Archive for April, 2009

I recently posed this question on several LinkedIn green groups and was surprised to get so many answers with a wide range of opinions. Most of them advocated systemic expressions of sustainability: green business, policy and regulation, economic incentives, standards, strategic planning, and simple common sense. A few mentioned awareness-building: education, marketing campaigns ("green is good"), and mission statements. The rest championed tools like directories, handbooks, and websites. One outlier suggested that sometimes the answer is just in a state of mind.

In the spirit of Ken Wilber and Integral , in one sense they are all right. Just not 100% right, to the exclusion of the others. I found it intriguing that the majority of them oriented towards systems, technologies, and policy, and only one touched on the metaphysical. Yet, consciousness of our innermost motivations, values, and beliefs is critical to the success of any greening initiative, whether personal or organizational.

As we make the transition from short-term, fear- and anxiety-based motivations to more long-term, optimistic and effective motivations, it’s important to bring greater consciousness to what’s behind our behaviors. Shining the light of awareness on how and whether our needs are being met can be transforming.

At GOforChange, we believe strongly that eco-friendly strategies are far better at meeting the full range of our needs than tired, wasteful consumerism. We are designing a process to help people bring that awareness to their own lives, called Your EcoBlueprint . One clear benefit is that it eliminates the mismatch between people’s "shoulds" and their actual behavior, giving them a fresh perspective on which green strategies actually work for them. Your EcoBlueprint is as unique as your fingerprint!

We invite you to give us your thoughts and feedback. What are the struggles or challenges you have with making green a priority? Is big-picture visioning a distraction from necessary action, or a helpful North Star? How are you negotiating the glut of information out there? We would love to hear stories of your ah-hah moments, successes, roadblocks, and your favorite awareness practices! Drop us a line through the contact page, or comment here.

B-more Productive was the title given to one of this year’s Urbanite projects . This particular project asked the question: what could a typical Baltimore homeowner or renter be doing to increase the use of small open space for the production of food and energy? I was fortunate enough to work with Catherine Pancake and Dru Schmidt-Perkins to help visualize this idea by taking an existing row-house and illustrating various opportunities of adding solar panels to the sides of a houses, cultivating edible weeds and taking up beekeeping. Watch a video interview with each Urbanite Project team and if this doesn’t make sparks fly, see a video about a 300-year-old 2-acre food garden in Vietnam. Both examples fully define sustainability and doing a lot with a little can absolutely be the gift that keeps giving.

In other news:

Cafe Hon just bought wind power and they did the math and figured they would save $11,000. on their utility bill in one year! Read more from WJZ.

There are two new green renovation companies in Baltimore; Shelter and Green Building Alternatives.

Article mentioning Transition Towns for DC. There is talk about bringing the idea to Baltimore. Check back soon for more info.

In honor of Green Week Baltimore I wanted to highlight a few important efforts that I’ve come across in the past couple of months. The MTA of Maryland has implemented a Green Facts page on their website. This interactive page provides information on all the energy alternatives which are taking place within our Mass Transit system. We currently have 10 hybrid diesel-electric buses and coming soon are some 100% biodiesel conversions and much more. Parks and People Foundation of Baltimore has created the Community Greening Resource Network (CGREN) , a membership program supporting Baltimore City community gardeners with materials like seeds, plants, tools, and educational hand-outs and downloadable PDFs. There are a list of upcoming events and workshops on their calender and ours that include information on composting, rainbarrel systems, etc. This year I’ve signed up to be a member of the Village Green Community Garden in Remington and will be making visits around to as many other community gardens as I can. Check back soon to hear more about the exciting momentum stirring around urban farming city-wide! In addition to active green spaces, the city has also set a goal of increasing its tree canopy from 20 percent to 40 percent. The Growing Home program is an innovative public-private partnership between Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Harford County, 50 local retail nurseries and garden centers, and homeowners to increase the tree canopy in the region by offering homeowners comprehensive education about planting trees and a cash incentive, the $10 Growing Home Tree Coupon redeemable toward the purchase of a qualifying tree with a retail value of at least $25.

I leave you with this quote from critic and urban activist Jane Jacobs, "No one can find what will work for our cities by looking at..suburban garden cities, manipulating scale models, or inventing dream cities. You’ve got to get out and walk." Be the green you wish to see in the world. There are hundreds of ways to get involved. Check our calender for more Green Week Events.

Other urban farming/gardening resources:

Intervale Center

Growing Power

Rhizome Collective

Fresh Start Farm

Recently my family and I have been faced with the unfortunate decision to move my grandmother into an Assisted Living Community, based on her increasing battle with Dementia. In addition to many other things, one of my jobs has been to find a place to dispose of her unused prescriptions and over-the-counter medications — which had probably been mounting for quite some time. Based on a few conversations and reading a few disheartening articles (one which came from Johns Hopkins ), the consensus seems to be that one option is to dispose of unwanted medication by dumping them into the toilet.

However, with some more research, I found that this is incredibly unsafe. One reason is that septic tanks and waste treatment plants aren’t designed to remove 20th-century synthetic drugs, most of which aren’t even biodegradeable. This means that a huge percentage of this stuff is getting fed right back into our water supply; eek!! It also negatively effects surrounding ecosystems and public and private land. A common alternative and a suggestion that came from the FDA is to to mix or dilute meds with undesirable substances like kitty litter, soda, dirt or cayenne pepper and throwing them into the trash, which theoretically will deter children or household pets from accidentally harming themselves. Although I think this is better then dumping them into the toilet, it’s still contaminating the earth by potentially leaching into the ground once they’re dropped into a landfill, thus creating unknown health effects. Some suggestions that are easy and might engage the public more on this issue:

1. First, see if the medication has a label for advice on disposal. This is usually done because of concerns with illegal uses, overdoses or human or animal contamination.

2. Call your doctor to talk about taking back unused medication.

3. See if there is a take-back program in your community.
Call local pharmacy
Call trash service
Call local hospital or Medical Center

4. Donate to a developing country. One example is the Starfish Project .

5. Donate locally. Kansas has a new law that lets mail-order pharmacies, nursing homes and other medical facilities donate unused drugs, which is producing a windfall for the state’s safety-net clinics. Why not get one of these passed in your state? Continued

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what motivates people to change, to – in the parlance – "go green." In our upcoming 4-part teleclass, "Your EcoBlueprint: Three Keys to Transforming Your Life and Work ," we will be exploring this in depth.

A compelling, inspired vision is the first step towards mapping out strategies that matter the most to us. Vision and a good map also help to sort through the mind-boggling amount of information, opinions, lists, and tools that have come along on the last few years. This class will provide a framework to craft a clear path for ourselves.

One important thing to keep in mind is that it’s not about being green or not-green. Our motivation comes from a much deeper place – the need to heal our separation, to reconnect in all ways – to ourselves, to our communities, to nature. Our sense of separation keeps us anxious, fearful, lonely.

When we seek to reconnect, we are butting up against centuries of worldview that humans are separate from, and superior to, nature. This notion has threaded through a great deal of recent human history, leading to domination, exploitation, and degradation. It has caused potentially irreversible damage to our planet’s climate, to ecosystems, to biodiversity. Ironically, it also keeps us from taking our place in the community of living things. Being awake to the havoc we have wreaked causes great suffering and guilt. It’s hard not to come away concluding that we are a bad species, in the words of Paul Stamets, that faces "the possibility of being rejected by the biosphere as a virulent organism." (Mycelium Running , p.1)

Yet, many of us have the intuition that a deeply satisfying life can heal our relationships with ourselves, our neighbors, and the planet. Continued

In the vein of our recent posts about food (one of our favorite topics here!), I wanted to write a little follow-up from my kitchen. The debate over HR875 and other such bills is certainly food for thought. The fact that Monsanto is able to sue farmers in the U.S. for having unwanted genetically-engineered seeds on their land — that blew there from other fields, thereby contaminating heirloom seeds — is nothing short of alarming. What if we just pause and imagine a better path forward?

What’s most important for a healthy crop is the biodiversity of the soil and microorganisms that produce it in the first place. Over the past few years, I’ve read success stories of a natural fertilizer business called Terra Cycle which uses the age-old genius of worms to compost waste and turn "worm tea" into a sought-after consumer product. The good news is, this isn’t rocket science. This stuff can be made for free inside your own home; that is, if you aren’t squeamish about some squishy worms.

I have a compost bin in my kitchen with about 500 to 1,000 worms inside eating my junk mail and food scraps. The particular bin I bought has a drainage spout, so that when there is heavy moisture content the extra water can simply drain to the bottom, be collected in a bottle, and fed to my house plants. The above picture displays the awesome power of worm tea. I had never fed my Money Tree worm tea before, but after only two servings and a couple of days’ growth, you can see the obvious difference this stuff makes. The water and nutrients shot up to the top leaves and what was similar to the bottom leaves only days ago is now a shimmering forest green (actually much shinier and green in real life!). Now, let’s see if some actual money starts growing. . . .

See our calender for composting workshops.

Treehugger article about Terracycle.

Recently, I was pulling the meat off a leg of lamb that my husband had cooked in a broth to make soup. My son was there and we started to re-assemble the bones, something he is fond of doing. . . .

The leg bones themselves were one thing, but when we saw how the shin connected that that funny-shaped piece at the bottom. . . and then realized it was the hoof! My heart stopped for a second and I saw that lamb as a very alive little bleating creature. We had eaten its leg with a large group of friends and kids the Sunday night before. I immediately wondered if I am grateful and conscious enough when I eat meat. Of course, the answer is no. I did then say a little prayer of thanksgiving to that lamb who gave its life for our dinner (and others’). The fact that we got so many good meals out of it — at least four more dinners with the soup — is some consolation.

One way to express our gratitude for the bounty we receive is to make the best possible use of it. Don’t waste anything. I ran across a quote from Chogyam Tungpa Rinpoche recently that depression is like smelling your own armpit. To me, that’s such a perfect way of capturing how self-centered and myopic our suffering can be. It strikes me as similarly applicable to our wastefulness. When we sit down to eat leg of lamb and we aren’t aware or thankful, it diminishes our relationship with this amazing, abundant world. It keeps us small and stuck, doesn’t let us feel all those glorious connections and want to celebrate them.

I think our careful extraction of those bones, and their odd-shaped little connector parts, from the veggie goo of that soup stock was one way or remaking our connection. Reweaving. Acknowledging. Toby persisted until he got all three of the small knee pieces to fit, so that he could speculate how the thighbone came into it. Why so much complication at that particular joint? It’s a marvel, really. We were both a little stunned by the extravagance of the forms, the curves and bumps and how they all fit together. Nature’s jigsaw puzzle. Now, think about how many thousands, millions of times that kind of coming together gets designed, engineered, and built in Nature. It puts our puny efforts in their place, that’s for sure.

And I haven’t even said a thing about the pelvis — !

Sign up for our free teleclass: Cultivating a Sense of Awe and Wonder , taking place Friday, April 17 from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. EST. We are planning a great experience for you!