What I learned last night

Yesterday afternoon I posted "Do you know your and your community's carbon footprint?, then went off to a local meeting on the issue of global warming.

I arrived at the meeting upset:

A. With myself because my carbon footprint is huge, i.e., I’m contributing several tons of carbon to the atmosphere each year;

B. Because the problem of global warming is so dire. This week, The Washington Post reported that "Carbon Output Must Near Zero to Avert Danger, New Studies Say";

C. Because our county sent as its representative to the UN international climate change convention in Bali an elected official, Paul Kelley, who had made these comments within the past few years:

“I am still not convinced that global warming is not a hysterical thing, a fad that will pass.”

“It’s sort of arrogant that people think that man can have such a catastrophic impact on the earth. I’m not so sure.”

And on and on and on. I felt anxious and critical of what I had read about local efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. I planned to question the speaker, Ann Hancock, executive director of the nonprofit Climate Protection Campaign, about why we weren't doing more.

After all, using the chart from her organization’s website, the commitment of our county to reduce its carbon footprint by 25% from the 1990 level by 2015 seemed woefully inadequate. Plus our county's greenhouse gas emissions rose at double the national rate between 1990 and 2000, and the graph (see yesterday's post) shows that it's continuing to rise at virtually the same rate from 2000 to 2010.

By the time I left the meeting last night, I had lost my angry edge. What happened? I relearned something very valuable: The most effective way of getting the message across is to refrain from blaming, ridiculing, or getting angry with those who don't believe that human beings are affecting our climate. It also helps to listen. Of course, these apply to all facets of my life.

I also learned that the best way to describe what is happening is this: “Climate change is caused by a manmade blanket of carbon dioxide that surrounds the earth and traps its heat.”

Ann mentioned Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life, which helped her become effective in carrying the message that we need to do something to protect our earth from overheating.

Why was I so impressed with Ann’s message? Because the very person who I thought would never change his mind, Paul Kelley, has now “come around.” So has the one hold-out on our city council.

I bought Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life this afternoon and plan to start reading it tonight.

(book cover: Language of Compassion)

Are you still flying for fun?

I’m starting to think that the demarcation between people who are seriously concerned about global warming and those who aren’t is whether or not they are willing to give up flying for fun: not flying to be with family members or for business, just those trips to go snorkeling in Hawaii or to see the Louvre in Paris.

This is up now for me because I have two trips planned this summer involving flying, and I confess that one is to visit friends, and the other to attend a family reunion. I describe both of these trips as being “for fun.”

I’m not the only one struggling with whether or not I’m just a “wanna-be” or if I’m really willing to change my life style to minimize the amount of CO2 I contribute to the atmosphere.

Tod Brilliant, whom I have mentioned here, here, and here, posted Inconvenient Holidays: Why We Can't Fly Anymore on May 25, 2007. This post and the 12 comments it has generated are worth reading.

Tod is one my most interesting friends; he struggles with the same issues I do even though chronologically we are years and years apart. I urge you to check his “Inconvenient Holidays” post and weigh in with a comment if flying or not flying for fun is bothering you, too.

(photo- provided by Tod when he launched his website)

The White House still knows how to play the American press like a harp

On Friday, Dan Froomkin* (photo), who blogs for the Washington Post at The White House Watch, opened his post, Bush's Climate-Change Feint with these words, “The White House yesterday showed that it still knows how to play the American press like a harp.

“President Bush yesterday put forth a new proposal on climate change that is most newsworthy for its attempt to muddy the debate about the issue and derail European and U.N. plans for strict caps on emissions. Bush's proposal calls for a new round of international meetings that would nearly outlast his presidency. The purpose of the meetings would not be to set caps on emissions, but to establish what the White House -- uncorking a bold new euphemism -- calls ‘aspirational goals.'

“But a change in rhetoric was enough to generate some headlines about the administration's attention to the issue: Bush Proposes Goals on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, reads the New York Times headline. Bush Proposes Talks on Warming, says the Washington Post's front page. Bush offers to take climate lead, proclaims the Los Angeles Times.”

There’s that word, “rhetoric,” again. It’s been bubbling and percolating through the blogworld as a result of Mark Danner’s recent commencement address to UC Berkeley’s Department of Rhetoric, which I posted about here. The title of Danner’s address was “Words in the Time of War.” From Danner’s speech, the description of Bush as the first "rhetoric-major President” has taken hold in some households; Google appears to be lagging behind on this one.

In my post, I commented, “I can’t help but think of Bush’s recent pronouncements about taking steps to curb global warming as rhetoric.”

I’m glad Dan Froomkin agrees with me. Froomkin links to three mainstream media reports of Bush’s May 31st pronouncements (third paragraph, above). The headlines make it look like Bush has done an about-face, don’t they? You’ll need to continue reading Bush's Climate-Change Feint, because Froomkin, who combines blogging with news collecting, links to articles “from across the Atlantic” and “on this side of the pond” that make it clear that not all media bought Bush’s miraculous 180 degree turn.

I’m wondering why all journalists aren’t required to study rhetoric so they can't "be played like a harp.” A clerk at our local food store, Alexis, 24, who blogs here, is a philosophy major, and she’s planning to take rhetoric next year.

Hey, even my young friend, Tod Brilliant, who blogs at TodBrilliant.com, caught on right away. An avid environmentalist, check out his comments posted on the same day Bush declared his plan for tackling global warming, Inept No More! Bush Proposes Greenhouse Gas Plan.

*Froomkin is also deputy editor of NiemanWatchdog.org, sponsored by the Nieman Foundation for journalism at Harvard University.

(photo of Dan Froomkin from his Washington Post website).