se, rather these are personal compromises, the effects of which really don't extend beyond a few people, are not consequential for a long period of time. On the other hand, there are compromises at the other end of the size-of-the-effect spectrum - government decisions and international relations decisions. Such compromises sometimes throw competing cultural norms and values at each other, and can lead to sanctions and war, or peace and resilience. Such decisions can lead to lasting peace, bringing to an end years of conflict, or can lead to lasting war, bringing to end years of threadbare stability. Our governments are founded around the notion of compromise and inherently affect the lives of broad swaths of people - just take a look at the health insurance debates over the last two years. We can all agree that health insurance, and health care in general, is important. But there are vastly different approaches to how people think such large problems can be or should be addressed. What is interesting about compromising is that in general, one side gets more of what they want than the other side. Say there are two competing sides, one that argues that mountaintops should not be blown up to mine coal (zero units of removal, the no side), and other side that does advocate for mountaintop removal (say, 100 units of removal, the yes side). If one were to adjudicate a debate like this looking for a compromise, they may recommend 50 units of removal, or maybe even 25 units of removal, maybe even 10. (This is the sort of adjudication that has been happening in Appalachia for many decades now...) But the true outcome of such a compromise is that the no is lost completely, and even though the yes side gets less than what it wants. The yes side still gets what it wants, and the no side gets nothing at all. (It is sort of like the riddle from La Vita e Bella, where a patron at the restaurant asks the protagonist of the movie, "If you say my name, I am no longer there. What am I?" The answer is 'silence.' As soon as anything said, no matter how softly, the silence is lost completely and totally.) Such have been compromises with the environment. As Matt has been telling me over the past few days about regulation of emissions from aviation and shipping, even though companies would prefer no compromise over regulation, any regulation sets them a non-zero limit to do exactly what they want, and the side that loses out is the one that pushes for a zero limit. Such a compromise is vastly different than a compromise on how high to set interest rates given long-term economic performance, because a compromise on the environment necessarily compromises the long-term ability of our planet to provide for our society. Compromises on mountaintop removal in Appalachia have led to significant and extremely sad environmental and cultural degradation.

The effectiveness of boycotting - point/counter-point

Back to boycotts. As I mentioned previously, it seems like boycotting trash means boycotting consumption, which means, in a way, boycotting popular culture and trends. It means much more than just boycotting some company because I don't like how they treat their employees. Many people have asked me whether what I am doing can make a big difference. Probably not, but I am sure that at least come people have been affected by it, hopefully positively. I wonder if you have any thoughts on how to measure "success" of this boycott. Let me know. But for now, I would like to present a point/counter-point on the effectiveness of boycotts. The match up: Geov Parrish (Seattle Weekly News) vs. Todd Putnam (a guy that wrote a response to Parrish's article on democracycellproject.net)

First up, some passages from Parrish: 

The Futility of Boycotts  

Planning to boycott Microsoft? Get in line.

The flamboyant pastor of the Eastside's enormous Antioch Bible Church, Ken Hutcherson, has announced a nationwide boycott of multiple corporations. Microsoft, Boeing, Hewlett-Packard, and Nike are among the companies that signed a letter this month supporting a statewide gay-civil-rights bill, legislation that conservative Christians virulently oppose. Hutcherson says he is launching a boycott campaign targeting the letter's signers.

I'm glad that progressives aren't the only people who waste their time with this crap.

...

Boycotts can be successful. But it's very, very rare. For every success story—grapes, Nestle, South Africa—there are many thousands of failures.

...

Political activists of all stripes are often eager to find a handle with which to influence the perceived sociopathic actions of big corporations. The problem is that when you target a company as large as Microsoft or Boeing—both of which have earnings greater than most of the world's countries—even if their retail products can be boycotted easily, it's virtually impossible to imagine a circumstance in which enough people join the boycott to cause a perceptible drop in earnings. Even then, unless participants tell the company what they're doing (which most don't), sales fluctuations can and usually are attributed to a thousand other factors first.

...

Boycotts are almost always a waste of time. So, alas, are minority shareholder resolutions. Corporations are not democratic institutions, and by definition, they do not have a social conscience. They exist solely to make money for their owners or shareholders, and they spend far more polishing their image than any boycott campaign does tarnishing it.

It's fine and well to shun a product or company because of dislike for the company's policies...But don't expect to influence the company's behavior.

This is why the growing economic and political power of big global corporations is so dangerous. With government, there's not much accountability, but at least there's a little. By contrast, the number of times big companies have been held accountable by ordinary consumers for social policies can be counted on two hands. And even then, after the campaign closes up shop, the behavior often resumes.

This is why, noxious as it is, for left, right, or center the only institution powerful enough to consistently influence corporate behavior is government. That's one of the reasons corporations work so hard to influence governments.

What can ordinary consumers do? Buy local. Get involved in the political process. Create alternative institutions. By all means, use your hard-earned money to patronize big companies only when you want to support them. It'll make you feel better.

But usually, they won't feel a thing.

And now in response, Putnam.

 

Geov Parrish’s speculation that for every boycott success there are many thousands of failures is a baseless, ridiculous and an irresponsible assertion. During the 10 years that I tracked boycotts for the National Boycott News, it wasn’t one in a thousand boycotts that succeeded; it was more like one in two. Of course, in those days boycotts tended to be launched by organizations. Today with the internet in full swing, anybody can simply post their call for a boycott. And they do, by the hundreds.
 

...Geov states that boycotts are almost always a waste of time. I think it would be more accurate to say that with boycotts, what you get out of them tends to correspond to what you put into them. Nobody can really expect Microsoft to stop its donations to Republican politicians because a handful of webpages has endorsed a call to boycott Microsoft for its past donations to Bush. It obviously takes much more than that. Successful boycotts require campaigns, strategic planning, coalition-building, persistence and patience.

Contrary to Geov’s assertion, that more than a dozen boycotts he listed had “absolutely no effect”, in fact, some of the cited companies (McDonalds, Shell, Starbucks, Mitsubishi) gave in and met boycotters’ demands, while others on Geov’s list suffered notable economic repercussions...

By the early 1990s, about half of all boycotts eventually succeeded at getting the primary changes they were demanding from the targeted corporations. For serious boycott campaigns, I doubt this ratio has changed much.

Boycott failures can’t simply be blamed on the tactic of boycotting, but rather, other factors such as message clarity and simplicity, the level of public interest or sympathy, creative and effective publicity, media coverage, and the availability of comparable substitute products are all critical factors in determining the success or failure of a boycott.

Also, boycotts have proven an excellent way to help educate and involve the public about issues –particularly because people are slow to inform themselves about issues where they have no impact. Instead of sounding like whiners, boycotters top off their complaint with action –not buying a product, which in itself can feel empowering and thereby lead to an increased level of personal involvement.

As corporations have grown evermore enormous the strategy for boycotting them has also evolved. Instead of being fixated on the company’s bloated bottom-line, sophisticated boycotts target the all-important corporate image as a means of exerting leverage. These days, most smart corporations settle long before they begin to feel the pinch in sales. They simply look to see which way the trend seems to be moving, and if it looks as if over time their image might suffer from a particular campaign, they take steps to settle before much harm can be done. Protracted boycott standoffs against Nestle and Coors in the 1980s did such lasting damage to the companies’ images that now most companies don’t wait until their image begins to get tarnished. After only 2 years, Heinz sat down with boycott organizers to discuss how it could avoid becoming forever labeled the “dolphin-killing” company, and quickly implemented measures and verification to make its Star-Kist brand tuna –and all other Heinz foods-- the first major brand to be certified as “dolphin safe.” As a result, Chicken of the Sea and Bumble Bee, feeling vulnerable, quickly followed suit.

Heinz had guessed the change to dolphin-safe would cost them a nickel on each can of tuna. But even when their polling indicated that the public was only willing to pay two cents more for a “dolphin-safe” brand, they saw the trend moving in that direction and took proactive steps to stop any more negative publicity.

...I utterly disagree with his view that the government is the best and proper arena for dealing with issues of corporate behavior. Boycotts have historically served as an important tactic when political options proved fruitless or were nonexistent. The numbers of boycotts exploded in the 1980s during the Reagan years, when there was no way to get government to address corporate behavior. Growing frustration and cynicism with government led groups to go directly to the public to address social issues and corporate misbehavior. (During that same period, boycotts began succeeding in greater numbers and in less time than ever before.) In the years since, government has only grown less responsive.

Ironically, I’ve found that when you complain to corporations about their behavior, in addition to extolling their many virtues they typically tell you that they are not the appropriate target for such concerns, and to instead contact your government representatives.

...
In an often-cited survey of business leaders, boycotts ranked at the top as a major headache for a corporation; even a greater concern than class action lawsuits.

The greatest drawback of boycotting is pervasive myth that it is ineffective. By badmouthing boycotts, Geov has done the corporations’ work for them.

 

The legality of trash and waste

The upper middle class has centred lives around orderliness of their surroundings and public health. Government institutions have been created to maintain that trash will be picked up and "disposed of" in timely fashion, leaving no trace of plastic or degrading organic matter. In Madrid, the government cleans the streets every night, it seems. Further, people are legally bound to create trash. If you go to a fast food joint where people serve you in "disposable" packaging, asking for something to be handed to you without the packaging is at some level against the law. This is because in order to maintain "public health," clean packaging and latex gloves must be used for every new customer. We have therefore placed human "well being" above the damages to our mountains, watersheds and land.

The Trafigura incident I raised in the last post also serves to shed light on another facet of waste, pollution and degradation - it is legally alright to harm the lives of those "undeveloped," "underdeveloped," and "savage" people below our class, if you can get away with it. Imagine dumping that petrochemical waste in Los Angeles.