Global warming, not our fault!?!

Thursday, noon time, I am walking around the tables of the Rotary club, shaking hands, mingling, sipping on my ice tea. I greet, I smile, I blend into the small crowd with ease. “Are you the speaker?” they ask. “Yes, Roberto, pleased to meet you.”

A few minutes later I meet Tom, the construction guy, very charming, kind and welcoming. We chat for a few minutes until he asks me the subject of my speech. “Green living, social responsibility and environmental issues,” I say. “Ah!” he says, then rolls his eyes and shakes his head in disapproval.

“What’s wrong, don’t you like the subject?” He turns around, walks towards me and whispers: “You know, I think that this whole global warming deal is a big mistake. I don’t believe in it, it’s just a natural earth change. They found that out in the ice cores extracted from the North Pole. All these people changing their light bulbs and all that crap…, give me a break!”

At first I just couldn’t believe this was real. I had heard of people refusing to accept the facts about global warming, but here? I checked around again, wondering if I was I in the right place. Isn’t this Marin County, north of San Francisco, one of the most liberal, environmental and freakishly “new-agey” places in the nation? Isn’t this the place where hybrids are not only the symbol for environmentalism,  but also pop out like wild mushrooms among the protected redwood trees? I thought for a moment that I was having an Encounter of the Third Kind with an alien who came down to Earth to test me?

I listen carefully, clinging to my ice cold drink hoping it will keep me cool. I nod in agreement about the ice cores; I agree that the warming is partly a natural phenomenon; I listen, biting my lips in disbelief.

Finally I explained my views. “One thing is certain,” I said. “The Earth has never had exactly the same temperature year after year, decade after decade, century after century. So with or without humans, the Earth would still be experiencing either a warming or a cooling trend. I also know about other possible natural phenomena: the Earth’s orbit changing, sun spots exploding, a change in the Earth’s orientation, volcanoes.” “However,” I told him,” there is one natural phenomenon people always forget. The big white elephant in the room that we never like to talk about: humans and population growth.” Amazing how people easily forget that we are not just the few millions we were a thousand years ago. From the day Tom was born, I assume in the forties, population of the world has tripled. Today, we have 6.7 billion humans on this planet, a third of whom are using the world’s resources as if we had “plenty more of where that came from.” “This, my fellow Rotarian, cannot be dismissed as one of the natural phenomena,” I said.

In the last few years, with Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth and the media focus on climate change, so much emphasis was put on global warming that people have forgotten about the true meaning of “sustainability.” Global warming is only one problem we are facing today; the other problems are the depletion of our resources, environmental degradation, social injustice, human suffering and animal abuse, among others. So being a socially responsible company doesn’t only mean being “green.” Social responsibility means just that, being responsible. Responsibility towards not only our atmosphere, but towards all things that make our world such a beautiful place to live. The way we are living today is neither sustainable nor responsible.

When the Rotary bell interrupted our conversation and the meeting was called to order, Tom nodded in agreement. I addressed these points in my speech that day with examples showing how our daily mundane lifestyle has affected people, animals and the planet.  I can only hope I provoked him just enough to contemplate his contribution to the condition of our world.

Time to start thinking outside the green box.

Good for business…, oh, and for the environment too!

I was on a conference call with the Merrill Lynch Environmental Town Hall for one hour and heard about the work that ML is doing with their Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.

They opened with one employee question: “Why do we need to worry about social responsibility when we should concentrate on investment returns?” Their answer, which was brought up and repeated throughout the broadcast, was: “This is good for business,” followed by “and it also happens to be good for society and the environment!”

The leaders of the conference call were addressing the results from a survey that was sent out company-wide a few weeks earlier. They received over ten thousand responses, which is much higher than the average ten percent response one gets. The company has about sixty five thousand employees.

Despite the high number of responses, the talk concentrated on explaining the benefits of going green because of the high investment returns. They emphasized that the green movement is not just a fad, but a “secular” change with investments of several trillions of dollars in the next few decades.

Several employees asked questions related to what needs to be done within the company in regard to saving paper or reducing energy consumption. These are the usual questions I hear; they make me realize what a shallow understanding people have about what it takes to reduce our ecological footprint. Don’t get me wrong, I embrace every little step that people take to improve our environment, but here again, this confirms the need for education within organizations to bring social responsibility to the next level.

The questions that employees asked really showed how important it is for them to be involved in any changes being made within he company. With regard to saving paper, two simple questions were brought to the attention of the people in charge, and they put them immediately on the “To Do” list. This proves one important point about employee involvement, a point that Joel Makeover writes in his latest blog entry What Do Employees Really Want: “No one knows more about the waste and inefficiency inside a company than those in middle and lower rungs.”

Now imagine how much more employees would be able to bring to the “sustainability” table if they were more involved, engaged and educated about environmental issues. While ML emphasized the “enhanced profitability” for their company in pursuing a green mindset, they need to remember that at the root of it are individuals who grow increasingly concerned about our planet, and customers who demand change.

While I applaud Merrill Lynch’s initiative towards social responsibility, I wish they would turn their main statement around to say: “Because this is good for society and the environment ….and it also happens to be good for business!”

Semantics you might say, but it makes a big difference.

Trash away!

Imagine what kind of world we would be living in if we had to bury our trash right into our backyard? Luckily, we don’t have to do that because there is a place where we can pile all our toxic waste out of sight, a place called “Away.” Isn’t that the place? All our waste is thrown “away” once we are done with it, isn’t it?

That takes care of the problem, but to see the effect of that trash on our land if we leave it around our homes, if we don’t recycle it or compost it, if we continue acquiring things with excess packaging and toxins, we can simply look at what is happening now in the region of Naples, Italy.

The garbage crisis in Naples has been a problem for several years already, but never to the level reached today. The cause: mismanagement, political interference, mafia profiteering and the ability of those responsible to deflect the attention and the blame elsewhere.

That trash attracts rodents, with the heat, flies and insects come around, and the odor will make living in its proximity unbearable. Infection like salmonella and shigella can abound. The rates of cancer of the stomach, kidney, liver and lungs are already exceeding the regional or national norms.

Note that this problem is only related to the region of Naples, other regions of Italy are well organized with recycling and composting. Neapolitans are fed up with the problem, and like other Italians, they are disgusted with what is happening.

In the pictures below, you can see all the items that could have been recycled or composted, or simply avoided in packaging. When it comes to waste, recycling is not the only solution. What is also important is the amount of plastic, paper and metals used in packaging all of those items. Eliminating the problem at the source is the first step; including recycling and composting is the second.

I like to think about what I buy and how I can dispose of it. With an increase in our population and the way we are consuming, the consequences of too much trash piling up in the magic place called “Away” might come closer to our doors if we don’t pay attention.

Here are some pictures:

I know you care

I base my presentations on that thought.

I do, simply because I believe that everyone cares about the well-being of our world. They do so because I believe they are innately loving and compassionate. At times, (often?) it is buried below the daily struggles that our society has brought forth, but regardless, I think that compassion is still there.

I read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago: Does being ethical pay? I thought about it today as I was preparing a presentation. This article talks about how customers would prefer to buy ethical products and even pay a slight premium for the ethically made goods. But they went much further in the other direction: They would buy unethically made products only at a steep discount.

That was really interesting, I thought, and confirmed my opinion that people do care. When I offer a presentation, I keep that in mind. This is not a simple and irrational hope I use to give me the confidence that my message will be heard. I truly believe in it. I believe that everyone cares for the well-being of their families, the health of their friends and neighbors. They care for the cleanliness of the water out of their faucets or the air in their towns. The things they don’t care about are those that they don’t know about.

Given, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can to be taken into consideration at any point. But, still, I seriously doubt that anyone would be able to actually watch a child work in horrible conditions to make a T-shirt, or witness a dog being put through excruciating pain to test a cosmetic product, and then buy it without being affected by what they had been seen. The saying: “Out of sight, out of mind” is quite true; the further we stand from a hideous act, the less it will affect us. Likewise, I believe that the closer we are to it or the more we know about it, the better the chances are it will influence us.

The experiment done in that WSJ article proves it. It proves that people care, and that they would change their behaviors because they did. Not only did they change their behavior, but they wanted to penalize the unethical companies by asking them to lower their prices, as if they wanted to inflict punishment for the suffering or damage that had been caused.

Steven Biko, a human rights activist during the apartheid period in South Africa, said: “If you change the way people think, things will never be the same.” In the last few years, after I learned about all that was happening around the world and how I contributed to it, I chose to do something. The things I now know could not be erased from my mind. Had I decided to turn the other way and ignore the facts, I would have lied to myself, my family and the world I live in.

As I tell people about what I learned, I hope,  because I know they care, that they will also look at the world with a different heart. I hope that just like me, they will choose to do something.

Knowledge is quintessential.

Ahh, the bounties of the farmers market

Sunday mornings in Walnut Creek are farmers market days. I invite – well sometimes I push – my daughter to bike with me downtown. She often accepts after I promise we’ll also buy chocolate chip cookies or tarts made by the local bakeries. Not a hard sell, I admit, those cookies are delicious.

We ride the path two and a half miles to the market, lock the bikes to a post and start walking the short, crowded, bountiful market. While my daughter aims for the bakers with a few dollars in hand, I make my stops at the organic stands and fill my tote bags with zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, lettuce and sweet fruit that I just can’t wait to get home and eat.

Everyone is so cheerful, children strolling along their parents, music bands, people standing by the caricaturist or the clown; just a nice place to be. I’m also amazed to see how many people bike there. I know that gas prices are a big reason behind it, but when I see those bikes with a basket attached to them, I often think that this is not a one time bike ride. The other “green” thing I see is how many more people use their canvas bags instead of plastic, or even reuse their plastic bags for the individual vegetables and fruit they pick from the stands.

There are so many reasons I love the farmers market, for reasons that range from the profound to the practical. They enrich local farmers in ways that are essential if family farms are to survive. Environmentally, they preserve farmland and reward family farmers who produce high quality, fresh products; it also reduces pollution by buying locally instead of transporting the goods from across the world. Aesthetically, they’re a feast for the senses. Socially, they animate public spaces and renew downtown neighborhoods. Economically, they generate new local and regional activity. In a word, they create community. But here is the reason “I” like it so much: nutritionally, they bring healthy, farm-fresh produce to consumers who may have forgotten what non-processed foods taste like. Winter farmer markets are not as bountiful, but summers, they are a feast you can’t miss. What’s not to like.

Give the farmers market a chance, I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

As my daughter and I bike our way back home, it’s almost lunch time, and I salivate thinking about the sliced tomatoes sprinkled with olive oil, salt and basil, the penne with eggplant, the zucchini sandwiches, or the risotto wrapped in blanched Swiss chard I’m going to prepare….. She, of course, can’t wait for dessert.

Activism: At what cost ?

I just read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the Santa Cruz, CA firebombs targeting biologists using animals in their research.

I question these extremist organizations whose tactics undermine whatever legitimate arguments that they may have. There is an apparent dichotomy between these groups and the mass population of consumers, mainly caused by shocking activism aimed at intimidating people out of their mundane and apathetic lives. Is the use and display of violence the solution to compassion? I see unrelenting activism as a hindrance in obtaining the desired results.

Now, let me clarify one thing. I disagree with the way animals are being used to test our products. In many cases, animals suffered and ultimately died so that Botox, household cleaning supplies, cosmetics and toiletries could be deemed safe for consumer use. Practices that would usually be considered cruelty to animals and punished with fines and jail time can be legally carried out by scientists in a laboratory. While reading books like Animal Liberation from Peter Singer, I was shocked to learn that it is not only small rodents that are being used for testing, tested animal species include chimpanzees, dogs, cats, ferrets, rabbits and monkeys. We have alternative testing methods, including testing human cells and tissues, or artificial skin and eyes designed to react like the human body, and many companies are already switching to that, I hope that many more will follow.

I understand the rage. In the past, I, likewise, had heated debates with my friends about issues pertaining to animal rights, social injustice, politics, and environmental issues. (Did I mention my barbecue experiment? ) In the process I have damaged ties, and created an uncomfortable atmosphere in which my friends tended to avoid discussions of any sensitive nature. Similarly, I fear that too many people get entangled in their own emotions when they try to convince their families and friends about the changes they would want to see. I learned that all we do with this type of behavior is create more alienation and division, the antithesis to what is needed for social justice, animal rights and the development of a sustainable community.

Had I not been so confrontational, and used a more sensitive approach in my discussions, I probably would have raised my friends’ curiosity and led to better outcomes; but I failed, instead of helping my causes, I have delayed the time in which we could have enjoyed more honorable resolutions.

We all have affinities for something or someone, and we take steps in defending or protecting them. Comparatively, activists have an innate connection with the issues they are trying to change, and any form of suffering touches them deeply. From the beginning, I’ve struggled with how hard it is to fight for social justice, animal liberation or for a better environment. It takes a lot of courage, self-control and passion. I am trying to change a world that has created such a comfortable way of life, where people take for granted anything or anyone enabling them to live in such abundance and complacency. This is a world where anyone getting in the way of their established lifestyle will be looked at as an unwanted pest.

Pushing people to do something doesn’t work. I know this myself; I also hate to be ordered around and pushed into changing my lifestyle. The immediate response to authoritarian admonishments and harsh comments is one of defensiveness and rebellion. If someone uses fear or tries to make me feel guilty for what I do, I will avoid them and run the other way. In my first years I did just that – I build a bigger thicker wall between them and my newly found and compassionate lifestyle. Not good.

Instead of concentrating solely on resolving the world’s issues, I decided to focus on raising compassion, through stories and images; connecting and educating people, but also trying to understand where they were coming from. We don’t have to feel superior just because “we care”. Reciprocal understanding of the context in which people live: their work, their lifestyle, their upbringing, suffering, religions, cultures, environment, etc.., anything that has played a role in forging their character is to be looked into. We tend to forget the suffering, isolation, and hardening of the heart others might have gone through. Let alone the simple fact that they love the comfort and abundance they have so rightfully earned, and won’t give it up so easily to someone constantly badgering them.

I am amazed by how marketers use subtle tactics to impinge on consumers in the form of billboards and commercials with hidden messages leading people to buy their products. They recruit students to spread hints about a “cool product you must have.” They display banners on TV and web sites, ads in newspapers and magazines, and sponsor celebrities to endorse their products. Why aren’t activists using the same stratagems to cultivate more compassion? Let’s put that energy and anger into something more constructive and far-reaching, not destructive and fearful.

One of the greatest lesson I’ve learned in the past few years, is to not judge others so lightly. The seemingly indifferent SUV driver, non-vegetarian, polluter might have a very philanthropic heart. I’ve been speaking in so many Rotary and Kiwanis clubs; these are the people donating money to build water wells in Africa, or even the ones engineering them, helping humans and animals around the world; wonderful people with a great heart. Now I hope to bring a message to them that will show what else they can do to help the children and animals around the world by just making small adjustments to their lifestyle.

But my biggest lesson is this: to see changes in our society I cannot dwell on the gruesome injustice that I witness every day. This will reduce me to an angry, embittered and hopeless being. Nobody wants to be in the presence of a person who is always angry, nagging and fretful. I kept my friends because I learned to be respectful towards them and showed by example rather than by using my fists. I also applaud any steps taken towards a more compassionate world, whether it is from an individual, a corporation, or a high ranking leader. Everything counts and together we can.

You already know that I’m not perfect, but I always try to be non-judgmental and hope to have the wisdom and patience to reach people through their hearts.

Self-fulfilling cynicism and apathy will only perpetuate more violence, segregation and status quo.

Tiny Eco Cars

I was out of the country for the last few weeks, on vacation in Switzerland with my daughter; a last minute trip that we thoroughly enjoyed.

As I was sitting in my parent’s living room, watching Italian, Swiss or French TV, I was amazed by the number of car commercials offering vehicles with over forty miles per gallon. Where are those cars in the USA?

The cost of gas in Europe is over $ 8.00/gallon (July 08, mostly due to taxes) and despite being double the price we have in our country, I didn’t see considerably less cars on the road than I had seen years before. Although they all are unhappy about what they have to disburse at the pump – imagine having to pull out over $150.00 to fill it up – it is business as usual for them, with a slight moderation, because many are driving cars that are so much more gas efficient than we know.

In Europe, an average car will get about 47 miles per gallon driving on the highway, and 36 miles per gallon in city traffic, whereas the average U.S car will get only 27 miles per gallon on the highway and 21 miles per gallon in city traffic. Besides that, let’s not forget that size matters. You can’t get 47 miles per gallon driving 2 tons on the road. Many of these cars are much smaller in size than the average size we can get in this country. In fact, the difference in car size between the average European car and the average U.S. car may be what is mostly responsible for the differences in fuel efficiency.

Check out the new Fiat 500, (and you won’t need Tony on this one again) it’s a remake of the 50s model, yes tiny, just like the mini-cooper, Smart, or the VW bug, but for the usual daily, commute where ninety percent of the cars on the road have only one passenger, the driver, what else do you need? Oh, wait; I know what you are worrying about, being crushed by one of those monsters on the road that will inadvertently push you like a suppository into the rear of a big truck. Yep, I know what you mean, but hey, hopefully, with gas prices going up, all you will see on the road are other tiny cars, just like yours, that won’t scare you much.

Regardless, car makers are starting to restructure their plants.  Ford is preparing plans to retool some U.S. plants to produce small passenger cars that the company has been making and selling mainly in Europe. Hopefully the new Ford Fiesta Econetic at 63 mpg, will show here too.

Anyhow, I’m hoping that we will soon get more than just a few choices like the Prius or Honda Civic in the country. I would like to be able to choose between a panoply of fuel efficient cars, and hopefully I won’t have to fear feeling like that “conical mass of medicinal substance that melts upon insertion.”