Watching the world burn / Photo Kwest

Petroleum is vitally important to each and every single aspect of modern human civilization. It not only runs our vehicles, but it’s also manufactured into our plastics and it’s what makes our huge factory farms possible.

Approximately 10 calories of fossil fuels are required to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten in the U.S.

Pesticides are made from oil, farming implements such as tractors and trailers are constructed and powered using oil, and food is distributed across oil-powered transportation networks.

In the U.S., the average piece of food travels almost 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate. As the peak oil website Life After the Oil Crash says, “in short, people gobble oil like two-legged SUVs”.

What can be done to turn the tide and become less dependent on oil?

Many pro-environment activists have this belief that if people were just educated, or if they were just taught morals at home, they’d behave differently. However, I don’t think that’s the truth.

Anticipating The End

What I’m about to suggest won’t win me many friends, but then again, for all of human history it’s been easier to look out a window and find faults with the world than it has been for us to look in the mirror and do the same thing.

I’m alluding to the fact that 44% of Americans are confident that Jesus will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years. As New York Times best-selling author Sam Harris said in a recent article in TIME Magazine,

“Given the most common interpretation of Biblical prophecy, it is not an exaggeration to say that nearly half the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world.

It should be clear that this faith-based nihilism provides its adherents with absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization – economically, environmentally or geopolitically.”

That is not to say that religion is the problem. But religion that is bought and sold for political purposes that reach no further than lining the pockets of those who use it as currency to get in power, that’s the problem.

Religious leaders who remain silent in the face of war profiteering, environmental devastation and health violations – that’s another.

Educate And Mobilize

What would Jesus do? / Photo EIRincon

I believe that religious leaders across the country and around the world have a moral imperative to educate and mobilize their congregations and constituents to not only vote against what they believe to be morally reprehensible – but also to vote FOR what they find morally responsible.

And what greater moral responsibility is there than taking care of the body you have, the land you live on and those you share it with?

Even if we are living in the End Times, (which I’m not convinced that we are), I cannot fathom how an almighty supreme being would view us giving up as being the moral thing to do.

Raping the planet where you live while knowing it will kill people in the process (yourself included), seems about as far from moral as I can possibly imagine.

The true litmus test of one’s moral character doesn’t come in the times of peace and prosperity. It comes when things are at their worst. And right now, the worst is just beyond our line of sight. BARELY.

Most of us can’t see the problem firsthand like we could if, for instance, a dust cloud from an approaching army was rising up over the horizon.

My goal is to educate people so that they can see the coming storm themselves. And so that they can see that it’s not too late to avert this. That hastening the apocalypse is NOT something that a supreme being would want.

That no matter what your religious stance, or lack thereof, it is morally imperative that we become the changes in the world that we wish to see before we usher in a terrible self-fulfilling prophecy.

Human Powered Future

I feel the siren’s call to live a life better examined and in doing so often question myself, my own beliefs and my own capability for irrational action. But it always comes back to one simple answer:

Even if global warming is a hoax, even if the peak in oil production is millions of years away and even if we are living in the End Times…there are more than enough political, financial, humanitarian and national security reasons to change our living and working habits right here, right now, this instant.

All of our problems are caused by human and thusly can be solved by humans.

The majority of problems have come from the divisions and distractions that the rich have perpetrated upon the poor. This power structure has been able to exist because of our lack of education, of resources, of technology, of communication and of organization.

But the leaps and bounds that we’ve had with the internet are leveling the playing field.

While many bad people around the world have pooled together their wealth and their political power to accomplish that which they wanted – it’s now time the progressives to do the same.

It’s time to write an agenda for a more perfect civilization and for all of us to do our part to help make that happen. It’s time to stop fighting weeds and to start planting seeds of social change.

It’s time for an organic revolution.

Do you agree that short-sighted religious doctrine is impeding environmental salvation? Share your thoughts in the comments!

In the six years I’ve lived in Los Angeles, four of them have been without a car. This wasn’t an accident. Rather, this was a conscious choice that I gladly made after weighing all of the options.

For many, this decision would be tantamount to social suicide, especially in a town where everything is known to be “20 minutes away” regardless of actual distance or amount of traffic congestion.

But it’s nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be. It was a simple matter of shifting my priorities and aligning my lifestyle habits to match them.

So how does a metropolitan person in the 21st century go about ditching a car?

The first thing I did was move closer to my job and along the path of a major bus line. This diminished my commute from 35 minutes of stressful driving to twelve minutes of blissful “me time” – I was free to read or write or listen to music or just enjoy the scenery.

My gasoline expenses, car payments, insurance bills, maintenance fees, parking costs and possible traffic tickets evaporated like the fumes from the natural gas-powered bus I now rode. And the best part, beyond my ability to invest these savings, came in knowing I’d lightened my ecological footprint.

I can’t recommend enough how much better your life can be if you give up your car. In fact, this course of action may become necessity in the near future, as all evidence indicates petroleum will start to run out (for a primer, check out my interview about Peak Oil).

Stalled In The Driveway

However, there are roadblocks in the future of mass transit, especially here in Los Angeles. One simple truth is that in addition to running out of petroleum, we’re also running out of land.

We’re bulldozing houses and businesses to make room for our gas-guzzling cars (”eminent domain (pdf)“) and a 2001 report by the California Energy Commission for the State Legislature indicates that by the year 2020, California is expected to be home to 45 million people and more than 31.5 million motor vehicles (up substantially from the 35 million people driving 22.8 million vehicles in the State in 2000).

Where are we going to get the room for all these highways, vehicles and parking lots? Right now, we’re sandwiched between the two greatest enemies of any proposal: budget and safety.

That means we either take out massive Federal subsidy loans to pay for more light rails and subways or we wait for the next earthquake to destroy all our hard work when we double deck the 101 freeway — a terrifying yet serious proposal that’s been brought up time and time again – can you imagine the carnage of 50,000 motorists crushed to death?

I have to believe that there’s a better system. And what many people don’t realize is that an almost-infinitely expandable public transportation infrastructure is already 75% completed. One that’s much less expensive to implement and maintain, that’s much more environmentally-friendly and boasts a safety rate that other systems only aspire to.

And this infrastructure has the potential to move a comparable amount of people as the subway lines. But nobody has taken steps to utilize it…yet.

The World Of Tomorrow

I have a picture in my mind of the future of Los Angeles, plucked straight from the past and modified to help alleviate some of our current transportation woes. To see the future, all we have to do is look to the skyline…

Here in Los Angeles, we have the Metro Red Line, Blue Line, Green Line and Orange Line. What if we also had the Metro Skyline?

A fleet of airships that carried as many people as subway cars, that docked on the roofs of buildings that were converted to landing bays (parking garages, for example) and ran on green energy such as solar power? What if we had a system of buses and subways in the sky?

I know what you’re thinking already, and I don’t blame you because it’s hardwired into our collective consciousness…

The Hindenburg disaster was over exaggerated and wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t letting Nazi ships land on American soil.

See, that’s the part they leave out – that it only caught on fire because it was filled with hydrogen at a time when all other airships were filled with helium. Hydrogen is one of the most explosive elements in the universe (it’s found in the heart of most stars!), yet helium needs very rare circumstances to ignite.

And the only reason the Hindenburg was even filled with hydrogen in the first place was because the Nazis had acquired it and plastered it with swastikas, so we embargoed them on helium (the U.S. produces 84% of the world’s supply as a by-product of mining) and they were forced to use incredibly explosive hydrogen instead.

Of course, I’m not suggesting we should have given the Nazis helium. I’m suggesting that if we hadn’t let them into U.S. airspace, this tragedy might never have happened.

Some more quick facts about the “tragedy.” Contrary to popular belief, most of the crew and passengers survived. Of a total of 36 passengers and 61 crew, 13 passengers, 22 crew members and one ground crewmember died. Most deaths did not arise from the fire, but were suffered by those who leapt from the burning ship. Those passengers who rode the ship on its gentle descent to the ground escaped unharmed.

But who could ever forget Herbert Morrison’s recorded radio eyewitness report from the landing field of, “Oh, the humanity!”? Which, by the way, wasn’t even broadcast until the next day and had parts later dubbed onto the newsreel footage to give an incorrect impression that the words and film had always been together.

And I won’t even get into how the airline industry bigwigs, including Howard Hughes and Juan Trippe, helped to spread some paranoia about zeppelins in order to give their own fledgling airline industry a leg-up.

A Viable Alternative

The bottom line is that these things aren’t “widow-makers” waiting to explode. And they aren’t slow-moving turtles — they can go about 150 mph, actually. They can carry over 100 people in their gondolas. The hardest part is landing them, which could be solved easily if we gave them the same amount of research that we give to, oh, Viagra.

They could be made out of lightweight plastics and run off of solar power/hydrogen cell batteries. The infrastructure for landing pads is incredibly expandable, as all you need to do is convert existing rooftops.

Basically, airships just got some bad press and have sat stagnant for no good reason. It’s a technology that has rotted on the vine and been relegated to studying weather patterns or tracking animals in the wild or making an appearance at the Superbowl.

Pretty humbling for an entire field of aviation that once ruled the skies, if you ask me. The only real downside to improving them with modern technology is that you’d see an increase in lame rooftop advertisements.

I think the best way to turn this idea into a reality would be to start it as a tourist venture first. But there are a few factors that would keep the Skyline grounded.

• 1. The Federal Aviation Administration’s rules on lighter-than-air vehicles.
• 2. Investor hesitancy.
• 3. Public fear and misconception.
• 4. Rising petroleum prices.

In Part II of this article, I’ll address these issues, possible solutions, what life would be like for tourists who could see a city from above as well as from ground-level, the effects on people who live in cities with airships and other unconventional methods of mass transit.

Derek C Wallace is a conscious consumer and an advocate for organic reform. In fact, he’s embarking on a world-wide trip to learn about sustainability and share it with the rest of the US. Visit his website to learn more.

What Manhattan might look like if sea levels continue to rise. Photo illustration by John Blackford; original photograph by Cameron Davidson (featured in Vanity Fair)

With our current technological and economic models? Absolutely not. No doubt about it. Petroleum is a non-renewable resource, international wars are waged over it and the environment is decimated in the process.

However, there’s no reason in the world that we can’t change our lifestyle habits.

But we have to stop looking for heroes to lead us. We have to start acknowledging the true power we have within ourselves. And that power is conscious consumerism.

Every product we buy, every service we purchase, every morsel we consume and every vehicle we travel in has a real and undeniable effect on the world. My personal goal over the next decade is to raise the bar on my own living situation as high as possible, with the end result being “total sustainability”.

The Will To Change

At the beginning of 2006, I will have started as an overweight, out of shape consumer with an average amount of credit card debt and personal property. By the end of 2016, I will be a debt-free, in-shape man who produces his own food and actually puts more into the environment than he takes away.

And I’m going to document every step of this journey so that others can figure out how to do so for themselves.

If you take a look at all of the choices I’ve made over this past year (getting rid of my car, shopping at farmer’s markets instead of grocery stores, minimizing the amount of plastic products I’ve bought), I have reduced my carbon emissions and petroleum consumption to levels that will balance out with the amount of international travel I’ll be doing this year.

But airplanes are notorious for the amount of emissions they make, and I’m more than aware of this.

Calculating Your Carbon Footprint

That’s why I’m also using “carbon offsetting” on my trip, as offered by companies such as Be Green. There are many different ways to do this, but the ways I’ve found most effective are to plant enough trees to absorb the carbon emissions my trip will put out and to invest in solar energy companies so as to help create a surplus of renewable energy.

There are companies out there that can help you calculate your carbon footprint and then facilitate necessary actions to zero it out. Buyer beware, though, as many companies are falsely hopping on the bandwagon and “greenwashing” themselves to appear more eco-friendly than they actually are.

Now, I want to emphasize that carbon offsetting is by no means a catch-all, cure-all.

Balancing out our carbon emissions doesn’t stop the pollution which is caused by the mining and refining of petroleum. Nor does it stop the international wars that are waged over it. I’d hate to see people grow complacent and think that carbon offsetting is all that they need to do in order to continue traveling long distances.

That’s why I only suggest using this method as a stepping stone in the right direction.

I think it’s so very important for all of us to personally take stock of how much of an environmental footprint we leave on the world, so that we can focus on lessening that footprint every day, week, month and year – with the goal being total sustainability.

Think of conscious consumerism as your toolbox, and carbon offsetting as your hammer. However, you can’t just build a house using only a hammer, right?

Derek C Wallace is a conscious consumer and an advocate for organic reform. In fact, he’s embarking on a world-wide trip to learn about sustainability and share it with the rest of the US. Visit his website to learn more.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, the impact on the Cuban economy was devastating. The country lost approximately 80% of its exports and its Gross Domestic Product dropped 34%. Along with food and medicines that were imported, half of their oil came from the USSR and all oil imports trickled to a mere 10% of previous levels.

When this happened, Cuba’s transportation, industrial and agricultural systems were paralyzed. This time in the country’s history was known as the Special Period, when waiting for a bus could take three hours, power outages could last up to 16 hours, food consumption was cut up to 1/5th and the average Cuban lost about 20 pounds.

Before the crisis, Cuba used more pesticides than the United States. Much of their land was de-mineralized. Many crumbling buildings that could not be repaired were torn down. The empty lots lay idle for years until the food shortages forced Cuban citizens to make use of every piece of land.

It took three to five years of intensely “healing” the soil with amendments, compost, “green manure” and practices such as crop rotation and inter-planting (mixed crops grown in same plot) to return the land to a healthy state. Bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides replaced most of their chemicals, and today, 80% of Cuba’s produce is organically grown.

Initially, this was an ad-hoc process where ordinary Cubans took the initiative to grow their own food in whatever piece of land was available.

But the government encouraged this practice and later assisted in promoting it. Organic urban gardens sprung up throughout the capital of Havana and other urban centers on roof-tops, patios, and unused parking lots in raised beds as well as “squatting” on empty lots.

These efforts were furthered by Australian agriculturalists that came to the island in 1993 to teach permaculture and to “train the trainers”. The Cuban government then sent these teams throughout the country to train others. The shift from despair to hope is all beautifully captured in the documentary “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil“.

Living here in Southern California, I am often ashamed at all the wasted space we have lying idle. Rows upon rows of rooftops that could have gardens or solar panels on them. Buses and above-ground subway systems like the Metro Blue Line and Green Line could have supplemental solar panels on top (thankfully many of them use natural gas, but that too will peak in production approximately 10 years after petroleum peaks).

I see the beachfront communities that have no de-salination plants that could turn ocean water into a potable drinking and bathing source. I see the power structure that exists, the coal and oil monopolies, and I lay awake at night wondering when we are going to kick these gangsters out of power. When are we going to stop letting them run our lives and our businesses and our recreation activities?

I think we have much to learn from the incredible success Cuba had in dealing with its own artificial peak in oil production. As they proved, there is tremendous opportunity for urban centers to cut their oil usage and take up organic farming.

First and foremost, urban dwellers are the ones who need their food shipped in to them since they don’t have as much room in their apartments and condos. We’ve already seen them shifting their shopping trends to places like Whole Foods and farmer’s markets.

People are tired of the lacking standards the FDA has for what is considered “fit for human consumption.” They’re fed up with all the advertising and marketing gimmicks that the fast food industries keep trying to inundate them with. They’re sick and tired of not only being obese, but also FROM being obese.

A recent poll found that 77% of Americans said that a corporation’s environmental reputation affected what they bought.

In response to this phenomenon, the corporate world has gone to great lengths to market itself and its products as the greenest of the green – a tactic known as “greenwashing.” Greenwashing is a marketing ploy where corporations give a positive public image to putatively environmentally unsound practices.

So as consumers, it’s up to us to start questioning what we eat, where it was grown and how it was transported to us. There are many great sites out there for educating yourself, such as www.corpwatch.org and www.knowmore.org, for example.

You can even find farmers’ markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably-grown food in your area through the interactive map at www.localharvest.org