It’s Getting Hot In Here

You may have heard this piece of wisdom in Econ 101. “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Someone is footing the bill.

The mass material affluence that characterizes much of American society is a testament to the power of our economic and political system. The cities we inhabit, the cars we drive, the gadgets we use, the ways we communicate, the food we eat, and the energy we consume are all products of its success.

But remember, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Someone is footing the bill.

Allow me to modify that statement. There is no such thing as a dollar menu. Transactions inflict costs on the real world that are not reflected in a market pricing system.

A friend of mine is particularly fond of McDonald’s Dollar menu, and makes a habit of ordering $1 cheeseburgers. The $1 he spends covers the costs McDonald’s has incurred - buying the ingredients, shipping, operational, and labor costs - and of course a slice of profit. However, those are only a fraction of his cheeseburger’s true cost. Enter the world of externalities.

The Economist defines an externality as “An economic side-effect. Externalities are costs or benefits arising from an economic activity that affects somebody other than the people engaged in the economic activity and are not reflected fully in prices.” (1) My friend’s dollar spent does not include the side-effects of cheeseburger consumption, such as longterm costs of carbon emitted by transport and methane toots of former cows. Entirely unconsidered is the irreversible loss of biodiversity from the conversion of rain forest to industrial soy-bean monocrops to feed the hamburgers-in-waiting of American factory farms (2). Humans and nonhumans alike bear the cost of our externalities.

Continue reading ‘Sustainable Justice’

Each person and idea I have encountered in the Youth Climate Movement has altered the lens through which I view the world. Preconceived notions of identity, privilege, value, power, love and what is good or right have been reshaped, strengthened and shattered.

Last August, I drove my parents’ Toyota Camry 500 miles to New Hampshire for the Sierra Student Coalitions summer leadership gathering – Shindig. Five days later I drove home with new friends, renewed inspiration, and new understandings. Among those I met was Ivan Stiefel. He’s the sort of human that radiates community. His is the energy that fills a room, and rather than sucking people to him, it floods the room with a shared joy. At Shindig, he and another climate justice leader, Timothy Denherder-Thomas, - for whom I also hold immense respect - co-led a training on community organizing and power. It was a brilliant combination of insight on the nature of power and the strength of communities and the tools with which to leverage power. The most empowering idea and tool I internalized can be represented in a simple diagram, and it looks like this:

Power is simply the ability to do. Perhaps this is an old hat to all you organizers out there.

It is interesting to think about these power dynamics in the abstract, but every day I experience each dynamic in some capacity. My experience as a participant in Sunday’s Freedom From Oil rally at the North American International Auto Show brought each of these power dynamics into sharp contrast and revealed the tangible connections between them. This is part 1 of my narrative, reflections, and analysis of a moment in the movement.

Continue reading ‘Power on the Streets of Detroit’

Climate change isn’t cool and the Michigan economy is cooling down too much. On the surface, these may seem like two disparate dots, but the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition is connecting them. We are mobilizing to create an economy that empowers communities, works with natural forces, and has the power to lift people out of poverty.

In the third ever Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition Summit, 140 students from 13 campuses converged on East Lansing to join in the dialogue and actions to create a sustainable future in Michigan. Students came from as far away as the Upper Peninsula to present and participate in workshops and environmental, community-building service. The summit was the largest student-organized sustainability and climate-action gathering to happen in Michigan.

It kicked-off on Friday evening with the Mayor Singh of East Lansing calling for students to “go out and grab the power” and keep the heat on politicians at the local level. Omeyele Sowore, a longtime oil-activist from Nigeria, was the keynote speaker. He brought an inspirational message of the power that we, as students and future leaders, have to make change in our campuses and communities. As student leaders, we can catalyze the rectification of global injustices perpetrated by our society’s dependence on fossil fuels. The energy leaving Sowore’s talk carried over in full to Saturdays full agenda of workshops.

Continue reading ‘Students Take Sustainability in Michigan into their Own Hands’