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According to Google, use of the phrase “Think Globally, Act Locally” peaked in 1996, and has declined ever since. That may reflect how hard it is to practice this idea. During my years as Executive Director of the Sierra Club, the conflict between the club’s intellectual commitment — to think globally — and human instinct — to react powerfully and narrowly when threatened locally, was one I never really found a fix for.

So we may need to find proxies — values or ways of thinking that help us get the right answers even if they are asking different questions. And one such proxy, I would argue, is the idea of making it locally: one manifestation of which, in the case of the United States, is the increasing public fervor for the importance of making stuff in the U.S., of reviving our manufacturing base. “Made in America” it turns out is a pretty fair proxy for “Think globally.”

To understand why, I’m going to crib from a recent — and well worth absorbing — volume by Alex Steffen, Carbon Zero, which explains how badly off-course much of our thinking has drifted. Steffen asks us to imagine our ecological impact — in this case carbon emissions — as cakes, and our desire to live more sustainably, or reduce carbon emissions, as a diet.

He then describes three common ways of measuring these impacts, or counting the calories, we are using — he calls this “footprinting.”

Geographic footprinters say, “I will count only those cakes I both bake and eat at home.”

Most measurements of carbon emissions are geographic, like recent announcements of how U.S. carbon emissions are declining. They are, but the measurements being released are incomplete and don’t tell the whole story, because they are geographic.

Production footprinters say, “I will count all the cakes I bake, whether I eat them or not.”

In the case of carbon emissions, this makes countries like Angola look like major emitters, even though most of what they do is extract oil from their territory and ship it to rich countries like the U.S. to consume. And a very rich country like Singapore which imports almost all of its food and fuel and materials from other countries looks very virtuous on this scale.

Consumption footprinters say, “I will count all the cakes I eat, no matter who bakes them.”

Steffens argues that consumption footprinting is the correct way to measure out impact — because it requires us to think globally as we act locally. Stopping a locally damaging project is only globally helpful if as a result the total amount of damaging consumption goes down — and we only should get credit if it is our consumption that declines. If we block a mega-feed lot in California, and as a result people in China eat less beef, they really deserve the ecological credit. And if an even worse feed-lot gets built in Africa, we’ve actually done harm. (more…)

It’s one week after the election, and I have some friendly advice for every Republican in Congress: Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and renew the production tax credit for wind energy before it expires at the end of the year. Here are five reasons why I’d tell them it’s time to finally get this done:

1. The American people strongly believe we should make clean, renewable energy a priority. And last week’s election results made it clear that it’s the American people you answer to — not the Koch brothers.

2. Speaking of the brothers K… Yes, they and other dirty-energy enthusiasts would love to set wind energy back. But apart from Mitt Romney, polluters were the biggest losers in this election. Ignore them and listen to your real constituents — the voters. (more…)

By Michael Brune
Author and Executive Director of the Sierra Club

When workers began protesting Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to bust the public employee unions in Wisconsin, I was proud to say that the Sierra Club stands firmly behind the right to organize and bargain collectively.

By now it’s obvious that Walker’s anti-union efforts, like so many recent assaults on the right of people to protect their livelihoods through collective bargaining, were paid for by the same corporate interests that are bankrolling the attacks our nation’s environmental policies. In Wisconsin and beyond, people with no regard for clean water, air, or public health (including the Koch brothers) are pouring the money they made from dirty fossil fuels into an all-out attempt to put our nation permanently in the control of the privileged few.

But this isn’t just a matter of standing shoulder to shoulder against a common foe. As environmentalists, we know that real solutions to our energy and environmental challenges have to include American workers. To build a robust clean-energy economy will require putting millions of people to work in new jobs, right here in the U.S. The Blue-Green Alliance between “tree huggers” and “hard hats” is based on the recognition that those jobs are the key to both a prosperous middle class and a healthy environment. (more…)

By Carl Pope
Chairman, Sierra Club

The mounting evidence is that the Gulf Oil disaster will cost far more than originally estimated, and that BP is desperately seeking to avoid paying its share of the bill. New data suggest that young dolphins are the latest marine victims of the toxic remnants of the geyser on the floor of the Macondo rig. Marine scientists report that oil residues have not, as previously reported, been digested by bacteria and broken down, but remain on the ocean floor.

Even as the evidence mounts, scientists are hampered by a lack of resources and focus on continuing the assessment. They’re worried that we might never really know the full toll of the disaster because we aren’t looking in the right places.

What investigations have revealed is that BP knew of the problems with cement seals long before they failed at Macondo. In 2007 BP found that Halliburton, its contractor, couldn’t properly test cement seals. Although BP knew that the cement mix it was using was unstable, it failed to oversee Halliburton to make sure nothing went wrong. (more…)

By Michael Brune
Author and Executive Director of the Sierra Club

This weekend, two billionaire brothers will hold a private, closed-door meeting of elite and powerful donors and supporters of the oil industry. You can bet that along with conga lines and Jello shooters, the agenda at Charles and David Koch’s little bash will include doing everything possible to ensure that nothing gets done that might result in clean energy, green jobs, or a healthy environment.

If you’ve heard of the Koch brothers, it’s probably because of the article that Jane Mayer wrote about them for The New Yorker last year. As a rule, the Kochs prefer to keep a low profile and let their money do the talking — and their combined wealth of an estimated $30 billion from their Koch Industries has a very loud voice. When you spend more each year than ExxonMobil to fund climate-opposition groups and obstruct environmental policy, your money is shouting like a street-corner evangelist. In the case of the Koch brothers, the false gospel is spread by think tanks, foundations, and (unfortunately) many of the new faces in Congress — elected with a lot of help from the Kochs.

I don’t know a word that means the exact opposite of environmentalist — but then we didn’t really need one until the Kochs came along. Greenpeace put out a shocking report focused on how Koch Industries and its owners fund the climate-denial machine, but it also gives some insight into why the Kochs are also going after all environmental safeguards as well as the Environmental Protection Agency. (more…)

By Michael Brune
Author and Executive Director of the Sierra Club

The 2010 election was the year of The Empire Strikes Back. Big Oil, the coal industry, and corporate polluters are desperate to stop the momentum toward clean energy that’s been building for years. You can’t stop the construction of 139 coal-fired power plants, implement the first-ever fuel-economy standards for medium and heavy trucks, or put the “protect” back into the Environmental Protection Agency without provoking a reaction.

In this case, the Dirty Energy Empire broke all campaign spending records and used their financial Death Star to target any politician who took a stand on clean energy and global warming. It may not have been a subtle strategy, but it was effective. What it doesn’t change, though, is that most Americans still disagree with Big Oil and Big Coal about environmental and energy issues.

Given a clear choice between moving toward a clean-energy future that brings new jobs versus staying stuck in the old, dirty-energy past, Americans will vote for the future. (more…)

By James Parks
AFL-CIO Senior Writer

The Obama administration last week continued to support American workers by deciding to apply tariffs to subsidized and dumped coated paper imports from China and Indonesia.

The unanimous vote by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) clears the way for the U.S. Department of Commerce to immediately impose antidumping and countervailing duties on imports of coated paper from these countries.

United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard said the vote was a “strong confirmation” of the injuries suffered by American paper makers and workers.

Trade laws between nations must be enforced with government fact finding and the power to defend jobs and industries with strong tariff penalties for import violations.

The USW joined in the original petition filed last September by Appleton Coated LLC., NewPage Corp. and Sappi Fine Paper North America. Coated paper covered by the cases is used in many high-end commercial printing applications, including annual reports, coffee table books, magazines and brochures. The three companies combined employ about 6,000 production workers—all USW members—at 20 paper mills operating in seven states. (more…)

By Michael Brune
Author and Executive Director of the Sierra Club

Maybe you’ve heard: Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart is holding a “Rally to Restore Sanity” next week. His fellow satirist, Stephen Colbert, will be there, too, leading his “March to Keep Fear Alive.” This is all going down on the day before Halloween, right on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Jon Stewart’s not a politician (yet), but I suspect he’ll get more people — especially young people — thinking about how politics work (or don’t work) in this country than any elected official could. Stewart says the goal of his rally is to “take it down a notch for America.” Sounds reasonable. Of course, with Colbert around, you can be sure things won’t get too reasonable. This is the guy, after all, who once serenaded my predecessor, Carl Pope, with a suicidal black bear hand puppet.

I won’t be in D.C. that weekend (my kids care more about trick-or-treating than they do about some guys wearing suits on TV). But plenty of Sierra Club supporters will be there and to be sure they’re properly attired, we’re printing some t-shirts to mark the occasion. (more…)

By Leo W. Gerard
USW International President

At the turn of the 20^th Century, smoke meant jobs. When noxious fumes spewed from factory stacks, workers brought home paychecks. Industries hired. The future was bright as molten iron flowing from a blast furnace.

In industrial Pittsburgh’s heyday, the smoke was so dense streetlights remained lit at noon. White collar workers changed soot-covered shirts mid-day. The region’s residents suffered high rates of asthma and emphysema. In 1948, an inversion trapped industrial pollution in a small town south of Pittsburgh, killing 20.

Smoke also meant death and disease.

Now, however, good-paying industrial jobs need not exact untimely death from workers and their families. In fact, it’s the opposite. Development of clean renewable energy generators – the likes of wind turbines, solar cells, biomass – would create family-supporting industrial jobs in America and would reinforce traditional manufacturing jobs in the U.S., including those in steel mills, solar cell fabrication plants and wind turbine factories, such as those built by Gamesa in Pennsylvania.

Labor unions and environmental groups are pressing for passage of policies like a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) and comprehensive climate change legislation that would promote transition to a clean energy economy.

To prod lawmakers to act, the BlueGreen Alliance, a partnership of those labor unions and enviromentalists, conducted a three-week, 17-state, 30-city barnstorm during August in an energy-efficient, American-made, carbon-neutral bus. At events in each city, BlueGreen activists told attendees, “The Job’s Not Done,” and urged them to tell their U.S. Senators it’s not a choice between clean air and jobs. The choice is leaving a legacy of environmental hell or bequeathing climate unchanged.

In an 1868 edition of  The Atlantic Monthly, writer James Parton described with awe the atmosphere created by industrial Pittsburgh’s iron and glass works, its foundries and its coke ovens:

“On the evening of this dark day, we were conducted to the edge of the abyss, and looked over the iron railing upon the most striking spectacle we ever beheld. The entire space lying between the hills was filled with blackest smoke, from out of which the hidden chimneys sent forth tongues of flame, while from the depths of the abyss came up the noise of hundreds of steam-hammers. There would be moments when no flames were visible; but soon the wind would force the smoky curtains aside, and the whole black expanse would be dimly lighted with dull wreaths of fire. It is an unprofitable business, view-hunting; but if any one would enjoy a spectacle as striking as Niagara, he may do so by simply walking up a long hill to Cliff Street in Pittsburg, and looking over into–hell with the lid taken off.”

Beautiful as he found it, Parton added this:

“The first feeling of the stranger is one of compassion for the people who are compelled to live in such an atmosphere. When hard pressed, a son of Pittsburg will not deny that the smoke has its inconveniences.”

Pittsburgh took measures to clean its air. Smoke no longer turns the city’s days to night. But the town, like every other, still suffers the effect of pollution. It is the greenhouse gas pollution causing global climate change, which is associated with extreme weather events like the Katrina hurricane that killed 1,800 five years ago, floods this summer that killed 1,600 in Pakistan and 1,100 in China and unprecedented heat and uncontrolled wildfires that killed thousands this year in Russia.

Even former Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce concede climate change is real. They’re just towing the usual Republican party line of “no” to anything proposed by Democrats or the Environmental Protection Agency to correct it. The Chamber, for example says it supports strong action on climate change, including cutting greenhouse gas emissions, but it opposed legislation that would cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Chamber, at one point, called for the EPA to hold “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” to debate whether climate change is man-made.

The Chamber’s position prompted high-profile members to quit, including Apple and public-utility companies Pacific Gas & Electric, PNM Resources, and Exelon.

Another big name company, Nike, resigned from the Chamber board of directors. It explained the defection:

“Nike believes that climate change is an urgent issue affecting the world today and that businesses and their representative associations need to take an active role to invest in sustainable business practices and innovative solutions to address the issue. It is not a time for debate but instead a time for action and we believe the Chamber’s recent petition sets back important work currently being undertaken by EPA on this issue.”

Like Nike, Senators should do what’s right – pass a Renewable Electricity Standard and a comprehensive climate change bill.

They need to stop thinking about their re-election and start thinking about their grandchildren.  They need to pass climate legislation that would support American jobs and avert hell.

By Kathy M. Newman
Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University

In 2009 Emagazine represented the coming together of labor and environmental activists as the marriage of “blue” and “green.”  Environmental journalist Ethan Goffman chronicled the new alliances being made between the two (previously opposed) camps, such as the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club’s BlueGreen Alliance.

Another place where blue and green are coming together is in the documentary films being distributed by Bullfrog Films.  The Reading, PA company was founded in 1973 by an Englishman, John Hoskyns-Abrahall (now an American citizen) and his wife, Winnie Scherrer.  The young idealists met in the early 1970s at the Annenberg School for Communication in Philadelphia, and, to their mutual delight, they have been able to make a living distributing progressive documentaries for the last three and a half decades.

Bullfrog Films tackle the core themes of environmentalism and sustainability.  The name of the company references the “chorus of bullfrogs” that Hoskyns-Abrahall and Scherrer hear around the pond at their home/business outside Reading, PA—on a plot of land that was once a turkey farm.  As the company website explains, the bullfrog is also a “symbol of survival and adaptability.”  One final reference:  the 1969 British independent film, Bronco Bullfrog, was the first film that Hoskyns-Abrahall worked on when he thought he was on route to become a solicitor.  Now a cult classic, Bronco Bullfrog chronicled the lives of down-and-out teens in the depressed back alleys of East London in black and white.

Today Bullfrogs Films has hundreds of eclectic titles on subjects ranging from the children of Mexican immigrants, Which Way Home, a film about an overlooked ubiquitous resource; Dirt!  The Movie; and a film that chronicles the high-stakes pranks of a group of crafty performance artists, The Yes Men Fix the World.  You can search their titles by “subject,” with subject keywords as diverse as Opera, War and Peace, Labor and Work Issues, Death and Dying, Genetically Modified Foods, Burma, Habitat, Recycling, Reproductive Rights, and Capitalism. (more…)