Happy Presidents’ Day! No matter what you think of Barack Obama, it’s somewhat undeniable that his environmental record as President of the United States hasn’t been much worth writing home about so far. That got us wondering what the most environmentally-friendly presidents in U.S. history were. We thought a good use of Presidents’ Day would be to take a look at the best environmentally-focused presidential administrations and then try to channel all of our energy to see some of that green-focus make its way to the White House and their combatants.
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
He may have been a one-termer, but he used that term to do a lot of good for the planet. Carter didn’t just sign environmental laws into being, he actively lobbied for them. In the first year of his administration, the Department of Energy was created and the Soil and Water Conservation Act was passed (as was the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act). He also helped to advance clean air standards with amendments to the Clean Air Act. That list isn’t long enough? It was also during his administration that the National Energy Act, the Antarctic Conservation Act, the Endangered American Wilderness Act and the Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act all passed!
It may seem as though it was months ago that the 2012 presidential election ended. Let’s be honest, the entire campaign was so painful for some that they’d like to banish it from their minds as quickly as possible. But the fact is that the election just ended, and four more years of President Obama means that we have some idea of what we can expect in terms of green energy and climate change policy. But is the picture as rosy as it may seem? Let’s take a quick look at a few realities.
Reality Number One: Obama Was the Better Choice for Environmental Concerns
If clean energy, climate change or environmental policy was your single-issue voting concern, then it’s true that your choice was clear. Why is that? Because to care about environmental policy, you have to begin by admitting that climate change is in fact happening. Unfortunately, only one political party has embraced climate change as a reality and attempted to craft policy around it. We’re going to avoid going so far as to say that the Republican party has decided to not believe in science, but the truth is that their statements on climate change just aren’t backed up by facts. So, yes, it’s unquestionable that for people who care about environmental policy and issues, Obama was the better choice.
Did you miss out on anything on the Postconsumers website or our social media channels this week? If so, we summed it up for you here.
Favorite Quote of the Week
Our favorite quote of the week was from Kurt Vonnegut, on wrecking the planet. It was so popular on Facebook that almost 100 people liked and shared it!
We’re just now finally starting to adjust to the fact that it’s January of 2013. This quote made us feel better about what is often a challenging month!
“To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June.” Jean-Paul Sartre
Our favorite tweet this week was from Heidi Unplugged in response to our tweet: This one may be hard! In 2013, make a resolution to spend less time tethered to your cell phone. http://dld.bz/ahyrK
Let us be very clear before we begin this: We are not here to judge what you may or may not think of gay marriage, of Chick-Fil-A or of the limits or lack of that should be applied to the First Amendment. That debate has played itself out on social media, mainstream media and in in-person conversation in a way that we hope will not be repeated any time soon. What we would like to talk about, however, is this statement that kept getting made as the Chick-Fil-A debate escalated into a two-week media frenzy.
“Does EVERYTHING that I do need to be politicized? Does my food NEED to be a political statement? Can’t I just have a chicken sandwich without it meaning something?
Well, honestly, no. And that’s not a bad thing.
We get it. People don’t want every moment of their lives to be a statement on their moral or political beliefs. That’s great. But here’s a hard fact: the dollars that you spend make a bigger political statement than any vote that you will ever cast. In many ways, the dollars that you spend play a far bigger role in determining who sits in office and legislates than your individual vote ever will – and yes, that is heartbreakingly sad. But more importantly, your money determines the media messages that are delivered via advertising, and those media messages strongly shape the opinions of the entire nation.
As committed as I am to not being judgmental when it comes to addictive consumerism in America, I nearly barfed at the screening of the new documentary, “The Queen of Versailles.” My mistake was assuming that the tribulation of David and Jacqueline Siegel in trying to build the largest single-family home in the U.S. (90,000 sq.ft. and named for the French palace) would cause a shift in their thinking after the 2008 economic collapse. It forced a shift in their lifestyle but not in their thinking, making the societal delusion that Postconsumers.com addresses all the more obvious.
Here’s proof of the delusion. Although David admits that they should live within their means, they are hell-bent to restore and increase those opulent means as the path to satisfaction. “If I have to live to be 150, that’s what I’ll do to get back on top again.” Both David and Jacqueline blame the bankers, calling them vultures that “got us addicted to cheap money.” They don’t seem to question their constant mission to find more money in order to keep Versailles and other trappings. Read more
As Postconsumers grows, both as a movement and a website, we often get feedback that people are upset to see us mentioned in places like Oprah.com and the Fox News Network. After all, those are locations that certainly don’t support the idea of moving beyond addictive consumerism. And in one case, a place that actively advocates for views and ideas that are the opposite of those promoted at Postconsumers. And so we get emails and tweets and even Facebook posts that, in many cases, are actually offended that we would promote our message in those networks and media.
But…why wouldn’t we? After all, those are the locations where the people who can learn the most from our message are! Read more
Have you checked out the Postconsumers Facebook page? If not, you may want to because we have some great conversations over there! Recently, we asked our friends on Facebook what advice they’d have for people who are working to adjust to letting go of consumerism, “stuff” and even media addiction. Below are the best pieces of advice that we received.
Attitude adjustment – reinforce your new mindset by reading about like-minded philosophies: e.g., Postconsumers.com, ‘clear your clutter’-style books; a book I liked called “Die Broke,” many many others. Kathleen Miller
Postconsumers is always looking for a way to spread the word about the satisfaction of enough for today. All of the proceeds from the sale of the popular Get Satisfied Interactive Handbook are used to expand Postconsumers’ ability to teach people about how to let go of consumerism and find the satisfaction of a passionate life (not to mention, the interactive handbook itself helps people to get to that point). Now, Postconsumers is among the first issue-based organizations in America to partner with a new startup that wants to give the power of spreading media messages to everyday citizens.
Red Blue Voice is a new startup that allows anybody to create, upload, fund and distribute media for their cause. If you were to visit the Postconsumers’ portal on Red Blue Voice right now, you’d see that Postconsumers has both a television ad and web media banners loaded into their profile. The television ad will be channeled to over a million and a half households in the greater Washington DC area on daytime CNN and Fox News. By creating a free account at Red Blue Voice, you can even contribute money in small amounts to run Postconsumers commercials and web advertising in national media markets. When the DC ad is fully funded (happening this month!), Red Blue Voice will notify you and book and run the ad on the television station, radio station, print publication or website as promised. Just think, right now, you can run a Postconsumers’ television ad in Washington DC to ensure that our politicians hear loudly and clearly that Americans care about reducing consumerism no matter what lobbyists say.
Or, you can create your own Postconsumers media! Do you think that you know even better than we do how to create a compelling television, radio, print or web ad to spread the word about reducing stuff and living a satisfied life? Get out there and create it and express it! You can upload your media directly to the Postconsumers Red Blue Voice page. A Postconsumer administrator will review and approve it, and then you can get your friends together to get it funded.
It’s a revolutionary idea. Take the media message away from the large corporations and businesses who use their huge budgets and financial resources to make you believe that you need “stuff” and put it into the hands of real individuals who, working together, can help to spread the message of learning to live a satisfied life to the mass markets.
And we’d like to take a moment to point out that if you have an issue or cause that you want to promote, Red Blue Voice is ready to help you get your own cause or issue portal set up.
Need more assistance in learning to let go of the consumer media’s impact on your life, take control of your finances and find the satisfaction of enough for today? The Get Satisfied Interactive Handbook is a 30-minute web course that walks you through a series of specific questions and then presents a personalized how-to plan for becoming a postconsumer. Launch your evaluation for free right now.
The election cycle is in full swing, which means most of us are watching the candidates very carefully to see which ones we’ll elect come November. For the postconsumer, that means wondering what the different candidates’ stances are on consumer and green issues. After all, they’re the ones in charge of regulating pollution (or even campaigning against it). Are environmental and green issues going to be important in a candidate for you this election season?
The Future of the Climate
With the current debate over drilling for oil, there are more and more companies popping up to help provide an alternative fuel source. You may also have noticed more and more hybrid cars on the road these days. Those who are putting green issues first are worried about whether or not their candidate will take action to make sure climate change is being taken seriously. Will your candidate be supporting biofuel standards? Green-minded voters will want to look at how their candidate responds to weather pattern changes, changes in ecosystems, and what kinds of alternatives can help slow down climate change.
The Future of Energy
Oil is also a big deal when it comes to resources. Will your candidate be willing to set dollars aside to support businesses building solar panels or for research into alternative energy sources? There are many who think the president should lead the charge on changing Americans’ lifestyles to try and become more sustainable. And what about gas consumption? Are candidates going to be talking about how to find ways to stop dependence on coal?
There are plenty of green issues on voters’ minds in 2012, and the attitudes of the candidates are certainly going to make a difference in their voting choices during the campaign cycle.
Need more assistance in learning to let go of the consumer media’s impact on your life, take control of your finances and find the satisfaction of enough for today? The Get Satisfied Interactive Handbook is a 30-minute web course that walks you through a series of specific questions and then presents a personalized how-to plan for becoming a postconsumer. Launch your evaluation for free right now.
How do people effectively get out of debt? Help the New Road Map Foundation learn how! The non-profit organization started by the authors of Your Money or Your Life is researching how people get out of debt and needs your help.
In America, we know a fair amount about how people get into debt and how difficult it is to get out of it. We know very little, however, about the people who successfully repaid their debts – what programs actually helped which kinds of people in which kinds of circumstances get out of debt.
Different people have different needs and better chances of success if they find a debt reduction method that fits their personality. Detail-oriented types do well with some programs, but may not respond well to programs that focus on visual cues like savings jars or envelopes. More creative types may find savings jars motivating but wither under repetitious tasks required by mathematically oriented programs.
For those who are still under the burden of debt, the Financial Integrity Program would like to develop a tool that, with a few questions, can help direct them to an approach that has a high chance of truly helping them. The only way they can learn what works is to ask people who have successfully gotten out of debt what worked for them.
Your help is needed! Please answer their short confidential survey. They need to hear from people in every kind of financial situation, whether in debt, out of debt, or never had debt. You will help us help people in desperate financial straits. Thank you!
Happy Presidents’ Day! No matter what you think of Barack Obama, it’s somewhat undeniable that his environmental record as President of the United States hasn’t been much worth writing home about so far. That got us wondering what the most environmentally-friendly presidents in U.S. history were. We thought a good use of Presidents’ Day would be to take a look at the best environmentally-focused presidential administrations and then try to channel all of our energy to see some of that green-focus make its way to the White House and their combatants.
