Author says challenging simple concepts can save planet—Going green doesn't have to mean using less…

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/cfft-asc052909.php

Public release date: 29-May-2009

Contact: Caitlin Kealey
[e-mail]
613-520-3552
http://www.fedcan.ca/english/">Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Author says challenging simple concepts can save planet

Going green doesn't have to mean using less power or slower economic growth

Author and democracy activist Frances Moore Lappé says we already know how to solve the pressing issues of our time, such as climate change and world hunger.

But she says our own pre-conceived ideas about how things should work – our mental map of the world – is actually preventing us from taking action.

In a speech at Ottawa's Carleton University as part of the 78th Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Lappé called for a wholesale revamping of the way we view government, the economy and democracy. If we manage to do it, she says, we can save ourselves from our own demise.

Lappé, made famous in the 1970s by her bestselling vegetarian cookbook Diet for a Small Planet, is an activist, author and co-founder with her daughter Anna Lappé of The Small Planet Institute. She says many people today are frightened by the potential for disaster, ecological and otherwise, and fearful that nothing can be done to prevent it. Lappé says we can do something – if we challenge five assumptions about the way the world works.

The first is that going green means "powering down," or reducing our consumption of energy. Lappé says all we have to do is stop getting energy from fossil fuels and start getting it from renewable sources like the sun.

"Every day the sun supplies us with 15,000 times the amount of energy we're now using in fossil fuels," she says. If everyone had a solar panel or windmill on their roof, we wouldn't be dependent on oil companies – and as individuals we'd feel more in control of our own destiny.

The second idea to dispense with, she says, is that going green means an end to economic growth. What we have to do, she says, is change our idea of what growth is. Right now, she says, the Walton family – owners of Wal-Mart – controls as much wealth as the bottom 40 per cent of the U.S. population. Is it growth if the wealthy families just get wealthier?

There's plenty of room for growth, she says, if we learn to do things more efficiently. For example, she says various estimates show that between 25 and 50 per cent of all food produced in the United States is wasted. And that every year, Americans throw out some 300 pounds of packaging material.

The third idea she wants to challenge is the notion that humans are by nature greedy, self-centred and materialistic. Under certain conditions, she said, we can be monsters. But there wouldn't be 6.8 billion of us on the planet today if we didn't also have positive qualities such as empathy, cooperation and fairness. As a society, she said we should simply try to make sure our rules try to bring out the best, not the worst in us.

The fourth idea she disputes is that we dislike rules. She says humans crave structure, particularly rules that make sense to us as individuals and which foster a sense of inclusion. We will accept the right rules, she says, citing as an example a German law that enables individual citizens to sell power they produce at home, through renewable sources such windmills or solar panels for example, to utilities at a guaranteed price. People there have embraced the idea, she says.

The final concept she wants to challenge is the idea that our problems are so pressing there's no time for democracy, and only an authoritarian regime can save us. She believes the only hope for the planet is to trust in people and set rules that bring out the best in us.

"The mother of all issues is who makes the decisions," she says, adding that if decisions are taken by people with the most money, we all suffer.

Lappé says she's not against a market economy – just the idea that there's only one way to run the economy.

She also wants to challenge the idea, she says, that change is impossible. Recent history has shown that seemingly insoluble problems have in fact been solved.

"It's not possible to know what's possible."

###

For more information, please call

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[liberal N proud]

1. If everyone were allowed to have solar panels and windmills

If only!

Many communities are passing ordinances or covenants against such green devices because they would be unsightly.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. "… communities are passing ordinances or covenants against such green devices …"

I know some misguided communities have done this sort of thing. However, how many are we really talking about? (I don't know of any such restrictions in my area.)

We shouldn't say to ourselves, "The folks up in Scenic Highland Heights Vista View have a rule against solar panels that we are prevented from having them here;" And the ecologically minded people in SHHVV should move.

There have been all sorts of silly laws written over the years. Such laws can (and should) be taken off the books by the people who wrote them in the first place.

[kestrel91316]

4. My pet peeve is the places that prohibit clotheslines......

[daleanime]

2. Why is common sense...

so uncommon?

[NNadir]

5. And "I say" that "the author" is full of bourgeois shit.

I am really, really, really, really tired of "authors" claiming that this crisis can be solved without <em>massive</em> sacrifice and difficult struggle.

Particularly odious is "authors" who are handing out this tripe in first world countries while billions of people live without adequate water, sanitation or shelter.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pscot]

7. It's hard to take this seriously

We're behind the 8-ball. There's probably at least 2 degrees of warming already baked in the cake. Atmospheric carbon is rising rapidly, so things promise to get a lot worse. And all we have to do to address the problem is make some profound changes in our government, our economic system and the way we conduct ourselves generally. She sees no problem with this because people are fundamentally good, and want to do the right thing. It makes my head spin.

[XemaSab]

8. Is this hatrack's corrollary?

"The worse things get, the more banal the suggestions?" :shrug:

[Dead_Parrot]

11. Things must be worse than I thought, then. nt

[bananas]

9. Wikipedia has a nice write-up on her

Historian Howard Zinn writes: “A small number of people in every generation are forerunners, in thought, action, spirit, who swerve past the barriers of greed and power to hold a torch high for the rest of us. Lappé is one of those.”

More snips:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Moore_Lapp%C3%A9

Frances Moore Lappé (born February 10, 1944) is a noted social change and democracy activist, and the author of 16 books, including the three-million-copy bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet (originally published in 1971). Her most recent book is Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad (2007).

<snip>

Throughout her works Lappé has argued that world hunger is caused not by the lack of food but rather by the inability of hungry people to gain access to the abundant amount of food that exists in the world and/or food-producing resources because they are simply too poor. She has posited that our current "thin democracy" creates a maldistribution of power and resources that inevitably creates waste and an artificial scarcity of the essentials for sustainable living.

<snip>

Lappé began her writing career early in life. She first gained prominence in the early 1970s with the publication of her book Diet for a Small Planet, which has sold several million copies. In 1975, with Joseph Collins she launched the California-based Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) to educate Americans about the causes of world hunger. In 1990, Lappé co-founded the Center for Living Democracy, a 10-year initiative to accelerate the spread of democratic innovations in which regular citizens contribute to problem solving. She served as founding editor of the Center’s American News Service (1995-2000), which placed stories of citizen problem-solving in nearly half the nation’s largest newspapers. In 2000, she was a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

<snip>

Lappé has received 17 honorary doctorates from distinguished institutions, including the University of Michigan, Kenyon College, Allegheny College Lewis and Clark College and Grinell College. In 1987 in Sweden, Lappé became the fourth American to receive the Right Livelihood Award sometimes called the Alternative Nobel. In 2003, she received the Rachel Carson Award from the National Nutritional Foods Association. She is one of twelve living "women whose words have changed the world" selected by the Women's National Book Association. In 2008, she was honored by the James Beard Foundation as the Humanitarian of the Year.

Historian Howard Zinn writes: “A small number of people in every generation are forerunners, in thought, action, spirit, who swerve past the barriers of greed and power to hold a torch high for the rest of us. Lappé is one of those.” The Washington Post says: “Some of the twentieth century’s most vibrant activist thinkers have been American women – Margaret Mead, Jeanette Rankin, Barbara Ward, Dorothy Day – who took it upon themselves to pump life into basic truths. Frances Moore Lappé is among them."


Her son, Anthony, is a New York City-based producer and is the executive editor of the Guerrilla News Network.

Writings

* Diet for a Small Planet, Ballantine Books, 1971, 1975, 1982, 1991. ISBN 0345023781
* Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity (with Joseph Collins), Houghton Mifflin, 1977, Ballantine Books, 1979.
* What To Do After You Turn Off the T.V., Ballantine Books, 1985.
* World Hunger: Twelve Myths (with Joseph Collins), Grove Press, 1986, 1998.
* Rediscovering America's Values, Ballantine Books, 1989
* The Quickening of America: Rebuilding Our Nation, Remaking Our Lives (with Paul Martin Du Bois), Jossey-Bass, 1994.
* Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet (with Anna Lappé), Tarcher/Penguin, 2002.
* You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear (with Jeffrey Perkins), Tarcher/Penguin, 2004.
* Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life, Jossey-Bass, 2005.
* Getting A Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad, Small Planet Media, 2007.

[Dead_Parrot]

10. So let me get this straight:

We don't need to cut our consumption, or growth, because humans are empathic, cooperative and fair, and we'll regulate ourselves because we love rules.

What the hell?

She believes the only hope for the planet is to trust in people and set rules that bring out the best in us.

We're all fucked, then.

[excess_3]

12. all of humanity deserves to have electricity ..n/t

[NickB79]

14. Why? nt.

[The2ndWheel]

13. We can have everything, without giving up anything?

"If everyone had a solar panel or windmill on their roof, we wouldn't be dependent on oil companies – and as individuals we'd feel more in control of our own destiny."

Unlimited hyper-individualism?

"What we have to do, she says, is change our idea of what growth is. Right now, she says, the Walton family – owners of Wal-Mart – controls as much wealth as the bottom 40 per cent of the U.S. population. Is it growth if the wealthy families just get wealthier?"

Everyone can be a Walton?

"The third idea she wants to challenge is the notion that humans are by nature greedy, self-centred and materialistic."

I'd say #1 and #2 would challenge her challenge.

"The fourth idea she disputes is that we dislike rules."

"We will accept the right rules"

It's one or the other.

"The final concept she wants to challenge is the idea that our problems are so pressing there's no time for democracy, and only an authoritarian regime can save us. She believes the only hope for the planet is to trust in people and set rules that bring out the best in us."

Are we trusting people, or setting specific "best in us" rules for people?

[XemaSab]

18. If a man alone on a desert island finds a dollar

his first act is going to be to hide that dollar from thieves.

[GliderGuider]

15. I'm stunned.

So it's really true that horseshit has no political allegiance. The left and the right are equally allergic to reality.

Wowsers.

[phantom power]

16. Search your feelings... you knew it to be true!

[IrateCitizen]

17. I have respect for much of Lappe's work, but here she's just plain wrong!

The way in which this issue needs to be framed is that we can achieve a better QUALITY OF LIFE by giving up some of the trappings of our STANDARD OF LIVING.

The notion that we can get through this with the same levels of aggregate material comfort by all of humanity learning to play nice with each other is just plain nuts -- and worse, it helps bolster claims by those who will not accept any downgrade in those material comforts.

I'm sincerely disappointed in Lappe on this front.