Emily
toujoursjacques
Cam
Stefanie
mandarineOn my blog (here) I’ve written previously about the Millennium Development Goals, the 8 goals adopted by the United Nations for halving by 2015 extreme poverty throughout the world. Goal 7 is generally referred to as “Environmental Sustainability”. But this goal is about much more than being ‘green’.
Goal 7 of the Millennium Development Goals sets out by the year 2015 to:
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* Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.
* Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. This includes access to safe sanitation, something that more than 40% of the people on the planet do not have, according to a 2005 WHO/UNICEF report.
* Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.
I sometimes, and with increasing frequency, hear my socio-economic peers (fellow affluent Americans, many who would balk at ‘affluent‘ and protest they are middle-class; in global terms, middle-class Americans are affluent) say that ‘we’ must be concerned about the environment for the sake of our children and grand-children.
But, what about the current children of the earth, regardless of their ages? As you read this blog, and the posts of those participating in this challenge on their own blog sites, consider how your actions impact not only the environment, but the lives of all who share this planet. Is it just our empty water bottles that need to be recycled — or should we be considering the sale and use of the water inside the bottle and the geo-social-political issues involved in water rights throughout the world? If we recycle used tires and replace incandescent bulbs with CFLs, we may be reducing landfills and emissions, but, what about those who have no access to needed transportation, no electricity in their homes, no access to healthcare or education, who live not in metaphoric “dumps”, but real ones, dumps filled with our disposed goods and packaging, our thrown away food, rodents and other vermin, and disease?
In his last speech, “I See the Promised Land”, Rev Martin Luther King preached:
It’s alright to talk about “long white robes over yonder,” in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It’s alright to talk about “streets flowing with mild and honey,” but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day. It’s alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preacher much talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.”
We can extend Rev King’s words to our world today. What we have to do is take actions so that there can be a new Kibera where 1 million people will not live in 630 acres, or a new Guatemala City where over 2500 families will not need to live and work in the city dump, or other new places around the globe to replace existing slums and favelas.
Green actions are a good idea; the consequences and impact of those actions are social justice — eco-justice.
Filed under: TJ
Hello. TJ again.
Back to the Business of Coal. Perhaps many of you already get the Co-op America e-newsletter. But just in case you do not, I am including the link to their website: Co-op America. Please consider signing their letter asking the coal giants Dynegy and Dominion (scary names I think) NOT to build 7 new coal-fired power plants.
There is no such thing as clean coal. It makes me sick inside to think that not only have we not put a stop to mountaintop removal, we may be in for stepped up mining efforts to feed these seven more coal-powered plants. And there are more than these two companies waiting in the wings.
Even if you choose not to sign the letter, I hope you enjoy Co-op America’s useful and inspiring website. Thanks! TJ
Back when the meme created by Litlove and her son was going around, one of the things I promised to do is to turn off my home computer every night and during the day while I am away at work. It has been going really well and it is not inconvenient at all. Of course, it helps that I have a new computer (working on getting the old one recycled!) that starts up fast.
Yesterday my new computer turning off habit was further justified when I found out how much energy computers and monitors use So if turning off your computer when not in use is something you don’t do, it is a small and easy habit to start and will benefit both your pocketbook and the environment.
Filed under: Cam
I told Emily that I would regularly publish a link roundup of posts related to the EcoJustice Challenge. Several people commented on Emily’s original post that they would write about this on their own blog rather than posting here. That is a great way to participate, but, remember to link to the EcoJustice Challenge blog so that your posts can be included here. That way, those who don’t regularly read your blog (but would if they knew what a great blogger you were!) can see what you are doing for this Challenge.
How frequently will the link listing be posted? Frequency to be determined based on volume and time availability. Let’s see how it goes, ok? I’m aiming to publish the first link roundup soon after May 15.
Thanks everybody for participating in this blog. I think Emily has created something terrific here!
Filed under: Emily
So, if you’ve been following the comments that have been popping up in the comments widget, you’ll see that TJ raised some concerns about identifying who has posted what. I added a categories widget and have added the names of all those of you who have asked to be authors for the blog (you’ll also note the “authors” widget. Ian, you didn’t come up for some reason. We’ll have to figure that out at some point). When you post, please check your name off as a category for the post, so we’ll know you posted.
Here’s some advice from TJ’s comment:
By the way, when participants are ready to post their message and check the category box by their name they may not see it. The list only shows the four or five most recently used categories. But just to the left is a link that says “show all categories” which, when clicked on, will do so.
Oh, and I will continue to add anyone who wants to be an author to the blog, so just let me know. All I need is your email address.
Finally, I am absolutely blown away by how this blog has taken off and how many are supporting it. I promise a real post on my foray into the challenge soon. (Those of you who know me will know that when I set out to do something like this, there is no way it can possibly be anything but funny, so if you were expecting some serious, insightful, truly inspiring posts from me, you may be disappointed. Maybe someone else will post those for you.) Gotta go on the road tomorrow evening, though, so it will probably have to wait till next week.
Filed under: Cam
I posted late yesterday on my site about joining this challenge.
The term ecojustice is a new term to me, although the concept is one that agrees with my thoughts on the environment and our obligations to protect and preserve our world while working to eliminate those activities that threaten, harm, and impoverish others by damaging the environment and consuming resources. I’m endeavoring to learn what that means in practicality. How do I put into everyday action what I believe to be the right approach? I don’t have the answers, but I’m willing to learn.
What I posted yesterday was the small, practical actions I’ve taken thus far (canvas grocery bags, replacing incandescent lights, etc), and my current commitment to make use of an energy efficiency kit my local power utility has distributed. You can read my entire post here.
While the Energy Efficiency kit is promoted as a ‘green’ effort as well as one to save money, I intend to think about what the other consequences are to taking such steps. How does turning my water heater down or using my car less often do more than prevent me from being scalded and my checking account from being brutalized by high prices at the pump? Will I use more gas if it costs less than $50 to fill up a tank? Yesterday was the first time I experienced the $50 fillup. Is that the threshold that forces one to change her ways? Maybe for some; for others it might have been $30, or the price where one had to make decisions between food and gas to get to work.
If it is only about the money or one’s personal comfort, I think one’s efforts, while good for the environment, are less likely to be followed. If money were the only issue, it would be easier to not be as concerned. My goal is to think about the consequences of my actions and my consumption patterns and what that means to not only my world, but the world at large. That is why I’ve joined this EcoJustice Challenge site.
- posted by Cam
Filed under: Stefanie
I thought you all might find The Compact to be of interest. It is a group of people with goals:
1) TO GO BEYOND RECYCLING IN TRYING TO COUNTERACT THE NEGATIVE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACTS OF U.S. CONSUMER CULTURE, TO RESIST GLOBAL CORPORATISM, AND TO SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES, FARMS, ETC; 2) TO REDUCE CLUTTER AND WASTE IN OUR HOMES (AS IN TRASH COMPACT-ER); 3) TO SIMPLIFY OUR LIVES (AS IN CALM-PACT)
Pretty cool, eh? And there are Yahoo groups in what looks like every state of like-minded people who are trying to make a difference.
Hello!
Here I am back from town and from running a gazillion errands! Because I only use my car three days a week (and I live in the boondocks), it’s really important to bundle all my stops and to have a very well organized list! Since I already limit my driving, eat a lot of local and organic food, and take care with packaging, I chose to challenge myself with #2 and #5 on the ecochallenge list. Wednesday nights will be my lights out night (so that my undisciplined self won’t have to miss the only two commercial network shows I watch—Dancing with the Stars and Ugly Betty). Pathetic, I know 
. Actually, I am really looking forward to the whole lights out experience.
Using less electricity is very important to me because so much of it (still!) comes from coal. A couple of days ago on Toujours Jacques I wrote about mountaintop removal and threw out a little challenge of my own, specific to that particular environmental travesty (there are so many!). I won’t go into it in depth here, but one of the challenge options was to read along with me and post on a book called Coal River: and if you chose option #5 for this Ecojustice08 Challenge and have not yet picked an environmental book to read, or if you’d like to read two, I hope you will consider joining me on Coal River. If you want more details click here.
Good luck everyone, on your own projects! I am excited to hear all about them. TJ
Welcome to Emily’s Ecojustice 2008 challenge. Those of you who are book bloggers are familiar with the concept of a challenge. Typically, you are asked to read a certain number of books from some sort of category and to write blog posts on those books. This challenge will be somewhat different in that it will be asking you to choose from among a number of environmentally-friendly actions and to post on your experiences implementing them.
Mandarine once posed the question to all of us, “What if seven billion people did what I’m about to do?” This challenge has grown from that question. My immediate answer to it was, “Well, I’m not one of the seven billion people going out there and buying a Ford Excessive just because the company has told me it’s the cool vehicle I must have,” and “I’m not one of the seven billion people who drinks expensive water from plastic bottles when I’ve got perfectly good tap water to drink,” and “I’m certainly not one of the seven billion people jumping all over the chance to own a McMansion.” All right, so there are those of us who pat ourselves on the back, because we gave up the notion of “keeping up with the Joneses” or flaunting our wealth, oh, around the same time we graduated from high school, most especially if doing so is contributing to the degradation of our planet and all who live here.
However, the question is far too clever to keep us patting ourselves on the back for long if we think about these examples instead: what if seven billion people got all their food from factory farms? What if seven billion people drove their cars to and from work 20+ miles every day? What if seven billion people threw out all their junk mail without recycling it?
I was beginning to get depressed. Then I began to think in a different way: what if seven billion people all decided they weren’t going to buy a car that didn’t get at least 40 mpg? What if seven billion people decided they weren’t going to buy anything other than energy efficient light bulbs? What if seven billion people decided that rather than eating half a pound of meat a day, they were only going to eat half a pound of meat per week? What if seven billion people decided they weren’t going to buy anything that didn’t come in a recyclable container? Businesses might begin squirming…and then scrambling. After all, it’s merely a matter of supply and demand. If we live based on the premise that we don’t want companies dictating to us what we can and can’t buy, and if we start demanding what we want instead of letting corporations create demand for us via advertising, we might be better able to save this planet.
Thus, this challenge began brewing in my mind. Maybe through this wonderful resource the internet, an international group of us could band together to challenge ourselves to live our lives just a little bit differently. Maybe some of us would be willing to make some choices that might not be the most convenient or the most comfortable but that wouldn’t be completely inconvenient or uncomfortable, because we care more about saving the planet than we do about our own conveniences and comfort. Maybe each of us would tell at least five friends about the challenge, who would then pass it onto others. Eventually, maybe, we could begin to change things for the better. Maybe future generations, then, won’t have to clean up such a big mess.
Before I get started on the actual challenge, I want to explain why this is an ecojustice challenge and not an environmental one. The term “ecojustice” encompasses justice for all of creation (plant, other animal, and human alike). It does not assume any one species (i.e. human) is better than any other species. It assumes that within the human race, those who are most negatively affected by the rape of the earth are the poor (e.g. N.I.M.B.Y. campaigns are very successful in middle and upper-middle class neighborhoods, not so much in poor, inner-city neighborhoods) and that by making this planet a safer and better place to live, all will benefit. It assumes that every living being on this planet deserves its rightful, ecological place (whether certain species want others here or not). It also assumes that we humans are the ones doing the most damage with the most means to stop what we are doing.
So, here is how this challenge will work. The first step is for anyone who wants to participate to pass the link onto at least five other people (or even if you don’t plan to participate, if you like the idea, please pass it on). If you have a blog of your own, this can easily be accomplished merely by linking to this site in a post on your own blog. Below is a list of things you can choose to do. Once every quarter between now and April 21, 2009, I will add to this list. Your challenge is to choose something from this list, to experiment with it, and to post about it here. Or, if you’d rather not post, that’s fine. You can just choose what you want and leave comments on this blog. You can choose to implement as many or as few from the list as you would like. You can choose to stick with one (or more) for an entire quarter, or you can mix and match (one — or more — this month, a different one next month, etc.). My hope is that by the end of the year, at least one item from the whole list will have become a way of life for you and your family. And if you’re already doing some or all of these things, come up with others you want to do, share them with us, and post on them instead.
To join the blog as a posting member, please send an email to: ecojustice08 AT gmail DOT com with your user name and the email address you’d like to use for the purposes of this blog. I will add you to the list of users. Also, please post on your own blog, if you have one. That’s it. And now, here are your choices for this quarter:
1. Choose one day a week in which you will not use your car at all (barring a major emergency, like having to drive your spouse/child to the hospital for stitches). Before you immediately dismiss this one, because you have to drive to and from work every day, please think about it. Is there no one with whom you could carpool two days a week? If so, the day you’re not driving would be the perfect day not to use your car at all.
2. Choose one “black out night” per week. All lights and all electrical appliances are off by 7:30 p.m. and don’t go on again until the next morning. What will you do without lights, television, your computer? Well, the weather’s getting nice where many of us live. Sit out on the porch/deck and tell stories. Read by candle light. Write letters by candle light. Play games by candle light. You know, people did this sort of thing for thousands of years. My guess is that if you have kids, this will be an exciting and fun challenge for them.
3. Choose two days a week in which you are only going to eat organic and/or locally-grown food. Do you know that inorganic farming is one of the best examples of evolution that we’ve got going these days? All the pesticides that have been used to grow our food have helped to create “super bugs” who are becoming more and more resistant to our chemicals. We’re definitely losing this battle in more ways than one. Talk to the people at your local farmer’s markets. Many of them are growing their food organically anyway; they just aren’t certified, because it’s a difficult and expensive process to be so. Buying locally, of course, cuts down on the oil used to transport food long distances.
4. If you need to go anywhere that’s within a 2-mile round trip radius of your home, walk or bike. Where might this be? The first place that springs to mind for me is your children’s school bus stop. Perhaps the post office is close to your home. The library? For me, it’s both the post office and the bank. If you’re super lucky, maybe you have a farmer’s market that’s close by. Or maybe you don’t live close enough to anything, but you do work close by to that deli, say, where you always drive to pick up lunch.
5. Read that challenging book about the environment that you’ve been putting off reading, you know the one you don’t want to read, because it might make you a little uncomfortable (e.g. The World without Us, Diet for a Small Planet, Affluenza). Read it. Post about it. Maybe implement an idea or two based on what you’ve read.
6. Buy only those things sold in recyclable packaging and make sure you recycle that packaging.
I’ve made my choices for this first quarter, and they are: 2, 3, and (those who know me, know I’d have to choose this one) 5 (which book? Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos of an Ordinary Meal by Margaret Visser) Stay tuned for my future posts, and I hope to hear from you soon. (Oh, and suggestions for future items to add to the list are very welcome.)
This is the beginning of what I hope will be something big: the Ecojustice 2008 Challenge. This blog challenge will begin on Earth Day 2008 and run until Earth Day Eve 2009. Please come back on Earth Day to see what it’s all about, to join the challenge with your fellow bloggers, and to spread the word.
