Most relevant to this blog, however, would be the list of Top 10 Green Ideas of 2009.  While some of the news stories that made the list have been somewhat revolutionary, others do more to represent some of the major flaws with both our response to the environmental crisis and the beliefs about what will work to fix it best.

The first major flaw present in the top 10 is the idea that technology will be our saving grace.  In an Op-Ed piece in the NYTimes, author Jared Diamond says that the widely accepted belief that technology will solve all our problems shouldn’t be so readily accepted.  Take for example CFC’s – chlorofluorocarbons, which were initially hailed for replacing the poisonous gases found in refrigeration.  Too bad they ended up causing a giant hole in the ozone layer only a few years later.  Proof that while technological advancements are important, those in power need to be weary when immediately trusting major technological advances that could take years to develop and even longer to feel the harsher effects of.  So back to the TIMES top 10.  The number 10 best green idea of the year is Nissan’s all-electric Leaf a sedan planned to be available for purchase in 2010 that can run up to 100 miles on a single charge.  Don’t get me wrong, its cool, and it represents a lot of positive change in the industry as far as recognizing what consumers really want and need when it comes to automobiles.  But even if every American car on the road was electric, it would simply be a technological band aid over a much deeper problem.

Speaking of the automobile industry, number 4 is General Motor’s declared bankruptcy.  First of all, this isn’t even a “green idea”, really.  I guess its good that there might be fewer Hummers on the road now, but its also important to remember that the struggle to end climate change is not just a debate about changing the kind of cars we drive or about searching for alternate fuel sources.  It is a serious ethical and moral dilemma that speaks volumes about the unwillingness to create change.  It is as if people have forgotten their true connection and reliance upon the environment.  Either way, the bankruptcy and ensuing billion-dollar bail out of a huge American corporation is definitely not a sign of things getting better.

The last one that really revs my engine is number 6: biofuels aren’t that green.

….umm, duh?  I’m pretty sure that environmentalists have for a long while recognized that ethanol as an alternative to gasoline was once again a inappropriate quick-fix.  Sure, corn is easy and cheap to grow, but it takes away from food production which raises food prices, and it further subsidizes corn, making it even cheaper and putting farmers farther and farther into debt.  Not to mention agriculture itself, the actual growing of the corn, is a huge contributor to carbon emissions.  I remember reading some ridiculous statistic about how it takes more than a calorie of oil to produce one calorie of food in the current-day industrial agricultural system.  So corn is cheap and it isn’t predicted to run out necessarily, but those willing to continually grow it and remain in poverty might, and the over-worked land on which the corn is grown will never be the same.

In conclusion, the top 10 list represents a lot of important trends in today’s green movement, and if nothing else represents the importance that “green ideas” have taken in the news.  I could go on and on about all ten, but I’ll let you make your own decisions about them.  Here’s the link:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1944307,00.html

“As governor of Alaska, I took a stand against politicized science when I sued the federal government over its decision to list the polar bear as an endangered species despite the fact that the polar bear population had more than doubled.”

Okay, so the population might have doubled, but they could still very well be endangered.  Second of all, you claim that science has become politicized, but what part of this opinion piece isn’t political?  Your “opinion” about how best to respond to climate change has little to do with factual evidence so much as it does with some underlying political motivation.  All that this piece represents is further proof of these negative divisions people stick to in which we can either ONLY stimulate the economy or ONLY stimulate the environment.  Besides, who seriously doesn’t believe in global warming anymore??  I think by the end of his 2nd term George Bush was even willing to admit that it was happening.

If you know little about what is going on in Copenhagen, please please PLEASE don’t take this piece seriously.  Its completely false in my opinion, and while I’m no expert on climate change, I’d like to think that encouraging the leader of a world power to boycott a conference with GLOBAL interests in mind – the interests of the poor who continually suffer unfairly from climate change – seems like a pretty infantile suggestion.  With that said, here are the links to both the Sarah Palin piece (so you can form your own opinion) and a link to the Post’s “Climate Agenda” page, which has some good info and updates about the COP15

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120803402.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/climate-change/

http://www.examiner.com/x-5445-Politics-in-Education-Examiner~y2009m11d24-Obese-students-forced-to-take-fitness-class-at-Pennsylvania-university

Essentially, in response to the “obesity crisis” sweeping our nation, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania has decided to enforce a new rule in which all students with a BMI above 30 are forced to take a nutrition class.  Doesn’t sound so terrible until you factor in that students cannot graduate without taking the course.  I guess I can understand wanting to ensure health, but there are a lot of better ways to do so that aren’t so awkward, discriminatory, and personally-invading.

So here are my major problems with this idea:

1.  By the time a student reaches college, in my opinion, if they don’t know how to eat healthy, then I seriously doubt one semester of a nutrition course is really going to change anything.  Going along with that, you cannot force people to change their eating habits.  You could make them take every nutrition class offered, but it doesn’t mean anything will actually change.

2. The obesity epidemic in the United States has a lot more to do with our industrialized food system than it does with any other factor.  WHY do you think it is that the cheapest food at a grocery store also happens to be the crappiest?  Most likely because it is crammed with preservatives and sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup that are subsidized by the government.  Forget those stupid ads that try to equate HFCS with sugar- they might have the same caloric value, but HFCS represents much more devestating trends in our food culture today.  If we really wanted to make gains in reversing obesity, we would stop marketing sugary, grainy cereals to children, and instead simplify our diets.  (For more on industrialized food, check out Michael Pollan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma”).  I can’t even begin to stress how wrong the current approach to the obesity epidemic is.  Why do you think it is that minority groups suffer more from obesity than those in the upper and middle classes?  Its certainly not because they don’t know how to eat right.

3. Put plain and simply – this is EMBARRASSING.  Those handful of students that are picked out are being judged solely by a number.  The problem with labels is that they divide us, and are so rigid that they leave no room for interpretation.  They stigmatize, and generalize, and lead us to make assumptions.  While BMI may be an important indicator for medical reasons, it seems completely irrational to apply it in this situation.

Perhaps officials at Lincoln should instead look at more proactive ways of dealing with what is not so much an obesity epidemic but a food-stupidity epidemic.  People don’t know how to eat anymore, and this isn’t just applicable to fat people, it goes for skinny people too.  What we consider “food” is hardly even food anymore, but more like food-like substances.

As a college student myself, I can say that this is NOT the way of higher learning.

Lets start with the Long Green Valley of Maryland- a small slice of pristine farmland seemingly untouched by the hand of development that has inflicted most of Maryland.  Rolling green hills, beautiful fall foliage, quaint churches and farm houses litter a landscape that is continuously breathtaking and changing.  The drive itself was an experience.

And the vineyard’s landscape was of course no exception – rows of fenced-in vines along a few small barns and wine silos.  It looked exactly as old-fashioned and quaint as you could imagine.

Our wine escapades started with a tour of the vineyard and the wine-tasting process, in which I determined two relevant and interesting snippets of information.  First of all, the production of wine is one that actually occurs in nature, without any human intervention.  Grapes naturally have a layer of yeast surrounding them, and we all know that yeast is the essential ingredient added to grape juice in order to make wine.  So really, there is nothing more natural than the mixing of two substances that already coexist.

Additionally, Boordy Vineyards prides itself on limiting waste – all excess material from the grape vines are put right back in the earth to fertilize further plant growth.  And surprisingly enough, Maryland is home to over 30 vineyards, which all sell locally and help to stimulate a growing trend in the purchasing of food and beverages.  According to our tour guide, these wines can be bought in almost all Maryland liquor stores, and their worth the buy- not overpriced at all (our bottle of Blush was only $10), and everything we tried was fantastic.  I don’t claim to be a wine expert by any means, but I enjoyed all that I tasted, and in some way the fact that its grown and produced in such a natural setting makes it seem that much higher quality.

Of course, what would wine be without a delicious cheese?  I had a great chance to interact with a couple from Havre-de-Grace, Maryland, where they operate and run a creamery.  I bought a pint of pumpkin ice cream, and some smoked cheddar cheese from their stand at the vineyard, and had a chance to talk about the farming process.  A big pet peeve of mine is the lack of respect that farmers and agricultural workers get for all they contribute to our society.  FOOD is an ESSENTIAL; it is a necessity.  And in this day and age, when choices are abundant, we forget the simplicity and beauty of truly good food.  Let me tell you, these people I spoke to are the foundation of the earth: up at 4 a.m. every day to milk their cows, passing on a wealth of information to the next generation.

In conclusion, I would encourage all individuals to pay homage to these simple and beautiful parts of our society – that rely on nature and the will of the earth to provide us with its bounty.

But what does this have to do with uncovering pathologies surrounding the environmental debate?  Well, if you really think about it, all these major problems are connected.  Drought leads to lower food production which leads to starvation which leads to overcrowding in major cities to search for work which leads to more and more pollution.  And it only keeps going.

Kids are people I’m pretty comfortable with.  I spend a lot of time working with and observing them, and I am absolutely not a supporter of the idea that children need to be sheltered from any of the harsh realities of our world.  In fact, I believe the sooner we expose them to some of the crazy shit that happens, the better.  Kids have the amazing ability of looking at things in a completely different perpspective, probably because they aren’t jaded by societal values thrust upon adults later in life.

So being the creative genius that I am, I put the two together for an assignment in a class of mine: I designed a curriculum teachers can use to teach 5th to 8th graders about hunger.  It is truly eye-opening, even for those of us who may already recognize the reality of global hunger.  I’m hoping in the next few weeks to find an actual classroom in which to implement the curriculum.

Finally, here is a preview of things TBP (To Be Posted) in the coming weeks:

1. My visit to a local vineyard in Mt. Airy, Maryland

2. Books For People Who Always Skip Parts Without Dialogue

3. Part one of an ongoing series in which I will force myself to like mushrooms

This blog will therefore serve three purposes:

1. Provide both fact and opinion supporting the claim that anthropological climate change is perhaps the BIGGEST threat to the security and future of our country.

2. Work to highlight those products and advertisements that are effective, and debunk those myths in advertising and media that we are forced to believe.

3. Use personal experience to spread the word about what the future requires from individuals, governments, and corporations, according to some of the most honest and important voices in the movement.

While I can’t deny that there will most likely be irrelevant posts, above all I want this blog to look past the generalized beliefs that helping the environment includes changing light bulbs and recycling, that hybrid cars are the only hope for the future, and finally the idea that it is too late to make any change.

So to conclude this introductory post, here is a short speech given by Al Gore in February of 2009 at a TED Conference.  (On another note, www.ted.com is one of my favorite places to see important and famous speakers talk about visionary ideas from design to science, music, agriculture, and medicine.)

Al Gore gives a short update on the global warming slideshow made famous by “An Inconvenient Truth”, including a few ads about “clean coal”.