Progressive Wednesday

The TGIF Movie Review: An Inconvenient Truth

Editor’s Note: I just watched An Inconvenient Truth for the second time, and I realized, all over again, how important this documentary is to our culture. It’s a gift. A scary one, but one that brims, ultimately, with hope. If you haven’t checked it out, maybe this review will get you high-tailin’ it to Blockbuster.

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To say that global warming is “inconvenient” is the only exaggeration (in this case, understatement) made in this entire film. Early on watching this movie, I got the sense that whether or not we listen to the film's facts will directly determine if anyone will be around to call it a classic or not. (Check out our Wednesday topic for more related videos.)

An Inconvenient Truth opens with gorgeous video of a river and the forest lining it. This simple image makes what follows all the more heartbreaking, as we see the beautiful innocence of our only home being destroyed. In case you're unaware, the documentary is essentially a slide-show presentation that Al Gore has given around the world over 1,000 times, explaining the incontrovertible facts of global warming through the use of imagery, raw data, and tragic current events. He effectively destroys the myth that global warming isn't real and isn't caused by humanity. He does this with information about glaciers, human population, bird migration, the life-cycles of insects, hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, cyclones, drought, temperature rates, soil evaporation, the extinction of species, vectors for emerging infection diseases, and coral reef bleaching. You can't help but be convinced, because to still doubt global warming would be as ridiculous as doubting that the planet exists.

What makes all this even more interesting are vivid videos and photographs, Gore's self-effacing humor, and his light jabs at political rivals. We also learn about Gore's life, both personal and professional, and his upbringing, all of which adds a texture of honesty to the picture.

One of my writing professors in graduate school once told us that “all nature writing is elegy.– Thankfully, An Inconvenient Truth is no fatalistic final words. Instead, it removes the myth that the problem is too big for us to make a change. Doubters, Gore says, tend to go from denial to despair. But we needn't. The film asks viewers to go to ClimateCrisis.net to learn ways to lessen their impact on our already thin and vulnerable atmosphere. To paraphrase a pretty damned famous politico — we have a choice: we are the enemy; we are either for us or we are against us.

I thought about what I'm about to write closely and carefully and frequently since seeing this film for the first time. I'm done thinking about it because I believe my final sentence to be true as the sky is blue. This is the most important film ever made.

Organic v. Local – head to head

Progressivism is a big tent. The catalyst that moves someone to progressivism can be race, religion, social or economic status, the environment, civil liberties, or antiauthoritarianism, just to name some. True progressives have a concern about all of these issues.

But what happens when two of these collide? How do we decide what positions to support and what to do about it? When the United Auto Workers union expresses its concern about increasing fuel economy while climatologists warn us of the consequences of inaction, how do we decide?

Of course, we prioritize. We weigh the consequences against the potential benefit, and then determine the best course of action. While I sympathize with the UAW (though I think that better fuel economy would lead to a huge increase in production and jobs in the long run), I feel that the consequences facing the planet due to global warming far outweigh the short-term consequences raising fuel efficiency to the UAW.

I frequently find two sides of my progressivism playing tug-of-war with my conscience when I'm at the local grocery store. As I stand there surveying the produce one side wants me to buy the locally grown tomatoes while the other tells me to put those with the “certified organic– label in my basket. Fortunately, organic produce is frequently homegrown, allowing my two sides to come to a truce and making my decision easy, but not always. Since I came across this article from Terrapass.com, I have started to listen more to the organic angel.

Food miles are actually a minor portion of the total ecological footprint of food. In the study of a basket of foods in Cardiff, transport amounted to only 2% of the total environmental cost. Growing conditions, packaging and processing made up the bulk of the impact. In fact– ¦ local food systems actually have slightly higher carbon emissions!

This doesn't push me completely over to the “organic side of the farm,– nor do I think it should for you. But I don't want to make decisions without knowing as many facts as possible; I don't want to be that kind of progressive.

This photographer buys local, but this one goes organic.

E-mail with a capital “Environment.”

We’ve previously covered ways to email more progressively (and you can check those out by clicking here). But we’ve recently stumbled on yet another way, and this one helps you and our shared environment.

I’m willing to wager, dollars to DiCamillo donuts, that you already know about most of the free webmail services out in Internet-land: AOL, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail, etc., etc., etc. So here’s another freebie: Community Mail Center. Here’s what makes this sucker different: the technology used to maintain this email account is powered exclusively by renewable energy.

The gray matter behind this new tool belongs to Think Host, a web-hosting provider powered, you guessed it, by wind and solar power. And why are they offering up free email? I’ll let their digital words do the talkin’:

Because we are very cool people, whom, like you, aren’t real happy with the current state of the world. Instead of just complaining about our woes and drowning our sorrows in wheatgrass juice, we try and instigate positive change with projects like Community Mail — it’s one of the few free earth-friendly email services around.

So for a whole mess of nothing but clicking your mouse, you get an environmentally friendly email account run by a progressive, privately-owned company. You get 100MB of storage. You get to choose from four different domains. And this sucker has all the perks of the aforementioned big four companies: an address book, a spell checker, spam filters, external POP3 accounts, and a message search engine, amongst a whole bunch o’ other stuff.

If you’re like us, you like to know more about something on the web (it’s world wide, don’t forget) before you sign on the binary line, so here’s the 411 and FAQ about Community Mail. Even if you don’t sign up for an account, don’t forget that knowledge of progressivism is, in itself, a kind of progressivism.

This Wednesday: Going Farther on a Gallon

Problem:

Gas. It costs $3.20 per gallon. A trip to the gas station seems more like a trip to the bank to take out a second mortgage. We're not talking about the five-cents-per-gallon that we used to get so upset about back when Ross Perot became a household name and the Buffalo Bills were regulars in the Super Bowl. No, we're talking about increases in the dollar-per-gallon range, a number that puts a strain on the budget of most Americans that’s a bit more than theoretical. All this while Exxon/Mobile posted $39.5 billion in profits, the largest profit for any company in history, and ponied up $400 million to its retiring CEO.

And gas is made from oil, which is pulled from the bowels of the earth in countries located in the most volatile region on the planet, countries that actively and openly support terrorism, making it possible for terrorists to fund their operations. While we spend our resources and personnel in Iraq, those who actually stand to harm our country are getting richer and stronger, and it's coming out of our own pockets.

Then there's this thing called the environment. Every time we burn fossil fuels we take a small step closer to becoming fossils ourselves. Automobile emissions are cause number one of global warming. Americans make up only 5% of the world's population, yet we blow 45% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions out our tailpipe, literally. We burn gas like it's our job (I know, for some of us, it is). We need the biggest, fastest, strongest, roomiest, sexiest four-wheel-drive vehicle on the market, and because of that the polar ice caps are melting, Texas is under water, and California is on fire.

So, to sum up, we're paying a ridiculous amount of our hard-earned cha-ching to fill the pockets of the big oil companies, fund extremist militia groups that aim to attack our country, and to– ¦ well– ¦ destroy our planet and everything that lives on it. Sound scary? Sure. But we can do something about it.

Make Progress:

The bottom line is that we need to reduce our dependency on oil, foreign or otherwise. We need to drive less and more efficiently. To try and tackle each and every way would fill a year of Wednesdays. So waddaya say we get started?

The debate about alternative fuels is as strong in this country as it has ever been. There is a great race to create a new “juice– that will get us from A to B. We're not going to participate in that debate–at least, not today. No, today we'll concentrate on things you can do to reduce the gas you use in the car you already have, the one sitting out in the driveway right now.

• Fill
• Avoid
• Replace
• Receive

Photo credit to this unlucky gas buyer

Fill:

Tires with low air pressure create more road resistance, or “drag,– making the engine work harder to go the same speed. According to research done by the United States Department of Energy:

Drivers can improve their gas mileage by about 3.3 percent by keeping tires inflated to the proper pressure. Under-inflated tires waste 4 million gallons of gasoline daily – “ or nearly 1.5 billion gallons annually.

I've never won a Field's Medal, but by my calculation that comes out to $4,800,000,000 extra that Americans pay every year because we don't want to pay 50 cents to use the air pump. And according to a study by the Rubber Manufacturers Association, only one out of seven Americans know how to check their air pressure. eHow.com has a great blow-by-blow description, complete with a video for visual learners. So keep those tires pumped up to the proper pressure.

But for the real “mileage hounds– (myself included), or anyone interested in saving the planet and a few bucks at the same time, try filling your tires with nitrogen instead of air. It's been in Europe for several years now and has recently grown in popularity in the U.S., and you can find a nearby nitrogen station anywhere in the U.S.

The benefit of nitrogen is simple: tires stay fully inflated 3-6 times longer than those filled with air. If you were to check your pressure every week, this might not be a huge advantage, but I don't think too many people check that often. The cost used to be considerable, but with more and more stations offering a nitrogen fill-up, the cost has come down to around $2-$3 per tire. Cars that use it tend to get about 3% better gas mileage. It's well worth it in the long run. You can learn where to get nitrogen for your tires here.

Picture clicked by this nitro-filler

Avoid:

This one might seem like a no-brainer, but turn off your car when not in use. When a car is idling, whether it's a Hummer or a Prius, it is getting zero miles per gallon. Even if it's just for 30 seconds, turning the car off will save gas and money.

I have heard a lot of people suggest that warming a car for a few minutes is better for the car or that it uses less fuel to idle for a minute than to restart the car. Unless you're driving a Model T, to be blunt, that's crap. According to the EPA, running newer engines at a low RPM (idling) causes significantly more wear on internal parts compared to driving at regular speeds. It was best described by the Canadian Office of Energy Efficiency. Here it is:

An idling engine isn’t operating at its peak temperature, which means that fuel doesn’t undergo complete combustion. This leaves fuel residues that can condense on cylinder walls, where they can contaminate oil and damage parts of the engine. For example, fuel residues are often deposited on spark plugs. As you spend more time idling, the average temperature of the spark plug drops. This makes the plug get dirty more quickly, which can increase fuel consumption by 4 to 5 percent.

They give a few more reasons why idling is bad; you can check out the whole article here. The bottom line? Idle as little as possible. Turn your engine on only when you're ready to drive away and turn it off as soon as you are in park. It may not seem like much, but when that small savings is multiplied by the 250,000,000 registered cars in the United States, well, you get the idea.

So dump that remote starter, stop going thru the drive-thru (or fast food restaurants at all), greet people at the terminal instead of the arrival lane at the airport, and park the car and take your time at the grocery store instead of running in while the car idles. Save just one gallon a week. That's over 10 billion gallons a year if we all do it. Not bad. It's a start.

This picture taker saw the long and the short of it

Replace:

Maintaining your engine is obviously a great way to improve your vehicle's mileage; changing spark plugs and oil helps your car save gas and extends the life of the car. But, unless you're auto-mechanically inclined, which most of us are not, those things should be done in the shop.

But there is one thing that most of us can do that doesn't take much time, money, or an in-depth knowledge of the internal combustion engine that can save a lot of gas and cash: replace your car's air filter. According to FuelEconomy.gov, replacing a dirty air filter can improve your gas mileage by as much as ten percent.

So stop into an auto parts dealer and tell them what kind of car you have. They'll get you the right filter. Six bucks later, all you have to do is pop the hood, open the air filter container (you can find out where it is in your manual), take out the old and put in the new. Just make sure that gasket is on tightly, and put the cover back on. All that's left is to figure out what you'll do with all the money you'll save.

Picture taken by this mechanical engineer

Receive:

There are as many rumors going around about the practicality and efficiency of hybrid cars as there are about the seventh Harry Potter book. Some are true; some are not. But as the owner of a Toyota Prius, I can tell you from first-hand experience, there aren't very many downsides. In fact, I don't know that there is anything I would change about mine. It gets 53 mpg, has more than enough pickup, plenty of room (and I'm 6'7''), and, with tax rebates, the price of gas, and my wife's lengthy commute, the sucker has more than made up for the premium we paid after just the first year of ownership.

But I understand that it's not very reasonable to ask everyone to go out and trade in their two-year-old car for a new one. All I ask is this: sign up for the HybridCars.com newsletter.

Purchasing any car is a major decision; switching to a different technology can be even more nerve-racking. But learning about the latest real-life experiences of those who own hybrid cars makes that decision a bit easier. This once-a-month newsletter might just shatter the ideas that you had about hybrids. If you still don't want one, fine. But the worst thing you could you would be to avoid a hybrid because you don't have the most recent and accurate information.

Because the climate does count.

We’ve got to give props to the Utne Reader for pointing this sucker out to us. And what is “this sucker” exactly? ClimateCounts.org. And what exactly is ClimateCounts.org? I’m glad you asked, baby:

Climate Counts is a collaborative effort to bring consumers and companies together in the fight against global climate change. We have come together with a shared conviction that the time for talk about global warming has passed, and that significant corporate, consumer, and political action is now necessary.

Our goal is to motivate deeper awareness among consumers–not only that the issue of climate change demands their attention, but also that they have the power to support companies that take climate change seriously–and avoid those that don’t. When consumers take action and raise their voices on issues that matter to them, businesses pay attention. A loud and clear consumer movement that demands more aggressive corporate action on climate change will not fall on deaf ears.

Here’s the meat and the mashed potatoes: Climate Counts provides a listing of major corporations and gives them a score based on their commitment to curbing global warming from within their companies. The scores of the businesses aren’t like they are in golf: a low score is bad to the bone. So I was mouth-agape stunned to learn that the incredibly progressive Apple received a score of 2, while IBM scored a 70 (we’re not making a switch anytime soon, though, for reasons explained below). And I know some folks out there will be glad to know that Coke earned a 57, and Pepsi a lowly 26.

Understandably, we should know who’s behind this service: “Stonyfield Farm, Inc., the world’s leading organic yogurt company” and “Clean Air-Cool Planet, a leading non-profit organization dedicated to finding and promoting solutions to global warming.” So, we’ll count them as reliable sources (Stonyfield Farm only gives themselves a 63, by the way, and they were “America’s first manufacturer to offset 100 percent of its CO² emissions from its facility energy use”).

But we need to keep in mind that when choosing businesses to support with our bucks, we might want to consider other factors such as labor practices, health coverage for employees, and impact on small businesses.

After learning about the scores, consumers can take some actions. Obviously, we can choose whether or not to continue using the products and services of each company, but through ClimateCounts.org we can also easily email the corporations. The latter seems like a useful step to help change our favorite companies without dismissing their products. Because we kind of have a love affair going with Macs, we plan on shooting an e-letter to the Apple folks to urge them to get on the environmental ball. It just goes to show that even the best big-businesses can always be better.

Agua might be the answer.

We’ve written a great deal about alternative energy. Why? Three reasons:

1. The economics behind alternative energy have the ability to boost our economy.
2. Global warming is real, and burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change.
3. Our dependency on oil keeps us in relationships with countries we’d be better off avoiding.

So, in light of all that, here’s another possible solution to the problem that is our need for energy:

Ever sit by the ocean, and watch a buoy or a seagull bob up and down without end? The energy it takes to move all that water up and down is massive. Prevailing winds, temperature differentials, strong weather and even the rotation of the Earth all contribute to the never-ending crash of waves against the shore, and viewed from a certain perspective, that’s a lot of energy going to waste.

The World Energy Council has estimated that approximately 2 terawatts (2 million megawatts), about double current world electricity production, could be produced from the oceans via wave power.

Wave power might just the future of energy production. The oceans are a gift we’ve been blessed with, and we haven’t fully realized their grandeur and the ways they might save our days.

Saving the Planet (from the Comfort of Our Homes): Switch

Editor’s Note: This Wednesday topic first appeared on March 7, 2007. To read our introduction to “Saving the Planet (from the Comfort of Our Homes),” just click here.

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Each year the average American household uses about 9,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. That averages out to about 750 kW-h per month. The cost per kW-h ranges throughout the country from just under 6 cents to almost 15 cents. 57 percent of this energy comes from coal plants and, according to powerscorecard.org:

Coal power plants are responsible for 93 percent of the sulfur dioxide and 80 percent of the nitrogen oxide emissions generated by the electric utility industry.

Few people know that they can get every watt from clean, renewable energy. Many utility companies offer renewable energy to their customers, and there are other national programs, like Utility Green Pricing and Renewable Energy Certificates, for those who buy from a company that doesn't. To see if your utility company offers renewable power, click here.

The cost of buying green power ranges from 3/4 of a penny to about three cents per kW-h, with most programs at about 1 cent per kW-h. For the average American that means about an extra $7/month. That's about the price of a movie or half of a pizza. This is the only thing we've asked you to do that does not immediately benefit you financially. But if you do only one thing, do this.

Why? The baby girl in the picture is my daughter. Do it for her. Do it for the polar bears who have just been added to the endangered species list. Do it for the people of New Orleans who were shown with unprecedented violence what effect the warming of the Gulf can have on their lives. And do it for the coral reefs, 16 percent dead in a single year, bleached by the warmer waters. Do it for my children and yours, for me and for you. Do it because it's right.