Most importantly, we tell stories about our present and, woven within them, stories about our future.  These stories define who we are, where we are going, and all the possibilities of an unknown future.

One of the reasons the Transition movement is so compelling is just that – it tells a story.  Part of the Transition process focuses on developing an alternate social narrative about who we are and how we fit in the world.  But like so many of our present day science fiction narratives about the future, the Transition story tends to be couched in an acknowledgement or, often, an expectation of impending collapse.

I can understand that, because, well… it feels like that sometimes.  But if we can’t even imagine a better story, how will we build it?  We aren’t confined by our wildest dreams, but won’t we get further if we actually think that we can?

I think that in order pull off this sustainability thing, we are going to need to figure out how our own personal stories relate to a new social narrative.  One in which our needs are not fueled by the continued destruction of natural systems and exploitation of our fellow human beings.  I don’t think that narrative will be shaped by one person or one country, or even one movement.  Rather, it will be the organic collective of our personal stories.

This means that we need to take a very close look at how are personal stories are serving us, our lives, the people we love, and the world as a whole.  So often we allow our stories to define us.  How much better could we make things by consciously rewriting our stories to create the life (and the world) that we want?

Sure, it would be much easier if someone would give us all the answers.  If some “green messiah” appeared and led us all to a brighter future or we discovered some amazing technological solution that fixed all our problems overnight.  But I also love the fact that our new collective story, whatever it is, will belong to each of us and all of us together.  And hopefully we can figure out how to make our story a hopeful one, and use it to build a bright, beautiful future.

This post was prompted by Chris Brogan, the fact that I love getting free books, and my current obsession with the construction of new cultural paradigms.

The first, I think, is natural.  Our day-to-day lives are built around the small things, and when it comes down to it, we spend all our time being in the world.  Part of living consciously is our awareness of that being in the world, which is what the small stuff is all about.  The second is just how my brain works.  It’s what I find fun and interesting and intellectually stimulating.  Because I’m a big. giant. geek.  There, I said it.

But there’s a whole other side of the picture – the concrete, political, policy side.  It’s not really about individual actions, or theoretical and philosophical questions.  Yet the argument can be made that this side is actually more important, because it shapes the way we get our information and make our decisions.  And in many ways it defines the parameters of our society.

So please excuse me while I get all political up in here.

The Food Safety Bill

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I have no problem with food safety.  I’m just not a big fan of saddling small family farmers, many of whom are already operating at a slim margin, with registration fees and procedural requirements (traceability and monitoring) that could push them over the financial edge.

Here’s the deal.  Say I buy a tomato that was grown a few states away with thousands of tomatoes, then shipped to a warehouse a few states away with thousands of other tomatoes from other industrial scale farms, then shipped to a distributing center and then shipped all over the country.  And say that tomato is contaminated and I get SUPER sick.  I can totally see the need to know what farm that tomato came from and be able to trace where the other tomatoes in that batch went so they can be pulled from shelves across the country.

But if I go down to the farmers market and buy a tomato from Bob and Jane and get sick because it’s contaminated… does that scenario really present a traceability issue?  Not to mention the fact that the majority of food-related disease outbreaks… oh wait… don’t come from small family farms.  (This could, in part, be due to scale and % of market share.  But I also think it’s because small family farms are actually part of the community they serve and, in many cases, eat their own food!)

Senator Tester (ha ha) proposed an amendment that would exempt small farmers from this particular bunch of regulations.  You can find more info on how to help at the Cornucopia Institute, but to make a long story short, call your Senator now and ask them to support Senator Tester’s Amendment to S. 510.  The Senate could vote on this as soon as next Tuesday (the 13th), so time’s a wasting.

And One More – Beef Labeling

First, a quick sum up.  In February, the organic standard changed to require a specific amount of pasture time for ruminants (that’s those grass-eating critters).  Except not cows that we eat, during the last four months of their lives.  Unfortunately, that really defeats the point of the pasture standard from both a nutritional and a cruelty-minimization standpoint.

Did you think that organic stamp on your meat meant grass-fed?  The guy at the grocery store definitely thought so when I pestered him about grass-fed beef.  (Yes, I have become one of those obnoxious people who bug grocery store clerks about things I would like to see stocked.  Supposedly it only takes 5% of us being obnoxious to catalyze an inventory change.)  Well that’s not what it means.  And, even after the pasture standard change, that’s still not what it means.

Again, I’m going to refer you to the Cornucopia Institute’s analysis of this issue for more information.  To (poorly) summarize, the FDA has opened the issue up for comments.  Go comment!  Personally, I love Cornucopia’s proposed three-tiered labeling system that would allow consumers to make informed decisions about exactly what they’re buying.  I think that’s a really good idea.

Alright, /end political rant.  But seriously guys, this makes a big difference.  The livelihood of small farmers and being able to make informed choices about our food… well, it matters.  So if you care, take a few minutes and speak up.  If not you, then who?

Every day is an opportunity.  We’ve all heard this phrase, but most of us can’t really hold ourselves to grasping the present moment in every second of our hectic lives.  Our careers, our goals, our existence can sometimes leave little time for laying back and enjoying the moment.

For me, this consciousness is about more than thanking the world for the things it provides us, but for giving back to it in the conscious decisions we make.  I’ve worked at an environmental nonprofit for almost a year – and in nonprofits since my career started.  And I’ve noticed a crazy trend. Some people that work in nonprofits actually could care less about the issues.  They dump their trash in the garbage instead of the recycling bin, print tons of materials, and buy unsustainable junk food for the entire office.

I know what you’re thinking: for some people, jobs ARE just jobs.  And that’s okay.  And you are absolutely right.  No one in my office signed a pact that they would care about the issues as much as the overall organization does.  They weren’t hired to recycle.

Jess’ blog has become a place I go to learn about what it means to live consciously – with effort, and a thought process that goes into choices.  This may be choice about food, about gardening; about anything we do that impacts the world around us.  It always makes me think about my office, and the way people distance themselves from the actual work they are doing.

I’ve made little changes in my life over the past year since I really became invested in the environmental movement, and more specifically in the food movement.  For me, the best way to live consciously was to learn about the things that are causing problems around the world, and figure out my tiny contribution to fixing them.  I think that the concept of this is the most important part: eating locally because you feel pressured to – or because it’s popular, even – is a first step, but not the right one to long lasting change.

It’s like the gym.  If you go because you feel guilty, the guilt will only carry you so many workouts before you start to slip.  It has to be a conscious drive.  I started with baby steps – little changes here and there.  But making those changes made me feel confident.  It made me believe.  I think we can all do a little bit of good – whatever that good may be for them.  Do it, and do it consciously.

In the caveats connected to giving up my dishwasher, I mentioned that my marriage is worth more to me than hand washing dishes.  Relationships can be difficult.  Balancing the needs, desires and, in all honesty, egos of two people who may or may not be very much alike is complicated.  Military deployments are hard on people, and hard on marriages.  I won’t wage a war over hand washing dishes.

In many ways, my husband and I come from different worlds.  We have things in common, but sometimes I wonder if the differences are greater than the similarities.  The path to where we are now was fast.  I think my family is still reeling.  I know I am.  As a result, there is still much that we do not know about each other (although I often feel he knows me far better than I know him).

National Geographic explorer Wade Davis gave this phenomenal TED talk on endangered indigenous cultures. One of the things he discusses is that different cultures actually represent alternate ways of being in the world.  Our cultures define not only who we are, but also our relationship with the world around us, and we create our realities in accordance with that relationship.

Fundamentally, conscious and sustainable living movements address our ways of being in the world.  That is where we find the greatest risk for conflict within domestic partnership.  It’s not an argument about the dishwasher or reusable water bottles, or any of those conflicts that seem so small to outside observers.  This isn’t roommates arguing over what temperature to set the thermostat.  This is made of far scarier stuff.

These conflicts arise because we perceive that we are moving away from how our partner lives in the world.  And not just when we move away from them, but when we begin to place normative judgment on that movement.  When our way becomes the right way and their way becomes the wrong way.  Suddenly that water bottle isn’t just a water bottle.  It’s a symbol of a diverging worldview.

I think this is one of the failings of our culture – perhaps just in the US, but maybe in Western cultures generally.  (Actually, maybe it is all cultures.  I can’t pretend to know.)  I think we panic a little bit when confronted with a different way of being in the world.  We’re really into talking, not so much into listening.  We’re really into showing other people how right we are, and not so much into starting from a place of not knowing, and striving for greater understanding.  And we’re big on value judgments here.  Big on condemning, or at least engaging other people with fashionable levels of disdain.

In a relationship, those tendencies are magnified by fear.  You see them moving away from you and are scared.  You feel yourself, your way of being, your paradigm shifting and are afraid that they will not go with you.  Afraid of what it means if they do not.  But I think we have to remember that there are many ways of being in the world.  I am learning a lot about that from my husband.

Because you know what’s odd?  I don’t actually know what my husband thinks about all this – the dishwasher abandoning, crazy food challenging, frugal garden planting, deliberate consciousness going on in my life right now.  Some of it I can share with him, but we are limited by the logistics of our reality.  We get to talk to each other more than most.  We are lucky.  But you can only be so connected from half a world away.  So when people ask me what he thinks – and they do ask – I don’t really have an answer for them.

But I try not to worry.  This is going to sound trite, but it’s not.  I’m not worried because I know he loves me.  And from him, loving me isn’t about agreeing with me – not about the small things or about some of the big things.  Loving me means seeing me clearly and honoring who I am.  It means respecting our differences and valuing our sometimes disparate ways of being in the world.  I will be the first to admit that I am not very good at this.  But it is something I am learning from him.  He is really good at it.  I practice every day, and I think I’m getting better.

Maybe I’m crazy.  Maybe a marriage can’t really exist playing hopscotch between the lines different ways of being in the world.  But it doesn’t feel crazy.  It feels right.  And it makes me think the world might be a very different place if all of us were more comfortable living on the margins of our ever-shifting paradigms.  Or maybe not even comfortable.  Maybe if we just tried to do it anyways.

• All Things Eco at Focus Organic
• Great Green Finds at Go Green Street
• Personal Development and Well Being Carnival

… even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy-efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future -– because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy…

The call to action was admirable.

Meanwhile, China is not waiting to revamp its economy.  Germany is not waiting.  India is not waiting.  These nations — they’re not standing still.  These nations aren’t playing for second place.  They’re putting more emphasis on math and science.  They’re rebuilding their infrastructure.  They’re making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.  Well, I do not accept second place for the United States of America.

But then the details, oh…the details were horribly wrong.

And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.  It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.  It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.

And the call for the climate change legislation was woefully insufficient (and vague).

And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

As were the limited emissions targets announced this morning: 28% by 2020 from a 2008 baseline.

It’s been a turbulent year for me, and there are many things I miss about living in Washington DC.  The State of the Union address helped with that.  President Obama gave us a clear picture of what clean isn’t.  But this is a chance for cities around the world to become an example of what clean is.  Wherever you live, now would be a good time to engage locally.  Help build a brighter, truly competitive, honestly sustainable and clean future for your community, for your city.  Because it looks like it’s up to us.

First we had the senatorial election in Massachusetts.  Whatever your politics, the election of Scott Brown was bad news for climate change policy in the United States (and possibly across the world).  The cap and trade bill was already stalled, and now you can move it one vote further away from ever happening.

Meanwhile, over in the EPA, politicians have started arguing about whether CO2 is pollution.  So pleased to hear this has come up for debate.  Can we reopen the discussion on nicotine, arsenic and lead too?  /sarcasm  Kudos to Senator Boxer for raising the point that having politicians rebut scientists on the merits of science is both unprecedented and absurd (see Weak Defense).

In West Virginia, we have the latest installment in the never-ending debate about the merits of mountaintop removal mining.  Glad to know that we’re debating the ethics of unleashing the explosive force of an atomic bomb all over the Appalachians, especially considering this is far from a last resort for meeting our energy needs.  And that we can never get those mountains back.

From the media, R.I.P. Air America.

And finally, we have the Supreme Court decision overturning an Iowa campaign finance law prohibiting corporations from making political campaign contributions.  If you were hoping for campaign finance reform any time in the near future, let me tell you, this isn’t it.

Yesterday I got kicked by one of the horses I take care of.  She sent me flying across the pasture.  Oh well, that’s life.  At least now I look as bruised and battered on the outside as I feel on the inside.

Household

• Bike v. Car – If you have a garage, make your bike your default option by parking it behind your car so that you would have to move the bike in order to take the car.  Store your helmet and all-weather riding gear right there so that you don’t have any excuses.
• Lock the dishwasher – I think this one could go both ways.  You could end up with hand washed dishes or you could end up with a massive pile of dirty dishes in your sink.  Take it or leave it, but I’m definitely locking mine.
• Turn the thermostat down – I have to be pretty darn cold to get up and turn up the heat.  If there’s a throw blanket, a sweatshirt, or a warm cat closer than the thermostat, I’ll always use those instead.
• Reusable lunch bags – Buy reusable lunch bags and give up those little paper lunch sacks.  Also, buy large containers of things like yogurt and chips.  Prepackage them in reusable containers so your kids can just grab them out of the fridge.  No more snack-sized packaging.
• Water bottles and drinking fountains – Stop buying bottled water and make reusable water bottles your household’s default option.

Corporations / Businesses

• Office kitchens – No more disposable cups and plates.  See if you can get your office kitchen’s disposable dishware replaced with real dishes.  Not only is it better for the planet, but it will save your company money in the long run.
• Thermostat – Again, change the thermostat a little.  It doesn’t have to be a huge amount, but letting it get a little cooler in the winter and a little warmer in the summer can make a big difference.  Make adjustments to the dress code if necessary.
• Bike v. Car – If your company charges for parking, make sure the company is providing adequate space for bicycle storage.  (This is less of a change of default as it is reduction of barrier to entry, but it ties in with the default bike v. car change on the household level.)
• Paper or plastic – Remember when grocery stores used to ask you if you wanted paper or plastic?  What if they asked you if you wanted a bag?  Or said nothing and only bagged your item by request?  DC just implemented a $.05 bag tax, but I bet a simple change in the default option would do much to change behavior everywhere else.
• Meatless options - Many restaurants are introducing more vegetarian menu items, but what if more meals were cheaper default non-meat dishes to which you could pay to add the meat?  (Some restaurants already do this with some items, particularly salads and pastas.  I absolutely love it!)

National / Global

I think changing defaults gets harder at the national or global level.  Not only is it more difficult to enact change, but the defaults themselves become more complex and difficult to identify.  I think the morality of changing defaults also comes into question.  For instance, what if publicly regulated utility companies made recycling services the default.  Right now, at least in our area, recycling is opt-in.  We had to sign up for it.  Would more people recycle if it were the default and they had to opt-out?  Would it be ethical for a company to do that?

For those who think no, then why do we find it acceptable that our credit card companies regularly add additional services to our accounts as default.  We then have to opt-out of these services.  In fact, on my to do list for today is making a call to cancel some sort of “payment protection blah blah” that I am being billed for at $14.95/month.  I didn’t ask for this service – my credit card company changed the default and it showed up on my statement.  We tolerate this behavior from a variety of corporations, and the government often is met with resistance when it attempts to step in and regulate these behaviors.

How would our political system change if you were automatically registered to vote when you turned 18, instead of having to opt-in connected with your driver’s license renewal or a separate registration process?  I don’t know the answer, but I would imagine that changing that default would change something.

What do you think?  More defaults to add to the list?  Thoughts on the ethical ramifications of influencing behavior through defaults?  Can you think of international or global defaults that could be changed?

(Did  you miss last week’s related post, On Changing Behavior? Make balancing your life easier by having updates delivered directly to your e-mail.)

I absolutely hate that I feel this way about environmentalism.  I’m buying into an unfair stereotype, which puts me among the lowest of the low.  But it’s how I feel, even though it bites me in the ass on a daily basis. To a certain extent I think my discomfort has value as an internal compass, giving me hints about kind of environmentalist I do want to be by pointing away from what I don’t like about some aspects of environmental activism.  But it’s no wonder that it upset me when one of my close friends criticized me for fear-mongering about the dangers of climate change and over-emotionalizing environmental issues to inspire fear.  Now, I’m not sure if 1. he’s not listening, 2. I’m not communicating well enough or 3. he’s just trying to irritate me because he thinks its funny (highly possible).

I’m going to choose #2, because when it comes down to it, you can only control yourself, your own behaviors, and your own life (sometimes just barely).  Also, I have everything to gain from striving to communicate more effectively.  I don’t want to be a fear-monger and I don’t want to preach the end of the world.  It’s not how I want to live my life.

More importantly, it doesn’t seem to be working.  Decades of environmental activism based on educating or scaring the public haven’t worked.  Most people do not change their behaviors based on knowing more about the environment, no matter how compelling the facts or how terrifying we make the issue seem.

So if large-scale success is not to be found in educating people, then what can we do?

We need to acknowledge that our goals might not be met most effectively by trying to educating, scaring, or dragging people into our causes.  And then it’s time to work on changing the defaults, because the majority of people go with the default option no matter what the choice is.

Changing Defaults Works (x3)

Personal Finance

What is the best way to increase employee participation in 401k plans?  It’s not more education or greater access to information.  Believe it or not, even the incentive of a company-matched 401k doesn’t do the trick.  People intend to invest, but just never get around to it.  What works?  Make investment the default option.  In one case, changing the default increased program participation from 40% to almost 100%.

Diet

The organizers of the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change (BECC) conference performed a little experiment.  What happens when you make a vegetarian entrée the default instead of a meat-based dish?  80% of the attendees stayed with the default.  And it wasn’t because it was a particularly climate conscious group of people – at the previous meeting of the same organization, 83% chose to eat the default: meat.  (You can also ask any good member of a restaurant wait staff.  They know that what a person chooses to eat is affected by how their choices are framed.)

Moms

Moms understand changing defaults.  You want your kids to eat healthier?  Put out healthy snacks when they get home from school and put the junk food on the top shelf.  Or, better yet, don’t buy junk food at all.  Fill your home with books and imaginative toys and put the TV and video games in a closed entertainment center.  Make it easier for your kids to make balanced choices by changing the “default settings” of your home environment.

It may be that one of the most potent tools to influence change is easier to access than we think.  Stop forcing people to go to classes about the importance of retirement investing and don’t waste your breath preaching the moral superiority of veganism.  Just work within the system to change the default options.

And remember that systems exist on every scale.  They are global, environmental, governmental, and corporate.  But they also persist all the way down to your family’s morning routine.

What are some systemic defaults you might change to encourage sustainability?

How about these?  Changing Defaults for Sustainability

• Carnival of the Green at Enviroblog

Instead, I’m bobbing around in the ocean wearing little inflatable arm floaties.  Periodically they grow limp, and I tread water while I blow some more air into them.

I’m not alone.  I’m holding hands with other people who have arm floaties too.  And they’re hanging onto more people with arm floaties and we’re actually a little cluster of floaty people, bobbing around on the ocean together.

It gets a little frustrating, because there are also these people on jet skis who ride around us, pointing and laughing.  They speed close and shoot water at us.  Then they laugh and zoom away.

I can see a cruise ship in the distance.  The people on the cruise ship don’t notice our little group of floaty people.  They’re too busy goofing off in the pool and eating at the buffet.  I wonder if they realize that the 24 hour buffet sign is more like a hope than a promise.

But as I look further into the distance, I can see that my little cluster of floaty people is connected to other clusters, and we’re really a huge web of floaty people, as far as the eye can see.  We’re a floaty brigade.

I’m going to try to remember this when I talk to other floaty people.  When I expect them to be on board, I’ll remind myself that there is no “on board.”  The ocean is vast, and their little section might look different from mine.  My floaties are pink, but maybe theirs are blue or yellow, or polka-dotted.  A few of them even have pool noodles and inflatable crocodiles.  (Sometimes I wish I had a pool noodle.)  But we’re all floaty people.  We are all getting sprayed by jet ski people, and we’re all watching the same cruise ship, even if we have different perspectives.

Speaking of the cruise ship, I really hope they remembered to pack their life jackets.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rdeetz/ / CC BY 2.0

To be honest, until I got back online yesterday morning, I hadn’t even registered that today would be the first day of a new decade.  But it seems that over the last week, everyone else has been trying out answers, drawing diagrams and making tons of lists.  From lists of the most influential people to lists of the most important movies of the decade, we’re engaging in a collective process of taking stock, trying to come to terms with the last decade, what it means for us and for our future.  I would prefer if we did this – reviewing and setting goals, personal and societal – all year round.  But it doesn’t seem to work that way, so here we are: trying to draw some sort of conclusion from the last ten years.

I don’t usually make predictions.  If you had asked me a year ago where I would be now… let’s just say I would have been very wrong (never, ever would have guessed married!).  My life has been anything but predictable.  And if I can’t make accurate guesses at my own life, which is theoretically within some measure of my own control, how could I begin to guess at anything else?

But this year I’m going to hazard a guess at 2010.  Why?  Because I just have a gut feeling about it.  And I hope that I might be right.

Resilience

I predict that ‘resilience’ will be a defining term of the year, and possibly even the decade, to come.

What is resilience?  The New Oxford American Dictionary defines ‘resilient’ as:

adj. (of a substance or object) able to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed. <SPECIAL USAGE> (of a person or animal) able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

Take note of that special usage.  That’s the one.  But add community to the little list.  “Of a person, animal, or community.”  Add economy.  Add culture and society.  Add civilization and species.

I’ll probably be writing a lot more about resilience this year, and I hope that I won’t be the only one.  In the meantime, here’s wishing everyone a resilient new year, individually, communally, globally.  Happy 2010!

1. American citizens have an abiding faith in technology, more so than any other country in the world.
2. Americans don’t believe in climate change.

Individually, each of these facts is unremarkable.  But together, they pose an interesting question about how we handle science in our society.  I have been musing about some of the possible explanations for this apparent contradiction.

Perhaps it is that we don’t understand science, so we are skeptical.  Of course, we don’t understand the science behind how our television works either (at least I don’t), but we know that it turns on when we press the power button.  Most of the time.  So even if we don’t understand it, we have faith that it’s going to work when we need it to.

Or, as I hear echoed time and again, could there really be two Americas?  The first America has faith in technology, believes in climate change, and theoretically hopes that we will be able to build a bright green future thanks to technological innovation.  And the second America doesn’t believe in climate change, evolution, stem cell research or any other science?

I don’t buy it.  I don’t buy it because it doesn’t work.  You cannot lump the vast range of views about science and technology into two simplistic groups.

After all, climate deniers still use computers and drive cars.  They still go to the doctor, take prescription medications, get flu shots, and treat their cancer with chemotherapy.  This is all science.  This is all technology.  And they believe in it.  They have faith in it.  They trust the science, scientists, and engineers behind all of these things.  Likewise, many people who understand the science behind climate change do not believe there is a technological solution to the problem.  Some even advocate a large-scale re-adoption of older methods of production and distribution that are not dependent on current technological developments, much less future advances.

But the question is, if not through a theory of two Americas, how can we describe the apparent contradiction between these two statistics?  Because it does seem that there should be some connection between the two.  And it is fascinating that on both sides of the aisle, there seems to be among non-scientists (laymen, really) an inclination to pick and choose which science we are going to believe in and which we will blatantly disregard or actively deny.

This is largely due to the fact that, over the last several weeks, there has been extensive coverage of water as a pressing issue, and one that is inextricably bound to climate change.  Much of the coverage revolved around a discussion of James Workman’s book, Heart of Dryness.  He gave a round of interviews and wrote a compelling op-ed in the LA Times about the necessity of addressing water and adaptation in tandem with emissions mitigation at the Copenhagen Climate Conference.  (Water is not on the agenda in Copenhagen.)

Throughout the discussions of water weaves an underlying question:  Is water a unifying or a dividing force?  Heart of Dryness documents that water has the potential to unite people within and across communities.  But, as Workman himself acknowledges, water has been and still is a source of conflict among human populations.

This discussion about water once again leads us to an evaluation of systems.  I agree with Alex Steffen’s assessment that we (yes – me, you, all of us) need to become fluent in the economic and political systems that shape our world and are the primary source of meaningful, far-reaching change (The Revolution Will Not Be Hand-Made).  Because the fact is that water itself – that little H2O molecule – isn’t the issue.  Rather, it is the systems we have created to manage, regulate, trade, protect, distribute and conserve water that have tremendous power over our daily lives.  Indeed, our survival depends on finding and implementing systems that work.

Will water unite or divide?  When it comes down to it, we are the ones who must decide how to best answer that question.

More On Water:

• TED Talk: Anumpam Mishra, The Ancient Ingenuity of Water Harvesting (my favorite of the bunch)
• Watershed (by Vienna Teng)
• Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought (James Workman)
• Copenhagen’s Missing Ingredient: Water (James Workman, LA Times)
• James Workman on Tell Me More
• TreeHugger on Heart of Dryness (with video interview of James Workman)

Reading: The Transition Handbook

Where: Hyperlocavore.com

Why: Because intelligent discussion about books is great!

I was particularly pleased that The Transition Handbook (by Rob Hopkins) won the vote for the first round of the newly formed Hyperlocavore Book Club, because I was fascinated by the Bright Green vs. Transition Towns discussion that has been going on throughout the last month.  (The key posts are Transition Towns or Bright Green Cities? posted at Worldchanging, and the response written by Rob Hopkins himself: Responding to Alex Steffen’s Critique of Transition at Worldchanging.)

I recently purchased Alex Steffen’s Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century, which I have started to work my way through.  And now I’ll be joining in the discussion of The Transition Handbook with the cool people over at Hyperlocavore.  Good timing, huh?

It’s not too late to join up.  Discussion on Chapter 1 begins on December 7th.  Just go and sign up at Hyperlocavore.com and then join in on the Book Club discussion.  Look forward to seeing you there!

P.S. If you don’t know about Hyperlocavore,com, you can read my very long interview with founder Liz McLellan.  In short, Hyperlocavore.com is an online community dedicated to the formation of “yard sharing” groups around the world.  A brief excerpt from the interview explaining one of the many models of yard sharing:

Let’s say you live in an apartment, you have a green thumb and really miss digging in the dirt.  And your neighbor (friend or family member) Mrs. Jefferson has a nice big yard but has arthritis and a bum knee.  Another friend, Joe, also would like to lower his bills but still eat lots of organic fruit and vegetables.  The three of you form a yard share group.  You agree to grow for one season together as a test run.

Now what happens?  All three of you eat better food that has traveled zero miles to get to your plate.  It is in season, delicious and has a low-carbon impact.  Mrs. Jefferson has two younger people in her life, a shared meal now and then and fresh flowers every day, she not only is eating better, but is more connected to the community.  You and Joe are saving money, getting fit, eating better and diminishing your climate impact.  And I haven’t even gotten to how much your kids love the garden, how much they are learning about life and healthy eating, and how much they liked making that apple pie with Mrs. Jefferson.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Today is Black Friday, which means that yesterday was Thanksgiving.  It is a holiday with a long and interesting history that has since been reduced to Indians, Pilgrims, turkey (the paper bag hand kind and the flesh and blood kind), and football.  My family has always skipped the football part, which I guess makes me un-American or something.

The truth is that we have a lot to be thankful for, but as I sat with my family at the table, one thing really stood out for me.

I am thankful for opportunity.  Not the material, educational, situational opportunities that I have been granted (although there have been many and for that I certainly give thanks).  Rather, I am thankful for the global and generational opportunity that stands before us.

We are at an inflection point.  We have the chance to change the course of our species and our planet.  And that is scary, but it is also exhilarating.  Because unlike any species before us, we are able to look at the big picture and try to understand.  And what lies ahead may be our greatest challenge.  But that means it is also our greatest opportunity.

And so, on this day after Thanksgiving, I am thankful to be surrounded by innovative, positive, and passionate members of my species, looking into the face of opportunity.

The economy is bad.  It has gotten harder to make ends meet.  Traditional holiday gift-giving is going to be a challenge for many families.  But please, please do not kill someone over that Easy-Bake Oven.  And don’t destroy the planet by spending your money on a bunch of junk wrapped in sea-turtle killing plastic.

There are other ways to make the holidays affordable and eco-friendly.  Plus, you get the added bonus of spending Black Friday morning enjoying breakfast with your family, rather than having your face smushed into the sliding glass doors of a big box store.

1.  Buy Used

I know, used gifts are… well, used.  But they don’t have to be.  No matter how much I pare down my consumeristic desires, I seem to end up with an ever-growing list of must-experience books and DVDs that are not available from my usual sources (friends, family, library, Netflix).  But you know what?  Used books and DVDs are great!  Not all used books are scribbled in and not all used DVDs are scratched.  In fact, it’s easy to find both of these things in like-new condition at a considerable discount.

Other things make great used gifts as well.  Be creative.  Not every great present has to be new.  I once opened a present to find a friend’s barely used sweater I had coveted for months.  I still have the sweater, and think of her fondly every time I wear it.

2.  Give Something Personal

People often recommend giving handmade presents.  That is not on my list because I am not the kind of person who can knit a homemade sweater or build a rocking chair or carve a centerpiece.  However, if you are this kind of person, this tip is my version of “give a homemade gift.” (And please teach me!)

For those of you that are like me, there are other ways that your gift can be personal without requiring that crafty touch.  Are you a broke student with spare time?  For the busy person in your life, give them a certificate for a couple hours of yard work.  Your friends might have enough toys for their toddler, but they might really love a kid-free night out.  Love animals?  Give the gift of pet-sitting so your loved ones can go on vacation worry-free.

3.  Shop at Etsy

I discovered Etsy just before the holidays last year and fell completely in love.  If you’re going to buy presents, I would encourage you to check out Etsy.  Aside from being unique, beautiful, and generally amazing, many of the things you can find on Etsy are also very affordable and low-impact.  Many of the sellers use repurposed items in their creative process and recycled shipping materials.  With Etsy you have the luxury of being able to talk to the person who made your gift, which makes it easy to find gifts that meet your criteria, budgetary, ecological, and otherwise.  And wouldn’t you rather use your dollars to support skilled crafters and artisans than multi-million international corporations?

4. Gift Exchange

Try a different kind of gift exchange.  Draw names out of a hat in advance, so each person has only one person to buy for.  You can even do it Secret Santa style so no one knows who their present is coming from.

My family no longer exchanges individual gifts.  Instead, we each have a stocking.  Kids fill the adults stockings and adults fill the kids stockings.  Because our gifts are supposed to fit in our stocking, we end up with fewer gifts that tend to be smaller and more affordable (and often edible!).  Because no one knows who gave what, there is no sense of one-upmanship trying to give the “best” present.  Also, we don’t use wrapping paper because we use stockings, which means less cleanup for us and less trash for the landfill.

5. Differentiate Between Levels of Need

My dad’s family differentiates between people who “need” and people who do not need.  Those who “need” are generally kids, broke college students, and couples just starting out.  Not needs are people like my dad and step-mom and my aunts and uncles.  They have more than enough, and they are particularly hard to buy for because of it.

Those in the need category get presents, either useful things that they need or luxuries they never would have bought for themselves.  Presents for the not needs usually take the form of donations to charities or causes of their choice.  Not everyone needs or wants more stuff.

Speak Up!

You can take a stand against the Black Friday mentality from the receiving end as well.  If you don’t need anything, tell your family you would rather not receive material gifts this year.  Suggest a charity or a cause they could make a donation to in your name.  If you don’t want to go that far, when someone asks you what you would like for the holidays, tell them!  Everyone in my family knows that I prefer used gifts whenever possible.  I also mention it specifically in the “requests” section of my Amazon Wishlist.  You might be surprised at the results.  This year, my mom’s response to my usual birthday inquiry was that she did not want a present.  When pressed, she assured me that she was not being self-effacing.  She just genuinely did not want any more stuff.

What tips do you have for getting through Black Friday and the holidays with your wallet and eco-conscience intact?

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I tell myself that I shouldn’t be surprised by these things.  After all, only 39% of Americans believe in evolution.  But the fact is that I was astonished.  Perhaps it takes me by surprise because I get lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that we’re all on the same page.  But then I talk to someone who doesn’t believe in public education, or who believes that climate change exists, but thinks that somehow the United States can find a unilateral solution to a problem that is fundamentally an international crisis, and I remember that we’re not all on the same page.  (And yes, I understand that these two examples actually lie very close to each other on the global spectrum of understanding fundamental truths.)

It becomes an issue for me because I take it one step further.  When I feel that not only are we not all on the same page, but that maybe no one is on our page.  Maybe we are just a small and vocal minority, shouting into the abyss, praying someone will hear us.  And what if we’re not even as vocal as we think we are?  All the other small, vocal minorities seem so much bigger and louder.  Maybe we’re small and they’re big!  Maybe no one is listening.  You can see how this quickly devolves into a very counterproductive internal monologue.

Which is why it throws me off even more when I find something like this article from Worldchanging.com.  The problem is that I agree with it.  I agree with Alex Steffen’s assertion that the level of world-saving change required will take more than just small, personal changes.  That we face a global crisis on a scale never before witnessed by our species, and that our salvation lies in an equally unprecedented solution.

And no matter how many arguments I could make about macro level results being the aggregate result of micro level changes, how can my kitchen garden seem anything but a hollow answer to his call for a 95% reduction in human impact?

The truly massive shifts Steffen discusses – I don’t know what they look like.  As he says, no one does, because they will look like nothing we have seen in the past.  But more than that, I don’t even know how to take the first step.  What does it look like “to be people who are tackling the most important systems around us?”  And what tools are available to us to change these systems “quickly, and at great scale?”

This was discouraging for me.  Because Steffen and I are on the same page.  We are speaking the same language.  And I have no answers for him.  I don’t even know how to begin.

I know how to make changes in my own life.  I know how to live according to my own values.  And I know how to talk and write about the things I believe.  I can be a strong advocate for those values on an interpersonal level.

But if that is not enough, where do we go from here?  If what I know how to do is not enough, and if we do not have a model in history for moving forward, where do we start?

I think that herein lies the key:

It will involve needing to be more connected to global networks of people working towards change, more committed to seeking understanding and transparency in complexity, more engaged with systems that make us feel small — because we are small, and the world is complex, and we can’t do this alone.

But on days that I am already feeling very alone, it is hard to abide the idea that the small changes I am making are futile.  On those days, I find myself caught in a crisis of faith.

But as I was skimming through some of the posts, I noticed something.  It’s something I’ve also noticed in almost every article I’ve read about sustainable agriculture.

There’s a big pink elephant in the room, and it’s growing exponentially each year.

Meet My Elephant.  I call him “Population.”

There is much to read about fighting climate change, from the very small (eat less meat, turn off the lights) to the very large (complete overhaul of the transportation and energy infrastructure).  The same goes for sustainable agriculture, where it seems that battle lines are now being drawn between advocates of old techniques and those that trust in new technology.  In many of these debates, the elephant is mentioned offhand.

feed a population of 10 billion people…

mitigate increasing carbon emissions – rapid development, rapidly growing populations…

The wording changes, but underneath all these conversations is the knowledge that  in the future, we will have to address the same problems we have now, but for many more people.

I’m not advocating government population control policy or saying that everyone should stop having children immediately.  But I do wonder why we’re not talking about this more.  Especially when there is one easy and affordable thing we can do that will make a dramatic difference.

Educate Girls

If we want to reduce our population growth, the easiest thing we can do is educate girls.  This means that if we want to fight climate change, if we want to reduce poverty, if we want to be able to feed our population more effectively – we need to educate girls.

I’m not really sure why we can’t seem to talk about the elephant in the room.  (Do any of you know?)  But it seems like even if we can’t talk about the problem, we should at least be able to start talking about one of the solutions.

Social systems are not adapted to large-scale operations, because social systems are concerned with humans that live, grow, and die.

Part of the problem with society today is that we have gotten too big.  Our social systems are designed with the end result in mind, and then reverse engineered to find the starting point.  Macro level goals are broken down into micro level steps ill-suited to meeting the needs of the living building blocks that make up the system.  We see this problem across the board, from education to health care to agriculture.

We consistently see education failing, in spite of increased emphasis on results-based standardized testing.  Ask any teacher why.  They are living it every day.  Every child is an individual.  Every child learns differently.  Teaching to the tests takes time away from real learning, which is a matter of meeting individual needs on a micro basis.

Health care is the same situation.  Ever person is different.  Our health does not benefit from top-down management.  Actual health care and treatment is lost in a sea of diagnostic coding, frivolous testing, preexisting conditions – insurance paperwork.  That is, if you have access to health care at all.

And agriculture.  Nutritional, environmental, and ethical issues.  Large-scale agriculture is failing us.  (For those that say it is the only way to feed the world, please note: We have more than enough food to feed the world.  Hunger is a result of other failing social systems.)

In spite of Malthusian warnings, the world’s population is still growing.  We’re getting bigger.  So we are going to need to reevaluate our systems.  Because the ones we have now aren’t gonna cut it.

Take a close look.  If the building blocks that make up the system live, grow, and die, it is likely that that system is already failing.

Access to this type of tool can fundamentally change how we see politics.  It enables us to look past the talking points and see who is the real recipient of the Most Important Thing: time.  Time is my most precious; it is exponentially more so for the President.  This snapshot of how he spends his time yields clues as to which people and what issues are “hot button” enough to be a true priority.  This kind of information is power.

We can learn a lot from looking at our own lives this way.

Take a step back from who you think you should be and what you think you should be caring about, and take a look at the choices you make.  It can be a pretty enlightening experience.  For instance, I majored in political science with an emphasis on global politics.  Yet every day I find myself reading the science, technology, and business sections of the newspaper.  I loved my major, but what if I had noticed that sooner?

I spent a lot of time when I first moved to DC being hard on myself for not going out more.  Museums, art, theater, music, it’s all right there waiting for you.  But I would find myself at home on Friday night, curled up on the couch with the dogs watching a movie, completely and perfectly happy.  I lived in an underground hole so they could have a yard.  Money was spent on vet bills and good food for them, not weekend trips to New York to visit friends and go to the theater.  Looking at it in reverse, no matter how important those other things seemed, my priorities were clear.  And they were so far from what I expected them to be, based on the picture I had in my head of who I was.

The fact is, sometimes we don’t have a very clear understanding of our own priorities.  We think we know what our priorities are.  We often say, “I will make that a priority,” as though we have some master list somewhere.  We’ll shift whatever it is to above washing our cat – no one likes to wash cats – but below setting the DVR to record the NBC fall lineup.  But often what we think our priorities are, or what we think our priorities should be, is not reflected in the way we spend our time.  If information is power, then an honest assessment of how we spend our time and our lives is an invaluable tool in seeking sustainable, true-to-ourselves happiness.

So suspend judgment for just a moment and take a look.  Don’t criticize yourself for what you should be doing or thinking or feeling.  Instead, what can you learn from what you  are doing and thinking and feeling.

What are your “priorities?”  How are you spending your time?  And are you happy?

(Also, go to the POTUS Tracker and click on health care.  Then choose almost any other issue and move the slider from January to September.  You can see how much the health care debate has eclipsed almost everything else, foreign policy be one of several exceptions.  This is particularly unfortunate given the current level of irrational discourse going on about health care right now.)

Unfortunately, at this point, all the opinions are just reduced to a lot of noise. When everyone is standing around in a room yelling at the top of their lungs (healthcare town hall meetings, anyone?), not a lot is said. And while everyone comes away feeling like they’ve said their piece, are you really saying it if no one is listening?

I worry that the debate over some of our most important issues has been reduced to auditoriums, chat rooms, blogs, tweets, status messages and sometimes even dinner tables of yelling. And lately the debate seems particularly fear-based, with little regard for facts, data or logical reasoning. From grandma-killing death squads to climate change legislation hammering the last nail in the coffin of American manufacturing, it’s become a question of who can find the scariest thing and yell it the loudest. And that, perhaps, is the scariest thing.

This noise is something that doesn’t contribute to the actual discussion of the issue. Fear mongering, inaccurate assertions, or rehashing things that are no longer relevant or have already been resolved – these are all noise. Even things that once were meaningful or emotionally compelling can be reduced to noise through redundancy. I am sorry to say it, but I have seen five too many photos of polar bears on melting icebergs this week.

So what are we to do with that. How do we stop the noise? How can we foster a meaningful conversation in the face of all the yelling.

I have no idea, but this is what I’m going to try:

• I am not going to be a yeller. I will try my best to contribute in a constructive and meaningful way, or I will keep my mouth shut.
• I will not be noise. I will not tweet noise, I will not Face Book noise, I will not fill anyone’s RSS feeds or inboxes with noise.
• I really will try to be reasonable. I know there are far more than two sides to every issue, each with its own valid arguments. We gain nothing by ignoring each other’s points.

I truly believe that we can return to a constructive dialogue about the problems that we, as a country and a world in jeopardy, face. But it will take everyone jumping on board and committing to reducing the noise and stepping up the dialogue. The only way any of us will be heard is if we shut up and listen for a while.