GreenLivingZone.com

written for Blog Action Day October 15th 2009

a green essay by Karen Ann Teeters

The change we need for environmental turnaround starts with you.

We have the upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December 2009. There is already talk of diminished expectations and they have not even met! Trying to research the roles of corporations, governments, society, and individuals in the role of sustaining a healthy environment is like any major issue today – extremely challenging to come up with anything that is not polarizing.

There is a lot of empirical evidence to support capitalism’s favorite expression, “the bottom line and return on investments,” as more important than investing in environmental concerns. And of course there is an argument to support the eleventh hour concept from environmentalists, that it is almost too late for any human action to make a difference.

Here is an “imaginary scenario” to drive home the point. The tsunami of environmental destruction (the eleventh hour- the environmental “end” of life as we know it – no more breathing!) is arriving tomorrow at 2:00 PM eastern time and the business reaction is as usual, “No time for that, I have my list of responsibilities today to make sure my shareholders make a profit and I have to get back to work before my manager walks in.”

Then go ask any individual that is working for a large corporation or even a small company, in their “off business” hours, what his or her opinion is about what to do about the wracked up situation with the environment. You’ll probably get a very empathetic answer concerning issues like the importance of recycling, organic foods and electric cars. Maybe the task of environmental actions is too complicated for any one ordinary individual to understand. Building green, eating green, driving green, working green. We are buying books about every day green choices and watching movies about the seriousness of the oncoming urgency of the outcome if we do nothing. For many people, its a green blur!

We are trying to make a difference with our everyday actions but when we congregate into groups of businesses or corporations to make a living and feed our loved ones, we seem to  lose touch with the dark outcome of the actions of these large, unresponsive companies. They all have these wonderful voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility statements or CSR’s that present themselves as caring, green members of the community – but many read like well written press releases rather than longterm real world commitments to create change and contribute to the community. You’ve all seen these laughable commercials from oil and chemical companies (BP – Beyond Petroleum) of their green activities that don’t come across as genuine.

I once had a discussion with a business coach who had an amazing insight about how the ethics of businesses work. His theory was that when a company gets to be 200 employees or more, somehow people at management level tend to feel that their actions are anonymous or hidden. The idea of personal responsibility to the greater good seems to get lost, questionable activity easily becomes the norm, and concern with profits override every decision. We have seen this very thing happen with major corporate breakdowns such as Enron, Worldcom, Arthur Anderson and others.

Should we try to pass a law that states no company will ever be larger than 200 people to overcome this tendency for businesses to become dishonest and sociopathic in behavior? Nah, the lobbyists would never let that happen and besides that would be more like fascism than capitalism.

I must say I enjoyed Michael Moore’s movie, Capitalism, A Love Story. One of the alternative explorations presented in the film was small sized worker cooperatives that are run democratically by the workers who actually own the companies and share equitably in the profits. One was a robotics company called Isthmus Engineering and the other was Alvarado Street Bakery. Here are the details from Moore’s website:

—The Isthmus Engineering website  describes the company’s “Seven Cooperative Principles”:

• Open membership – no gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination
• Democratic control – one member, one vote
• Equitable economic participation among members and distribution of profits based on patronage
• Autonomy and independence – controlled by members
• Education and training
• Cooperation among cooperatives
• Concern for community

The Alvarado Street Bakery website  describes cooperatives as “a business voluntarily owned and controlled by its member patrons and operated for them and by them on a nonprofit or cost basis. It is owned by the people who use it … based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity.” —

I like the last principle listed for Isthmus Engineering – Concern for community. I don’t think a company composed of all owners, managed by democratic control who live in a local community would do anything to harm its community or citizens. This is democracy in its purest form – one member – one vote. We don’t have that in any of the industrialized democratic nations on earth because most governments, such as the US, are setup as a “republic” – a representative democracy.

The old complaint is that our representatives seem to lose touch with what their constituents need. The concept and acceptance of “lobbyist” has hijacked our government. As the large corporations act as corporate gift givers to influence our elected officials, we wonder what has happened to the “republic” part of our government. Do corporations have more sway than individuals over what the representatives’ support? Any green bill or any bill for that matter, often gets locked in committee and has amendments added that seem to greatly alter original intent.
Corporations can not be trusted to self regulate when it comes to issues such as our air, our water, our trees, our climate, our health. The growing perception is that we are just “human resources” to them – like EverReady batteries. We are in our current financial mess precisely because of deregulation. Our government needs to pass bills to regulate the actions of corporations and all we get are bills with loopholes. In September and early October 2008 at the height of the initial financial meltdown, 98% of the calls to elected officials opposed the bank bailout! But Congress went ahead and passed the bank bailout bill anyway. Senator Feinstein said, “Main Street just doesn’t get it.” And now, word is out that the recent climate bill will probably be watered down by the time any votes are put to it.

You ask yourself, what can we do as individuals? I know what I have laid out here seems so doom and gloomy, yet we need to know the lay of the land, and what the odds are before we can take any action. Many of us are becoming active in green groups, buying green products, and educating ourselves the best we can so that we have an inhabitable planet to offer our future generations. Looking at the causes of unresponsive governments and large corporations often feels overwhelming.

Committing to expansive changes, such as responsible and responsive elected officials, more regulations in place, less lobbyist influence, more small worker cooperatives, countries working with other countries, taking personal responsibility by how we spend our green dollars and use energy on a daily basis, may seem like way too much. But, let me make this small suggestion. Just pick one thing. Just get started with “one thing,” then add another… and another. Go green in your home. Get involved in greening your community. That’s how eco-activist and actor, Ed Begley Jr. got started. Yes… small steps.

Only you as an individual can make that decision. Start your own group. Start blogging yourself. Check out all the green microbloggers on Twitter. And don’t stop, because there is hope.

Karen Ann Teeters is a green blogger and you may read more of her posts at www.greenlivingzone.com

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What are you thoughts about who we need to become to make a green difference before its too late? What green steps have you taken?