[Sosfbay-discuss] Some jarring stats

[Tian Harter]

cls wrote:
>> Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2008 09:14:14 -0800 (PST)
>> From: Caroline Yacoub <carolineyacoub at att.net>
>> To: Tian Harter <tnharter at aceweb.com>
>> Cc: sosfbay-discuss <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org>
>> Subject: Re: [Sosfbay-discuss] Some jarring stats
> 
>> I agree, Tian. Ideological campaigns will never win us an election.
>> We are Green. People look at us and say,
>> "If you are Green, why are you talking to me about________(fill in the blank)?"
> 
> Because ________(fill in the blank) is an environmental issue.
> 
> 
>> They expect us to be about the environment,
> 
(snip)
> 
> Ask the next ten people you meet whether urban sprawl is an
> environmental issue.  Ask the next ten whether land use planning
> is an environmental issue.  I'll bet you get less than half, and
> less than a quarter, even though it's two names for the same
> problem.  Or chloramine in the drinking water.
> (You'll get ten blank stares on that one.)  Groundwater contamination.
> I'll bet most people you meet don't even consider emissions trading
> an environmental issue, if they even know what it is.  Industrial

I think of emissions trading as a free speech issue. I mean, I can speak
the truth organically until I starve to death, but if nobody figures out
I know what I'm talking about it don't amount to a hill of beans as they
say. Meanwhile, the coal lobby buys air time on PBS to bush clean coal.

I kid you not.

> agriculture.  The biggest enviro issues, except CO2 emissions,
> have been successfully propagandized out of the public perception
> of "environment."  That's why "environment" is now a safe thing
> to use in oil company image ads.  Being "environmentally conscious"
> doesn't mean changing the way you live very much.

Did you notice that Chevron is saying "we've cut our consumption 27%
since 1991"? Meanwhile Exxon and  the rest of them exercise the right
to remain silent on that...
> 
> 
>> and this is a very important time to be about the environment. P=
>> eople (some, not all) are becoming environmentally conscious.
>> They are probably confused and disappointed that we are not leading the cha=
>> rge to save the world as we know it.

Ummm... I think if you broaden your definition of "we" just a bit the
answer to that changes. For example, Michael Franti and Spearhead seem
to have politics in their music that I just love. Same with Cake from
Sacramento. I have lots of friends that self identify as green. None of 
them are incumbents in Washington, but that's okay with me...
> 
> They are, but if you can't explain the problem in ten words you've
> lost them.  People have been trained to expect answers to fit on
> a bumper sticker.

We can do that. I've got a well decorated bike to prove it.
> 
> 
>> Well, why aren't we?
> 
> Well, most of us are in that "ten words or I'm gone" crowd.

I'm hoping some of them get stuck at lights behind a bumper with my
sticker on it. Or maybe they look out the window towards a curb and
some bicyclist has a "DON'T BE FUELISH" there. Then if they just think
about it a bit...
> 
> There was a pretty good Hollywood antiwar movie last year, _Lions
> for Lambs_.  Tom Cruise played the warmongering senator.  There's
> a scene where his pitch comes down to a loaded question where
> you're either a warmonger or a traitor, no other choices allowed.
> A "liberal" is questioning his warmongering, and he's bellowing
> "yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!" while she sputters there's more
> to it than that.  I thought it summed up the problem pretty well.
> 
She said "it"? IT? I hope he got a headache.

Did you notice all those private sector busses running between the 
Mountain View transit terminal and shoreline employers with "TAKE IT
TO WORK" on the side? Mountain View is becoming a very popular Caltrain
stop thanks in part to them. It's catching on... :-)
-- 
Tian
http://tian.greens.org
Latest change: Added SCCGP election night party pictures and commentary.
I hit the "IN GOD WE TRUST" on the collage by my door with photons while
I was hearing Wangari Mathai say "United States of America" on my radio.