Global Warming Is Not A Religion

Is it just me, or is it unbelievable that Sarah Palin and her like-minded cronies can do so much damage in this world?  Please, just let me take a minute to vent here.  I am so beyond frustrated that some of the most stupid people in this world get to have their voices heard so loudly, while the normal rational people sit by and go unheard.

I guess it’s our own fault for not staging crazy scenes and posting them on You Tube.  Or for not having a cable news station on which to cry all day and night.  But, I can’t help but wonder – aren’t the wrong people angry?

I feel the same way about health care.  Why is it that the uninsured sit silently by, grateful for any care they receive, while the well-insured march around demanding to be heard?  Similarly, why is that those of us who actually want to continue living and breathing on this planet are completely overshadowed by a few crazy people who would rather make more money now at the expense of all future generations.  These same people run around crying about the amount of taxes their children will have to pay, but could care less about whether there are any fish in the oceans for their children to enjoy.  Or maybe they just think the fish are as “unlucky” as the polar bears?

(Note: I am a CPA, and of course always work to minimize tax liability.  But, some things are just more imporatant than taxes.)

It seems to me that we should be the angry ones.  Those of us that don’t want our oceans to turn into an acidic, plastic soup.  Those of us that don’t want to drink contaminated water.  Those of us that don’t want to see all of our green spaces disappear.  And yet, we never speak up.  We never go all bat-shit crazy on You Tube, running and screaming and making the news.  Because we are rational and believe in rational thought. 

But, I think we are making the wrong choice.  No one cares enough to read articles and get the whole story on anything anymore.  All anyone wants are just news blips, tweets, and thirty-second videos.  Rational thought certainly doesn’t make the news, and apparently, it doesn’t get anything done.

So, what can we do?  We, who are rational thinkers, who like to read the whole story before making an opinion.  We, who try our best to make informed decisions in a world where information is way to difficult to come by.  My best thought it to start with your politicians.  Unfortunately, they are the ones who are going to make these decisions for us.  Even more unforutnately, the only people they seem to listen to are the ones who speak the loudest.  So, we need to get louder.

I read here that the number of Americans who “believe in” global warming has dropped by 8% since 2008.  I was so struck by the wording – “believe in” – in this article.  I am sorry, but is the fact that polar bears are dying out written in an ancient text, or something we can physically measure today?  How about the giant icebergs floating around New Zealand – were those a mirage?  Was Hurricane Katrina a myth?  I just don’t understand how one doesn’t “believe in” global warming.  Do these same people also not “believe” in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?  Or maybe they just don’t believe that humans caused it.  Maybe they believe that God delivered unto us all of that plastic.

The article mentioned above goes on to explain that this reduction of belief in global warming in America with leave President Obama unable to act against Congress.  Now, this is why we need to get vocal.  We need to let our senators and representatives know that we do care, we do believe, and we want to be heard, too.  We need to write letters.  Lots of letters.  We need to vote.  We need to let our senators and representatives know that we vote.

If everyone who cared about this issue wrote three letters (one to each of your senators and one to your reprsentative in the house), our voices would be impossible to ignore.  There will always be people like Michael Pollan, Al Gore, and No Impact Man who will make louder statements than the rest of us.  But, we cannot sit around and wait for them to do all of the talking.  We need to show that we are the majority, not the minority.  That the rational thinkers matter and count in this country.

I urge all of you to write those three letters, long or short.  It will make a difference.

Filed under: Green Philosophy

Wanted: One Green CPA

Can there be a correlation between passion and utility?  Between inspiration and perspiration?  Is there a way to make your dream job the same as your day job (and still earn a living)?  These are the questions that have been plaguing me as of late.  Until recently, I have been focused more on the utility, the perspiration, than the “dream”.  As the title of this blog might suggest, that focus has been to become a Certified Public Accountant, and have those three elusive little letters after my name: C.P.A.  Now, as I am (hopefully) almost done with that journey (one exam left, and then the long wait for the state of California to grant me my license), I am beginning to realize that I am actually only at the beginning of  a long career.  And, while I enjoy the general activities of my job, I have started to wonder what I will actually do with that license once I receive it.

Of course, I think that the majority of us would like to serve the “greater good”, in some capacity, throughout our lives.  And I am no exception.  But, what does that mean: serve the greater good?  It sounds so broad, so huge, so impossible to achieve.  So, many of us are left stagnant, wondering what one person could actually do to help anyone or anything.

To me, serving the “greater good” would somehow benefit society, whether that is local or global, in either a small way or a large way.  (Yeah, that narrows it down, doesn’t it?)  But, how does one choose a cause?  I think most of us don’t just have one cause that we are passionate about – I know that I don’t.  Just to name a few things I wish I could do something about right now: help the poor learn about nutrition, save the polar bears, fix the terrible practices in recycling electronics, solve America’s health care crisis, keep our green spaces from turning into sprawling subdivisions, remind people that they don’t need an SUV to drive to the office….well, I guess the list goes on and on.  But, each of these causes all have something in common: the environment.

I can’t help but think that the majority of America’s current, pressing problems are all interrelated.  It’s no coincidence that the economy, the health of our citizens, and the environment are all crashing at the exact same time.  And, I don’t think we can all sit around and wait for our politicians to get their acts together and fix this.  First of all, they need to know it’s something that the voters care deeply about before they will ever make any real strides.  Second of all, it really is up to individual responsibility, because it’s going to take a complete change in the mindset of the American people to make any real strides in fixing our myriad of problems.

This brings me back to my original question – can I be both a CPA and work to solve (on any level) the global environmental crisis that we face today?  Can business (dare I say it?) actually help the “greater good”?  Can I afford a decent standard of living while bringing up the standard of living for others?

This is the question that I will explore in this blog.

As for the title of this blog – The Greenest CPA – do I really consider myself to be the greenest CPA out there?  Of course not, not even close.  It’s something I would like to aspire to, and like any great goal, is actually much bigger than myself.  To me, the idea of the Greenest CPA is an idea of business working with the environment, aiding in the greater good, to create a more sustainable way of life than the one business has been promoting for at least the past thirty years.

Today, on this Earth Day 2009, we stand at the beginning of a change in both thought and attitude, as young and unformed as my career as a CPA.  It will be hard for us to make these changes, but I don’t think we will have much of a choice.  As our incomes sadly shrink, we may come to see that conserving the environment also helps us conserve what little is left in our savings accounts.  As our medical bills become impossible to pay, we may find that eating organically grown fruits and vegetables can stave off so many of the chronic diseases that have become all too prevalent in our lives recently.  As our way of life continues to crash around us, we may find that another, more sustainable and healthier way of life, while less grand, is actually a better way to live.

Too optimistic?  I hope not.  For me, it’s my vision of the future.  But, like the majority of Americans, I have a long way to go to get there.  In the past two years, my husband and I have been making small steps to try to decrease our impact on the environment, but we have many more small steps to take.  I plan to use this blog to help me stay committed to our cause.

I also plan to use this blog to explore how I can make an impact as a CPA, as well as as a citizen.  I know that there are ways accountants and business can hurt society and the environment, but I want to make a commitment to be on the other side.  I want to use my newly gained technical expertise to make a difference in the right ways.  How will I do that?  I am not sure yet.  But, as I write in this blog, I think that I will get closer to figuring that out.

I hope that I will have enough readers, as time goes by, that people will be able to help me out in my cause, and that I can help and inspire others.  I guess you could call this my mission statement.

Happy Earth Day!

Filed under: About the Greenest CPA, Earth Day, Green Philosophy