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Category: Environment

Horton Hears a Sexist

horton hears a who

Peter Sagal asks, What did Dr. Suess do to movie producers to make them so desperate to pervert his work? This time around, film makers created a brand-new subplot wherein the Major of Whoville has 96 daughters and one son.

Guess who gets all of his attention? Guess who saves the day?

You should read Sagal’s whole piece (it’s short), but this was my favorite part:

And there’s this — not only does the movie end with father and son embracing, while the 96 daughters are, I guess, playing in a well, somewhere, but the son earns his father’s love by saving the world. Boys get to save the world, and girls get to stand there and say, I knew you could do it. How did they know he could do it? Maybe because they watched every other movie ever made?

We got into the car outside the cinpeplex and I was quite in lather, let me tell you. How come one of the GIRLs didn’t get to save Whoville? I cried.

“Yeah!” said my daughters.

“And while we’re at it, how come a girl doesn’t get to blow up the Death Star! Or send ET home? Or defeat Captain Hook! Or Destroy the Ring of Power!”

“That’s rotten!” cried my daughters.

“How come Trinity can’t be the One who defeats the Matrix!” I yelled.

“What are you talking about?” they said.

“You’ll find out later,” I said. “But here’s one: how come a girl doesn’t get to defeat Lord Voldemort!”

“Well, wait a minute, Papa,” they said. “None of us would want to mess with him.”

I took their point. But I still wanted to grab that fictional, silly mayor of Whoville by his weirdly ruffled neck, and say, you see those 96 people over there? Those girls, those women, those daughters? You know what they’re saying to you, every minute of every day that you waste thinking about anything else?

They are shouting at you. They are shouting:

“We are here! We are here! We are here!”

Thanks to Julia for the link.

Cutting back on babies to save the earth?

Nope, can’t support it.

I’m all for decreasing the amount of harm we do to the environment. I’m all for making the choice to reduce the number of kids you have if that’s what you want. I’m all for having fewer children because it’s better for the environment.

What I worry about, though, is who will be pressured to reduce their “child output,” and which characteristics will be valued when we’re deciding which reproducers make the cut. I’m tired of reproduction and women’s bodies being so thoroughly politicized.

I realize that the article is about voluntarily having fewer children. But at some point, if this catches on, the conversation will move past “This is a good, environmentally-friendly choice.” At some point, public policy will come into play. It’ll shift to a discussion of how we can incentivize people to make the fewer-children choice, and incentives easily shift into coercion. The people who are most vulnerable to coercion are often the ones who have the least power. Hopefully I don’t have to spell out what that means in a society as inequitable as ours, with a history as ugly as ours.

Update: Just to quickly clarify, I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t position having fewer children as an ethical and responsible choice, or that we shouldn’t discuss it. Of course we should. I’m arguing that the policy implications that could come out of this are not very pretty, and that when we deal with population control, we need to walk very, very carefully.

My Favorite Concept Ever…

Is harm reduction. And I don’t mean it in the standard public-health way (though of course that’s awesome too).

I was introduced to the idea of harm reduction as applied more broadly through an interview with Julia Butterfly Hill that appeared in the spring 2005 issue of LiP (“Addicted to Waste: Harm Reduction, Disposability and the Myth of Activist Purity”), and I’ve thought about it pretty much every day ever since.

Unfortunately, the interview’s not available online, but here’s the nugget of what Hill had to say: “In our addiction to oil, in our addiction to capitalism, in our addiction to consumerism, in our addiction to comfortability, the first things we need to look at as activists are…how [we can] create incentives for people to reduce that harm, on themselves, on their communities and on the planet.”

It’s easiest to see how useful this approach is when it comes to environmental issues—recycling, conservation, giving up our disposable cups, etc. don’t mean we’re not still doing damage, but doing less damage is pretty much always a good thing. (Banal but true, and all too easy to loose sight of.)

But I think it also applies to pretty much anything, whether we’re talking about our own consumption habits (of everything from food and clothing to TV, magazines, porn) or broader projects of social justice. Harm reduction is basically the best antidote I’ve come across to making the perfect the enemy of the good (or at least the better). And I think we all need a whole lot more of that.

Aquafina is tap water.

Shocker. Aquafina also tastes disgusting, in my personal opinion.

Really, if you like your water purified, get a Brita or a filter and re-use your water bottles. There is no need to muck up the environment with millions of used plastic bottles.

Look out Ladies

Leo is coming to Kansas! No, I really don’t care, but it appears that Greensburg is going to be rebuilt as an Eco-town:

Discovery’s new eco-lifestyle channel Planet Green is partnering with actor and avid environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio to help launch the channel early next year with a touching environmentally-friendly project. DiCaprio is set to executive produce “Eco-Town,” a 13-part reality series which will follow state and local officials in their quest to build an ecologically—and economically—sustainable town in Kansas, aptly named Greenburg.

The series will document the green rebuilding of Greensburg, Kansas, a small town that was leveled by a devastating tornado on May 4th. Environmentally friendly, energy efficient materials and technology will be used to reconstruct the hundreds of homes and businesses damaged by the storm in hopes of encouraging many of the 1,500 residents to return home. We’re eagerly waiting to see what other green programs Planet Green has in store for us.

I’m always excited to hear about eco-building, especially after a disaster. It is a unique opportunity to demonstrate environmentally sound construction, something that takes a while to catch on in the real estate market. While the clean up and push to return the town to normal seems valiant, for a small town 2 hours west of here it also seems callow.

Small towns in Kansas are usually sustaining on an infrastructure of local residents manning everything from the schools to the grocery store. Without neighboring communities, these services are not available if the population is not there. Most people do not have the resources nor patience to wait for life to return to normal. NPR had a piece on last week:

Soon after the tornado, Greensburg’s mayor quit.

Other city officials and FEMA are re-examining and debating every aspect of the town’s layout.

Verset says it’s time to stop debating.

“A lot of people are leaving who don’t got time to wait. People don’t have the money to wait around. They’ve got to work and get a place to live,” he says.

The big question hanging over this town is whether people will come back to work and live. Amid all the destruction, residents seem certain about one thing: The Greensburg they once knew was swept away by the tornado.

So, although I am all for rebuilding, and certainly making it green it is worth asking what if you build it and no one comes?

cross-posted at Sassywho

Just What the Hell is Going On Here?

Seriously, people. It’s January, I live in New York, and I just returned from a trip to the store in which I wore a t-shirt and flip-flops.*

Just a little winter, that’s all I ask. I don’t think I’ve worn a coat since November.

UPDATE: I think I’ve found our snow.

* For some odd reason, I feel compelled to mention that I also wore pants. I did eventually rescue them from the washer.

Earth v. Bush

I would just like to take a minute and thank the President for the fact that I wore a summer dress to school today, and had a pleasant walk home, as it was 60 degrees despite the fact that the sun had gone down hours before. I know this isn’t exactly his doing, but he is certainly putting forth an effort to make sure that those of us who are used to having snow during the winter will be able to enjoy more 70-degree December days. Let’s hope that activist judges don’t blow it for him.