Forget Shorter Showers: Why Personal Change Does Not Equal Political Change
by Derrick Jensen

Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide. 

Or let’s talk water. We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers?Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen. 

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Human noise pollution has been found to have enormous effects on the songs of birds and other animals.

“A male European blackbird was terrorizing the neighborhood. For several months, he started singing at around 5 a.m. each day, but this was no ordinary song. The bird imitated the sounds of ambulance sirens and car alarms at a jarringly life-like volume. It even produced cell-phone ring tones that went unanswered for hours.”

Read more about it here: 

http://www.conservationmagazine.org/articles/v8n2/not-so-silent-spring/

There are TONS of grants for residential alternative energy projects, offered from the Ohio Department of Development:

http://www.odod.state.oh.us/cdd/oee/elfgrant.htm

A short and comprehensible explanation of the program is at:

http://www.greenmadesimple.com/incentives/details/ohio-energy-loan-fund-elf-renewable-energy-loan-program

From: The Alternative Consumer 
Published February 17, 2009 09:39 AM

[...]

“Well, perhaps necessity and a government mandate will overcome the challenges presented by climactic conditions and land availability to get renewable solar energy flowing in my native Bay State.  Just this weekWestern Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECO) announced that it filed a plan to implement an integrated, large-scale solar energy program with the Department of Public Utilities.   The solar installations, to be located in WMECO’s western Mass service area, could begin generating eco friendly, renewable power from photovoltaic (PV) facilities as early as 2010.”

Massachusetts’ 2008 Green Communities Act authorizes electric distribution companies like WMECO, to contribute to the development of 250 megawatts of installed solar by 2017.  Under the act, WMECO is allowed to own up to 50 mega watts of solar facilities.

The challenge for this heavily populated, northeastern state is:  where do you place a sea of solar cells?  The answer appears to be a combination of:  public rooftops like schools and municipal buildings; landfills and other non-usable land; utility properties, and a variety of undeveloped acreage.  Companies like Solutia, the Big E and The Springfield Republican are also volunteering to get involved in the pilot project.

Hopefully, future innovations in photovoltaic technology and solar panel design will help mitigate land use and climate restrictions, and make New England a major consumer of cost-effective renewableenergy.”

posted by the Environmental News Network: http://www.enn.com/top_stories/commentary/39332

Please take the time to visit this link. It’s rather disturbing.

http://www.peacechicken.com/2008/12/05/action-item-swat-raids-co-op-in-rural-ohio/

Hey! Researchers at The University of Michigan have discovered a method of getting electricty from slow-moving water, that could be used on rivers and streams. Read more here:

http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6842