OIL (CONT)

ways to use this freedom as there are people to claim it. There is the whole realm of individual and local action -- everything from carpooling to convincing the school board to buy electricity from renewable sources. By claiming your freedom in this way, you will free yourself up a little more: from guilt, from passivity, from helplessness. Now, in addition to not being a compromised politician or a trapped CEO, you also are not a fossil fuel consumer -- or at least not so much of one. Like more and more progressive and responsible businesses here and abroad, you are doing what you can to limit or offset your own emissions.

You can also use your freedom to create other islands of freedom in strategic places. Join the movement toward campaign finance reform. You will help give the politicians back their freedom to listen to their conscience and their constituents. Or work to reform the corporate charter laws of your state so that corporations have responsibilities to society and nature as well as to investors. Think of it as giving CEOs the freedom to bring their love of their grandchildren into the boardroom.

We face a predicament. Even as the feedback from the Earth becomes stronger -- as the tundra thaws and the coral reefs bleach -- many people at the highest levels of governments and industry remain trapped within rules and goals that prevent them from acting on that feedback. Pragmatism and compassion both suggest the same response: we must use our freedom to secure theirs

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.