Let’s think it through: there are three consumer-driven polluters: electricity, transportation, and solid waste. Providing electricity to the grid is tricky without additional infrastructure, and could be more expensive to provide than to just work with the diesel generators we have now. Auto manufacturers are not sure what direction to go until a viable fuel source is found, especially since corn prices cannot please both ethanol fuel providers and dairy consumers. Organic trash requires mega-amounts of manpower to separate, and ethanol from cellulosic material requires some sort of environmentally unsound and expensive acid pre-process just to access the sugars inside - and it only can produce 15-20% of the demand.

At least, that is the way things look. What if I told you Wise Landfill Recycling Mining has been working on a proprietary process that breaks down organic cell tissue from municiple solid waste in a way that is both environmentally and economically sound? It is true. Not only that, we found a way to excentuate the cellulosic processes and produce 4.4 times as much ethanol, while extracting CO2 from the air and internal processes to provide bio-diesel. In addition, the excess electricity we produce from solar and biodiesel generators will be sold back to the electric grid.

That’s the plan. It may be a while before implementation, but we are out there and are doing everything in our power to bring carbon-negative oil independence to consumers here in the U.S. and eventually abroad. We are not just saying someone should do something, we are doing it. That is our stance.

Ok, so I am not exactly a youth. But I did want to respond to the agitation that seemed as if nothing was being done.

That’s not to say that other actions aren’t important, obviously I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I thought that, just to say that defanged, micro-managed direct action always makes me feel a little queasy. I just don’t know if I subscribe to the Ruckus Society school of activism, that views direct action as a tool to garner media exposure.

If the economics don’t work, recycling efforts won’t either.
As our little contribution to make this economics of recycling more appealing, http://LivePaths.com blogs about people and companies that make money selling recycled or reused items, provide green services or help us reduce our dependency on non renewable resources.

Both of the actions post-west coast convergence were billed in the media in press release headlines as “direct actions”, but because there was no big arrest scenario, or risk to travelers, the media interest was tepid at best - even for a blockade of a major power company HQ in downtown Portland!

The bottom line is if we want corporate media coverage of resistance we either need to make it hugely huge and different (vis a vis Step it Up) or we need to do (or say we are going to do….) actions that really disrupt things (like appear to be threatening to take down Heathrow).

The UK Climate Camp strategy of choosing to position the camp at Heathrow was flawless: it’s worth noting that the activists there VERY LIKELY WILL NOT EVEN DO AN ACTION AT HEATHROW, and may never have intended too!

They made the media believe they were going to do something totally unbelievable, used that to draw attention to the issue, and while they’ve captured their attention, they have led them where they wanted them, pulling off more manageable and less massively disruptive actions all along the way, drawing attention to off-the-grid living and the growing movement to stop climate chaos.

In the end they’ll have all the attention to the climate they’d hoped for, have made the media and police look like over-reactive fools, and gotten tens of thousands more people engaged in the issue.

BRILLIANT STRATEGY.

Check out Solar Generation as one way to get involved…

http://www.solargeneration.org

They’ve protested at big bank meetings and political conferences, and have members around the world.

How did they get all this coverage? Well most of the coverage has been spurred by the embarrassingly large police presence at the camp, nearly two heavily armed officers for every one camp attendee. The camp has been very strategic in using the location next to Heathrow and vagueness around the camps goals to draw out a big police presence.

Anyway, just a thought. Sometimes all you have to do is talk about doing direct action to get thousands of media hits. Read some of this news coverage to find out more…

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=heathrow

http://www.everyclick.com is a search engine that donates two cents to a charity of one’s choice for each search. “Rainforest Concern” is listed, they buy up rainforests.

All funded by ad revenues.