"The Green Environment" and "Them" instead of "You"

Putting a damper on the ensuing euphoria from the Time’s Person of the Year honor are two online articles, in addition to my puny voice of dissent here .

The first one felt that nature has eclipsed the most important species on earth, Homo Sapiens, in terms of changes sustained and the change implications, and thus should merit precedence over the latter, even though the very nature of the change affecting nature could be anthropogenic in origin.

A renowned NewYork Times columnist and the author of the popular book, The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman put up a convincing case that Time would have run the headline "Color of the Year", if he were the editor calling the shots. And he would have bestowed that honor to the color GREEN.

The article, And the Color of the Year Is ... by Thomas Friedman, appears on the Dec 22, 2006 issue of New York Times, but I saw the online version here. But before that, I first read about it in print in today’s Tampa Tribune, under “Other Views” (p. 13 of Nation/World), with a slightly altered title, And the Color of the Year Is … GREEN.

Corporations are now embracing green policies where it matters most: profits. But it’s not only the share-holders who benefit, the beneficiary includes the customers, and the environment too. Citing the case of WalMart, Friedman writes, “…But the world’s biggest retailer lately has gotten the green bug — in part to improve its image, but also because it has found that being more energy efficient is highly profitable for itself and its customers.”

How? A wide range of innovations really, though some are still at the experimental stage: alternative building materials, lighting, power systems and designs (e.g., , “big wind turbine in the parking lot”, “solar panels on key walls”, “the cooking oil from fried chicken that is recycled in its bio-boiler and heats the store in winter”, and “the shift to L.E.D lights in all exterior signs and grocery and freezer cases”.

He concluded his article with a dire caution that “the tipping point on climate change and species loss is also fast approaching, if it’s not already here. There’s no time to lose.”

I hope that Friedman’s clarion call for action could serve notice and rally bipartisan action in the US Congress where others, such as the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore, have not seemed to garner substantial support for change.

The second article is more direct, and argues that the honor should have gone to “them”. Written by Dante Chinni, the article is entitled “'They,' more than 'You,' are revolutionizing media” and appears in the Dec 26, 2006 issue of the Christian Science Monitor.

Chinni’s premises echo my view, though his was framed with much more citations. Not mincing his words, Chinni writes that Time’s premise is flawed and claimed “that only a small percentage of Americans are really contributing to the Web in meaningful ways - or even at all.”

“Of the small percentage of people who actually blog, tens of thousands post to blogs that have an average daily viewership of ... one. In other words, the scope of the Web's populist revolution shouldn't be overstated; it should be understood,” Chinni continues rationally. And he ends with a sober reminder to all lurkers: “As for you, don't feel too bad. You can still proudly display the latest issue of Time, lousy mirror image and all. And don't feel bad if you don't go out and start a blog tomorrow.

If everyone did, who would have time to read it all, anyway?”

Makes sense to me.

“You’re All Winners.” Yeah, Right!

On the surface, there are no losers in this instance, all are winners for helping nudge digital democracy further along. By now you would have got confirmation of the honor (Person of the Year) bestowed by Time Magazine when its latest issue hit the newsstand on Monday or you can read about it here. If you are reading this blog, that very action definitely qualifies you to be in the winners' circle. On top of that, you deserve the virtual bouquet of flowers courtesy of my wife too.

Otherwise it is a moot point as you would not have been aware of it anyway. Let me contend that you're not in the minority if you're in the latter category, notwithstanding that there is a fictitious you sitting across the computer screen in that case.

There is even a Chinese translation here, to whose credit the image is owed.

According to Richard Stengel, who took over as Time’s managing editor this year (as quoted in Tampa Tribune (Dec 17, 2006, Nation/World, p. 3), “If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people. But if you choose millions of people, you don’t have to justify it to anyone.”

That seems like a cope-out to me. And I can think of at least four categories of people who are not winners, just yet:

1) Those who are computer/internet illiterate;
2) Those who have no access to computers;
3) Those who have no or have been denied access to the Internet; and
4) Those whose Internet coverage has been filtered (here I’m not referring to the sexually explicit web sites).

So what about these people, which are left out through no fault (at least directly) of theirs? Surely they have no cause to celebrate, and might not even know of this award, being consumed in fending off numerous threats to their very existence.

Being a blogger myself, I certainly feel blessed to have the “time” and the “energy” and the “passion” to “blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or” the tropical fruit offering at the newly upgraded SweetBay (from Kash n’ Karry) down the street. But perhaps the adulation went a bit too far with being given credit for “seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game.”

There are bloggers, and then there are bloggers. Not all bloggers are born, nurtured, and contributed alike. Certainly to “genuinely wonder who's out there looking back at them” is miles apart from “founding and framing the new digital democracy”. But I would grant, perhaps grudgingly, that it's a start.

The Time website has a collection of blogs about the award (13,789 at last count) and I've only read the first few. But if those are any indication, then my view is in the absolute minority, with another one arguing for Warren Buffett for his donations "to focus on world health, fighting diseases as malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis and on improving U.S. libraries and high schools."

So go ahead and bask in the glory. But remember much much more need to be done.