Sustainability Week: Learning How to Reach Out Beyond the Choir

This past week was Sustainability Week at the university where I work, which is a regular event I've been involved in putting on for three semesters now, and I am always left wondering what (if any) impact it had on the audiences we tried to reach.

With any environmental outreach efforts, you're always running the risk of only singing to the choir. That is, only reaching the folks who are already concerned enough to show up on their own.  As a card-carrying member of that choir, I admit that I love being sung to and you don't need free food to entice me to show up to a talk about population growth, sustainability & food, or reusing bikes to empower developing communities. (All real talks I went to this week).

Me, looking ridiculous in the homecoming parade for the benefit
of Mother Earth. Photo by Darrell Hoemann, News Gazette

But convincing the apathetic, the skeptics, and the oblivious to care just a little and show up is where the real challenge lies. I overheard more than one conversation this week between students, describing how they were only attending something because their teacher offered extra credit for going to that particular event. I suppose it's better than nothing, but it left me wondering if they were even paying attention during the talk, because I could see lots of phones and laptops out, just browsing online throughout the talk.

And we didn't only try to reach people through lecture-style events. We had an environmental expo with booths sharing free giveaways and information at one of the busiest dining halls for three hours around lunch time, and we had a fleet of decorated bicycles in the homecoming parade last night just for the sake of raising awareness. And while I know these other awareness-raising events didn't reach everyone we passed or who passed us, I do think they were worth the effort, and next year we'll do them even better to have an even greater impact.

A few take-aways from the week, as advice for planning sustainability events in a community:

1. Good advertising is absolutely key, and should be done with every medium you've got. Flyers, chalk on sidewalks, facebook, etc. All of it. There needs to be someone in the planning group whose only responsibility is advertising, and they need a small team to help them execute the plans they develop.
   
2. Be very clear on who your intended audience is for each event. It's very possible that each event will be slightly different in terms of who you're trying to reach, and knowing who that target audience is should inform how and where the event is advertised.
   
3. Use each event to advertise for the other events, and for the week as a whole. Brand all of them as part of your Sustainability Week. You shouldn't have been able to walk through that expo without immediately realizing why we were having it, and also learning about 10 other things later in the week that you might want to attend. Instead, we had the expo on Thursday, after most of the week had already passed, and so many students came up to us asking "what is this?" For every one student that came up to ask that, 25 probably walked by completely unaware and thus untouched by our efforts.  It shouldn't have been possible to walk through those doors and know exactly what was going on.
   
4. Get more people involved in planning from the start. Much of the weight of the week fell on a small handful of people's shoulders, so it's totally understandable that advertising and execution of certain events was a little low. If each event has a unique owner, that person can focus whole-heartedly on making it as awesome as possible. And if you're only asking each person to only do one thing, you'll have a much better chance of convincing them to sign up for the job. Don't be shy, invite everyone to the table, and then welcome their input and help.
   
5. Get outside of the sustainability community while planning your events and partner up with other groups as a way to get beyond the choir. Most events had some obvious tie-ins to other areas of expertise, and we could have done a better job of taking advantage of existing communities that might have been interested in that topic, even if they had little interest in sustainability, per se.
   
6. Find out who is coming to your events. Always have a sign-up sheet, and get contact info so you can inform attendees about your next event. Ask them how they heard about the event so you can get a sense of what advertising efforts are working and which ones aren't worth your time. Having a firm head count from each event can also be informative to compare interest in different topics, or to measure the success of different advertising efforts.
   
7. Get more teachers to offer extra credit to their students for coming to your events. ;)

The Opportunistic Bride

I'm getting married next summer, and it has occurred to me more than a few times that 'green weddings' are so much easier said than done.

A quick google search will introduce you to plenty of blogs, consultants, and planners with advice and services to help couples plan a 'green wedding' (Rent a hybrid limo! Choose a LEED certified venue! Ask your caterer to use organic ingredients!) but the fact is that any big event, no matter the purpose, is inevitably going to be a source of waste, carbon, and consumption.

Photo from the hilarious Practical Ryan Gosling.

I know that our wedding will be no exception. We've got a huge guest list, (that's what happens when you marry into an Irish Catholic family) from all over the country (that's what happens when you come from a family of nomads).

But it doesn't mean we're not trying wherever the effort seems worthwhile. We chose a location near the majority of our guests so that as few people as possible are traveling. The reception and ceremony are both on-site so there isn't any travel required between the two.  We're doing paperless invitations for most guests, and online RSVPs for all.  And so on and so forth.

I realized recently, though, that something I've been doing just to save my sanity is also helping to make our wedding greener: I am an Opportunistic Bride.

Instead of having an exact vision of what precise colors, flowers, decorations, etc. our wedding must have, I've been letting happenstance and luck determine our exact decor. Found an awesome container at a thrift store or in a dumpster? Dust it off and call it a flower vase! Some random pieces of ribbon that my aunt saved from someone else's wedding? They're perfect!

It doesn't mean that I take every old thing I find and plan on using it in the wedding. I'm being quite selective, in fact.  It just means that I don't need to hunt for very specific or perfectly matching items.

Instead, I keep an eye out for items matching the general look and feel that I hope to accomplish. I always have a few paint chips in my purse so that I can check to see if my opportunistic discoveries fit the general palette I'm going for.  I've given myself permission to match a broad color range instead of an exact hue, and to not need consistency or symmetry anywhere in our decor.

I'll still have to buy some things new, no doubt, but being open and flexible to reuse whatever objects I can find has allowed me to save a lot of used items from the landfill, not to mention saving my budget and my sanity as a bride.

Whomp whomp

Via xkcd, the word "sustainable" is unsustainable:

NIMBY vs. Renewables

Just found an interesting quote that speaks nicely to the post I wrote yesterday about local opposition to solar farms:

A recent poll said 63 percent of Americans support renewable energy investment…in theory. But in practice, Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) opposition to new energy infrastructure prevents about 45 percent of renewable energy proposals from being built across the country, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

                                                      -Lee Patrick Sullivan, Energy Now.

Currently Researching: Solar Farms

This is the first of what I hope will be a series of posts going forward, just sharing my thoughts on what I'm currently looking into with regards to Sustainability, whether it's for work or just for fun. Today's research project is for my job.

I'm trying to find out what common questions and concerns people have about new solar farms, along with the answers available to address their concerns. This might be anything from the aesthetics and noise of solar arrays, to their impact on neighboring property values, to the effectiveness of solar power itself.

We're looking into building a solar farm here, and the idea is that (hopefully) my research will be able to help calm people's fears before they convince themselves and each other that this is a terrible idea. But in doing this research, I'm finding that there are way more questions out there than answers.

Photo courtesy of Virginia Energy Independence Alliance.

It seems that many people oppose the idea of a solar farm if one is proposed in their own community, and unfortunately there are very few facts easily available to assuage their fears.  Most of what I've found online are just discussion forums between concerned residents, fueling one another's apprehension.  Not surprisingly, I've also found tons of local news sources about potential solar farm projects that were shut down or seriously delayed before getting very far, simply due to neighbors' concerns.

It's amazing to me that NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard) is able to win over the opportunity to develop a clean, renewable source of energy.

First of all, most of the concerns listed by neighbors are unfounded, for example people often bring up the worry that solar panels will be reflective and therefore blinding to drivers, when in fact the whole point of solar panels is to absorb the sun's energy, not reflect it, so the glare from these panels is quite minimal.  And of the concerns that may have some validity, I don't think the subjective eyesore of a solar farm is enough to outweigh its benefits, such as energy independence and carbon-and pollution-free electricity.

Hopefully, by addressing these concerns upfront when people first learn about the proposed solar farm here, we'll be able to avoid being yet another local news story about a solar farm that never was.

Footloose and Car-Free

I went to college in Southern California, where we all know the car is king.  My grandmother gave me her old car, a 1995 VW Golf, as a gift for my high school graduation. I remember crying with joy when I saw the keys.  I told her that she was giving me more than just a car, she was giving me independence.

I named the car Betty Jean Golf, and loved Betty Jean like a child. We had so many good times together, from late night runs to Del Taco, to road trips with my best friends to Utah or Baja, Mexico.  But after four years of studying sustainability and bemoaning the impacts of individual actions on the environment, I was over it. The insurance payments, fluctuating gas prices, and constant maintenance needs of a ten-year-old car may have helped to push me over the edge, but the long and short of it is that I wanted out.

When it came time to decide where to move after college, being able to get by without a car was one of my top priorities. In our classically nerdy fashion, Mike and I made a spreadsheet to compare all the different cities we were considering by all the different criteria that mattered most to us. Public transportation and walkability were at the top of my list.

Washington, D.C. won the spreadsheet contest, and shortly after moving there I donated my car to a charity. In the almost five years that we lived in DC, I loved not having a car. The Metro and bus systems in DC and surrounding suburbs are frequent, convenient, and fairly affordable. I also got a membership with ZipCar shortly after moving to DC, which came in handy for moving, the occasional IKEA shopping spree, impromptu camping trips, or visits to the vet.  All told, we really only ever used ZipCar a couple times a year, at most.

So DC gave us options outside of car ownership, which was wonderful. Not having a car saved us money and allowed us to live in (subjectively) better neighborhoods, where owning a car would have been such a pain. Thank you, smart growth.

Well, this past fall we relocated from DC to a tiny city (“micro-urban” is the term they use here) in the Midwest. Champaign-Urbana is actually two cities, with a humungous university spread across the two of them. Within the first two months of moving here, I had already found myself wanting a car more times than I did in 5 years in DC.  C-U has a great bus system considering the size of the city, and it’s relatively compact and walkable within the central area. I'm also riding my bike almost every day when the weather permits, something I was too terrified to do in DC.

But overall, it’s harder to get around than it was in DC.  The waiting time for busses is longer. The bus schedule is largely based on the University’s academic calendar, so weekend service is scaled back, as is service during school breaks. Thankfully, they have ZipCar here too, and we’ve already used it a few times, but even that proves less convenient here than it did in DC.

We decided when we moved here that not owning a car would be a social experiment, to see how long we could last here without one. The experiment continues, but I've already found myself checking out used cars on Craigslist, and I even emailed one of them this morning. (It's a hybrid, for what it's worth.)

It seems I have a lot of pros-and-cons lists to make, to decide if I'm really going to give up my foot loose and car-free lifestyle that I've been so proud of for almost six years, or if I'm going back to my west coast roots where a car isn't just a car, it's independence.

Utility Stats: Knowledge is (saving) Power

Last month I went to a presentation by an energy utility consultant, of sorts, and they were describing a very basic, free service they offer to help corporate and governmental clients track their utility usage.  They take copies of the client’s utility bills from the last 12 months and then plot the usage data on a single graph. They said that, often, this simple task can help highlight major inefficiencies and sources of waste that the client might not be aware of.

Sometimes it’s as basic as expecting certain utilities to go up in the summer and down in the winter, and looking for exceptions to these common trends. Other times, it’s just a matter of looking for big unexpected spikes that aren’t linked to changes in productivity, etc. Listening to the presentation, I realized that I could do the same thing for my own utilities at home.

So, I started a spreadsheet to track our utilities. Every month when I get a new bill, I enter that month’s data into the spreadsheet before I pay the bill. I’ve always assumed that I would notice a huge change in monthly usage just by paying the bill each month, but to be honest, my memory isn’t that good, and even the more subtle changes can offer insight.

Here are my graphs for water, electricity and gas, from the three months that we’ve lived in Urbana so far:

It’s a little early to draw any conclusions, but I’m excited to keep track and see if any surprises pop up. I’ll keep you all posted of future developments. 

It’s worth noting that I couldn’t have done this before we moved to Urbana, because we’ve lived in apartment buildings where the utility bills were divided equally between everyone in the building, instead of being linked to our individual usage. But for anyone who does get stats on their individual usage, this simple step doesn’t take more than a minute each month and can be helpful to make sure your usage is what you think it is.

Two-Year Recap

As mentioned in my previous post, it's been two years since I last blogged here. I thought it might be nice to just give a quick recap of what has changed in my life during that time:

1.  I finished a master's degree in Environmental Sciences & Policy.  So you know--I'm, like, an expert now.
2.  I left my job at a big environmental nonprofit, where I worked for four-and-a-half years (including part-time while I earned the master's degree).
3.  I moved half-way across the country, from DC to central Illinois.
4.  I got engaged to the previously-mentioned crafty boyfriend.
5.  I started a new job at a big state university, where my title is Sustainability Specialist. (What did I tell you? Expert.)

Those are the big things. And interestingly enough, they all happened within the last 6 months.  Before that, I was just busy working and going to school, hence no time for blogging. But now that I'm settling into a new job, home, city, relationship status, etc., I've realized that graduate school provided me with an outlet that I originally wanted from this blog, and which I have found myself wanting again, now that I'm out of school. So here we are, starting back up.

The life changes listed above will definitely lend themselves to some blog topics, from the differences in my car-free lifestyle in moving from the nation's capital to a small city in the midwest, to trying to plan an environmentally-benign wedding with 300 guests. So, you can look forward to those. And I'll look forward to having an outlet for all my sustainability-related ponderings.

Hi, it's me again

My last post was October 18, 2009- a little over two years ago. I thought about deleting this blog countless times over the past two years, but a tiny voice inside told me to keep it, and I was never sure why. I'm glad I did, though, because two years, a master's degree, and 705 miles later, I have now found myself wanting to blog again. Go figure.

So, I won't beat myself up for taking a two-year hiatus, I'll just slip back into it like nothing happened. I hope you don't mind.

Amelia-as-blogger: take-two.

Ain't no power like the power of the people

Often in the past when people learn that I'm an environmentalist, they ask me which I think is a better approach to environmental solutions: NGOs or the government?

In college I struggled with this question because I didn't like either option., Instead I would introduce a third: individuals. The entire major I created in college was founded on the idea that individuals are more empowered than they realize to have an affect on the environment, for better or worse. As consumers, I would argue, we are capable of "voting with our dollars" for the kind of world we want to live in-- a sustainable one, or one full of waste, pollution, and toxic chemicals. So instead of counting on the government or on environmental nonprofits to solve all of our problems, I concluded, the most important approach to addressing environmental problems is to convince individual people to make the right choice, in support of a sustainable economy that doesn't degrade the earth. I was confident that this could be done if only people are taught to care about the environment, to link their purchases and other actions to environmental harm, and to believe in the true power of collective action.

Then I graduated from college. I was still passionate about the power of collective action affecting change through many small, individual actions, but I began working for a nonprofit and saw how much could be done by this sector to protect land, water, and resources. Plus, I no longer felt I could go on my "individual action" rant when I wasn't dedicating my day to addressing individual action any more- so more and more, I would answer "NGOs, of course," whenever the question arose- NGO or government?

Then I started graduate school. I'm still working for a nonprofit, mind you, but I'm also taking environmental policy courses in the evenings. At first the effect these classes were having on me was a new answer to the proverbial "what's the solution?" question, and if asked, I would have said, "the government, of course." Because ultimately, the infrastructure of our society, and the regulations that control our economy and so much of our daily lives, from how automobiles are subsidized to how water quality must be reported to consumers, is up to the discretion of our government. These decisions are hugely important, and I began to see that even nonprofits dedicate much of their time and energy trying to convince governmental bodies to act one way or another. Even the organizations that have historically not been very politically involved are growing their advocacy efforts today.

As the semester continued on in my first environmental policy class over the summer, however, my professors began to really emphasize the intentional limitations of the U.S. government's effectiveness -- checks and balances make our government more balanced, yes, but with that balance comes a whole lot of inaction, by design. And so, the cheery optimism I felt for the government's effectiveness at the beginning of the semester began to wear off.

But a new realization arose out of the ashes of my defeated optimism. Part of the reason politics can be so ineffective is because the election cycle can take higher precedence than issues. But where does power lie in elections? You wouldn't always know it, but ultimately it lies with individuals. And even when not concerned with getting re-elected, politicians are faced every day with the mandate to represent their constituents. So if their constituents started demanding new priorities, like the environment, then government actions, in theory, should start mirroring what the public demands.

I know that corporate lobbyists and other influential advocacy groups complicate this situation, but part of the reason that lobbyists are so powerful today is because individuals have largely volunteered to take a backseat in politics in the past, happy to let someone else drive. But that's changing. With the new administration and important legislative decisions being made like health care and climate change, people are beginning stand up a bit more and demand their voices be heard too. Normally it's hard to get a majority in what the public wants, much less a consensus, of course, but involvement is an excellent first step. I think last year's election shows that individuals can certainly prove their effectiveness through collective action, and I'm inspired to believe that collectively we can demand even more change of our government.

So now, if asked the question again, which approach is more effective in producing environmental solutions, I will be returning to the original answer I used to give in college. Yes, the government has an impressive amount of control over how our society is structured, and nonprofits are capable of influencing those decisions, and acting outside of the government to protect natural resources, but ultimately, the government is looking to please its constituents, and nonprofits are looking to gain the support of its members and donors. That means that individual action is the most effective solution, whether it's responsible consumption, support of NGOs, or voting for and lobbying politicians to act in our best interest.

Smart Growth

I have a new environmental interest: Smart Growth. It's partially an academic interest, and partially a personal one. Over the summer I read some things for an environmental policy class about making urban areas walkable and sustainable so that the infrastructure itself is green (LEED certified, and the like) and so that the people who live there are encouraged (or in some cases, forced) to live in more green ways. This really struck a cord with me because, as my earlier post mentions, we recently moved to the 'burbs, and let me tell you-- this area could really use some smart growth concepts implemented. I also just love the idea of encouraging green lifestyle choices by making them easier. In my neighborhood, people wouldn't drive quite so much if there were safer crosswalks and sidewalks for pedestrians, and if there were more little grocery stores or convenience stores interspersed amongst homes. (In smart growth terms, that's called mixed-use development).

This semester I'm taking an entire class about transportation and smart growth, so I get to read a lot more about it, which is great. There is a fair share of support for the concept, but there is also quite a bit of anti-smart growth sentiment out there. Some argue that a more accurate term would be "restricted growth" but from what I've read about and learned in class, I really don't think there's anything limiting about smart growth. The point of smart growth is not to restrict or stop growth, it's to accommodate growth in such a way that takes the long-term sustainability of the community and the environment into account. Still, not everyone sees this or agrees with it. And even those who do agree with it don't all necessarily find it attractive. My class, which is full of environmental science and policy graduate students, has a lot of comments from students saying they understand the benefits of smart growth, but at the end of the day, they want their single-family home, their backyard, their car, and their parking spot more than they want to live in a smart growth community. I know they're not alone, and that this is how most Americans think, but it's especially discouraging to hear it from a group of people who are clearly concerned about the environment. The idea that living in a smart growth community is a sacrifice is a huge hurdle that the smart growth movement must overcome. I don't have the answers for this (yet) but as with all things in life, the first step to overcoming the problem is to acknowledge it.

When Green Sprawls

For the last year and a half, Mike and I have lived in the upper northeast corner of Dupont Circle, a wonderful part of Washington DC, which has all the conveniences you can imagine in city living: a grocery store three blocks away, at least three dry cleaners within four blocks, three ice cream shops down the street I live on (this is crucial in the DC summertime), bars and restaurants galore starting a block away and continuing for many blocks in every direction around our apartment building, even a dog park across the street. We don't own a dog, mind you, but there's something so wonderfully cheerful about dog parks. All these happy dogs running in circles around each other, or free to dig in the dirt if they so choose. And the dog owners, standing around together, watching their dogs, making small talk, creating a sense of community without having to even try very hard.

I love the location we live in, but so does everyone else and thus it comes at a decent premium. Now that Mike and I are both in school, we've stopped going out as much as we used to, primarily due to the lack of time between work and school. I find myself barely leaving the apartment for entire weekends now, and yet we're still paying the premium for our location. So, we've decided that we'd like to stretch our legs a little and find a new place that will accommodate the professional student lifestyle a little better. You know: slightly bigger, perhaps with room for a desk or two, and not necessarily in the center of the city since we're not using that anymore. After the last month of apartment hunting, we've finally just chosen a place this weekend. It's definitely big enough for two desks, and it is definitely outside of the city center-- but it's still very accessible to the city because it's right next to a metro stop, and actually sits on two different metro lines, so we'll have options in terms of mass transit.

But why am I blogging about this and what does it have to do with sincere green?

Well first of all, the apartment we're moving into is both bigger and has central AC, a dishwasher and a washer and dryer. You can bet that the nineteenth-century building we live in now has none of these things. The prospect of having them soon is both exciting for the modern conveniences, and terrifying because I can feel my carbon footprint doubling just thinking about it. So it will be interesting to see if I can still manage to justify calling my lifestyle green after the simple move of changing apartments.

Secondly, the idea of urban sprawl is readily on my mind as I make the move from a high-compact city to a far less dense suburban area. We don't have a car and will still rely on the metro to get from place to place, but suddenly we'll rely on the metro a lot more than we do now, because everything I walk to now will soon be a few metro stops away at its closest. Mass transit is good, but walking is better, so I'm increasing my carbon footprint there too. We're certainly hoping, of course, to explore our new highly-residential neighborhood and find the staples we need so that we will be able to buy milk without relying on the metro, but at this point I'm not sure what we'll find.

And so, I'm looking at this move as a case study on being green in the suburbs. Wish me luck.

Strange Bedfellows

I'm afraid the anti-consumerism movement has a new enemy. 

Bed bugs.  

For the first time since World War II, bed bugs are making a comeback around the world with a vengeance.  In the US, the problem has become so bad that earlier this week, the EPA held a two-day summit on the pervasive problem of bed bugs.  Not only are the tiny blood-sucking insects showing up in powerful numbers, but they're also appearing in unexpected places. Cell phones.  Computer keyboards.  Clock radios.  Commonly thought of us a problem only in impoverished or badly maintained areas, the pests are now equal opportunity invaders.   Complaints are pouring in from people and businesses of all economic statuses, including 5-star hotels. 

One article I read speculated that an increase in world travel is helping to spread bed bugs, which makes sense.  Mike also pointed out to me that Craigslist might be another culprit.  People are trading furniture a whole lot more these days, and with bed bugs being so difficult to detect, it can be impossible to know if you're passing along a colony of vampires along with that charming used love seat.  And with that point, I panicked.  All of our furniture, even our mattress, were acquired used.  The majority of my clothes were second-hand purchases from thrift stores.  I'm a likely victim of bed bugs.  For the first time in my life, I found myself wanting to throw away my belongings and buy everything brand new in sterile plastic wrap, just to make sure I'm not bringing bed bugs home.  

Mind you, I'm not a very squeamish person, and I've never thought twice about picking up a bookshelf from the side of a dumpster and bringing it home.  If bed bugs are now making me rethink having used furniture, imagine how hard it's going to be to get squeamish people to be comfortable bringing used items into their home?  Anyone who ever previously hesitated buying used items is definitely going to avoid them now.  And with that realization, I panicked even more.  Bed bugs are terrible for the environment!  They could single handedly wipe out the growing trend toward exchanging used goods, and make the concept of landfill diversion just a myth from the past.  Because bed bugs are so hard to get rid of, if someone suspects a piece for furniture (or a cell phone, apparently) might be infested, their best bet is to just throw it away.  So not only are people not seeking used goods, but they are also more likely to get rid of things they would otherwise keep.  

Bed bugs are my new environmental nemesis.   We need to get rid of them to keep the loop of used goods in cycle.  I'm finding myself weighing the virtues of DDT.  There is apparently a natural powder that is harmless to mammals and the environment but kills bed bugs.  Maybe I'll buy stock in that company. 

The Gleefully Frugal

There's a great article in the New York Times today about people embracing frugal lifestyles in today's tough economy.  More than just a practical (or necessary) budgetary act, frugality is being given much broader consideration lately; it's what the article refers to as "the emergence of thrift as a value."  I'm thrilled to see society progressing this way.  

The article primarily focuses on the economic and social sides of the trend towards thrift, but it's not shy about also linking the environmental benefits of embracing thrift.  Regardless of whether you're giving up paper napkins because you've realized they were an unnecessary expense or because they are a waste of paper, you are benefiting the planet with your conscious decision to live with less.

On the economic side, the article also addresses the "paradox of thrift," the concern that when  the economy is already struggling, it is dangerous (even "catastrophic" as the article mentions) for people to react by saving instead of shopping.  However, the argument I'd make is that our economy has reached a tipping point and we can no longer be as focused on material consumerism if we want to be even remotely sustainable.  And I'm not even talking environmental sustainability here, I'm talking the survival of civilization.  I think that the only economic solution that will get us out of this mess is the one that recognizes "gleefully frugal" anti-consumerism as the way of the future, and manages to build an economy from the ground up accordingly.  Exactly what that economy looks like, I'm not quite sure, but I'm certain that with some creativity, that economy is possible.

Sincerely blogging better

I'm a neglectful blogger, and I apologize for that.  It's been brought to my attention that my blog on sustainability didn't turn out to be very sustainable itself. Oh, the ironies.  I'm going to try to fix this.  In the coming weeks, you will hopefully see some changes to Sincere Green.

These changes will partially be in the look and layout of the blog, in order to support the changes in content that I also hope to make.  The intention of the blog was to be all green all the time, but it turns out I have a lot of loosely related interests I want to talk about too.  I often find myself wanting to talk about materialism and the economy and notions of success or status, but I haven't blogged about these things in the past if I couldn't make a clear connection to the environment with the topic.  Realizing this, I thought about starting a brand new blog with a broader frame to give myself the freedom to write about all of these different topics, including but not limited to the green ones. 

My sister just called me to advocate for keeping the Sincere Green title of my blog and allowing myself more freedom within this existing blog- and I think she's right.  She pointed out to me that all issues relating to the economy and our consumer society do impact the environment eventually, and one of the biggest problems we have today is that people don't readily see that.  So, she argued, whether the point I am writing about at any given time has direct links to environmental issues or not, it's important to keep the distant correlations in mind, and to talk about non-environmental topics in the context of the environment too.  So I'm going to give myself the freedom to go outside the green box-- to see what I'm inspired to write about when I am not limiting myself to green-only topics, and we'll see if I become a better blogger for it.  

Here's to hoping!

Change to get excited about

The election of President Barack Obama will mean a lot of great changes for the environment, I believe, and today we're seeing the first few examples of the changes to come.  US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that she is appointing a special envoy to lead US efforts to fight Global Warming.  I am so thrilled that the global issue of Climate Change is going to be addressed holistically, not just by the department of energy or department of transportation as a domestic or industrial issue, but also addressed by the department of the state as an international and diplomatic issue.  

I don't know a lot about Todd Stern, who is expected to lead the envoy, but he worked in the Clinton administration and was involved in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in the 90s.  Hopefully not signing the Protocol wasn't his idea, and we'll see more progress on that front in this administration.  From the looks of some of his articles online, I'm thinking we can expect to see great progress. 

The White House blog also announced that President Obama signed a two memos today that deal with energy independence and climate change.  The first directs the department of transportation to raise CAFE standards (fuel efficiency standards) for 2011 model cars.  The second memo will allow California and 12 other states to raise their emissions standards higher than the national standard.  I applaud this decision, and am curious to see how it plays out- what kind of challenges still lay ahead of states trying to lead the way for energy efficiency, and how much will the oil and auto industries fight back?  We'll have to wait and see- but I've never been more hopeful in my life that progress is upon us. 

There's "green" and then there's green

I just wanted to share an interesting and slightly depressing NY Times article about two very different "green" inauguration galas going on in DC this weekend- one much more sincere than the other, in my opinion. 

Education!

I got into grad school! I'll be starting in January in a Masters in Environmental Science and Policy program (part time).

My first semester this spring I'll just be taking some intro classes that are prerequisites for the program, so I'm not sure there will be anything blog-worthy for a while. But in due time, I think this will be good for sincere green. We'll all learn together.

Woo hoo!

Buy Nothing Day Anyway.

Happy Buy Nothing Day, everyone.  

For almost 20 years, Buy Nothing Day has been celebrated by environmentalists and activists around the world in response to Black Friday and the gluttonous season of shopping that begins around this time each year. This year, getting the word out about over-consumption is made more difficult at a time when the lack of "consumer confidence" is blamed for the downward spiral of our economy.  At work when I asked to put up a flyer in the lunch room about Buy Nothing Day, I was told no.  Any other year would have been fine, they said, but this year when so many retailers are suffering, it's just not ok to tell people not to shop, they said.  And let me remind you I work for an environmental organization. 

So I've been wondering what other challenges this year's Buy Nothing Day has found due to the economy.  Like after 9-11 when Bush called for Americans to go shopping as if it were the ultimate patriotic duty, consumers are being called on now to save our economy by going back to the stores and spending their money on things they don't need and can't afford. And this frustrates me to no end, as if these retailers are really what need saving.  I'm not denying that putting retailers out of business won't affect people in a  negative way.  Job loss and cities full of abandoned buildings are terrible for society, but I just can't believe that this disastrous economic climate isn't waking more people up to the dysfunctional pattern of mass consumption that Americans are trapped in.  I would hope that rebuilding our society and our economy to promote a more sustainable way of living, and encourage a more fulfilling pursuit than the pursuit of stuff, might be the goal for more people right now, instead of saving retailers.

Well this morning, I was happy to check my email and see a message from AdBusters, the originators of Buy Nothing Day and other positive culture jam campaigns including True Cost Economics.  The email from Adbusters acknowledged the state of the economy today and that this economic climate makes a whole new set of challenges for Buy Nothing Day.  So, they say, let's confront the economic meltdown head-on.  To quote Kalle Lasn in the press release:

 "It's our culture of excess and meaningless consumption -- the glorified spending and borrowing of the past decade that's at the root of the crisis we now find ourselves in."

Yes, Adbusters, I couldn't agree with you more.  They go on to describe the economic meltdown as an opportunity to start a new era, "the age of Post-Materialism" wherein everyone lives within our means.  Imagine that.  So, I encourage everyone to buy nothing today despite the suffering economy.  There is a bigger goal here than saving any one retail chain, and if we really want to save society from the ailments of a dying economy, we need to revise our habits, today and every day.  

More than "made in china"

My weekly emails from worldchanging.com always bring a bit of information and hope to my Friday afternoons.  This week, they introduced me to an effort that I want to applaud by Patagonia, the clothing company. 

It's called The Footprint Chronicles, a website created by Patagonia that explores the origins of various products made by the company.  Click on a product (ranging from backpacks to shoes to strappy dresses) and the site brings you to an interactive map of the world, highlighting the origins of the product's materials and source of labor used to compile the materials and manufacture the product.  The full article from worldchanging admits that the site, and even Patagonia as a responsible company, are not perfect.  There are gaps and limits to how detailed you can get.  But it's a start, and I'm really happy to see the effort being made.  

Imagine if every company offered this service for every product.  Imagine if consumers cared enough to demand it.  Imagine if it were required by law.  The accountability and transparency this sort of thing brings would do wonders to address the externalities that are so easily ignored today.  It was only recently that food products sold in the US were required to have nutrition facts and ingredients listed.  And since these requirements took effect, it has taken a bit of time for consumers to really take advantage of it, but now you can see how listing these ingredients has affected consumer markets.  

At the grocery store I recently saw a loaf of bread that advertised on the front of its packaging that it didn't contain high fructose corn syrup.  I also saw an ad in a magazine recently that asked consumers to check their facts about the high fructose corn syrup, arguing that it was no worse than sugar or other sweeteners.  This kind of dialogue is important, and healthy.  Consumers have more information, and while industries can do their best to persuade consumers the positive or negative implications of those facts, it is still empowering for the consumer to be able to make these more informed decisions, and to hear that a debate exists about the ingredients of their food.  I'd like to see the same type of exchange for all products.

I'd like to see information made easily available about the source of the materials, the location of the labor, and the social and environmental costs of the ingredients and manufacturing methods.  Patagonia's Footprint Chronicles gives us a glimpse of what this information could look like.  I hope that other industries follow suit. As a consumer, I will support those who do.