All Posts Tagged With: "sustainability"

I had the luxury while on our sailing trip to read an entire book, start to finish. I didn’t just read it – I DEVOURED it. Fitting, then, that it was a book about food and eating: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.

I’ve been a Michael Pollan devotee forever. I still remember where I was sitting when I read his brilliant essay, "Weeds Are Us," in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine. That wonderful meditation on the push-pull of nature and culture is in his book, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education . But I digress. We’re talking food here.

This book is so full of great observations, factoids for those of us who are info-obsessed, philosophy, and downright good sense. All packaged in Pollan’s signature intelligent, pleasure-to-read prose. It’s conversational, but not condescending. Among the MANY gems, three themes particularly spoke to me.

1. Good for us = good for the earth

Right off the bat, he makes the observation that good personal choices are usually good ecologically. I completely agree! It’s at the heart of our EcoBlueprint program; right down to my example showing how Thanksgiving dinner meets multiple needs beyond simple sustenance: family connection, aesthetics in choice and arrangement of the food, expressing love, giving care, pleasure, support of local economies, participation in the great cycle of life. I LOVE that he defends the pleasure of eating, and I’m just so glad that he’s not the only one singing that song lately.

2. All about relationships

Another great theme is that of food relationships. In nature, food is all about relationships among species: we call them food chains. Pollan takes a clear-eyed look at our place in this chain. Who better to guide us than the man who has spent much of his writing life on the topic of the intertwining of nature and culture? Culture, he says, has played a critical role in helping to mediate people’s relationship to nature. Eating is one of the most important manifestations of that relationship.

This is likely why, in the ever-growing sustainability movement, food is often a first entry point. We all have to eat! Buying our food directly from farmers is an excellent way to experience this connection . Pollan’s advice is to shake the hand that feeds you: meet the people who grow and raise the food you eat.

3. Traditional + now = a way forward

In another brilliantly creative passage, he likens traditional diets to vernacular architecture . Continued

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.

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

On New Year’s Day, we received an email from our good friend, Michael Furbish, who owns the Furbish Company , a green builder whose work we have profiled recently . They are clear about their mission on their website: "Furbish Company designs, sells, installs, and maintains plant-based building systems. We view plants as living machines. Set up properly, they enhance building performance while providing aesthetic beauty." In other words, they are change agents.

In our first post for the New Year, I wanted to welcome our new visitors, and remind our regulars about our purpose here. Since Michael says it so well, I’ll just use his words:

"Your site is absolutely wonderful. Every time I visit, it is deeper and richer. My one regret is that I spend too little time enjoying this space. As you articulate so well, appreciating the empty space . In many ways, your site is just that. It is the space that invites thinking about what can be."

I love that – we not only create space to think about what can be, we highlight what is, already. There are so many businesses and organizations that are doing wonderful, thoughtful, meaningful work around here. We intend to continue presenting their great work. We are the go-to resource for change agents to learn about each other and to refuel on inspiration when they are feeling drained by the challenges of being on the cutting edge of change.

We will also post more often about general, universal themes. Julie’s work as a green design and sustainability consultant, as well as her involvement in the community, provides much material. Alyssa will write more about her urban gardening and DIY projects. As an artist, her hands-on creative urges are boundless!

So, sit back and enjoy. Subscribe to our RSS. Tell your friends, especially your change-agent friends. Find us on Facebook , Twitter , Flickr , and Virb .

Recently, we started in earnest to learn all we can about the blogging world, including how to increase our site traffic so we can continue to offer GOforChange to our community and the wider world. Naturally, we enrolled in Upstart Blogger’s 30-Day Blogging Course . We are known mostly within our own networks, where we reliably preach to the converted. But what about people who are just waking up to environmental and economic challenges? With our expertise, wealth of information, online forums, calendar, and marketplace, we are determined to reach a wider audience.

We started GOforChange in early 2008 to help spread the word about the growing sustainability , local food , social justice, and greening movement in the Baltimore area. A blog was the right format to share information about upcoming events, volunteers opportunities, advice, and all the organizations and businesses in our area that are working for a better world. We are always learning about new things — community gardens, energy auditors, local artisans, schools — and the list of topics keeps growing. We continue to believe that reliable information about local resources is valuable to people who want to know how they can make a difference in their daily lives and communities.

As of Day 5 of the course, we have already learned much about social networks, Technorati rankings , Google Analytics, and reaching out to like-minded blogs. We are shifting our posts to offer more advice, musings, and stories from Julie’s work as a green architect and sustainability consultant, and Alyssa’s hands-on artistry in urban gardening, composting, and other DIY projects. Interspersed with posts about Baltimore-area topics, these will have a broad appeal beyond our geographic region. The Upstart Blogger course is something we probably should have taken six months ago, but back then we just didn’t realize how much we don’t know! Stay tuned for updates on our progress.

After watching this beautiful, simple film, you will want to run outside, grab a few hundred friends and make some words yourself. Never has the sense of urgency about climate action been so creatively expressed. Its relevance for Baltimore’s budding Sustainability Plan cannot be underestimated. While you are inspired and raring to go, head on over to 350.org and sign up to receive their action notices. We are scheming ways to help Baltimore develop a Climate Action Plan , neighborhood by neighborhood. Drop us a line with your ideas — either via the "contact us" page or on our social networking site’s discussion forums. Yes, we need to lean on our elected officials ( federal , state , and local ), and YES — there is a lot we can do ourselves.

As always, Van Jones inspires us with his important message. In this very brief video, he outlines the three crises facing our country: social / economic, ecological, and spiritual (loss of hope). He reminds us that there are no throw-away people or species, that it’s all sacred. We are all in this together; we aren’t going to leave anybody behind.