SavingCivilization.org's premier podcast is about something very, very important: saving our civilization! You think it's a joke, right? Nothing's wrong, everything's hunky-dory in your life.

I hate to have to tell you, bub, but you need a wake-up call, and that's what we're here to do! But even if you think all this "green" stuff is for left-wing, tree-hugging, whale-loving lunatics, at least look at it this way: cleaning up our act can mean that you can save money! Save on your electric bills, save on your transportation costs, save on your taxes, etc.

So even if the only green you really feel like buying into is money, that's okay! Check out our first podcast and let's get this trip started!

Podcast Transcript:

Folks, welcome to the premier podcast from SavingCivilization.org, where our goal is to keep our civilization from diving into the trash heap of history!

In this, our first podcast, I wanted to go over some issues in our economy and the environment that you should be aware of, if you’re not already. These are things that you need to be concerned about, even if you’re a terminal couch potato, because – directly or indirectly – they’re costing YOU money!

But this isn’t just gloom and doom – you can find that anywhere. I’m also here to tell you that there are lots of things all of us can do, from just changing out a light bulb to forming local action groups. The important thing to keep in mind as we go through this is that you – yeah YOU! – need to get off your fanny and get involved!

So, why do we call this the "Saving Civilization" podcast? I mean, civilization is fine, right? We’ve got Hummers, we’ve got three thousand sports channels on HDTV, we’ve got a MacDonald’s every couple of blocks, and game consoles in every home. What could possibly be wrong?

Well, believe it or not, we’re in trouble. Some of the symptoms are in-your-face and obvious to everyone but the most cynical (or stupid), while others aren’t so easy to see. But they’re there. Did you think 9/11 was an intelligence failure and came as a big surprise? Well, we’ve got TONS of evidence of some gigantic problems (for more serious even than 9/11) that are heading to a boiling point that we, as a society, are simply choosing to ignore. And we’ll have nobody to blame but ourselves, although I’m sure we’ll try to stick the blame on somebody else, anyway.

Let’s not go that way, folks!

Now, a lot of the issues you need to know about are connected together like a big Rubik’s cube. But you don’t have to try and grasp everything at once and have your brain splatter out your ears. Don’t get overwhelmed, but take a few minutes to learn and think about what’s going on.

Okay, let’s take a quick inventory of the biggies we’ve got to contend with:

• Peak oil. You’ve probably never heard that term, but it’s one you really need to know (and fear). Peak oil is the point when global oil production peaks, after which the world oil supply will start to decrease. Why should you care? Well, remember your old high-school economics: supply and demand. World demand for oil – particularly for China – is going up. Supply isn’t going to get any better than it is now – we’ve found all the major oil fields the Earth has to offer, and when we hit peak oil, prices are going to skyrocket. You thought the prices after Hurricane Katrina were bad? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet! And while there’s no neon sign saying when it’s going to happen, a lot of oil experts predict we’ll hit peak oil sometime in the next ten years or so. But even if Peak Oil is a myth, just imagine how much better our lives and economy would be if we no longer needed oil from the Middle East or anywhere else. No more price hikes, economic disruptions, or military smackdowns to make sure we get enough black gold for our SUVs. Take a minute and really think about how different our world would be if oil were taken out of the equation.
• Energy. Modern western civilization really depends on it, doesn’t it? I realized one day during a power outage that when the lights go out, our civilization stops. For us here in the U.S. the problem isn’t so much that we don’t have enough energy, but that most of the energy we use is from power plants running on fossile fuels, particularly coal. "But what’s so bad about coal?" you say. "Coal is cheap and clean!" Think again, budzo: coal pours tons – literally – of mercury (the world’s second most toxic substance) into the air and water every year, along with tons and TONS of stuff that contributes to global warming, plus other goodies like uranium, thorium, and all kinds of other crap. That’s AFTER all the scrubbers make it "clean." So what’s it matter to you? How about billions of dollars in health care costs and thousands of related deaths in the U.S. alone! And then we have nuclear plants, which make up about 20 percent of our power generation. Who the heck wants a nuke plant in their backyard? Even if you don’t have a Chernobyl on your hands, the plants are incredibly expensive, use a bazillion gallons of water, are a huge headache to decommission, and then you still have to do something with all the radioactive waste. Nuke power just doesn’t make good economic sense.
• Global warming and climate change. I put this after the first two because oil consumption by vehicles and energy from fossile fuels are the biggest contributors to global warming. I shouldn’t have to say too much about this here, because you’ve probably heard about it five thousand times unless you’ve been dead the last ten years and were only recently resurrected. But here’s the real trick: even if for some reason you don’t believe in the whole global warming thing, (maybe it’s all an evil plot by Al Gore), there are still tons of other great reasons to shut down these polluters. If nothing else, we would save billions of dollars in health care costs and thousands of lives every year if we cleaned up our act.
• Drinkable water. Folks, even though most of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, there’s really only a small amount – just XX percent – that is drinkable and that we can get to. We’re really screwing ourselves with our flush-the-toto lifestyle, coal and nuclear power plants that scarf up an AMAZING amount of water, agriculture that uses inefficient irrigation, and all kinds of other things that we do that are water-wasteful. Lakes are literally disappearing, wells are running dry, rivers aren’t making it to the sea anymore, and so on. And you know the worst thing? A human being can survive without almost anything but water: we’ve gotta have it. But it’s becoming a big problem and is going to get a lot worse if we don’t grab a clue.
• The Car. In America you have to say that like every letter is capitalized: THE CAR. We spend billions of bucks on cars. We’re addicted to cars. And maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, except that almost all of them burn gas or diesel, which comes from oil. Remember that global warming thing? Remember peak oil? Don’t you think it might be a good idea to find alternative ways to power cars? Hybrids are one way, but that’s kind of a half step: we need to go a lot further, and we CAN with technology that’s been around for the last decade or so! We can also come up with smart ways to reduce the number of cars on the road and make our cities nice for people (that’s really the reason we have cities, right?). I mean, honestly, folks: how many of you really enjoy sitting in freeway parking lots? Not me. And I really am not looking forward to the peak oil period when buying a tank of gas is going to leave me broke (not to mention how expensive everything’ll be because of astronomical transportation costs). To heck with that!
• Population stabilization and poverty. Okay, you’ve probably seen the stunt where a bunch of college students cram themselves into a phone booth (or maybe you haven’t seen this: how many phone booths are left outside of museums?). Anyway, the point is that you can only cram so many people onto this big blue marble before a bunch of us start running out of stuff we need to survive: water, food, oil – you name it. Some of you may think, "Well, heck – all those other folks just shouldn’t have sex!" Okay, smartypants, maybe that might work for you if you’re a saint or your face looks like the backside of a rhino, but that’s not a real solution for most normal human beings. Get serious. And letting people starve or die from diseases like HIV isn’t a good solution to the population problem, either. Not just because of the humanitarian side of it, but also because of the horrible global economic impact. On top of that, poor, starving people – particularly young men – are desperate and make for easy pickings for terrorist recruiters (what, you thought that all these guys blowing things up came from rich families?).
• Forest and soil conservation. Okay, boys and girls, taking care of the forests is important for a LOT of reasons that go way beyond preserving wildlife habitats (which is itself very important). In addition to providing us with renewable resources for fuel and lumber (assuming the forests are properly managed!), they convert our carbon dioxide to oxygen. On top of that, forests – and plants in general – prevent soil erosion and help with flood control. The importance of flood control should be pretty obvious: water running out of control can do horrific damage that can cost billions to repair. Soil erosion should be familiar to folks who live in southern California and other places where after a heavy rain houses start doing the luge down the hillsides. But a less well-known problem is that plants help hold topsoil in place against the wind and rain. Otherwise, that topsoil can be carried away, eventually making it impossible to grow anything (either plants to eat or to prevent really serious erosion and flooding). And yes, that is a bad thing!
• And lastly, our "throw-away" economy. Ladies and gentlemen of the United States of America, we’ve become total pansies. Almost everything now is use-and-toss. From napkins to little digital cameras, computers, diapers, televisions, cars, even buildings, we use it and then try to shove it into a landfill somewhere. This, ladies and gentlemen, is just plain stupid. How many millions of tons of crap do we dump into landfills every year? Why should you care? Well, you may never even have been to a landfill, but take my word for it that they don’t have an infinite capacity for your stinking garbage. The solution is recycling! Most metals, plastics, and many other materials can be economically recycled and reused, both to help slow the glut-o-garbage to landfills (just think: someday a landfill might open next door to YOU), and also to ease off on fresh mining of metals, minerals, and other stuff that we need. We’ve made a lot of good progress with recycling over the years, but we can – and must! – do a LOT better! We need to move from our throwaway economy to a reduce-reuse-recycle economy. Unless you really WANT to live next to a landfill.

So, there are a bunch of the big issues. And at this point you’re probably thinking, "Criminy, those problems are so big I could never do anything about them, so why should I even bother? Let one of those eco-whackos do it…"

Well, I’m here to tell you: DON’T BE A SCHMUCK! There are lots of things YOU can do, starting right now, today, to help turn things around and keep the great cruise ship S.S. Civilization from hitting that big iceberg looming out of the fog. There are little things and big things in every one of the above "issue" categories that you can help with.

And the kicker is, even if you don’t give a hoot about the whales and polar bears and don’t believe in global warming, you should do some of these helpful things just because they’ll save your selfish hide some money. Let me repeat that for those of you who might have missed it the first time and don’t know what the rewind button looks like: some of these things will SAVE YOU MONEY, right up front. Some will save you money over time. Some will save money indirectly. And the bottom line, if we can get the ship turned about in time, is that the economy we can wind up with will be a lot healthier, sustainable, and more vibrant than any we’ve ever had before. This isn’t a utopian dream: it’s a real possibility for the near future if we really get our butts in gear.

So, are you interested? Wanna lend a hand to help save the ship? Then your first action, sailor, is to read a book by Lester Brown called Plan B 2.0. This goes into detail about the issues I’ve touched on here, and not only explains in clear English what the problems are, but also gives a blueprint for the solutions. It was an epiphany for me, and I hope it will be for you, too.

Plan B 2.0. You can buy the book from Amazon through our site at SavingCivilization.org (disclaimer, folks: if you click on the links from our site, I’ll get a few pennies from Amazon to support the Saving Civilization site - at no extra cost to you). You can also buy the book online from the Earth Policy Institute. Or – and this is how important Mr. Brown feels this book is – you can get the book as free chapter downloads from the Earth Policy Institute, or from the downloads section here at SavingCivilization.org.

Regardless of where you get it, take the time to READ IT! Like Mr. Brown says in the book, saving civilization isn’t a spectator sport. All of us have to get involved, and there are lots of ways – great and small – that we can all help get the ship turned away from that iceberg.

So, don’t be a loser! Get reading and then GET INVOLVED! And for more information, rants, and raves, come on by and visit our site at SavingCivilization.O-R-G. Have a great day and God bless!

(Disclaimer)

Tag it:

?

	25-05-2007 15:57
	Thank You Report

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.3