My (belated) new years letter

So...
I know it's nearing the end of February and that I am about 1.5 months passed the acceptable 'Happy new year/best wishes' threshold for emailing- but i this weekend I watched the DVD "No Impact Man" and despite myself, the long winter, lack of sunlight, and the sight of dirty melting snow- I feel inspired.

However I would be remis if I didn't say that the current state of the world imposes a sort of emotional bi-polar state in regards to my general level of life hope- oscillating between inspired hope and a feeling of being on a sinking ship on the deck just before the panic sets in and everyone else realizes it’s sinking. Today I woke up to read more stories on the disaster in Chile, the on-going chaos in Haiti and now the Ny times article- “Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A.”.

Seriously?!

“As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising…..The Clean Water Act was intended to end dangerous water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But today, regulators may be unable to prosecute as many as half of the nation’s largest known polluters because officials lack jurisdiction or because proving jurisdiction would be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming, according to midlevel officials.”

At Pratt I have spent the last year or so, slowly and at times painfully becoming aware of how the things I do (no matter how mundane they appear) effect the world at large. However I know that by expressing that sentiment/revelation, I am simultaneously aware that regardless of my intention, I run the risk of sounding preachy (which no one likes) and also striking a nerve inducing defensiveness from most of the people in my life. This paradox has left me very self-conscious and sort of quiet (for me!)- about all the things I am learning and the way it has been reconfiguring my life. And I think to some extent it has started to make me feel further from the rest of my life- and no one likes living a duality especially one that is self-imposed.

The things that have become really apparent to me- are the ways in which we all and those before us- have allowed society to develop/ grow in an unsustainable manner- we run the Earth in a way that i am sure would make a good business man cringe- everyone, even someone who is as wildly adept as myself with money knows that. We live in such a way that we trash/use up the very thing that is sustaining us- and I believe/hope if you get people in a honest moment that most would agree to some extent with what I am saying. I am also aware the minute any sort of 'environmental' 'earth' ramble is voiced it becomes immediately out of fashion and the image of me typing at a library computer terminal in a pair of flowey linen cargo pants with a t-shirt that may or may not reference the whales-while droning on and on about the polar bears jumps to mind- However, 1) I’d never don such and outfit 2) I really don’t understand the dichotomy between having a successful creative modern world and living in a way that doesn’t pollute the earth. Being fully aware of what choices we are making and what that really means for the Earth at large doesn't have to boil down to a life with individuality, character, fun, convenience or art. It just means not being afraid to be fully informed about the total life cycle of the products we use are (even down to what type of energy we use and how it is produced). As I near 30 I am realizing that 1) I am an adult and fully responsible to make my life what I want it to be and 2) everything I do will impact the next generation (the ones I/my peers would raise) and 3) how being an 'environmentalist' really to me is about health- of myself, the people I love, the next generations, and last but not least the place we all live.

When I went upstate to see the Mayor of Dish, TX talk about how natural gas drilling has just decimated his tiny town of 2 sq miles (http://baddish.blogspot.com/) - and at the end of his talk- this person who I would have wrongly judged to have nothing in common with- this straight shooter ex-military man with a crew cut- looked out into the audience and simply said- 'Now you know, and you can't not know'. Which is exactly the sentiment I am trying to express, after spending a year actively making all the pieces of my life connect to the big picture- now that I know that all our trash is either buried or burned or shipped over seas I can't not know- which makes me need to know where does it go once it leaves my street in Brooklyn. Now that i know about natural gas, coal and oil- I can't not know- how can we find renewable sources of energy. A few years ago I had NO idea why I had to shut of the lights - I thought it was just to save money; I had no idea how electricity was produced.

The thing that really gets me is that all these 'things' that at first make it hard to imagine a life without, they seem so essential but i saw this girl carrying this tote bag that said- 'less oil more courage' and it really struck me that we can do this better. We have more power and imagination and that this defeatist attitude of ‘this is how it's been and this is how it will be’- it’s holding us back and I wouldn’t accept that type of attitude in any other part of my life so why would I accept it for the entire world? I also now understand that some of the things I am afraid to lose have also contributed to making me farther from the people in my life and more separated from the community that I really desire. We can’t go backwards- even if it seems easier- we’ll pay for it later- ‘“We are, in essence, shutting down our Clean Water programs in some states,” said Douglas F. Mundrick, an E.P.A. lawyer in Atlanta. “This is a huge step backward. When companies figure out the cops can’t operate, they start remembering how much cheaper it is to just dump stuff in a nearby creek’ (NYT)”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/us/01water.html

Wishing you well in the new year

I attached an article that I think is really amazing by Mike Davis and below are some resources I wanted to pass on.

Films:
Blue Gold: World Water Wars
Flow
No Impact Man
Food Inc
Tapped
King Corn

Books-
Gone tomorrow - http://www.gonetomorrow.org/
Hot Flat and Crowded- http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/hot-flat-and-crowded
Natural Capitalism- http://www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid5.php
Cradle to Cradle- http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm

Websites/Watch/Interactive
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
http://www.gasland.us/wp/
http://www.habitatmap.org

News:
http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters
http://www.treehugger.com/

Organizations
http://www.rmi.org/
http://www.aldoleopold.org
http://www.ssbx.org/

Natural Gas Drilling Info:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/press_releases/09-15pr.shtml
http://www.riverkeeper.org/
http://www.damascuscitizens.org/
http://nyh2o.org/#main/home
http://www.catskillcitizens.org/
http://catskillmountainkeeper.org/