Sustainability Saturday is without theme this weekend, because frankly my life is weird these days, and not lending itself to themes.

First up, Tuna’s End. The tuna, the tuna, the tuna.  More on this later, but here’s something to think about as you read this thoroughly researched and excellently written article about the decline of bluefin tuna: trade is everything.

Shared by a reader a few weeks ago (see, I’m catching up!) here is a graphic representation of the wide world of oil – where it comes from, who has it and how we use it.  Note the transportation sector – yikes!

In case you were looking for a little oil spill deja vu in your life, does any of this look familiar?

Sometimes The Oil Drum is a little too dense and doomish for me, but this week they had a brilliant guest post on the relationship between oil, agriculture, food, hunger, and obesity.  It is well worth the read.

As is fairly frequently the case, the best article I read this week came courtesy of Worldchanging – a discussion of why they haven’t been covering the BP oil spill, and an excellent explanation of systems, solutions-oriented thinking.  We need to be ambitiously and optimistically pursuing creative solutions.

This super-cool proposed solution appealed to my inner geek .

Ok, so never mind.  The theme this week was oil, with a little bit of food thrown in because food is tasty and we need it.

Finally, I feel it is my duty to share with you, so that you may learn from my experiences.  I did a shout out on Twitter and Facebook asking for organic solutions to my issue of aphids on my fruit trees.  The final verdict was water, with or without soap.  FYI, washing the aphids off your fruit trees when there is a slight breeze results in a rain of bug parts and pissed off, wet biting ants!  Just saying.  (My fruit trees look much better though.)

Happy Saturday, folks.

So tell me about this week!  Anything good, bad, horrifying, or thought-provoking to share with all of us?

This week we’ll be heading a little more to the theory side, with one exception: BP oil spill top-kill.  You’d almost have to live in a hole in a ground to have missed this, but be sure to keep an eye and an ear out for more status updates today.

So Now To The Theory

This great article explores the relationship between globalization and sustainability in terms of environmental carrying capacity.  This makes sense – it’s what competitive advantage is all about.  But I don’t remember Adam Smith mentioning the ecological ramifications.

The Powerful Vagueness of Sustainability discusses sustainability as a systemic process guided by our best science, instead of as a scientific absolute.  Another advantage of a deliberate “vagueness” or openness about the details is that it encourages creativity.  However, I would argue that this creativity must be guided by strong and clear principles if it is to result in effective and meaningful solutions.

The New York Times Freakonomics blog covered an article in Rolling Stone (if anyone has a link to the original article, let me know?) about how corporate buyers are purchasing farmland to capitalize on food shortages and other potential effects of climate change.  Fascinating, and I’m not really sure how I feel about it.

Finally, Racialicious gives us an insightful discussion of racial considerations in the sustainable food movement.  In my opinion, this is a must read and a must think about.  Also, I’m a huge fan of the gummy bears.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Before the Oil Comes – From Megan Jordan, author of Velveteen Mind, a different side of the BP Gulf oil spill.  It’s a beautifully written piece that is well worth reading.

Locally Grown Won’t Cut It – Here’s a glimpse into the other side.  It’s good to remember that there are organized entrenched interests at work here.  In other words, people’s livelihoods are caught up in preserving the status quo.  The changes we advocate are very threatening to a lot of people, and it would behoove us to remember that.

A fascinating “Sustainability Faceoff” between McDonald’s and Starbucks. The article itself acknowledges that, on the surface, this may seem like an unusual choice of businesses.  But a sustainable future is not going to be based on companies like McDonald’s and Starbucks magically disappearing.  It is going to require corporations across the board to move systematically towards the “mouth of the funnel” in ways that are commercially and economically feasible – LED lightbulbs, sustainable fishing programs, recyclable and compostable packaging, and supplier sustainability scorecards (or something similar).

From Gabon, here’s a example of how important it is to find creative ways for local communities to be engaged in conservation efforts.

And for you real food types, how to make your own butter in a mason jar!

Finally, Sustainability Education Provides a Reason to Hope.  We need as many reasons to hope as we can find.

Happy Saturday, everyone!

In the video, Hopkins mentions the idea of “running into a wall” in terms of peak oil and climate change.  He showed a picture of a truck crashing into a brick wall.  (Some days I feel like that.  Not the world, just me.  But that’s another story.)

My Intro to Sustainable Engineering class calls this concept the “illusion of the cylinder.” We (society, individuals, corporations, etc.) are traveling through a cylinder, the walls of which represent our limitations – resources, ecosystems, etc.  We are trying to avoid hitting the walls, tweaking systems based on “as much as possible.”  Limit our impact as much as possible.  Reduce consumption as much as possible.  Minimize pollution as much as possible.  As long as we can either keep ourselves from hitting the walls or, as we have done in the past, push the walls outward through technological innovation, we will be okay.

Except that according to my class (and Rob Hopkins, a bunch of climate scientists, sustainability activists, environmentalists… the list goes on), we’re not really in a cylinder.  We’re in a funnel.  The walls of the funnel are closing in on us, propelled by positive feedback loops in ecosystems, population growth, market pressure, resource availability, etc.  As the funnel narrows, our options are increasingly limited and the time frame for consideration, discussion, debate, and action grows shorter.  We have to start moving, and fast.

By the way, there’s a massive oil spill going on right now…

Are we in a cylinder?  Are we in a funnel?  Or are we in a truck with failed brakes, hurtling towards a brick wall?  Discuss.

Related Posts:

• The Funnel, The Wall and the Toxic Substances Control Act

(If you can’t see the video for some reason, click here.)

I think that Eduardo Sousa embodies the kind of heart our world needs.  And actually, so does Dan Barber.

On that note, I have a guest post up today at 25 & Trying.  It’s a different sort of thing than I usually post here – a friend told me it was more heart and less head.  Go check it out if you could use a little bit more heart in your day.

And food for thought – how would it change your life if you were wholehearted about everything you did?  How might it change the world?

Okay, fine.  So I didn’t fail.

I expected that simply giving up my horse lease as a recreational activity cut my gas usage by 3/4 automatically.  It actually ended up being pretty close to that: I used just under half as much gas in March as I did in February.  I also had my move to factor in, which definitely changed my driving patterns for a few weeks.

So why do I feel like I failed, or at least cheated?

No Pain, No Gain

I cheated.  I just changed what I was doing, I didn’t change how I was getting there.  Yes, it did make a big difference.  But it wasn’t hard or painful or irritating.  It didn’t take any great sacrifice on my part.  It didn’t require any research.

In fact, it made my life easier.  My new super fun thing, roller derby (yes, roller derby), happens to be right by the co-op, which used to be way out of my way.  It’s also on the way to the farmer’s market, which is back in season now.  So I’m eating better, and having to plan my grocery shopping less.

Roller derby is also cheaper than riding horses, without even factoring in the gas.  And I had a really inexpensive horse lease.  I’ve been able to get everything used except for my pads (safety first, people), and had a blast scouring thrift store racks for pieces of cute outfits.

And…shh… don’t tell anyone.  At least right now, roller derby is way more fun than riding horses.

Positive Change Doesn’t Have To Be Hard

I’m really torn on this one.  On the one hand, if changing one optional activity can make that big of a difference, isn’t that great?  I mean, nobody is going to say that using half as much gas is a bad thing.  Particularly since it’s not like I gave up recreation entirely.  I just changed what I was doing in a way that reduced my vehicular gas usage by over 50%.

I feel like this shouldn’t bother me.  I always tell people that positive change doesn’t have to be hard.  The whole concept behind my deliberate optimism is that we can make choices that are better for the planet and better for ourselves.  But this one really felt like it should be harder!  So I’m not stopping here.

Busses, Bikes and Skates

A car-reduced life has become more of an ongoing project than a one small change moment.  I’ve started to explore the bus routes.  Honestly, it doesn’t look so good.  Busses only run every 30 minutes, and I have to transfer lines to get to my primary walkable area.  It looks better if you add some sort of faster ground transportation – a bicycle or, I suppose, skates – to either end.  But it looks worse in bad weather, and gets harder at night, as the walkable destination lacks sidewalks and lighting.

I’ll keep you posted with updates on how this “second phase” of the project goes.  Right now, what is most striking is the need for conscientious civic planning that takes alternate forms of transportation into consideration.  We’re talking about deep walkability, which is sadly something that my current route lacks.

How does your community fare as far as public transportation?  What gives your community deep walkability or what is it still missing?

I’ll do a more in-depth update and discussion of last month’s small change – decreased car usage – next week.  For now, I’ll just say that this is and will continue to be an ongoing project of mine.  Still eating real food as much as possible, but hand-washing dishes is over.  New house = new, very efficient dishwasher.  There’s no way I can beat this one with hand-washing (it uses reclaimed heat from the water to dry dishes, blah blah technical blah).

For this month, I’m taking on a relatively easy switch: cloth napkins.  I’ve used recycled paper napkins for the longest time, and reuse them to within an inch of their lives, but there is absolutely no reason for me to continue using paper napkins.

In a nice moment of synchronicity, I ran out of napkins within a day or so of receiving a set of cloth napkins as a housewarming gift.  I’ll most likely supplement my supply of cloth napkins as cute ones show up at the thrift store (an easy way of rendering moot the life cycle cost of cloth v. paper debate).  But for now, four is more than enough to serve my household of one.

This change is a no-brainer for April, which is going to be a bit busier than last month (in spite of the fact that last month we bought a house and moved – tell me how that works?).  Which brings me to my next item…

Looking for Guest Posters

My dear hubs is home for his two weeks of deployment leave this month, and I have resolved to break my internet addiction while he is home.  I would love to find some guest posts for this here bloggy blog while I’m mooching around at the end of April.

If you are interested in submitting a guest post, please let me know.  The post should be in some way related to the broad spectrum of things I write about on this blog and not too, too long.  Is that vague enough for you?  And if you have a blog, I would love to write a guest post for you in exchange.

Happy Friday everyone – hope you all have a great weekend!

Where Science Fails…

As important as it is to give science the consideration it deserves, the fact is, science totally sucks at some things.  And one of those things is dealing with sustainability.  Not all of sustainability,but certainly the part that involves projecting the precise results of our actions on the biosphere and human health.  The more complex the system, the worse science is at creating specific models.  So when you get to something as big as, say, every interconnected system in the entire world, science ends up chasing after the target, woefully behind.

Take, for example, the development of DDT.  When DDT was invented, it was awesome.  Talk about a great invention – a insecticide that had no effect on mammals.  They even gave the guy a Nobel Prize for it!  Some scientists expressed concern about possible risks, but it is too difficult to predict certain results within a complex system.  But then concerns were confirmed when things (like bald eagles) started dropping dead.  Too bad it was already too late.  And, oh wait, it harms humans too.  Oops.

Intuition Succeeds?

DDT (and a bunch of other similar examples) make me wonder if our intuitions have an edge here.  Because my intuition says pretty clearly that dumping tons of toxins (even ones that supposedly don’t affect mammals) into the environment is a bad thing.  Kind of like my intuition is not a huge fan of genetically engineering similar insect-killing chemicals into corn, which will then become part of almost every item of processed food I consume.

This is how the conversation usually goes:

Intuition: That’s just not right.  That’s just not safe.  That’s just not… natural.

Me: Intuition, that’s the naturalistic fallacy.  That’s not a good enough reason.

Intuition: I don’t care.  It’s not natural.  Don’t eat that.  Don’t do that.  Don’t buy that.

And usually I listen, and then go do a bunch of research so that I have a “good” reason for what is fundamentally an act of listening to my intuition.  I’m never really surprised when the science catches up and reveals that my intuition was right all along.

The Problem of Articulating

The other issue that was brought up in the comments of the naturalistic fallacy post is that of articulation – what a good point!  Sometimes people feel something, know something, but have a really hard time understanding or articulating why they feel that way.  It might be because they don’t understand why they feel the way they do.  Or maybe they understand the issue completely and just struggle to communicate it clearly.

Either way, the result is often expressed as naturalistic fallacy – it’s just not natural – when the issue is articulation.  And in either case, it’s an example of your intuition having an understanding beyond what you are able to clearly express.  It seems like that should get to count for something…

But where does this leave us?  Are we back to a place where we value intuition, hunches, and gut reactions, even though they can muddle a dialogue which needs to be based in some measure of science?  Or must we continue to watch as the science chases the consequences of unpredictable actions?

What, if any, role should intuition play in the dialogue about sustainability?

Related Posts:

• The Naturalistic Fallacy

Worldchanging’s Alex Steffen says that in our world, optimism is a political act, and one that is necessary if we are going to make any progress towards reshaping our systems into sustainable alternatives.  A positive and optimistic view of the future is also a fundamental part of the Transition Initiative process.  And if you take a look at the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage or media from many other intentional communities, you will find this same deliberate optimism.  Sometimes it is directly stated and sometimes it runs just below the surface, but it is always there.

Why?

Because sustainability needs optimism.

Ordinary People Need Optimism Too

It is no secret that Americans are unhappier now than we were 30 years ago.  We – all of us – are radically in need of happiness.  We really need optimism right now.  But optimism can seem so elusive.

The official reason for this void of optimism might surprise you.  It’s not because of the recession, unemployment, Congress, or the crummy results of American Idol.  In fact, we are unhappy because of a “decline in social capital.”  In other words, our communities are broken or, in some cases, nonexistent.  The lack of community leaves us feeling starkly alone, alienated, scared, cynical and pessimistic.

Intrinsic to new urbanism, Transition, and intentional communities is the deliberate development of healthy social structures.  This is no coincidence.  Each of these proposed solutions is based on optimism.  And each recognizes the same brokenness of something fundamentally necessary.  We need community to be happy.  We need community to be optimistic.  We need community to build a sustainable future.

Once Ordinary, Now Radical

It’s sad that we’ve come to a point where creating community has become an act of radical sustainability.

But there is so much awesome to be found in the fact that this act of radical sustainability is actually an act of radical happiness. We have the power to make ourselves happy, and to make the world a better place at the same time.  It’s something that anyone can do.  And it’s completely free.

The first step can be something as simple as inviting your neighbor over for dinner, volunteering at the community food bank, or patronizing your local library.  Start a neighborhood produce exchange or a yard-share, join a CSA, become a member of a co-op or plant a rooftop garden that will grow more than you can eat.

Beyond that, support activities that build community and advocate for development that facilitates people interacting with each other.  Bike trails, walkable cities, and useable community spaces will help us battle our feelings of alienation and isolation.  Developing for community and for optimism is developing for happiness.  And community-supported optimism is necessary for sustainable development.

I know you’re just an ordinary person.  So am I.  But isn’t it about time for us to be this kind of radical?

• All Things Eco at Focus Organic

Instead, I thought I’d write about the naturalistic fallacy, because that’s always fun stuff.  Right?  Right. 

What Is The Naturalistic Fallacy?

You are probably familiar with the naturalistic fallacy, even if you didn’t know the term.  It is the source of no small amount of conflict in discussions about environmentalism and sustainability, particularly when it comes to the dialogue between scientists and non-scientists.

Naturalistic fallacy is the assumption that something is “good” because it is so.  It assigns a normative value judgment – an assumption of how something ought or ought not to be – based on how something is “in fact.” Because something is this way, that is how it should be.

One example of a conversation in which the naturalistic fallacy often provides fuel for conflict is the “real food”-driven discussions about genetically modified organisms (GMOs).  The debate about GMOs is complex and multifaceted, with many legitimate arguments on both sides. But the naturalistic fallacy frequently pops up, much to the frustration of scientists involved with the issue. The naturalistic fallacy argues that GMOs are bad because they are not “natural.”  Food crops occur in nature without other species genes chemically inserted into their genomes.  Therefore, that is how it ought to be.  Artificial = bad.  Natural = good.  Naturalistic fallacy.

This drives the scientists crazy, and understandably so.  It is fundamentally unscientific.  And it would drive the non-scientists crazy if we applied it to other things, such as human casualties of natural disasters.  While natural, few people would be willing to say, “it is, and so it ought to be” about the victims of a flood or an earthquake.

So What?

I mean, honestly, why do we even care about this?  Who cares if there are a bunch of people running around saying something is good because it’s “natural?”  And a bunch of scientists saying that they’re idiots because their arguments are unscientific (but using really big words). 

We care because the naturalistic fallacy dilutes the dialogue.  With an issue as huge and complex as sustainability and systems design, the dialogue is already pretty confusing.  And the naturalistic fallacy further confuses and distracts scientists and non-scientists alike.

Sustainability encompasses well… everything.  Every field, every market area, every culture, every social and governmental system.  So what we really do not need is to muddy the waters with arguments that are fundamentally incapable of furthering the dialogue, particularly when there are so many valid and vitally important conversations going on all around us.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in school.  Or at least it feels like it.  One of my friends had a baby just as I was finishing up college.  Then I moved to DC.  Then she moved to DC.  Then she had another baby.  Her first baby isn’t a baby any more.  Her second isn’t really a baby either.  This all makes me feel old and like school was a very long time ago.

I applied anyways, and I got in.  The only thing I had to pay for was the textbook.  The rest of the course is being funded (I believe) by the Swedish Government, so many thanks to them for providing this opportunity to a bunch of students from around the world.

It is an online course, coordinated by several grad students from one of BTH’s sustainability-oriented Masters programs.  There are 26 other students from all around the world – only two from the US, which for some reason makes this all the more exciting for me. 

I was really excited about the course until the textbook arrived.  I flipped through it and… there are numbers and equations in there.  I very deliberately overachieved in high school, which allowed me to cruise through college without seeing anything that resembled an equation.  I was quite happy keeping it that way.  But I’m going to have to retrieve the book from the freezer (please tell me someone else saw that episode of Friends), because I have to read Chapter 1 for next week.

I am hoping that some of the sustainability stuff will be a little familiar, to counterbalance the fact that the engineering stuff will be completely new.  But I implore you all to stop me if I start throwing numbers and mathematical symbols around the blog.  You can poke your eye out with those things, you know.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scubasteveo/ // CC BY-SA 2.0

And, because that clearly isn’t long enough for a post, here is a video; moving on from Transition and The End of Suburbia to civic planning and bright green cities.

Another TED talk?  Yes.  Worth watching?  Also yes.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

As you might imagine, Hopkins does an excellent job of presenting the dual issues of climate change and peak oil.  But The Transition Handbook is fundamentally a guide for building a Transition movement from the ground up.  Organized into three parts – The Head, The Heart, and The Hands – Hopkins walks you through the history and processes of the formative Transition Towns.  It is a thoughtful and well-researched examination of the birth of a movement combined with a thorough “how-to” on building your own.

People have criticized both the Transition movement and the Handbook itself for a variety of reasons.  While much of the criticism is valid, I still found this book to be an incredible resource.  Anyone who is interested in climate change, peak oil, survivalism, resilience, community organization or even the psychology of change will find much of interest in The Transition Handbook.  At the end of the book, Hopkins characterizes Transition as “one of the biggest and most important research projects underway in the world.”  I think he is correct, and the Handbook provides a foundation for the extensive documentation behind this social experiment.

I’ve noticed that short writings on Transition tend to give off a sense of impending doom.  I think this is also true of my posts over the last several weeks, in spite of the fact that I specifically tried to avoid it.  Somehow it still got away from me!

For this reason, if for no other, I would encourage you to read The Transition Handbook in full.  At the core of Transition is the idea that a post-oil world could, in fact, be preferable to our world today, and that the path forward is equally optimistic and positively engaging.  I don’t know why this doesn’t distill well into shorter pieces, but this is not a book that leaves you feeling hopeless.

The Giveaway, Woot!

On that note, I’ll tell you how you can enter to win my very lightly used (almost new, really) copy of The Transition Handbook.  It is actually twice used, so you’ll be at least owner #3.  Doesn’t that make you feel good?

There are a variety of ways to enter.  Some of them are self-promotional (sorry, that’s just how it goes), some are not.  Feel free to enter as many ways as you like.  Leave a comment for EACH entry.

1. Talk to someone about the Transition initiative.  Ask them what they think.  Start a dialogue.  If you feel so inclined, come back and let us know how it went.
2. Leave a comment of something you would like me to write about.  Anything goes, although I won’t guarantee that I’ll write about it if it’s completely off topic. (But you never know!)
3. Leave a comment and tell me what your favorite post of mine is, or your least favorite and why.  Love it, hate it?  Let me know what I’m doing well and/or how I could do better. (This is not an invitation for trolls.   I will remove your vowels and won’t count your entry.  Don’t even bother.)
4. Follow me on Twitter.
5. Become a fan of Openly Balanced on Facebook.
6. Share a favorite post (or this post) on Twitter or Facebook.
7. Subscribe to Openly Balanced via RSS or e-mail.

Entries will be closed at 8PM PST on Tuesday, March 2nd.  Winner will randomly selected from the comments and announced on Wednesday, March 3rd.

Note:  Entrants must be from the US or be willing to work with me on postage if it is out of control expensive.

Related Posts:

• Transition: Relocalization
• Transition: Resilience
• Transition: An Introduction

According to the Transition approach, the most important step to building community resilience is relocalization.

localize: 1. To make local. 2. To confine or restrict to a locality.

re: 1. Again: rebuild. 2. Back: react. 3. Used as an intensive: refine.

Relocalization is the reverse of globalization.  Rather than having goods produced across the country or even across the world and transporting them into your community, relocalization calls for increased production of local goods.  Communities where goods are produced locally or regionally are more resilient to fluctuations in oil prices as well as disruptions in the wider economic system.  It doesn’t matter if gas is $10/gallon if you dinner is coming from your backyard or just down the street, or at least it won’t hit you nearly so hard.

One of the primary areas addressed by Transition is food production, which is understandable.  Life goes on without new video games.  It doesn’t go so well without food.  Food production hits us where it hurts.  Proposed steps include the development of community and residential gardens, local markets, and replacing ornamental landscaping with edible foliage, or plants that can be used for textile production or construction.  In addition to food, The Transition Handbook mentions other important aims of localization such as energy systems, transportation, and medication and textile production.

Why Peak Oil Solutions Aren’t Climate Change Solutions

The Transition approach to relocalization clearly demonstrates how a peak oil response is not necessarily a climate change response.  For instance, they include a photo of a residential firewood pile.  The caption suggests that resilience can be measured in part by how much seasoned firewood is available in a community.  And yes, a good supply of firewood is a local, resilient solution for home heating in the face of an oil shock.  But from a climate change perspective, billions of people heating their homes with wood is not a solution if it is not paired with carefully designed and sustainably managed forestry programs.

Similarly, in the process of relocalizing the food system, climate change requires us to preserve existing forests, and not reallocate forests, wetlands, or other natural carbon sinks to food production.  Transition proposes that land currently being used for car-related infrastructure such as parking lots be repurposed to strengthen the local foodshed.  However, we have to remember that relocalization by itself doesn’t automatically address climate change.  If relocalization is to address climate change, it must do so through deliberate systemic design.

Local Currency

To be honest, this is where Transition kind of lost me.  But it is an important step in their plan and, as such, deserves mention.

Transition proposes the creation of a local currency that can only be used in the community.  This new currency has a fixed exchange rate with the national currency and can be used just like standard money at participating vendors.

I can certainly understand the goal of keeping money within the community.  According to a principle called the local multiplier, a dollar spent within the community generates $5-14 for the community.  Anywhere from $0.60 to $0.80 of every dollar spent at a big box store leaves the community immediately.  Who cares?  Schools, fire departments, and any civic services that are funded through local tax dollars care.  It will also affect the local unemployment rate and general community wellbeing.  Creating a local currency keeps money within the community.  One of the interesting (read: geeky) parts of the local currency plan is that each bill is tracked to see how many times and where it was spent.  I’m sure the results would be fascinating and informative.

One of the reasons I struggle with the currency part of the Transition plan is that I don’t buy that we need to completely disengage from the global economic system (although here’s a compelling argument that we do).  Certainly moving towards completely self-sufficient local and regional economies is one solution.  But I don’t think it’s the only one, and possibly not even a preferable one.  There are some advantages to ‘competitive advantage.’ And this is probably a cultural bias, but local currencies seem confrontational to me; a strategy not likely to foster cooperation on a global scale.  And I think we really do need cooperation (or at least international development of best practices) at a global level.

Local in a Post-Oil World

Most importantly, Transition’s concept of relocalization is based on “powering down” – designing for a post-oil world.  Bringing everything closer to home means less oil consumed in transportation costs, certainly.  But Transition also looks at building local solutions that do not require oil.  Privately owned generators for electricity are a local solution.  Residential solar would be a local, post-oil, and therefore resilient solution.  To apply a “Transition lens” to localization, it can’t just be local, it also has to be post-oil.

So… that was a lot.  What do you guys think?  Is local a solution to resilience?  Is local a solution to climate change?  Does it have to be local?  Is relocalization the solution or only part of the solution?  Other thoughts?

Also, because Transition is so much fun, I’ll be giving away my very lightly used copy of The Transition Handbook.  Not sure what day yet, so be sure to check back .

Related Posts:

• Transition: Resilience
• Transition: An Introduction
• Hyperlocavore Book Club: The Transition

If sustainability was the buzzword for 2009, resilience is it for 2010.  That was my thought at the beginning of the year, and I was excited to hear that other people were thinking it too. (It’s always nice to have outside confirmation that you’re not just babbling gibberish.  Or at least if you are, you’re not doing it alone.)

Part of the reason the Transition Initiative focuses on resilience is the peak oil PLUS climate change equation.  On the climate change side, you may hear some discussion about resilience, but they probably don’t call it that.  They are probably calling it “adaptation,” and it’s probably used in discussions about how developing countries and particularly “at risk” communities are going to survive the impacts of climate change.  They are also most likely discussing it in terms of how many billions of dollars successful adaptation will require.

The peak oil types talk a lot about resilience, but frequently omit societal and global solutions to climate change.  As I mentioned in Transition: An Introduction, not all responses to peak oil address climate change.  However, most of the responses to peak oil are fundamentally about building resilience.

What Is Resilience?

resilient: adj. 1. Marked by the ability to recover readily, as from misfortune. 2. Capable of returning to an original shape or position, as after having been compressed.

The first definition is most relevant to discussions of community in terms of peak oil, climate change, and transition.  (Although I am intrigued by the connotations of the second definition as it pertains to civic planning – developing the “shape” of communities in a way that fosters sustainability and resilience.)  Resilient communities are able to withstand and recover from shocks to “the system.”  “The system” can be the food system, the energy system, the distribution system for basic consumer necessities, or pretty much any other system you can think of.  Resilience is also measured by a community’s capacity to respond and adapt to rapid change.

Shocks can take many different forms.  From oil shocks to natural disasters to health crises to terrorist attacks, resilient communities will be more effective at responding to and recovering from these events.

Why Do We Care?

“Civilization is only three meals deep.”

“We are always nine meals away from anarchy.”

Whichever way you say it, the idea is the same.

The Transition Initiative addresses resilience on all levels, but particularly compelling are their arguments about food security.  Food crises hit us where it hurts.  Cold snaps, trucking strikes and rising staple crop prices are present-day examples – we’re talking within the last couple years! – of how fragile our food system is.  Highly centralized (a very small number of large companies dominate grocery store retail), but spread over a great distance (the average meal in the US travels 1500 miles to reach your plate), it takes very little to jeopardize our food security.

The Transition Initiative is based on the idea that these kind of changes could happen more quickly than our systems can adapt to them.  If oil prices spike, making food significantly more expensive to transport, we may not have the decades needed to establish alternate shipping methods or the technological advances to fuel trucks with something other than oil.

Have you ever been to a store at the beginning of a blizzard?  Remember the empty shelves?  If all the trucks stopped running tomorrow, where would you get your food?  What about clothing and other basic necessities?  How would you heat your house?  How expensive would oil have to get before you could not afford to drive to work, or have to choose between putting gas in your car and buying increasingly expensive and scarce food?  Transition proposes that the answer to these concerns is the development of resilient communities.

So what do you think?  Is resilience an important consideration in the face of volatile systems?

More on Transition:

• The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins
• Transition Towns Wiki

Related Posts:

• Transition: An Introduction
• Hyperlocavore Book Club: The Transition Town Handbook

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dreamsjung/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

An interesting phenomenon of the human mind is that the better we understand something, the worse we get at explaining it.  We also become less capable of understanding that others do not share our knowledge.  Lately I’ve found myself mentioning Transition Initiative concepts, only to be met by the blank stares of my family and friends.  Oops!  I guess Transition sunk in more than I realized – the Curse of Knowledge in action.  In a deliberate attempt to counteract the Curse of Knowledge, I’ve decided to do a short series of posts on the basics of the Transition Initiative, as well as some of the continuing dialogue about Transition and how it fits with other visions of a sustainable future.

What Is Transition?

The Transition Initiative is an organized response to the dual threats of climate change and peak oil.  It is important to distinguish between the two issues and their associated solutions, because many of the solutions proposed for climate change would not address the issue of peak oil, and vice versa.  Transition is designed to confront both problems simultaneously, and argues that they must be addressed in tandem if we are to move confidently into the future.

What Is Peak Oil?

By now most of us are familiar with the concept of climate change, and even the term “anthropogenic global warming,” or the understanding that human action is responsible for the changing climate.  But only occasionally do you hear mention of peak oil in discussions of climate change policy or activism.  This is a little surprising, as the two issues are fundamentally connected.

Peak oil refers to the moment when global oil production is at its maximum.  From that point forward, we will be able to extract decreasing amounts of oil at an increasing cost.  This cost can be financial, technological, or environmental.  The costs begin to climb, quickly and (theoretically) irreversibly.  Some experts believe that we have already reached peak oil, and are now accelerating on the downhill slope, slowed only by inaccurate inflation of stated oil reserves and natural short term market fluctuations.  In other words, the people with the oil know we don’t have enough, but are lying both to keep things stable and present a strong front internationally, and markets have little up and down blips while they generally trend in whatever direction they’re headed.

Why Transition?

As I mentioned, the Transition Initiative approach was created to address climate change and peak oil together.  Hopkins argues that not only does addressing the two issues separately generate ineffective solutions, but that they actually may be more compelling motivators when addressed together.  Climate change asks us to change.  Peak oil forces us to change.

A Transition Initiative is designed to address the future through a localized message of community empowerment.  The goal is for communities to work together to develop in such a way that they will be resilient to future economic contraction and/or crisis.  This resilience is created through relocalisation, reskilling, regenerative efforts and a few other “re’s,” which I’ll babble about in more depth over the next several weeks.

In the mean time, what do you think?  Should we be worried about peak oil now?  Are climate change and peak oil more effectively addressed separately or together?

More on Transition:

• The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins
• In Transition 1.0 (video)
• Transition Towns Wiki
• Transition United States

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ecolabs/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I got a letter in the mail from my mom the other day that included a Mother’s Day card for me to plant.  To plant?  Yes!

Made from 100% recycled paper and printed with soy ink, this card has wildflower seeds embedded in its fibers.  Its final resting place will be my garden next spring.  Except that it won’t be final, because the flowers will become a part of my garden, continuing on indefinitely.

This card made me think about the sponges I bought the other day.  “All natural,” environmentally friendly sponges, made out plant fiber and recycled paper with biodegradable packaging.  I felt silly buying them, because it seemed like I was being had.  And they were more expensive.  But I figured that even if they weren’t all they claimed to be, at least they weren’t wrapped in plastic.

Are You Being Greenwashed?

Maybe.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell.  It can take a bunch of research about companies, their practices, and specific products, which is usually more than I am willing to do for a sponge or a Mother’s Day card.  But it’s important to understand that greenwashing is going on, and that not all “eco-friendly” tips and products are actually all that they are advertised to be.

That being said, I think greenwashing has the potential to help us move towards better standards for our companies and for ourselves.  Wouldn’t it be great if consumer pressure could encourage all companies to “greenwash” their way towards biodegradable and recycled packaging?

A Factoid

If every household in the United States replaced one roll of regular paper towels with 100% recycled paper towels, we’d save 544,000 trees.  That is a lot of trees.  (This factoid courtesy of Intercon Solutions.)

Moving Towards Better Standards

Once again, I seem to be back on the idea that small changes can and do matter, especially when they are embraced by a large amount of people.  Every time you choose to purchase recycled paper towels or “eco-friendly sponges,” that one product makes a tiny difference.  But, more importantly, you send a signal to the company with your purchasing power about your consumer priorities.  And, as strange as it seems, by choosing to purchase greenwashed products, we may actually be nudging companies towards making more meaningful changes in their product lines and practices.

That doesn’t mean that we can just buy recycled paper towels and organic cotton underwear and call it done.  We have too far to go for that to be the case.  But the little changes are important because, when paired with a far-reaching and ambitious vision of the big picture, consumption habits are our first (and most easily utilized) tool as we strive to build a sustainable future.

These symptoms are almost identical to caregiver’s syndrome. The Psychologists for Social Responsibility did not list exhaustion (which is a primary symptom of caregiver’s syndrome), but I wouldn’t hesitate to wager that activists and concerned citizens around the world are there already.

And it’s not just climate change.  Sustainability activists of all kinds are living this reality on a daily basis.

Therefore, it’s becoming increasingly important to realize that sustainability isn’t just about the outside.  The outside matters, but you count too.  Because you won’t be able to help anyone if you succumb to global caregiver’s syndrome.

Here are five quick and easy ways I’ve found to boost my energy and my spirits when life is getting to be too much.

1.  Turn Off The News

“But I need to stay informed!” you protest.  You are sufficiently informed.  You’re so informed it’s making you feel like crap.  Turn off your TV.  Shut down your computer.  If you must rationalize it, tell yourself that your news-free time conserves energy.  Just turn it all off!

2.  Go Outside

Did you know that vitamin D deficiencies are commonly associated with depression and anxiety?  Our bodies synthesize vitamin D from sunlight.  Go outside and get some.  And while you’re out there, take a breath of fresh air.*  You might as well take advantage of that while we still have it.

*”Fresh” may vary based on your geographical location.

3. Cut Yourself Some Slack

Remember that you can’t do it all.  We live on a huge planet with over 6 billion other people.  We are facing the greatest innovative challenge in human history.  You cannot do it alone (and you will not have to).  The world doesn’t gain anything when you beat yourself up for being one person.  In fact, it stands a lot to lose if you pummel yourself into a state of guilt-ridden apathy.  So give yourself a damn break.

4. Give Yourself Some Credit

I know that some days, the little stuff you do doesn’t seem like it makes any difference.  One person couldn’t possibly matter all that much.  And isn’t incrementalism just an excuse to make ourselves feel better about our excessive lifestyles?

Stop it.  Give yourself a little credit.  Making lifestyle choices that reflect your values does count for something, and directing your consumer purchasing power towards greener alternatives is a necessary first step.  If everyone in the U.S. were to take those same little steps, we would reduce our overall emissions by 8.5% – that is no small reduction.  Remember that we are all connected, and little ripples can turn into big waves.  Give yourself credit for moving in the right direction.  We can’t take giant leaps forward if we’re all facing backwards.

5.  Talk To Hopeful People

Cynics are a dime a dozen.  At least 75% of the people I talk to on a daily basis think that it can’t be done.  “It” ranges across the board – getting out of debt, getting good grades, finding a job, dealing with major global issues.  Stay away from those cranky people!  Don’t hang out with downers.  Take a break from the consistently negative people in your life.  And then go find people who share your convictions AND believe that something can be done. (Fellow sustainability nerds can find a bunch of positive people hanging out at Worldchanging.)

The problems that we face are complex.  There will not be any easy answers.  We are embarking on a marathon of activism, engagement, and change.  You have something unique and valuable to bring to the table, and we’re gonna need you for the long haul.  You won’t be able to play your part unless you first take care of yourself.

What are some tricks that you’ve developed to prevent global caretaker’s syndrome?  What helps you keep going?

Now that the first week has come and gone, I realize that even if I do not reach my goal, I still will have learned much from my NaNoWriMo experience.  Apart from the personal insight gained from attempting something like this, I have also noticed five things that NaNoWriMo can teach us about the pursuit of sustainability.

1. New Habits

They say that it takes anywhere from 21 to 66 days to form a new habit.  While I have already seen some incredible word counts (some people are already at 40,000+ words!), for most of us NaNoWriMo will be an exercise in perseverance for the full 30 days.  It will require daily writing, tapping away slowly towards that 50,000th word.  Whether we are forced to employ guerrilla writing tactics for fifteen minutes here and there, or are able to block off several hours at a time, we’re all going to be getting in the habit of writing.

Living sustainably is also about habits, no matter where you are on the spectrum.  From the person who just realized that glass can (and should) be recycled to the homesteader who has gone completely off the grid, sustainability is about forming new habits.

But it’s not only about the external, physical habits like recycling, utilizing public transportation, and eating less meat.  It’s also about internal and intellectual habits.  Reading the news, raising your awareness, and looking at things from different angles is a key part of sustainability.  Forming these kind of internal habits puts you in a position to participate in big picture societal inflection points from a conscious and informed standpoint.  Engagement is one of the most important habits you can develop.

2. Community

One of the things that makes NaNoWriMo awesome is the community around it.  Thousands of people around the world are working separately but together towards a common goal.  Just look at #NaNoWriMo on Twitter or meander through the NaNoWriMo forums, and you will see an outpouring of support, commiseration, advice, sympathy, humor and compassion.

As a world, if we are going to move towards a bright green future, or any future, we need to re-familiarize ourselves with the concept of community.  The problems we face right now are global problems.  They will affect each and every one of us.  They must be addressed with global solutions.  No one person, no one country can address these problems unilaterally with any hope for success.  It is going to take the commitment, the innovative power, and the cooperation of communities, locally and globally.

3. Accountability

NaNoWriMo is great because it gives you a thousand ways to hold yourself accountable for doing what you said you were going to do.  One of the specific strategies they recommend is to tell everyone you know that you are going to write a novel during the month of November.  That way, even when you really want to quit, you’ll keep going so as not to embarrass yourselves in front of everyone else.  From the little word count widget that now lives on my blog’s sidebar to spamming my Facebook and Twitter friends with daily updates on my progress, I am trying to make full use of the accountability mechanisms for NaNoWriMo.

Accountability is necessarily a part of any achievement.  Whether you are accountable to your boss at work, your spouse, your kids, or even just to yourself, being accountable matters.  We need to find a way to quantify and be held accountable for safeguarding the future of our species and our planet.  This will be no easy task.  As we’ve seen with the international and even the domestic climate change policy negotiations, it is very difficult to reach a consensus on how we will measure and enforce accountability for issues of common goods.

But, difficult or not, it is imperative that we find a way to hold ourselves, our companies, and our governments accountable for building a sustainable future.

4.  Do Something Hard

It seems like somewhere along the line, we got the idea that everything was supposed to be easy.  I’m not sure why we think things are supposed to be easy, or when we developed this societal aversion towards challenge and hard work.  But the truth is that if you really want something, you’re gonna have to do the work.  And it’s not always going to be easy.  In fact, it’s probably going to be pretty damn hard.

No one said that writing 50,000 words in 30 days was going to be easy, and no one said building a sustainable future would be easy.  But guess what?  We’re doing it anyways.

5.  Show Up

NaNoWriMo is all about showing up for 30 days, for 50,000 words.

Sustainability is the same as anything else in life.  You can’t get something from nothing.  You can’t just sit back and assume everything is going to take care of itself.  If you do, you forfeit your right to whine when it doesn’t turn out the way you had hoped.  The first step to anything meaningful is showing up.

You can revise a bad first draft into a great book. But you can’t revise a blank page into anything but a blank page.  And you can’t succeed if you don’t show up.