Brave New Leaf

Wrap-Up

The Seattle Green Festival was a blast. I still have a ton of notes from speakers that hopefully I'll have the time to write up in the next week or so. But thanks to all of the sponsors and participants for putting on such a great show.

Misinformation at Seattle Electric Vehicle Booth

I swung by the Seattle EVA (Electric Vehicle Association) booth to chat with some of the folks over there. The conversation went something like this:

Me: So, does it really make sense to get an electric vehicle that runs from a coal-fired grid?

Old Man: Absolutely. Anything to get off foreign oil.

Me: But, what about the emissions? Are the emissions better through the grid than using oil?

Old Man: [rolls eyes] Of course they are. Electric vehicles are 5x more efficient than a gas vehicle, so the emissions are 5x better.

Me: Are you sure about that?

Old Man: [looks annoyed] Read this pamphlet. [Throws me a flyer and runs off to greet some other people].

Truth is, he is absolutely correct in saying that electric cars are 5x more efficient at using energy than gas cars. Problem is, the grid that gets the energy to us isn't very efficient, so much of the efficiency gains are lost in the transport of the energy.

Take a look at the graph above. That represents the lifetime CO2 emissions for different types of automobiles. Partly because the manufacturing emissions are higher for electric cars, an electric car run off of today's grid has a much worse emissions story than a hybrid. But if you can transform the grid to run from a renewable source, then you have something exciting to talk about. We're not there yet.

And this doesn't even begin to get into the water requirements to generate the power behind electric vehicles. Needless to say, I'm disappointed that Seattle EVA doesn't have their facts straight.

John Perkins - Confessions of an Economic Hitman

I've been excited for this one. John Perkins, a respected member of the international banking community, wrote a great book called "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" covering his job of trying to convince third world countries to take on huge loans with enormous debt.

He's starting off by asking how we create a revolution: how we upset the power in the banking industry that's been created in post-World-War-II America.

Here's the questions he asks:
1. Do we truly want change?
2. Do we have a unifying principle that allows us to justify that change without invoking biases on other people?
3. Do we have reason to expect that we can achieve that change?
4. How are we all going to do this?

Summarizing his answers:
1. Do we truly want change?
Less than 5% of the world's population consumes 25% of the world's resources, and creates 30% of the pollution. That leads to only one conclusion: our system is a failure, and cannot be a model for the world. It is a non-viable model that cannot lead. So we must change it. Period.

2. What is our unifying principle that allows us to justify change?
The way our system works: economic hitmen->jackals->military.

We need to commit ourselves to creating a stable, sustainable, peaceful world for everyone, everywhere. Not just our country. That is the only way our children will have a stable, peaceful world.

3. Do we have cause to be optimistic to expect that change? Can we change the world?
Yes. We need to ask ourselves "who is the emperor"? Right now, it's a "corporatocracy". We are the customers and the employees. They count on us, and we have a good success record of changing them when we choose to apply pressure.

He also makes the important point that he's NEVER met an evil CEO. They all want to create a better world, but they are trapped in the expectations of our economy. I'm glad Mr. Perkins pointed this out. There's so much "Corporations are Satan's-spawn," talk here, I was starting to go a little cross-eyed.

4. How do we bring about change?
Mr. Perkins tells the story of a fight between Rainforest Action Network vs. Mitsubishi. The fight got ugly, but they got an agreement signed at the end of it. Then he met the head of both organizations at a conference and found them both hanging out in the hot tub. The Mitsubishi CEO thanked the Rainforest guy because he wanted to do it, but didn't dare ask their managers, because they feared for their jobs. The CEO thanked the Rainforest guy because he forced him to do the right thing.

Moral of the story: organized efforts can persuade corporations to change their ways. Find the organization that draws out your passion, and get out and support it.

At the end of the day, things like "not buying bottled water" are band-aids. We must change the underlying model for how we live. Examine your life and figure out what steps you can take to get there.

The Card that encourages local shopping

I just signed up for a cool program called the PCC Puget Sound Community Card.

The purpose of the program is to encourage consumers to shop locally and share locally, while benefiting the community at the same time.

Basically, you get a membership card, that many local Seattle businesses accept. When you use the card at your local business, you get a monetary refund from that business, AND a non-profit of your choice will also get some cash back.

What a great idea, and an easy way to support local businesses and causes.

Jim Hightower at the Green Festival

Sat in on Jim Hightower's presentation yesterday. Jim has been the Agricultural Commissioner for Texas twice, and does a bunch of books and radio work.

My first impressions? Jesse Jackson has nothing on this guy when it comes to catch, angry rhyming. In the first three minutes we've had the phrases "strategize, organize, and mobilize", "Walmatters and Exxoners", "Warmongers and Fearmongers", "autocratic, theocratic, and plutocratic", and "Bushites and Bullshitters". Okay, well that last one is more of an alliteration, but you get the idea.

Jim seems pretty angry. Angry at Bush, angry at corporate America, angry at the oil companies, and angry at anybody who has money. He definitely feels that the Bush administration is immoral.

Interesting fact he points out: "Did you know that you can take the word "Presbyterians" and rearrange the letters, and it will spell "Britney Spears"?"

Not much environmental content in this particular speech. Jim is here to incite liberal rebellion and evangelism.

30,000 people at the Seattle Green Festival

This place is packed! We just stood in line for twenty minutes to get an organic, meatless burrito. In fact, none of the food vendors will serve you meat. There is a sausage stand, but I think they're made of tofu.

I overheard one of the volunteers say that there were 30,000 people here today.

Mr. Ellie Pooh's Elephant Dung Paper

When we first walked by this booth, we thought this might be a joke: a clever skewering of recycling extremes. But, it turns out that this stuff is legit. There is actually paper that is made out of 75% elephant poop from Sri Lanka.

I can personally vouch that the paper had no foul odor, and looked nice and colorful. But when I asked the woman at the booth why elephant dung, specifically, was the poop of choice for making paper, she looked at me like I was crazy. I'm still curious. If you're going to make paper out of poop, why not choose something a little more widely available like dog poop?

But, it's not everyday you can read a book about elephants printed on elephant crap. Hooray for new life experiences.

Planet Green bikers look tired

We're only a few hours into the all-day festival, and already the bikers that are powering the Planet Green booth are starting to look a little bit tired...  Here's hoping they get some folks with fresh legs over there soon!

Green Festival Kick-Off

Global Exchange and Co-op America, the co-sponsors for the festival, kicked things off at about 11am this morning. Some of the highlights of their speech:

• The event industry is the second worst waste-generation industry, second only to construction. The Seattle Green Festival will compost or recycle 98% of the waste generated at the convention. In fact, there are volunteers at each recycling center throughout the facility to make sure the right stuff goes into the right bucket. And at the end of the festival, they'll sort through it all AGAIN to make sure the maximum amount of recycling can take place.

• The seeds of the sustainable & green economy have been planted in every industry and sector now and have about 5% penetration across the board. The next stage is growth, particularly capturing the early adopters which would bring share up to about 12%. Helping facilitate this growth is a primary goal of the festival.

• One of the speakers stated that there are two different and often polarizing approaches to being green: the "No" strategy, which is about stopping the damage happening now and bringing down the conglomerates that are making it happen, and the "Yes" approach which focuses on how we live after we stop the damaging habits ("After the revolution, there will be pizza!"). She encouraged the audience to not worry about which of these approaches they advocated for so long as they took action on something. She promoted cooperation and encouragement as the orders of the day over debate on philosophy and approach.

• A quote I liked:
  "If you're on the Titanic, and it's going down, you have three choices: 1. You can run around screaming your head off, 2. You can re-arrange the deck chairs and play some music as its going down, or 3. You can rally some people to build a wind and wave powered boat that pulls up next to the Titanic complete with girls in bikinis drinking cocktails, and encourage everybody else to get on."

Mayor Nichols is supposed to be up next, but it seems he's running late.

Plastic Bag Monster

One of the first people that we ran into at the Festival was the Plastic Bag Monster. He was pouting because he's been kicked out of San Francisco, and he's worried that Seattle is not far behind. He was looking for a new permanent home, so if you're interested, stop by and make him an offer.