Monthly Archives: February 2013
A must-read: Bill McKibben on fossil fuel divestment
This gives me hope, and makes me so freaking proud of all the students who are working tirelessly to, quite literally, save the world.
If you’re a college student or an alum, and your school has a divestment campaign, I urge you to support them. Write letters, threaten not to donate any money to your alma mater until they divest from fossil fuel, do whatever else you can.
The logic of divestment couldn’t be simpler: if it’s wrong to wreck the climate, it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage. The fossil fuel industry, as I showed in Rolling Stone last summer, has five times as much carbon in its reserves as even the most conservative governments on earth say is safe to burn – but on the current course, it will be burned, tanking the planet. The hope is that divestment is one way to weaken those companies – financially, but even more politically. If institutions like colleges and churches turn them into pariahs, their two-decade old chokehold on politics in DC and other capitals will start to slip. Think about, for instance, the waning influence of the tobacco lobby – or the fact that the firm making Bushmaster rifles shut down within days of the Newtown massacre, after the California Teachers Pension Fund demanded the change. “Many of America’s leading institutions are dozing on the issue of climate,” says Robert Massie, head of the New Economics Institute. “The fossil fuel divestment campaign must become the early morning trumpet call that summons us all to our feet.”
Reading while fat, part 4
“Buildings and cars, electricity and language–what a piece of work is man, right? What triumphs of rationality, you know? If you really take it all in, you can become enamored with a smug belief about how smart you and the rest of the human race have become.
Yet you lock your keys in the car. You forget what it was you were about to say. You get fat. You go broke. Others do it too. From bank crises to sexual escapades, we can all be really stupid sometimes.”
–David McRaney, You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself
Pretty ironic for a book about unconscious biases, huh?
#FatshionFebruary, day 26
Top: Chic Star, skirt: vendor at a dance festival, petticoat and socks: Domino Dollhouse, tiny hat: So Good, boots: Hot Topic, necklace: eBay, studded wristband: Macy’s, zipper wristband: some random store on Newbury Street
#FatshionFebruary, day 25
I was flipping through my old Girlfriends LA catalogs, thinking about scanning one in its entirety. And that inspired me to dig out one of my old GFLA shirts and try to see if it would fit over another shirt. Which, excitingly, it did!
The Oscars: the good, the bad, and the ugly
I didn’t actually watch the Oscars, but who needs to, when all the highlights (and, unfortunately, lowlights) are all over the internet?
The Good
-The gowns of Octavia Spencer, Fan Bing Bing, Helena Bonham Carter, and the ridiculously adorable Quvenzhane Wallis–check out her puppy purse!
-Jennifer Lawrence’s reaction to ridiculous questions from the press:
Quote of the day
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
-Jiddu Krishnamurti (source: Brainy Quote)
Quote of the day
“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: if you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”
― Martin Keogh, Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World (source: Goodreads)
Random funny mental image of the day
So, yesterday I was reading more of The Story of Stuff. (Which, despite that one thing that pissed me off, is an amazing and important book. Go read.)
And I came across a sentence that mentioned the “low-end Swedish fashion giant H&M” (Leonard, 116).
I totally pictured The Hulk with long blonde braids, wearing a peplum top and floral skinny jeans.
#FatshionFebruary, day 22: pink and black lace
I love these earrings. I got them years and years and years ago, from a jewelry vendor who came to my college.
Tutus And Tiny Hats 