I've changed since Live Earth

[Betsy Ross]

While we considered ourselves fairly environmentally conscientious (sp?), we are making further changes in our home to conserve resources. Have you made changes because or Live Earth?

[More Than A Feeling]

1. No, but reading John Kerry's latest book-This Moment on Earth- and

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan has made a big impact.

[BobRossi]

2. Yeah.

I have turned off my TV ><

[More Than A Feeling]

3. What a fantastic idea!

I watch too much tv too. The last time I was as productive as I want to be was when I didn't have a TV at all in my dorm room my first semester of college.

[AndyA]

4. I had already made changes prior to Live Earth, but it reinforced how important

all those little changes are.

I am changing out light bulbs to the new "green" bulbs. When one of the regular ones goes out now, a new green one goes in.

I've recycled aluminum, newspapers, glass, plastic, oil, etc., for years and years.

I try to combine as many trips as possible so I'm not getting the car out constantly.

90% of the time I carpool to work, grocery store, dry cleaners, etc.

I have turned up the thermostat for the central heat/air in my home in summer, and turned it down in winter.

I use ceiling fans to help move air in the house and make it more comfortable.

I turn off lights when I leave the room.

I bought a new HE washer/dryer that uses a lot less energy than a regular washer/dryer.

Lots of other little things, but they all add up. And once you get used to doing them, you really feel you're being wasteful when you don't.

[MatrixEscape]

5. Good to hear!

Like always, look at both sides of anything and discern for yourself. I think many are learning to do this, regardless of their abstract affiliations to dominant, cultural, and media-fed ideas.

Now you can be more like the growing chaste of American poor folk who do that conservation naturally and without fanfare or questionable manipulation.

So, we are doing our part to assure that the wealthy will have even more resources and be able to capitalize on this new "feel good" distraction. Heck, its even better than recycling! Oh, and we are loving the food prices now that those green bio-fuels are escalating essential agricultural prices. We wouldn't want our hungry pie holes to interfere with your driving habits, commutes, and vacations.

If the poor could afford those cloth bags and new, mercury-laden, energy-saving light bulbs, they might splurge ... when gas and food become more affordable, that is.

Look for the good investments that will come from this, though! ;)

[doni_georgia]

6. what's your point?

Okay, so you have a problem with environmentalism because people who don't have to conserve are now conserving? Yes, lots of people have been conserving for ages out of financial necessity. Does that mean that people who are chosing to do it now for environmental reasons are wrong? I don't think so. Yes, those who think they are entitled to over consume will continue to do so, but why should that stop people with a conscience from cutting back on consumption? I have always penny pinched, which includes cutting back on energy consumption. This was never something we had to do, but just something we did, because we work too hard for our money to throw it away. Even so, I have no problem with people who are just now chosing to limit their consumption of energy and goods for whatever reason.

[MatrixEscape]

8. I never said ...

The American way is and has been, to quote the Cone Heads, has been to "Consume mass quantities!"

Why should you stop making yourself voluntarily limit your consumption or that I have a problem with feel-good, last minute environmentalism. If you don't see behind the motivations for that, or the corporate profits that come from turning on a dime after creating the problem in the first place, does it really make any difference? There will be a goldmine to make on "feel good" conservation and self-limiting behavior. However, will that really make a viable dent in a deep, pervasive problem that is supported by what is an encompassing way of life that is not sustainable, despite how

Do what you feel you should. My problem is with staring at the spectacles of the big Oz Head and calling a band-aid a body cast. Trendy environmentalism is better than none at all.

Don't confuse my POV and message with being a detractor from the major issues. I apologize for offending people with cynicism that comes from looking behind a virtual curtain.

I think if more effort and time were put into removing the person hood, rights, and powers that major corporations have taken for themselves over the past hundred years or so, you could THEN have a very major impact on the many problems we face in today's world, including, but not exclusive to: the poor; the environment; the media; food safety and quality; distribution of wealth, food, and energy; education; government; etc.

But I don't see that happening. Thusly, a media show and well-meaning, but misguided efforts to solve the problem sound more like feeding the beast to keep it from inflicting even more damage. This new trend seems more like a sacrificial offering to the gods of coporatocracy than a true blow against the machine that did its very best to create the problems we face, either willfully or out of ignorance. I doubt that corporations do anything out of total ignorance, though. We do a lot out of ignorance because it is more blissful than the folly of wisdom in many cases.

Above all, feel good about what you do. I have no problem with that.

[MatrixEscape]

9. I had this vision pop into my head ...

after reading and replying to this thread.

I see millions marching in an environmental march, goose-stepping past the ever-growing, gated communities that such energy so bad you can literally HEAR it. As the masses smile and chant Al Gore's name, they proudly hold an energy saving light-bulb, (like a candle of salvation) in one hand and a cloth bag, (made in China) emblazoned with "Live Earth" in the other. Even as McMansions sprout like mushrooms and SUV's scurry like fat ants in the course of doing Master's bidding, they are happy lemmings on the road to their corporately designed Armageddon.

Enjoy your good intent and efforts, but don't let that be an opiate that merely serves to tighten your belt so that the upper castes can keep what they have or enjoy even more in this process.

But if you still don't see my unpopular POV, you can look into this all yourself. There are many resources about the effects and responsibility that corporations, (and the inalienable RIGHTS they have and keep).

One of my favorites, (among dozens) is:

From: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
By John Perkins

http://www.johnperkins.org/Preface.htm

"Today we see the results of this system run amok. Executives at our most respected companies hire people at near-slave wages to toil under inhuman conditions in Asian sweatshops. Oil companies wantonly pump toxins down rain forest rivers, consciously killing people, animals, and plants and committing genocide among ancient cultures. The pharmaceutical industry denies life-saving medicines to millions of HIV-infected Africans. Twelve million families in our own United States worry about their next meal. The energy industry creates an Enron. The accounting industry creates an Andersen. The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world’s population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30:1 in 1960 to 74:1 in 1995. The United States spends over $87 billion conducting a war in Iraq while the United Nations estimates that for less than half that amount we could provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services, and basic education to every person on the planet."

"The corporatocracy is not a conspiracy, but its members do endorse common values and goals. One of corporatocracy's most important functions is to perpetuate and continually expand and strengthen the system. The lives of those who “make it,” and their accouterments—their mansions, yachts, and private jets—are presented as models to inspire us all to consume, consume, consume. Every opportunity is taken to convince us that purchasing things is our civic duty, that pillaging the earth is good for the economy and therefore serves our higher interests. People like me are paid outrageously high salaries to do the system's bidding. If we falter, a more malicious form of hit man, the jackal, steps to the plate. And if the jackal fails, then the job falls to the military."

Google the word corporatocracy!

[doni_georgia]

10. You're right, Americans have always consumed way too much

I am just of the mindset that whatever motivates people to consume less, it's a good thing. Sure corporations will jump on the bandwagon to make a profit - that's what they do. Small steps are still steps in the right direction. Once people change their own personal habits, it will be easier to make the big changes that need to be made to really address the problem.

[Beaverhausen]

7. another thread asking the same thing from earlier today

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1304088

[Crayson]

11. sure sounds like Paris Hilton