Earth Equity News

Real Security After 9/11. Posted by John Addison, Cleantech Blog, September 11, 2008. "My ninth trip to teach a workshop at Two World Trade Center never happened... On September 11, 2001, thanks to people like Avel Villanueva, the hundreds of people working for Sun Microsystems in Two World Trade Center all quickly evacuated the building and survived. 'Please, with calmness, go to the nearest exit. This is not a drill. Get out,' [Avel told us.] Only after several pages and inspecting the vast 25th and 26th floors did Avel [himself] leave. Three minutes later the second plane hit Two World Trade Center... As we continue to spend billions for oil [in] countries hostile to our way of life, we continue, in the words of Thomas Friedman, to 'finance both sides of the war on terror'... [And yet,] Americans are not waiting ten years to replace a fraction of our foreign oil with new oil from Alaska. [We] are reducing our oil use now. Confronted with high prices at the pump, U.S. citizens drove 12 billion fewer miles in one month. People are taking advantage of flexwork, public transit, car-pooling, sharing rides and sharing vehicles... 'When the wind changes direction, there are those who build walls and those who build windmills,' [Friedman says, in quoting an ancient Chinese proverb]... From information technology to clean technology, from flexwork to sustainable communities, let's build windmills not walls. We can be inspired by heroes like Avel Villanueva who got everyone to safety. We can also celebrate the millions of ordinary heroes who are building a more secure future for our children by living a more sustainable life today." John Addison is publisher of the Clean Fleet Report.