What to do in the face of the biggest crisis

What to do in the face of the biggest crisis

What would you do if you experienced a potentially disastrous crisis, like having to take a big pay-cut or losing your job?

Chances are, you’d immediately cut down on unnecessary purchases; like eating out and using other services of convenience. Never once have I heard anybody who lost their job say, “No need to get upset. Job loss is a cyclic occurrence, they’ll hire again.”

Yet, that’s the approach of many leading politicians and of huge corporations which exacerbate environmental problems. Even now, as the world is experiencing climate disasters every month, they don’t do what all reasonable people do in the face of an emergency, namely – take massive action towards containing the problem.

30 years of missed opportunities

Looking back, Americans must wonder why car manufacturers did not start producing electric cars already in the nineties and why the US government did not invest in high-speed railway lines decades ago. (Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train began operations more than half a century ago, in 1964.)

Obviously, for governments worldwide and the huge corporations who contribute to the planet’s carbon emission problem, it was more convenient to continue their way of business.  

Though, today, millions of people protest and demand massive action, the US government and the fossil fuel industry not only don’t listen to us, they also don’t listen to big investors. In December 2018, a global group of 415 investors managing $32 trillion in assets released a statement urging governments to accelerate their actions to contain the climate crisis.

Alas, instead, the current US administration is rolling back environmental regulations previous administrations enacted and Oil And Gas Giants Spend Millions Lobbying To Block Climate Change Policies.

We are not powerless

Luckily, there is a simple way to force change – all we need to do is to cut back ourselves on services that are matters of convenience. This action step is not only about taking the high road, it’s also about “not buying” any more fossil fuels than we absolutely need. (Like we wouldn’t stop eating if we lost our job, but we wouldn’t eat out simply because it’s convenient.)

The easiest way of doing this is to quit using drive-through services which should be reserved for the elderly and disabled and mothers with young children in the car. They might really be helped if they can use drive-throughs, but most of us aren’t helped because using a drive-through does not really save time. Handling the service task (preparing lattes or food, retrieving one’s clothes at the drycleaner, preparing medications, etc.) takes however long it takes, hence, “the inconvenience” of not using a drive-through equates to walking a few steps to the store (which is good for our health) and almost always takes less than one minute.

The staggering numbers

In the United States, about 24% of adults, about 64 million, consume a meal provided by the quick service food industry three or more times each week. (Ohio Medical Group).

QSR magazine, a leading source of news and information about the $300 billion limited-service restaurant industry, estimates that about 50 to 70% of fast food sales take place at drive-through windows; at McDonalds, the largest fast-food chain, even 65% of its sales in the United States is through drive-through windows.  

The average waiting time at a fast-food drive-through is 4.25 minutes.

How much CO2 would be kept out of the Earth’s atmosphere?

The EPA’s (Environmental Protection Agency of the United States) website states that every gallon of gasoline burned creates about 8,887 grams of CO2.

Idling cars burn an average of 0.4 gallons per hour, hence create 3,554 grams of CO2 per hour.

Therefore, not idling a car at a drive-through (for 4.25 minutes) would keep 252 grams of CO2 out of the Earth’s atmosphere.

We are talking about more than 12 trillion grams of CO2

If, on any given day, 50 million Americans would not use drive-throughs at a fast-food restaurant, they would keep 12,600,000,000 grams of CO2 out of the Earth’s atmosphere.

WE can and we must act

Since our politicians don’t act decisively, WE must act!

So, let’s do what we always do when faced with a crisis, skip the convenient path, and stop idling. It’s easy. Nobody has to change their way of living to help cut CO2 emissions. All it takes is walking a few steps which is a form of exercise and contributes to our health.

Additionally, taking this easy action step saves us money and costs the fossil fuel industry quite a bit of money. That’ll help them understand that we need our governments and the powerful fossil fuel industry to take massive action.

Join us on Facebook and share how much CO2 you are keeping out of the Earth’s atmosphere, (about 252 grams of CO2 per not using a drive-through).

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Visit our Facebook page: Earthday = No-Idling Day – Home

Gisela Hausmann is a creative provocateur, nonfiction writer, and environmentalist. Her work has been featured in regional, national, and international publications including Success magazine and Entrepreneur, and on Bloomberg's podcast "Decrypted."

She tweets @Naked_Determina.

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© 2020 by Gisela Hausmann

How would Martin Luther King have organized a climate emergency protest?

Gino Santa Maria via Shutterstock

How would Martin Luther King have organized a climate emergency protest?

This is a legitimate question because Martin Luther King knew how to bring about change better than almost anybody else. And, he did it the American way.  

Probably, most Americans will agree that if Dr. King were with us today he would be a leader in fighting the climate emergency as it threatens everybody and everything he fought for.

In his speech “The Other America” (1968) Dr. King said, “And what is it America has failed to hear?…It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met...”

The same is true for climate change. For decades, most of our leaders and big corporations failed to acknowledge that CO2 emissions are destroying the planet; and, many of them grew rich ignoring this fact. While millions of people started reducing, reusing, and recycling stuff, buying energy efficient windows and solar panels, and planted trees, and local government officials stepped up in response to the crisis, big governments’ and big corporations’ efforts are nowhere near what would be required to reign in the climate emergency.

Maybe, the climate emergency only grew that enormous because of the absence of a leader like Dr. King?

Still, I do not believe that Dr. King would ask Americans to march for climate change in 2020. Since the protests of the sixties, American organizations have “learned to deal with protests.” They resort to  making abstract statements like “We are working on it” and “The research isn’t finalized,” which equates to postponing any real action as long as possible.   

Meanwhile, in 2019 alone, there have been ten climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States, which doesn’t cover the loss of life and the hardships of individuals whose possessions and communities went up in flames or drowned in floods.

That’s why I believe that Dr. King would have resorted to a much stronger action plan, like the one he employed in Montgomery, Alabama, where, in and before 1955, black residents experienced harassment and unequal treatment from the Montgomery Bus Company. 

Dr. King’s proven concept

As a first step, the Montgomery Improvement Association under Dr. King’s leadership presented their formal list of demands to the city commissioners and bus company officials, asking for courteous treatment by bus operators and first-come, first-served seating for all, black and white.

That action step has already happened with regards to the climate emergency – hundreds of times. For decades, environmental organizations have presented ideas and demands.

When, in 1955, Dr. King’s talks failed, he simply called for boycotting the Montgomery Bus Company’s services, and the black community followed his call. Because black bus riders constituted about seventy-five percent of the bus system’s customers, the transportation service lost an estimated $3,000 per day, for 381 days. (At the time, the average cost of a new house was $3,000 to $5,000.)

Depriving the Montgomery Bus Company of this kind of money helped to bring about victory for the protesters.

Martin Luther King showed us the way 

Dr. King’s easy to understand concept was that since the Montgomery Bus Company did not treat their black customers respectfully they just weren’t going to use their services. In today’s language we’d say, “the value proposition wasn’t sufficient.”

Addressing the climate emergency, Americans could stage a similar boycott by refusing to use drive-throughs and, instead, park their cars and handle their business inside fast-food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, drycleaners, which also includes not idling their cars in front of schools.

It’s easy and creates a huge impact!

A peaceful No-Idling Protest can be carried out much easier than the Montgomery Bus Boycott because not a single American would have to change their way of living; nobody would have to bicycle to work or take the bus and no child who always gets picked up from school would have to ride the school bus. Protesters would not reduce or stop driving their cars but only stop idling.

Still, as laid out in my blog, “A kind of nonviolent protest that might actually help saving planet Earth,” if approximately fifty million Americans would not idle their cars at drive-throughs and next to schools on Earth Day 2020, they would save 2.1 million gallons of fuel and deprive the fossil fuel industry of more than $6.2 million in earnings – on only one day.

If Americans would keep up the boycott as long as Montgomery, Alabama’s black population kept up theirs, it would cost the fossil fuel industry more than $2.3 billion.

Disruption leads to change

It is reasonable to assume that it would not take 381 days until American corporations and the American government would dramatically step up their efforts to fight the world’s climate crisis. Nobody likes to lose money, even if they can afford it.   

So – are you in?

The task is easy. Avoid idling your car on Earth Day 2020 and get your family and friends to do the same. Then, watch TV and social media platforms to see how we made the news!

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be proud of us.

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Visit our Facebook page: Earthday = No-Idling Day – Home

Gisela Hausmann is a creative provocateur, nonfiction writer, and environmentalist. Her work has been featured in regional, national, and international publications including Success magazine and Entrepreneur, and on Bloomberg's podcast "Decrypted."

She tweets @Naked_Determina.

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© 2019 by Gisela Hausmann

A kind of nonviolent protest that might actually help saving planet Earth

Almost 300 years ago, in 1730, three hundred-sixty-three Bishnoi people of the Indian village of Khejarli died while trying to protect – trees. Not other villagers but – trees.

The  maharajah of Jodhpur, Abhay Singh, had sent his soldiers to cut acacia logs in a nearby forest for the construction of a new palace. The Bishnois who believe in protecting trees hugged the acacias in an effort to save them and were slaughtered, but not in vain. When Abhay Singh heard of this powerful example of nonviolent resistance, he immediately traveled to Khejarli, apologized to the villagers and declared the Bishnoi state as a protected region, forbidding harm to trees and animals.

Nonviolent resistance also helped in swaying hundreds of other political leaders’ opinions. From Gandhi's Salt March to the civil rights marches and the Vietnam War protests, nonviolent protesters succeeded in changing status quos. In his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail” Martin Luther King wrote, “...The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation...”

Mass media played a crucial role. When, in 1957, the press featured visuals of a hate-filled  mob attacking the Little Rock Nine students, President Eisenhower addressed the nation in a televised speech and immediately ordered the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce integration and protect the nine students. Similarly, when in March of 1965, TV-stations aired flickering black-and-white television images of the Selma to Montgomery March on Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon B. Johnson immediately met with civil rights leaders. 152 days later, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.

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In March 2019, the Global School Strike for the Climate drew 1.4 million participants who skipped school and took to the streets to demand that politicians take action to tackle climate change. Follow-up events during the 2019 Global Week for Future attracted even more participants: 4 million on September 20, 2019, and 2 million on September 27, 2019, from over 150 countries.

Still, as if the number of protesters attending these events and the millions of images, social media postings, and their shares and reshares showing streets and boulevards crammed with protesters don’t matter, there are no decisive reactions from today’s leaders. Applying Martin Luther King’s idea we realize that the protests do not “create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”

In our world saturated with images, pictures of peaceful, nonviolent protests do not create an outrage for the very reason that they are nonviolent. Whereas videos of the burning Amazon prompted the leaders of seven industrial countries to immediately pledge $20 million to help South American countries fight wildfires, the videos of peacefully marching protesters create no such effect.

Though, for example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the Global School Strike for the Climate protests she also said that the students needed to be patient about Germany's phase-out of coal-fired energy, which is scheduled for 2038. That date is a generation away.

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In 2018, the nonprofit Climate Action Tracker (CAT) found that only two countries are living up to the Paris Climate Agreement: Morocco and The Gambia; India, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Bhutan, and the Philippines are ranked as compatible. 

This appears to be an eclectic list of countries until one wonders what these countries have in common – low car ownership. On the list of countries by vehicle per capita only Costa Rica (#70) makes the top-100, all others are way down the list: Morocco (111), Bhutan (129), the Philippines (138), India (157), Ethiopia (175) and The Gambia (179).

And it makes sense that the governments of countries with high car ownership have a harder time passing laws that protect the environment. The use of fossil fuels is at the core of almost all environmental problems; most cars are fueled with petroleum, and nearly all plastics are derived from fossil fuels.

I believe that this realization shows how an effective nonviolent protest has to be designed – we need to create a “crisis packed situation” that involves fossil fuels.

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The EPA’s (Environmental Protection Agency of the United States) website states that every gallon of gasoline burned creates about 8,887 grams of CO2.

But, to stage an effective nonviolent protest it is not even necessary that Americans rein in their driving. They only need to stop – idling. It is noteworthy that, in 2009, Mayor Bloomberg signed New York City’s anti-idling law, which limits idling in school zones to one minute and three minutes elsewhere in the city of New York.

Idling compact cars burn around 0.16 – 0.3 gallons of gas per hour, and large sedans burn approximately 0.5 – 0.7 gallons of gas. Therefore, not idling a car that consumes an average of 0.4 gallons of gas per hour would keep 3,554 grams of CO2 (per hour) out of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Though this number might not too look impressive, it will when the effort is multiplied. 

Currently, about 37.9 million children are enrolled in US primary education and 26.1 million in secondary education, which includes many middle/junior high schools. Surely, 5 million of them get picked up by a parent, in their car, every day. On average, parents wait 15 minutes in front of schools.

3,554 grams of CO2 x 0.25 hrs (15 minutes) x 5 million cars = 4,442,500,000 grams of CO2.

Conservatively estimated, in the US, another 50 million cars idle about 5 minutes at drive-throughs of fast-food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, drycleaners, and other businesses, which amount to 14,808,333,333 grams of CO2.

If Americans could commit to not idling their cars for one single day, approximately 20 trillion grams of CO2 (~19,250,833,333 ) would not enter the Earth’s atmosphere. 

  

Indeed, many US corporations use drive-throughs as a way to maximize their profits; not only do they reduce their payroll, they also avoid customers getting irate and asking why the business is understaffed. I tested this issue at fast-food restaurants. During off-times, when not even a single car was waiting in line, I followed individual cars through the drive-through and timed the process. When the drivers placed their order, every time, the employee asked twice, “What else?” This resulted in the complete process from the moment the customer placed their order to receiving their order taking an average of three minutes and 2 seconds during which the car was idling, whereas the same process took only an average of forty-two seconds when I placed my order for a single popular item accompanied by the words, “I only want xyz-item and nothing else.”

The business strategy becomes apparent when we compare it with that of businesses where employees have face-to-face contact with their customers, for example, movie theaters and amusement parks. Almost all of them post signs, “Please have your ticket ready when you approach the attendant.” While both kinds of businesses rely on customers driving to their location,  businesses that offer a drive-through try to drag out the human interaction to maximize profits though this causes the Earth’s atmosphere getting more polluted.

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Lastly, this kind of peaceful protest could also “hurt” the biggest contributors to our environmental crisis – the fossil fuel industry. If, on one day, 50 million Americans would not idle their cars at fast-food restaurants, banks, and other businesses, they would save combined 1,666,666 gallons of fuel. 5 million parents not idling their cars in front of schools would save another 500,000 gallons. At an average price of $2.89 per gallon nationwide, not burning 2,166,666 gallons of fuel would cost the fossil fuel industry (and local gas stations) $6,261,664.74 in one single day.

That kind of loss will get corporations' attention. 

Maybe, at this point, the huge numbers I just mentioned made you forget the enormous sacrifice the Bishnois made to save their trees. Our small sacrifices of getting out of the car and walking inside a place of business could be the nonviolent protest the United States needs to prompt politicians and corporations to take the massive action it’ll take to save the planet. 

Help make Earth Day 2020 a “No-Idling Day” in the United States.

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Gisela Hausmann is a creative provocateur, nonfiction writer, and environmentalist. Her work has been featured in regional, national, and international publications including Success magazine and Entrepreneur, and on Bloomberg's podcast "Decrypted."

She tweets @Naked_Determina.
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Earthday-Non-Idling-Day-100927834750531/

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© 2020 by Gisela Hausmann

Image credits:
Cars lined up at the drive thru window by Rhonda Roth
"IhaveadreamMarines" by "US Government Photo" -
Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons