Category: localism/locavore

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, localism/locavore, People Helping People, Politics, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , ,
Multilingual polling place sign, courtesy of USDOJ
Multilingual polling place sign, courtesy of USDOJ

Here in Western Massachusetts, four adjacent State House of Representatives seats and an overlapping State Senate seat have no incumbent. So we are challenged by a loss of continuity and institutional memory–but blessed by a plethora of great candidates in both local and state races. In some of these races, I could support as many as three candidates  and it’s very tough to make a choice. But since we unfortunately don’t have Ranked Choice Voting, which allows you to pick a second and third choice, etc., we have to support someone.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past several months attending candidate forums and house parties, reading about the candidates in the newspaper and on social media, and, having individual meetings, calls, and correspondence with some of them. So I feel I’m making informed decisions, and I’d like to share my choices with you–and why I picked these folks. For the two candidates in my own local districts, I’m including links to their websites and/or Facebook campaign pages.

The Democratic primary is September 4, just one day after Labor Day. If you’re registered to vote, please mark your calendar and exercise your rights on that day.

First, the races where I get to vote, and then the neighboring ones.
State Senate (to replace Stan Rosenberg, who resigned): Jo Comerford (write-in). Of the original six candidates, four remain, three of whom I know personally. I feel any of those three would do a good job, and probably so would the fourth. But Jo is a cut above. She has the perfect resume for a State Senator in a district full of activists. I first met her when she began running the American Friends Service Committee office in Northampton, after Frances Crowe (who started the local branch in her basement back in the 1960s) finally retired. From there, she took over from the late Greg Speeter as director of the National Priorities Project, the organization that shows cities and towns dollar for dollar what they send to the military, and how they might use that money at home instead. NPP has been a resource to academics and activists for decades, and I’m so proud that they’re based here in the Valley (along with several other wonderful national organizations). Her next job was at the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, which gave her direct experience with the issues people in our area face around hunger and poverty, as well as highly relevant experience working with local farmers. Then she went to MoveOn, where she was a national campaign director for four years, stepping down only to run for this seat. Jo is humble and clearly in the race as a way to serve. She’s also highly organized, has mobilized a veritable army of volunteers, and brought in a bunch of awesome endorsements (including progressive commentator and former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who has personal connections with Northampton). Her other endorsements include Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz, former State Rep. Ellen Story, former Congressman John Olver, as well a whole host of peace and justice, environmental, and labor groups. While election officials are supposed to count votes for Jo Comerford, Northampton, it’s best if you write in Joanne Comerford, 186 Federal Street, Northampton. Visit Jo Comerford’s campaign Facebook page for more information.

State House (to replace retiring John Scibak in Hadley, South Hadley, Easthampton, part of Granby): Marie McCourt. I see Marie first off as grounded in the experience of marginalized people who learn to make the system work through painful trial and error. Between her own disabilities and her son’s special needs, she has had to be an advocate her entire adult life. I also see her as very willing to listen, to be thoughtful, to look at an issue from many sides. And I see her as a passionate representative of her constituents; she is in the race to be of service. Of the three candidates, Marie appears to have the strongest grasp of the different personalities and issues in the four communities–because she has gone out and listened to people in all of them. Marie is a protege of both long-time State Reps Ellen Story (who has endorsed her) and John Scibak (who is not publicly endorsing anyone), and received the strongest candidate endorsement I can ever remember the Daily Hampshire Gazette giving any candidate in the 36+ years I’ve been reading the paper. I didn’t know Marie before Scibak announced his retirement, but I have met with her in-depth several times, hosted a house party with her, and been part of her strategy group. That’s how impressed I am with her. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mccourt4rep/

State-Wide races:
Governor (to run against Charlie Baker in the November general election): Bob Massie. Massie impressed me when I met him while he was running for statewide office many years ago, and he impresses me still. He has a terrific record on the environment, personal experience with the challenges of our health system (and also experience of the European single-payer model), and as strong a commitment to social and environmental justice issues as any gubernatorial candidate I can remember, similar to Robert Reich (who ran for governor several years ago) . He is more openly progressive and considerably more charismatic than his opponent, and I think he has a better chance of beating Baker, who is surprisingly popular. But if Gonzales is the nominee, I will have no problem supporting him in November.

Lieutenant Governor (to run against Karen Polito on a slate with the primary winner for governor in the November general election): Quentin Palfrey. Again, two fine candidates with good politics and good grasp of policy, and I will happily support the primary winner in November. My only exposure to Jimmy Tingle was at the Democratic Convention in June, while I’ve heard Palfrey two other times: once at a meeting of an activist group in Northampton, and once at an a rally against the White House policies on separating families of immigrants. To me, it’s very important that he shows up to progressive events and sees us as integral to the Democratic Party, and he knows the state extends past Route 128 and even I-495. I know he’s been out here in western Massachusetts several other times during the campaign, while I’m only aware of one Tingle appearance in the area. It also helps that I see myself in complete agreement with everything I read on Palfrey’s policy page.

Secretary of State (running against incumbent Democrat William Galvin): Josh Zakim. This is a very clear choice. The incumbent, first elected in 1994, has been good about holding corporate interests accountable to consumers, but otherwise has kept a very low profile. He is wishy-washy on  a number of electoral reforms that would open up the process, while Zakim, currently a Boston City Councilor, unashamedly embraces them.

US Congress, Massachusetts 2nd District: no primary. Supporting incumbent Jim McGovern in the general election. McGovern’s been great on defending SNAP and other hunger programs, standing for meaningful action on climate change, and opposing the racist, anti-consumer white House agenda at every turn. He comes to the western part of the state frequently and maintains a district office in Northampton. I consider him one of the best people in the entire Congress and am proud to be in his district.

Adjoining districts:
To replace the late Rep. Peter Kocot (Northampton/Hatfield): Lindsay Sabadosa. Lindsay is a progressive activist who has had a high profile in the Valley, organizing the local chapter of the Women’s March and active in numerous progressive activities. She also knows her way around the Statehouse and has built progressive issue-oriented coalitions. Her opponent, who ran Kokot’s district office, seems quite decent but doesn’t seem to bring the passion and energy. I also worry that some of the people in her camp are openly hostile to a progressive agenda.

To replace retiring Rep. Solomon Goldstein-Rose (Amherst, Pelham, part of Granby): Mindy Domb. Two good candidates for this seat. I give the edge to Domb on the basis of her passion and the level of support I see in the community. When Goldstein-Rose bowed out of the race, he endorsed Domb.

To replace retiring Rep. Steve Kulik (western Hilltowns and Deerfield/Sunderland): I see three good candidates. While I have not followed this one as closely as the others, I dealt with Nataie Blais when she worked for Congressman McGovern and found her very professional. She also has Kulik’s endorsement. Thus, she edges out Francia Wisnewski and Kate Albright-Hanna for my support in this eight-way(!) race.

US Congress, Massachusetts 1st District: Tahirah Amatul-Wadud (running against incumbent Democrat Richie Neal for a seat that includes all of Hampden and Berkshire Counties and big chunks of Hampshire and Franklin). Tahirah is a fresh face in local politics, whom I met shortly after the DT inauguration and quickly became friends with. I’ve been advising her campaign and I’m very much in favor of her candidacy. I used to live in Neal’s district. He seldom came to any of the other counties besides his base in Hampden County, did little on most issues, and only got me to vote for him once–because he’d voted no on the Iraq war. It is the only vote of courage I can remember him taking. Tahirah has been getting to know the geographically vast district and its very diverse voters, listening hard to people’s concerns, doing her research, speaking with issue experts…and to me, that leadership is worth sacrificing Neal’s power through seniority, as one of the longer-serving MOCs

In November, Massachusetts voters also have three ballot questions. I recommend voting Yes on Questions 2 and 3–but after much research (and confusion) I’ve changed my mind on Question 1 and plan to vote no:

  • Question 1 has a laudible goal of redcuce the burden on overworked nurses, and I had been a strong supporter of Question 1–until I started educating myself. However, the bill–yes, I’ve read it–is very poorly drafted. Specifically, the definition of what constitutes a finable incident is alarmingly vague. While the intent of the bill is laudable, it is so poorly written that I am convinced it will do more harm than good. It could result in community hospitals like Northampton’s Cooley Dickinson (my nearest hospital) being forced to close. Reluctantly, I am now a no vote.
  • Question 2 will take the first steps to get Massachusetts, at least, out from under the thumb of big corporate money in politics and give our state at least a little bit of protection from the horrible Citizens United US Supreme Court decision of several years ago that allowed dark money in politics, pretty much without restriction–and puts the wheels in motion to create a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United. Please vote Yes!
  • Question 3 protects against an attack on the rights of transgender people. A yes vote maintains the present protective law, while a no vote removes protections from a class of people who have done nothing criminal. Please vote Yes!

Some progressives have wondered, as a life-long grassroots activist, why I’m getting so involved in electoral politics. Because we need to do both. In 1975, I put a sign in my yard that said “Don’t vote. It only encourages them.” But like Obama’s position on same-sex marriage, my position has evolved. I was only 18 and didn’t see the use of a system that had little use for me as a youth, that under both LBJ (Democrat) and Nixon (Republican) was sending people just slightly older than me to fight and die in the far-away jungles of Vietnam, was despoiling the earth, and was not responsive (in my opinion at the time) to citizen needs.

But by 1983, I was of a different mind. I began to follow local politics closely that year, and since that time have been involved in many local, state, and national campaigns. I even ran for local office three times and managed a successful campaign to get a progressive insurgent on the City Council. He beat the three-term incumbent conservative by seven votes! I still do the grassroots work and see it as important. I go into electoral politics with my eyes open, knowing that no candidate will be the savior, that the pressures on elected officials to side with the powerful are immense, and increase the more you go up the ladder from municipal to county to in-state region to state to national region to president. But I also see good people all the way along the ladder. I think Obama and Carter and Kennedy were good people. They had plenty of flaws, but they had heart.

And if we have learned nothing from the horrible policies and horrible statements emanating from Washington the past two years, we know now without any doubt that our votes make a difference, that staying home or voting third-party in a swing state is not an option under the current electoral system, and that we could have beaten back this nightmare if more people had understood what was at stake.

So, Massachusetts residents, get out there and vote on September 4. So, all US citizens, get out there again to vote on November 6.

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By Posted on Posted in Advertising, Demographics/Psychographics, localism/locavore, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Technology Tagged with , , , , ,

Yes, personalization in marketing is a good thing. But it has to be done right. You’ll find some important lessons in this Epic Fail attempt I received.

A contact on LinkedIn sent me this note:

Hi Shel, I am starting a new business and am looking for business owners, who would allow me to test our solutions to grow their customer base. If you would be so kind to review this 30-second video and let me know what you think. It is for the real estate industry, but the concept is universal. Thanks! <URL>

It was a link to a personalized video that wanted access to my Facebook account but didn’t require it. I clicked on “proceed without Facebook” and watched her 38-second video. Then I wrote back thusly (she has not answered my two questions so I’m taking that as a no):

 

Well, I’m going to give you a detailed response and make a blog out of it. (May I use the sample video in my blog? And do you want to be named?) I think there’s a good future in personalized video marketing. But this example had major problems both in the underlying assumptions and in the implementation of the technology.

ASSUMPTIONS

The video assumes that:

  • Everyone wants a big house in the suburbs, with a big yard and a big garage
  • Everyone is white and Christian and heterosexual
  • Anyone would call a Portland, Oregon phone number to buy a house in Massachusetts

As a result, it comes off as generic and not really personalized. Right now, I live on a farm. I grew up in New York City and lived for 17 years in a small college town. If I were a real estate prospect from any of those three communities, or a person of color, or (as I am) a non-Christian, I would dismiss this video as irrelevant, and actually be offended that a “personalized” video was so out of touch with my particular reality. Using the name and community is not any more personalized than a mail-merge on a mass mailing.

Real personalization would draw from a video clips library of people who looked and acted like the families of the actual prospect, and show a home search that reflected the character of the prospect’s own community—and, if the prospect were actually doing a home search, the types of houses s/he was looking at.

And the whole advantage of using a real estate agent is in things like familiarity with the market and a personal touch. This is why even the big national RE franchises have local offices in each community they serve. Giving a number from 3000 miles away is a huge disconnect and makes me uncomfortable.

You also assume that you can call it a 30-second video. It was 38 seconds plus probably another 15 while the video was assembling itself. You could accurately say “less than one minute.” 30 seconds is misleading.

TECHNOLOGY

  • Load experience
  • Geotargeting

Where a personalized video really shines is in creating the idea that the video was created just for the individual who gets to watch. I admire the honesty, but staring at a long pause with a note that it is creating the personalized video removes that illusion. We are all aware that computers are doing the work. Some other kind of splash screen saying that the video is loading and perhaps telling three points to pay attention to in the video might be a better user experience.

And the geotargeting was not only off, it didn’t match the video contents. For some reason, it thought I’d be looking at houses in East Longmeadow, a working-class/lower-middle-class suburb of Springfield a good 30 miles from here. But the homes shown in the video were more likely to be found one town over in Longmeadow, a much wealthier town.

A fancy house that you'd find in a wealthy suburb—mistargeted to me
A fancy house that you’d find in a wealthy suburb—mistargeted to me. Photo by Margan Zajdowicz, FreeImages.com

I personally am very happy where I live and have no interest in buying a home in either of those towns—but I understand that I am not the prospect for homebuying, but for using personalized promotional videos. I actually like the idea, though I think the library of personalized clips for my business would be far too complicated and expensive to assemble, as it would get into things like climate change solutions for manufacturers, retailers, restaurant owners, etc.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, localism/locavore, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

Part 3: Inside the Armories

Part 3 of a series of reminiscences of the April 30/May 1, 1977 occupation at the Seabrook, NH nuclear power plant construction site, and its aftermath. If you missed Part 1, read it here. At the bottom of that page, you’ll find a link to Part 2, and at the bottom of Part 2, a link back here.

In Manchester at least, we were all held in one big room. Each affinity group had an area, and we kept our own areas clean. All the poles that held up the ceiling were numbered, so we had an easy system to identify our locations within the large floor.

Small-to-Large-Group Consensus Decisions

Have you ever tried to get even 70 people to agree on anything? Even with 700 people in the Manchester Armory, we maintained a commitment to consensus; we did not move forward organizationally until everyone was OK with the decision. That didn’t mean everyone was in total agreement, but it did mean that the people who preferred another choice were OK with going forward after their concerns were heard. We had numerous decision-making meetings about strategy, about the roles of our support people on the outside, and about how we were being presented to the world. And consistently, we were able to reach rapid consensus.

How? By using hubs and spokes on top of the affinity group structure: Each affinity group selected a spokesperson to represent our views to a circle of spokespeople. The representative was not empowered to make decisions on our behalf, but to express our views and bring the views of other groups back to the affinity hubs to discuss whatever issues those other groups’ spokespeople had brought up.

Over and over, this structure, which sounds cumbersome and slow from a distance, proved to work well and work quickly. We settled even the most complex decisions through consensus, and that consensus was always achieved within two hours or less—sometimes just a few minutes. And because every issue or concern was explored, and we only implemented after no one was blocking, the decisions we reached carried weight and took root smoothly and rapidly; no one was trying to sabotage them, because we all felt ownership of the process.

Creating a Learning Community

Another exciting piece was the way we took advantage of our time together in a confined empty space to teach and learn from each other. You could call it “University Within Walls.”

Detainees offered a myriad of workshops around energy issues, green living/self-sufficiency, creating inclusive and active communities, environmental justice, and social change. All of us had expertise in something, and many were willing to share their knowledge. Some of the offerings, as I remember them:

  • Nonviolence theory and practice
  • Understanding the mechanics of—and problems with—nuclear power
  • Building quick, cheap and easy do-it-yourself alternative energy projects
  • Organic food production and preparation
  • Organizing and fundraising skills
  • How to get media coverage
  • Strategy of social change
  • Meeting facilitation that works

Workshop leaders would put up notices or announce sessions at meetings, including the nearest pole number.

From what I could see, it looked like nearly all the detainees were taking advantage of this opportunity, so almost all of us emerged from our incarceration with more knowledge and better skills. And from what I heard afterward, similar education was happening in the other armories. This is probably one reason why so many Clamshell Alliance folks have remained involved in social change all these decades later.

Reaching Past the Choir

A few days into our incarceration, some of us started realizing that we had a captive audience for our message: the young National Guard reservists called up to ensure security and order. Since we were all trained in nonviolence and a pretty orderly group—other than two detainees who sneaked out, made a run to the nearest Haagen Dazs, and were re-arrested bringing back ice cream to share—they didn’t have a lot to do.

Unlike these National guardsmen of 1852, our primitive accommodations inside the armories included indoor plumbing. Picture credit: New York Public Library Digital Collections
Unlike these National Guardsmen of 1852, our primitive accommodations inside the armories included indoor plumbing. Picture credit: New York Public Library Digital Collections

So a lot of us started hanging out with the Guardsmen (I don’t remember any women in uniform) and chatting them up. We asked some questions about what being in the Guard was like, what they liked to do in their spare time—and what they knew and felt about nuclear power and our protest.

Clamshell was deep in the counterculture, with new ways to make decisions, a willingness to challenge any authority, and the scruffy hippie look of 1970s activism. Yet, among this very non-counterculture audience, we found most of them open to talking, and some of them open to changing their positions. As Rolling Stone described it back then, “But the prisoners hung on, politicizing their jailers, the guardsmen, whom they treated as friends.”

For me, that was the only the second time I’d reached across to people I saw as “on the other side.” The first was at a peace demonstration at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, a couple of years earlier. It had felt like a revolutionary act, humanizing each other and finding places of commonality while defusing tension. Since then, it’s been a part of my social change toolkit.

Part 4 will look at what Clamshell and the Seabrook Occupation accomplished in the wider world, the ripples of impact we had that continue to this day.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, localism/locavore, People Helping People, poverty, Technology Tagged with , , , , , ,

Stumbling across this article on bicycle-powered-everythings (bicimaquinas) in Guatemala—grain mills, water pumps, nut-shellers, blenders, and more—I’m reminded once again of the key question to ask if you want to spark innovation while keeping an eco-friendly focus on using fewer resources.

Too often, we focus on the tool: asking questions like “how do I get a new tractor?” But what is a tool? It’s a means of accomplishing a task! So the real focus should be on the task: “How can I get this done?” Asking “how can I get harvestable plants” might lead to plowing with draft animals—or to no-till farming techniques.

Green entrepreneurs (or frugal ones) refine that question. It morphs into “How can I accomplish this with the fewest resources?” Money and time are resources. So are raw materials, energy, water, plant seeds, animals, and so forth.

The people at Maya Pedal, the organization profiled in the bicimaquinaarticle, understood this. They looked around and realized there were a lot of junk bikes out there that could still do plenty of useful work, just not as transportation. They’ve come up with 19 different models so far.

Bicycle technology is cheap, accessible, understandable, and versatile. In fact, my latest book Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World mentions a number of creative bike technology uses, even including a bike-powered trash hauling company. I also know of a fitness center that harnesses the energy of their bike-pumping clients to light the room.

We can ask this question in many situations—and it creates abundance. Asking “how can I power my electronic devices easily and cheaply without negative environmental consequences” might lead to developing something like the amazing Blue Freedom frisbee-sized hydroelectric plant (no dam required).

This blender is one of 19 different types of bicimaquinas—bike-powered equipment—developed by Maya Pedal in San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala
This blender is one of 19 different types of bicimaquinas—bike-powered equipment—developed by Maya Pedal in San Andrés Itzapa, Guatemala

Back when laser printers were retailing for $7000 and I had only a dot matrix, I asked myself how I could offer laser quality to my clients without spending that kind of money. That led me first to rent time on a nearby laser printer for a dollar a page, and later—when I spotted a remaindered model for $2500—to organize a co-op of four local business owners who chipped in $700 each to buy the printer and a sturdy stand for that very heavy machine. Since I organized the co-op, the printer lived in my office.

Amory Lovins, founder of Rocky Mountain Institute, asked himself how to build a really energy-efficient house  that could fund the energy improvements out of capital savings. All the way back in 1983, he built a near-net-zero-energy luxury home that didn’t need a furnace or an air conditioner (in the snowbelt outside Aspen, Colorado, where the biggest industry is skiing). I have a detailed study of Lovins’ work in Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, by the way—including the energy retrofit of the Empire State Building that saves $4.4 million per year in that building’s energy bills.

What’s the second question you might ask? How has nature already accomplished this task? But that’s an exploration for another time.

Thanks Heath Dannis, @dannis_heath for sharing the great story about bicimaquinas.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Greenwashing, localism/locavore, propaganda, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,
Independent-owned boats like these on the Spanish Costa Brava could be forced out by Big Fish. Photo by Shel Horowitz

Independent-owned boats like these on the Spanish Costa Brava could be forced out by Big Fish. Photo by Shel Horowitz
Independent-owned boats like these on the Spanish Costa Brava could be forced out by Big Fishing. Photo by Shel Horowitz
As a vegetarian for the past 42 years, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about fish. But I went to a talk, “Food Grabs vs. Climate Justice: How capitalists and climate deniers are locking up access to land and sea, and how Food Sovereignty movements are creating real climate solutions,” part of the Center for Popular Economics’ annual summer institute in Western Massachusetts.

Moderated by Sara Mersha (Grassroots International), panelists included Michele Mesmain (Slow Food International), Betsy Garrold (Food for Maine’s Future), and Seth Macinko (Department of Marine Affairs, University of Rhode Island). Both Macinko and Mesmain focused on fish and fisheries.

Both experts agreed on the need to control overfishing–and both said there’s a better way than the current widely embraced privitization “solution”: taking the public resource of the sea held in common, and giving it, for free and in perpetuity, to large corporations who are already catching the most fish. These corporations then can lease fishing rights back to the local fisherfolks, who used to be able to fish them for free–or simply force them out of business.

Macinko said you can manage a resource to prevent overfishing without savaging the historic commons rights, and noted the unholy alliance of environmental groups (including Environmental Defense Fund), academics, corporate-oriented major foundations such as Pew, government and trans-government authorities including the World Bank, the Big Fishing lobby, and, lo and behold, the Koch Brothers’ foundation pushing for this rights grab. Then Mesmain showed three models of successful fisheries management without privitization: a 1000-year-old guild governing France’s Mediterranean coast, a much more recent initiative in the Basque region of Spain–both involving open-sea fisheries, and one through the Okanagan Nations Alliance (8 nations/tribes in Washington State and British Columbia) covering inland river salmon fisheries.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics: General, Green Business, localism/locavore, media-general, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Social and Economic Justice, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m up to the part of Naomi Klein?‘s This Changes Everything where she talks about the interconnectedness of geolocalized people’s movements opposing “extreme/reckless resource extraction” (e.g., tar-sands oil, fracked gas and oil, mountaintop removal for coal). She dubs the movement “Blockadia.” She also casts very appropriate darts, just before this section, at the crazy idea that we should avoid climate catastrophe by throwing so much pollution into the sky that the sun can’t get through. Talk about a cure worse than the disease! Hard to believe some scientists are actually serious about this.

She points out that these technologies are far more intrusive and polluting and resource-intensive than the old-style mines and wells—and that the opposition often parses out as saving our water from destruction, modeling around the Precautionary Principle of not unleashing technologies we can’t control, and using the positive framing of protecting our water (very similar to the way I framed Save the Mountain 15 years ago—the successful movement to keep a nasty housing development off the Mount Holyoke Range in my town of Hadley, Massachusetts, US). I have said for many years that we have plenty of substitutes for oil, but if the water is gone (or unusable), so are we.

Like everything I’ve ever read by Klein, the book is impeccably researched—including interviewing primary sources directly and even suffering through climate-denier conferences and similar events in person; pursuit of the truth can be painful, sometimes.

And she isn’t afraid to go after the movement’s sacred cows. She scolds some very prominent environmental groups including The Nature Conservancy for betraying their core mission in the service of their large extraction-industry funders—even putting an oil well into one of its nature preserves, where the bird it was set up to protect can no longer be found. And she finds Sir Richard Branson’s proclamations of concern for the planet to be at odds with his actions. (I’m hoping she’s wrong about him. Even if she turns out to be right—and she might well be—he has certainly used his considerable charisma to educate the public on climate change.)

Environmentalists need to take these accusations very seriously. We need to know who we fund, and what they do with the money. And we definitely need to build the movement that insists upon meaningful action to stave off catastrophic climate change—which would have been much easier 20 or 30 years ago, but, I believe, is still possible now.

However, I break with Klein over solutions. She has essentially no faith in the business community or in technology, and she seems to think that any time an environmental group partners with a polluter, that group is sullied. Maybe I’m less of a purist than she is. But I’ve just finished another wonderful book, The Necessary Revolution, by Peter Senge et al. Reading the two together was very interesting, because Senge’s book is full of great examples of NGOs and corporations working together to tackle problems in a very meaningful way, while Klein’s is the counterpoint of these partnerships leading to a failure to address the deeper issues.

I also read almost daily reports in the sustainability press (GreenBiz, Sustainable Brands, Triple Pundit, 3BL Media, Rocky Mountain Institute’s Solutions Journal, and Guardian Sustainable Business, to name a few) of the amazing small-scale, eco-friendly technology innovations that give me hope. And I’m painfully aware that we knew all the way back in 1983-84 how to build a beautiful, modern, net-zero-energy home even in extreme environments, and that our failure to make this the norm is inexcusable.

Technology doesn’t have to be about extreme extraction, GMOs designed to absorb more pesticides, nuclear power, or blocking the sun. Science and engineering can actually be the climate movement’s friends. Unlike the crazy unproven schemes requiring billions or trillions of dollars and dozens of years to ramp up, these innovations often combine deep conservation, greater efficiency in harnessing clean renewable energy, and even the fascinating science of biomimcry to slash energy use, carbon footprint, and waste—right now.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, censorship, Democracy, Diversity, Ethics in Government, localism/locavore, People Helping People, Politics, propaganda, Psychology, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with , , , ,

In his daily blog, Seth Godin wrote today,

The last hundred years have also seen a similar ratchet (amplified, I’d argue, by the technology of media and of the economy) in civil rights. It’s unlikely (with the exception of despotic edicts) that women will ever lose the vote, that discrimination on race will return to apartheid-like levels, that marriage will return to being an exclusionary practice… once a social justice is embraced by a culture, it’s rarely abandoned.

Unfortunately, those “despotic edicts” are all-too-common. While the general trend is not to reverse progress, there are far too many exceptions:

And, sadly, dozens more examples from around the world.

If you think “it can’t happen here,” do some research on Berlin in the 1920s–or read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale). Or look at the scary anti-Arab and anti-Muslim acts of violence that started showing up regularly in the US starting in the aftermath of 9/11/01 and are still escalating.

Although this is a pessimistic post, I am ultimately an optimist. I think Godin is basically right–but there are many, many exceptions. Let’s work together for a world in which those exceptions are no longer tolerated–we can do this!

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By Posted on Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Eco-friendly, Environment, General Commentary, localism/locavore Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Over the past several months, I’ve been learning more about biomimcry: emulating nature’s designs to solve problems humans need solved. Often, the results are aesthetically pleasing, environmentally friendly, and energy conserving.

While, as far as I know, he wasn’t paying attention to energy use or design challenges like harvesting rainwater in the desert, the famed late-19th/early-20th century architect and artist Antoni Gaudí certainly was a biomimic. Here’s what the Barcelona Tourist Guide says about Gaudí:

Most of Gaudí’s constructions have an organic look to them. This basic concept of using nature as the primary influences for his creativity is reflected in the use of the natural curved construction stones, twisted iron sculptures, and organic-like shapes—all of which are characteristic traits of Gaudí’s architecture.

I just visited Barcelona, where Gaudí left his mark and helped inspire the whole Modernist movement that gives today’s Barcelona so much character—and I found myself thinking often about biomimicry, and how the Modernists used nature forms to create a powerful aesthetic. Many of our other great inventors took inspiration from nature as well; Da Vinci and Buckminster Fuller were also biomimics.

In addition to his world-famous cathedral, La Sagrada Familia Basilica, commenced in 1882 and not yet finished, he did several residential buildings, a palace for his patron, and even a stunning municipal park.

But the Sagrada Familia is probably the single best reason to visit Barcelona. It’s just magnificent. The interior and exterior are completely different experiences. The exterior is almost like it was done by an out-of-control cake decorator with a compulsion to sculpt every available surface; the interior is serene and calm, yet soaring and spiritually uplifting. It feels almost like some of the great mosques in Istanbul.

The exterior is iconic; you’ve surely seen photographs.

Exterior shot, Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona
Arch and four towers of the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, designed by Antoni Gaudií

But to me, the deeper experience of this building is the sacred space within the walls. This brief movie clip gives at least a little taste of the Sagrada Familia interior experience. 

 

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By Posted on Posted in Business-general, Energy & Sustainability, Frugality/Frugal Fun, localism/locavore, poverty, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , ,
Whole grain cracker (stock photo, not the brand I'm writing about)
Whole grain cracker (stock photo, not the brand I’m writing about)

In the next town over, there’s a store I frequent that sells remaindered natural foods. I bought some whole-grain rye crackers there recently, costing 99 cents for an 8.8 ounce package. Yesterday I noticed this astonishing bit of small print on the label:

Made in England from local and imported ingredients…Imported and distributed by [address in Australia] and [address in New Zealand].

Our nearest full-scale international airport is in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, about 100 miles away. Googling the distances, it’s about 20,000 miles from England to Boston via either Australia or New Zealand.

The cracker label does something very odd about  ingredients: wholegrain rye flour and salt are listed, and then—presumably because they’re recycling the same back panel across several flavor varieties—”May Contain Oats (Gluten), Wheat (Gluten), Sesame Seeds, Soya.” It’s a fair guess that at least the sesame (definitely included in this flavor) and soy traveled an additional few thousand miles to get to the factory in England.

Mind you, I’m not a locavore purist. Yes, I prefer to eat local, but I’ve got plenty of olive oil, chocolate, and other products in my kitchen that don’t grow around here. But when there is a local product available, I prefer to buy it. Years ago, I stopped buying the very wonderful bread I used to get because it’s made in California, and there’s perfectly lots of good bread made within 10 miles of my house—and I’ve basically only bought locally baked bread since then. (I did buy a loaf of my old favorite when I was in Berkeley, where it was local.)

Grains can be grown in my area, and some of the local bakeries actually use local ingredients (including a tortillaria that uses local, organic heirloom corn, and their tortillas are delicious).

It should not even be possible that something could travel 3/4 of the way around the world, be sold to me at that price, and have anyone involved make a profit. The shipping costs alone have to be much higher than that. And if externalities were counted and the true costs figured in, I should have been looking at a price tag somewhere around $10.

In the privileged middle-class country where I live, the impact is somewhat modulated, because only a small percentage of people make their living as farmers, and many of those farmers have secured markets that are insulated from these kinds of macroeconomics games (farmers markets, specialty restaurants, etc.). But talk to any dairy farmer in the US, and you’ll find that the economics are very troubling.

And when imports are dumped below-cost into subsistence farm economies in developing countries, the results can be tragic. Farmers who cannot compete with these artificially low prices lose their markets, and eventually their land. They crowd themselves into massive urban slums where they can find menial jobs, and those overcrowded megacities become crime-invested nightmares—while the land they once farmed withers or is polluted by some big industrial scheme where manufacturing jobs have been outsourced because it’s cheaper to operate in countries without strong environmental regulations.

We need to rethink our food economics and our whole consumer economy. Desperately.

 

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business-general, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Green Business, localism/locavore Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday, two long-awaited and seemingly unrelated milestone events occurred in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts (where I live) and Vermont.

  1. Passenger train service was restored to Northampton and Greenfield, MA. The first commercial passenger trains since 1987 to use the Connecticut River tracks between Springfield, MA and Brattleboro,  VT made initial northbound and southbound runs between New York City and St. Albans, VT (a tiny village at the Canadian border). While only one train per day in each direction will make this run, it marks a rare expansion of long-distance passenger rail service in the US. Plans call for adding a stop at Holyoke, MA once that station is rebuilt in 2016, and there’s discussion of running several commuter trains a day at some point in the future—which would allow people to actually substitute train travel for driving.
  2. The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, opened in 1972,was taken off the grid and permanently shut down. This GE Mark I plant, which uses a reactor design nearly identical to Fukushima’s, has been operating unsafely since its earliest days—I’ve seen an excerpt from the long, long official government safety issues report of March, 1974, and it isn’t pretty—and illegally under Vermont law for nearly three years (since March, 2012).

The forces that created these two events were very different: government efforts for the train, a combination of citizen activism and market conditions for the shutdown. But several common threads across the wider map of society show that these victories are actually linked. Both were responses to growing perceptions that:

  • We need to think bioregionally
  • We have to create energy and resource sustainability
  • Both of these milestones will create the kind of economic impact we want to see: moving toward conservation, renewable, safe energy sources and transit-oriented development boosts, smaller, local businesses and encourages changes in consumer use patterns
  • Both are better for the environment (do NOT let anyone try to tell you that nukes are environmentally benign—the claim of lower carbon footprint is false if you count the entire fuel cycle, and the environmental consequences of an accident are catastrophic)
  • Citizens, individuals, can make a difference—in our use patterns as well as our advocacy
  • Change is possible, even when it looks hopeless

Of course, there’s more work to be done.

To make the train viable, they really need extend service to Montreal, as was true in the distant past. Reasonably priced service between NYC and Montreal  (also serving population centers en route: Bridgeport, New Haven, and Hartford, CT; Springfield, MA; Burlington, VT) will keep a lot more of the seats occupied and create economic viability that will be hard to find if the train ends in nowheresville. Even from NYC, when you count time driving to the airport, time at the airport, and time getting from the airport to an inner-city final destination, train travel within a few hundred miles would not be that much slower than flying, and a good deal more pleasant. From Northampton or Greenfield, MA, it’s a no-brainer. Rather than drive 40 or 60 minutes south to the airport and getting there 90 minutes before a flight, ride the comfortable train in the direction you want to go. By the time you would have boarded the plane, you could already be in central Vermont, half-way to Montreal.

And to really boost the economy without Vermont Yankee, we need even more activity on solar, wind, geothermal, deep conservation, etc. We have to make up the loss to the power grid, and replace the jobs the plant had provided. The good news? Investment in these technologies creates a lot more jobs—22 times as many if you count construction jobs, and 148 times as many permanent jobs—than the same expenditure in nuclear, and a lot of that filters down to the more economically marginal who can get good jobs in these sectors.

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