The Earth Pope

Ecotistical Behavior

Not so long ago I took part in an ecotour of green buildings in my area.  Ecotourism is a growing sector of the tourism industry that has primarily been focused on nature-based experiences but is increasingly adding aspects of how to live sustainably to the itinerary.   As more and more people struggle to live in balance with the earth one of the best places to begin the transformation to greenness is in the buildings they inhabit.

I wasn't able to go on the entire tour but I was able to join up with the group in time to visit a showcase home that had been built from the ground up as a green building.  The first thing that struck me as we pulled up to the home was how big it was.  When I asked about it the "man of the house" proudly proclaimed it was a little over 6500 square feet.  This was a sustainable 6500 square foot house for two people!  I immediately began to have my doubts about this being in any way sustainable but I decided to continue the tour anyway.

As the group was shepherded through the beautiful home, and it was beautiful, we learned about the non-toxic paint, bamboo flooring and rice hull particleboard.  All of the materials in the home were selected to protect air quality, reduce energy costs, conserve water and use resources as efficiently as possible.  It all was so perfect yet something really bothered my about it.

Lay on the Greed

Well it looks as if Ken Lay has indeed found God in his hour of darkness.  Lay and his sidekick Jeffrey Skilling turned the lights out on investors, bankers, government officials, employees and the State of California several years ago but when it began to get dark for them in the courtroom today Lay looked for the guiding light hoping to find forgiveness.

Jeffrey didn't have time to look inside himself to find God this afternoon.  He simply ran away to pray once again at the alter of plunder where he lies naked on piles of hundred dollar bills and mutters "in God we trust" as remnants of his third scotch dribble down his chin.  In his alcoholic haze he tries to calculate the money needed to appeal his conviction and then drifts off into a troubled slumber where  pudgy white men meander down steel gray corridors and only the guards wear ties.

As the disastrous duo heard these verdicts another court was awarding the victims of the ownership class $6.6 billion for the investment loses they suffered as Enron "hoodwinked" Wall Street.  While Kenny Boy and Jeffrey got slapped for causing the upper class to lose money let's not forget that 21,000 employees lost their jobs at Enron or that thousands of mom & pop investors lost all their retirement savings on the lies these men continued to tell in order to simply make more money.

But before the entire congregation of planet Earth is hoodwinked to death by rogue plundercrats let's remember that Ken Lay was President Bush's close friend while he was governor in Texas and his biggest contributor.  Early on in Bush's administration VP Cheney did what any good ol' oil boy would do--he created an energy plan to help Enron.  This is a pattern of business debauchery that is still being practiced in the White House by Chief Exploitation Officer Cheney and his minion of mendacity George Bush. 

How long, oh Goddess of all that is good and sacred, will it take these gluttonous Americans to wake from their intoxication with wealth, glamor and fame to the realization that this Administration's strategy for catastrophe is right out of the playbook of Lay and Skilling?

There is only protection for those with wealth and power while the rest of us will be left to inherit the debris.

Driving Miles to Save Pennies

So there I was at the local gas station where oil addicts stared glassy eyed as the digital readout spun faster than they could comprehend.  Gas is at $3.45 per gallon here on the Left Coast where the oil companies continue to gouge us even though the Federal Trade Commission couldn't find any evidence of this.

As I'm filling up my moped I overhear two women arguing.  At first I just hear snippets but as they both exit the vehicle I become aware that they are arguing about the fact that the driver stopped here to fill up.  The gas, according to the other woman, was "6 cents per gallon higher" than at another station in a town 13 miles away.  The argument dissipated into meaningless white noise as the lunacy of the situation sunk in and I quite paying attention to them..

These people were actually having a fight about saving a total of about $1.80 if they drove 13 miles to another station.  These same women would tell me I had lost my mind if I excitedly ran up to them and exclaimed that they could buy a $200 coat at the mall for $198.  "What kind of sale is that!" I could her them proclaim. 

And they are correct.  What does it say about Americans that we would run all over to save a few cents per gallon but we don't seem to care at all that the Department of Defense has lost over one trillion dollars?

Maybe we aren't smarter than yeast.

E-Waste Sin

In yet another sign of the hazards from the opulent society we live in comes the indicator of death by success in the form of electronic waste, commonly referred to as e-waste.  Once again the consumer and the members of the global society are required to deal with the garbage of multinational corporations that insist they are just trying to meet increased demand and new requirements from their gleeful customers for new computers, cell phones and digital TVs.

Giles Slade has written a new book Made to Break that details the numbers on the amount of e-waste:  315 million working personal computers trashed in 2004, just in North America.  100 million cell phones thrown away.  And these unwanted items that still work are not going to third world countries as donations for schools or business start-ups.  No way! They are gong to third world countries to be scavenged by the poorest of the poor, at incredible cost to human health and environmental contamination.

One element not usually associate with e-waste is computer rage.  So many people are unplugging from the natural world and plugging into high technology lifestyles that a new economy is exploding to calm the stressed out consumers, even luring away suicide hotline workers to work on the phone with the most panicked ones. Academics are studying the issue and some have suggested ways to beat computer rage.

Let me tell you how I know made this connection.

Marketing Sin

Is Christianity a great religion or what?  By focusing on sin and forgiveness churches have a ready-made mix that is sure to keep the masses coming back for more. 

This was recently evidenced by the Catholic Church in a study that shows the resiliency of religious faith in forgiving the Roman Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals.  While the study did find that Catholics were still not contributing to the “diocesan financial appeals” in the traditional pay-to-pray system it did uncover that Catholics were able to “disconnect their own personal faith” from the tainted priests and continue their Catholic practices.

Another term for this ability to “disconnect” when more than 10,000 young people have been victimized by sexual abuse is schizophrenia. It is this same schizophrenic mode of operation that allows all of us to continue our American Way of Life even though we know the polar bears are perishing and mass extinctions are happening on a global scale.

If Catholics can forgive their own priests, the leaders of their house of worship, for sexually abusing thousands and thousands of young people, what does this say about our own ability to forgive our schizophrenic lifestyles that are literally destroying the biological diversity of the planet?

It says we are schizophrenic petroleum addicts, sedating ourselves by surfing through our 200-channel cable TV service and not even interested in redemption from our daily eco-sins because we are almost totally disconnected from nature. As John Steinbeck pointed out, one of the biggest threats is that we are all submerged in “listless self-satisfaction.”

We might be going down for the last time.
      

Packaging Sin

I recently decided to practice what I preach when I told all of my readers to take on Corporate America by unplugging from the robotic mindset of mass consumerism and do something different in the daily consumption ritual.

I didn’t plan ahead but was suddenly motivated while in line at a local drug store.  It was a chain store and the situation seemed ideal for a direct action.  It wasn’t a major action.  It didn’t involve email blasts to hundreds of people to show up and protest at a targeted place of business.

No, this was simply one person stepping outside the normal flow of participation in the slow destruction of the planet.  This was one Earth Pope in need of a few basic products acting alone to demonstrate that there are other ways of interacting with Corporate America and that by acting a certain way we could all regain our power and sense of control over these rapacious corporations that plunder the planet and externalize the waste to be picked up by us.

Here is what happened.

Driving Us Crazy

I had to comment on this little gem from Corporate America.  It goes quite a long way into defining the misdirected focus on things that are killing the planet.  It is a story of an obviously retro company, Midas, desperately trying to keep the American dream of limitless driving alive by sponsoring a contest to give ten thousand dollars to the person with the longest commute.  The winner was David Givens of Mariposa, California who drives 372 miles every weekday commuting to his job at Cisco in San Jose.

Of course this contest does not mention that Mr. Givens might just be giving all of us an enormous amount of CO2 emissions (not to mention other pollutants) so he can enjoy his “outdoor lifestyle” where the air is fresh and a person can see forever.  For awhile at least.

Compare this to the recent Bicycle Friendly Communities campaign to award municipalities across the country for their efforts to create a bicycle friendly community.  As far as I can tell the communities receive recognition in the form of a platinum, gold, silver or bronze status award that is designated for two years.  Unfortunately, there is no money with this recognition to assist other municipalities implement the best ideas from the recognized communities.

I know!  I know!  No company that makes its money from the car culture is going to sponsor a bicycle friendly anything contest.  But if that is really the case, how do we transition to a sustainable culture?

The joke just might be on us!

American Eco Sin--A Way of Life

Four little words that cause so much global destruction—American Way of Life.  It is at the heart of many of the problems on the planet but as George Bush senior stated in 1992 at the Rio Summit: “The American Way of Life is not negotiable.”

The terrible truth is that the American Way of Life is causing Americans to be severely out of balance with the rest of the world when it comes to resource consumption.  To put it in perspective just consider that Americans account for only 5% of the global population but use 24% of the energy resources.

Consider what you are participating in when you go shopping and buy things that you don’t really need or worse yet, go shopping to make you feel better.  The resources you use are finite and the money you spend fuels an economy that is literally consuming the world.  The simple fact is the amount of money the 20% of the planet’s richest residents spend on items like cosmetics and dog food could literally feed the rest of the inhabitants.

But stop and think about it for a moment.  You have the power to make simple changes that could require corporations to change their behavior.  It is our money and right now we pay these corporations to provide us with unhealthy products; fuel inefficient transportation; toxic housing and an immoral healthcare system.

So where's the humor in this depressing post?  There is nothing funny about what is happening to the planet but there can be fun in building community, rethinking consumption and taking on the coporations. There are direct everyday actions to take and I will be sharing these actions with you in future postings.

Eco-sin Confessing

Eco-sin Confessing

Welcome to the Church of the Last Laugh, where the Earth Pope provides absolutions for your eco-sins.  In today’s hectic chaotic world that seems to be spiraling out of control, millions and millions of people around the world, regardless of religious persuasion, are struggling to stay alive, keep the spirit and keep the Earth habitable, not only for human beings but for all species. 

Here is a fear-free zone where you can choose to either confess your eco-sin publicly by leaving it here for everyone to read and comment on, or if you need more privacy, click on "Email Me" and the Earth Pope will provide absolution to you in a private communication.

Let the Earth Pope be the first to confess:

I enjoy lawn mower racing and I practice several times per week.  I am planning on entering the 2007 circuit of the Sta-Bil National Lawn Mower Racing Series.

I have tested positive for PMFLE, Polymorphic Fluorescent Light Eruption.  This requires that I only use incandescent lights throughout my church and residence.

Due to my intense lawn mower training and the prickly rash from the PMFLE I have a tendency to shower several times a day.   

So, let these be the first online confessions to start the groundswell of people unburdening their environmental sins, freeing themselves from the guilt that oppresses us all like a stifling blanket of conformity as we struggle to get out from under this yoke of the accepted American Way of Life.

And once the yoke is lifted the laughter will rush in, raising us all to the challenge of living like there is a tomorrow for us all.