Category: People Helping People

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Activism, Demographics/Psychographics, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, General Commentary, Innovation, language, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,
interracial couple in US flag regalia
interracial couple in US flag regalia

As the United States of America marks its 244th birthday today, it’s a good time to look at the state of this nation.

The US was the first modern constitutional democracy, just shy of 26 years earlier than second-place Norway. That’s a terrific achievement that makes many Americans proud–including me. But the founders of this country were White, male property owners, some of whom saw human beings as part of their property. And the democracy they created was an unequal one that gave voting rights only to White, male property owners. It took all the way until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to extend that franchise all the way down to Black women in all parts of the segregated South.

Americans think of ourselves as a “can-do” people. Over the course of its history, the US has often been in the vanguard, with the rest of the world playing catch-up later. The US was especially good at technology, pioneering innovations ranging from the interchangeable parts that made mass production possible to the amazing moon missions that took less than seven years from JFK’s speech at Rice University to Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind” as he became the first person ever to set foot on the lunar surface, to enormous leadership in green energy from the 1970s into the 1990s.

And Americans often see ourselves as the greatest country in the world. In many ways,  that image is correct. We have amazing natural and scenic resources, a wide diversity of people, cultures, ecosystems, and more. We are very resilient, even scrappy at times. We have a democracy that has not only lasted but expanded. We’ve birthed may popular movements for justice and liberation, and experiments in new ways to form community, that went around the world.

As one example, it’s hard to imagine the LGBT movement globally without the strength of that movement in the US starting in 1969 with Stonewall. Stonewall didn’t magically spring up out of nowhere. Little-known homosexual-rights advocacy groups like the Mattachine Society (for men) and Daughters of Bilitis (for women) had been around since the 1950s. The Gray Panthers, founded in Philadelphia, took on agism. Disability activists pushed through the Americans with Disabilities Act.

But we also lead in many areas where leading isn’t a good thing. 73 percent of US homicides involve a firearm, and per capita firearms ownership is more than twice the number of #2 Yemen. The US is the only country to have more guns than people. We have the highest healthcare costs in the world but far from the best outcomes. And of course, new cases of Coronavirus are raging in the US, while Europe and Asia have done a much better job on control.

And despite the perception of American exceptionalism–that we’re a beacon to the rest of the world–there are many areas where the US is far, far below “the best in the world.” This could be a much longer list, but here are a few examples:

The US has enabled an enormous transfer of wealth from middle-class and working-class people to the 1 Percent. People of color have faced numerous additional institutional barriers to participating in that wealth.

The US has also been a hotbed of hatred, where for centuries, people have been attacked and often killed for their real or perceived skin color, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other factors. The FBI’s most recent statistics, for 2018, document 7,120 hate crime incidents (this list taken verbatim from the site):

  • 59.5 percent stemmed from a race/ethnicity/ancestry bias.
  • 18.6 percent were motivated by religious bias.
  • 16.9 percent resulted from sexual-orientation bias.
  • 2.2 percent stemmed from gender-identity bias.
  • 2.1 percent resulted from bias against disabilities.
  • 0.7 percent (58 offenses) were prompted by gender bias.

My guess is that these terrible statistics don’t even count police murders of people of color.

What is the Real America?

Technically, America is much more than the US. It’s everything from the northern tip of Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina–and Americans live anywhere within. But right now, I’m just talking about the US.

And the answer is…all of the above, and more. Our diversity is part of our resilience and our strength. But our education (in school and out, and that includes social media) tends to sharpen our existing divisions and make it hard to find people who disagree with us–let alone have those meaningful, structured conversations that explore how we can work together with people who are not like us.

And it hasn’t helped that the current president has repeatedly and publicly embraced racism,  misogyny, ableism, and difference, while promoting suppression of real news and science, monolithic social mores that ignore or (sometimes even physically) attack different perspectives, and dictatorships in other countries. A president who has put children in cages, essentially closed the borders to legitimate asylum seekers (long before COVID), slashed the safety net, appointed a likely child abuser to the Supreme Court, and made a mockery of our cherished democracy.

This Moment: A Time for Action

Many things are changing in our society this year:

  • The pandemic has changed the way we interact–and created a ridiculous ideologically based divide between those who take precautions and those who don’t
  • Anger around police mistreatment has created a mass movement
  • COVID has shown that our entire society can pivot, that all those “impossible”changes around issues from climate change to racism are actually less drastic than what we’ve already changed

In short, the cauldron is bubbling. What emerges depends on what we put in–but this could be a time to Make America Great, finally.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Diversity, Eco-friendly, Environment, General Commentary, Innovation, People Helping People, Politics, Social and Economic Justice, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

An article called “Build Back Better,” offered eight ways we can mitigate the climate crisis as we reopen. It’s on the Singapore-based Eco-Business site (often a wealth of fresh thinking to my American eyes)

I’d only read a couple of paragraphs when I got the idea to start a community on the theme of building back better—but not just for climate change. I envision a portal with resources and ideas to create better futures in criminal justice/policing, nonviolent defense, immigration, equitable housing, transportation, community food self-sufficiency, education, the work world, democracy… There’s a ton of great stuff out there, but I’m not aware of a one-stop resource that crosses silos, and disciplines, reaches people with a wide range of passions, interests, skills, and demographics, and has the power to create change.

While it certainly builds on the work I’ve been doing for several years at Going Beyond Sustainability, I see it as a community project that would seek ideas both from thought leaders/subject experts and from “ordinary” people (none of us is actually ordinary; all of us are unique).

And use social media, press outreach, and other tools to get it in front of leaders in government, business, academia, nonprofit, etc. After all, every major site started small, even Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter. Using the power of the Internet, this could evolve rapidly to a place that journalists and politicians turn to for sources and advice.

I got so juiced that I stopped reading, ran off to GoDaddy, and scooped up build-back-better dot net (not using the domain syntax because there’s no site up yet so I don’t want it clickable). Most of the more obvious variations were already taken, which tells me there could be some traction in the concept. Only after I secured the domain did I go back and finish reading the article. UPDATE, JULY 9: I’m now thinking it might be better to come up with a cool, brandable single-word name (and I have a few possibilities in mind)–rather than a three-word name whose meaning isn’t all that obvious.

So…who wants to play? If it’s going to fly, it’s going to need volunteers:

  • Thinkers and doers: researchers, authors, activists, business and community leaders, students, etc., who could post ideas-in-progress and let the community help those ideas evolve into workable solutions
  • Web designers who can handle complex threading and submission forms that allow people to submit and subscribe by specific idea, by topic heading, and overall—and who have a deep understanding of Internet security and SEO
  • Topic leaders who are experts in their subject and can moderate submissions so the spammers, trolls, and nut-jobs have to play someplace else—but who will put up actual ideas that are submitted in their area, even if they personally don’t see them as workable. (That would be an ideal opportunity to help them think their idea through. Post the submission and immediately post a comment that doesn’t put down the idea but grounds them in reality, with questions like “have you thought about what could happen if…?” “Do you think this could also be useful in (a different discipline)?” “What resources would this
    Residents of Wadajir, Somalia attend a meeting on community policing. Photo by David Mutui, courtesy Wikipedia Commons

    require and how would you go after them?”

  • Influencers (including journalists, bloggers, marketers, people operating successful online communities, people with a big fan base or lots of social media connections) who can bring the site to the attention of their networks
  • Revenue generators who would work on commission to raise money for hack-proof site operation, and eventually raise enough to start paying volunteers

Obviously, this is only a preliminary sketch. If you’d like to be part of this, use my contact form (on my sister site, Going Beyond Sustainability) to get in touch.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, Gratitude, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Marketing Trends/News, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , ,
A recent Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, OR, June 4, 2020

Happy Juneteenth. As you probably know by now, June 19th is a Black American holiday celebrating the day the last slaves in a Confederate state finally got the news that slavery had been overturned 2-1/2 years earlier (four Union states still permitted slavery for a few more months, until the 13th Amendment became law).

A recent Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, OR, June 4, 2020
A recent Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, OR, June 4, 2020

You also probably know that the guy in the White House planned to have his first live indoor rally in months today–and rubbing salt in the wounds, it was going to be in Tulsa, site of the worst violence against a black community in the history of the US (in 1921). And of course, you know that the US has been rocked by racial justice protests for weeks, following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

The public outcry was so fierce that even a group as tone-deaf as his campaign staff (who apparently knew about both of these events ahead of setting the date), and as deliberately inflammatory and reluctant to admit wrong as the man himself, had to walk it back. The rally will still be in Tulsa, but tomorrow.

Both Bruce Dart, head of Tulsa’s health department, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of the federal response to coronavirus, are very unhappy about this, BTW, as COVID-19 cases have been climbing rapidly there.

Which brings home the point that nonviolent citizen action is effective even against a thuggish, narcissistic, pathological liar and would-be lifetime dictator like this one. Here are five particularly famous examples, among thousands. I have personally participated in dozens of nonviolent events or sustained campaigns that had significant impact, most spectacularly the Seabrook Occupation of 1977 and the year-long Save the Mountain campaign I founded in 1999.

Not coincidentally, black organizers of Tulsa’s annual Juneteenth celebration, who had canceled the event over the virus, uncanceled it and are now expecting 30,000 people (11,000 more than will be at the re-election rally).

How I Will Mark Juneteenth

I’m attending two Juneteenth events today: first, a virtual celebration featuring two black Jewish rabbis who are both musicians at 5 pm ET/2 pm PT, and second, a live candlelight vigil, with distancing and masks, at the site of the Sojourner Truth statue in Florence, Massachusetts, a 20-minute drive from my home.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Democracy, Ethics in Government, language, People Helping People, Politics, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Like many on the Left, I was disappointed that a whole slew of brilliant progressives with the skills to be president failed to get traction. And I was dismayed by the Biden campaign’s sneak-attack success at undermining Elizabeth Warren’s chances just before Super-Tuesday, with the very public withdrawals and endorsements by Klobuchar and Buttigeig. If we had Ranked-Choice Voting and other long-overdue electoral reforms in place, this would not have been a problem.  (Note: that second post is something I wrote back in 2007, outlining seven important reforms. At that time, Ranked-Choice was usually referred to as Instant Runoff.) But it left a lot of us feeling angry and left out.

With the withdrawal of Bernie and Elizabeth and their eventual endorsement of Biden in the weeks following, things shifted from who do we want as our ally to who do we want as our adversary? This is a very important distinction, brought to my attention by Erica Chenowith, who is known for her work showing that nonviolent struggle by just 3.5% of the population is enough to bring down a government. We will make more progress in a Biden administration than the current administration. We have already pushed Biden’s rhetoric well to the left and have given him the space to make the recent statements condemning DT’s racism.

Effigy of "the Donald," photographed by Shel Horowitz at the Climate March, April 2017, Washington, DC
Effigy of “the Donald,” photographed by Shel Horowitz at the Climate March, April 2017, Washington, DC

I already voted, on super Tuesday. But if I lived in a state that was yet to have its primary, I would absolutely vote for Sanders in order to increase that leverage from the left. But that’s all it will do. Sanders will not be the nominee. That dream is over! While giving more strength to the Sanders coalition, we have to recognize that in November, barring some kind of miracle or catastrophe, Biden’s name will be on the ballot. And the more out of control DT gets, the more he tilts actively toward fascism as he has been doing with increasing strength ever since the impeachment failed, the more urgent it is to make the margin of victory so big that DT cannot steal it this time (the 2016 results will be under a cloud forever).

We need to fight for every vote in swing states even if that means having recounts. To delegitimize the current administration in every way possible.

The absence of DT’s actual name in this post is deliberate. It is one small way we reduce his legitimacy, and his bragging rights.

I was on an Indivisible NoHo call with our progressive Central/Western Massachusetts congressman, Jim McGovern, this week. He noted that Biden was not his first choice, or even his fourth choice. That’s true for me as well. I think of the 22 original candidates, I had him at about 17. But we lost that one. Again!

Yes, Sanders would have made a fine and successful nominee that I could have supported with a lot more enthusiasm. He was my second choice, after Warren. Yes, absolutely vote Sanders in the primary but recognize that Sanders will not be the nominee and this is about giving strength to the left to negotiate with Biden.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Green Business, Green Marketing, Innovation, People Helping People, Socially Responsible Investing Tagged with , , , , ,
Singapore's Marina Bay. Photo courtesy Wikipedia Commons.
This challenge is based in Singapore. Photo courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Just found this announcement as an ad on a story I clicked on in Eco-Business, an Asian environmental newsletter that often has cool and unusual stories. If you have a project needing funding in urban food production, circular packaging, or decarbonization that could work in an urban tropical area like Singapore, get thee over to The Livability Challenge page. RIGHT NOW.

Finalists in The Liveability Challenge 2020 could secure the following:

• Up to S$1 million in funding by Temasek Foundation•
• 1-year venture building package at The Circularity Studio •
• A mentorship with Closed Loop Partners •
• A spot in TXG Sustainability Business Accelerator Program •
• and more to be unveiled •

I have not vetted and have no more information other than what’s on that page. But if you enter and get selected, I’d love to know that you heard about it from me. In fact, if you have a cool idea like that and have no interest in the contest or aren’t chosen, please share it. If I like your idea, I’ll give you a brief marketing consultation, no charge. And I might ask if I can feature you in an article or blog post. Of course, I won’t disclose your idea to anyone without your written permission.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Ethics in Government, Innovation, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice, Talking to the Other Side Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,
Erica Chenoweth, nonviolent activism researcher
Erica Chenoweth, nonviolent activism researcher

Yesterday and today, I’ve listened to a bunch of the EarthDayLive2020 conference. It’s exciting to see this intergenerational, intercultural, and very smart group of activists and performers  attracting thousands of viewers over Zoom.

One speaker, Erica Chenowith, tossed off a remark that changed everything I think about the 2020 US presidential election. She said—and this is so clear after all the progressives exited the race—that we get involved with this election not to choose our ally but to choose our adversary (she used the term “enemy,” but I think my term gets her meaning more accurately).

This, to me, might be the secret sauce for getting progressives to come out and vote. In this scenario, Biden migrates from lesser evil to far, far better adversary. With a moderate and relatively honest Democrat in the White House, progressives will have a much easier time moving our agenda forward. Biden will be more pliable on economic issues, on the social safety net, and on the environment. He is no Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, but he is someone who does listen, and who occasionally changes his mind—as he did on same-sex marriage. In the Bill Clinton era, he supported the horrid DOMA, but he pushed Obama well to the left when marriage equality came to the tipping point.

He is already likely to reinstate the US into the Paris Climate Accord. Once he understands how the Green New Deal will create jobs, put discretionary spending into people’s pockets, and reduce our vulnerability both to foreign oil oligarchs and to runaway multinational corporations—thus reducing the risk of war—I think he would support it or at least not interfere with it.

And while the Obama administration, where he was VP, had a poor record on immigration justice, the cruelty that DT has consistently shown to immigrants and refugees is orders of magnitude worse. I saw this with my own eyes in a week volunteering at the US/Mexico border in February; my wife wrote this piece about it.

In other words, a Biden administration would be a much more welcome adversary. It would be more humane, more willing to work with other countries, interested in preserving rather than destroying the environment—and far more predictable. And it would be a complete rejection of the apparent main goal of the current occupant: to make himself even richer and everyone else be damned. In other words, Biden will be someone who will respond as we would like him to, at least some of the time—and who is unlikely to ever engage in the viciously destructive hate-based politics we see every day.

There’s ample precedent. LBJ, the long-time Southern politician, not JFK, the liberal icon, was the one who signed several pieces of civil rights legislation and declared war on poverty. Richard Nixon, a Republican and anticommunist extremist, was probably the president who did the most to protect the  environment other than perhaps Obama–not because he believed in the cause, but because public outcry left him no other choice. (Of course, the good work Johnson and Nixon did on these issues in no way gives them a pass around the Vietnam war, domestic repression, etc.)

I’d love to hear from progressives who take electoral politics seriously—is this the way we attract young disillusioned progressives who are ready to sit out the election because we are once again stuck with a centrist candidate who doesn’t really represent us? Please weigh in

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business Ethics, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Environment, Ethics in Government, Gratitude, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Green Marketing, Innovation, People Helping People, Politics, poverty, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

50 years ago today, Earth Day was launched as a one-time event. Who would know it would not only become annual but  turn into a massive worldwide movement that has changed our world for the better in so many ways?

Earth Lightning, by Stephanie Hofschlaeger
Photo by Stephanie Hofschlaeger

The Environmental Movement is Now Mainstream

Since that first Earth Day, we’ve made a lot of progress. A few examples:

  • Public awareness of climate issues–and of the lifestyle changes we can make to improve things–is at an all-time high
  • Millions of people have taken to the streets to demand action on climate
  • Science has made huge strides in areas ranging from green energy to biomimicry; amazing new green technologies are constantly becoming more efficient, less expensive, and more deployable
  • Many countries have shifted away from fossil and nuclear toward clean technoogies such as solar, wind, and hydro–and these technologies are much more efficient than they were 50 years ago
  • Veganism and vegetarianism (two of the easiest ways to reduce our personal climate footprint) are far more accepted, even in places like Germany that used to be quite hostile)
  • From bringing our own reusable bags (pre-COVID) to discovering foods like tofu, the way we shop and eat has drastically shifted, even for those still eating meat
  • Nearly every country in the world agreed to the Paris Climate Accord (which doesn’t go nearly far enough, and which the current US administration has pledged to leave–but it’s a start)
  • A 16-year-old Swedish climate activist addressed the UN, arriving in the US aboard  a green-energy boat (yes, I’m talking about Greta Thunberg)
  • Almost every major company has at least a sustainability coordinator, if not a whole department–and these folks have drastically reduced the negative impact of business on the environment
  • Here in the US, the well-thought-out Green New Deal is getting serious attention
  • We’re beginning to recognize climate justice: looking at the environment from a lens that includes economic and social justice issues, such as why so many polluting plants are in poor communities and why so many of those communities are “food deserts” with little or no access to healthy foods

My Environmental Journey Started That Day

I was 13, and I was one of the people “captured” by that first Earth Day.  Ever since then, I’ve given a lot of thought to, and taken a lot of action on, ways I can live more lightly–and how I can help others, both individuals and institutions, make that shift.
This has taken many forms, from street activism to lobbying to addressing business audiences with messages on how to make green social entrepreneurship sexy and profitable to writing books that show how this can be done.
I’ve also made many lifestyle shifts, from biking 5 miles to high school at age 15 and  becoming vegetarian at 16 to converting my house to a heat and hot water system using cow poop and food waste from our farmer neighbors at age 61 and carting unbagged groceries out to the reusable bags I keep in the car at 63 (since we can’t bring them into the stores anymore).
In my activist life, I’ve been lucky to participate in three major environmental victories:
  • In 1977, I was one of about 2,000 people and 1414 who got arrested at the construction site of the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire. We had no way of knowing that our action would birth a national safe energy movement. On the 40th anniversary, I wrote about why this action was so important. (The link is to Part 1 of my 5-part series. There’s a link to the next installment at the bottom of each earlier one.)
  • In  1984, I worked with my city counselor to get the first nonsmokers’ rights regulations in Northampton, Massachusetts. Very few communities had any protection for non-smokers at that time. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that within a few years, most restaurants in town were non-smoking and that the number of restaurants in town increased significantly.
  • And in 1999, I founded and became the public face of the movement that saved a mountain right near my house.

It was the success of Save the Mountain that led me into the work of educating the business community on how to be profitable while saving the world.

I hope to be able to notch a fourth victory: helping to turn the business world away from a profit-only model and toward a model of making a profit through identifying, creating, and marketing products and services that turn hunger and poverty into abundance, war and violence into peace, bigotry into strength in diversity,  catastrophic climate change into planetary balance, pandemics into global health, etc. I see business as a lever for creating the world we want.

This is not new. Social impact companies have been around at least since the mid-19th century, but it’s been on the fringe. Believe it or not, UK chocolate giant Cadbury was founded as a social impact company. But I think now we have the chance to change the entire business culture, so profitable business social and environmental responsibility becomes mainstream.

But There’s Still Lots to Be Done!

For all its positive presence, business is still a long way from solving problems it largely created. Pollution, resource depletion, and labor issues are just a few of many issues that need to be addressed, especially as world population grows faster than at any time in history. And governments are not always our allies. The present Brazilian and US federal governments, for instance, are actively sabotaging the eco-agenda. Each of us needs to make the difference we can make–and each of us CAN find a way to make that difference (contact me if you want help figuring out what the most impactful way for you and your business).

No Cost Resources and MY Gift to Help You Celebrate Earth Day THIS Year

Let’s start this Earth Day party off with something that will help you save energy, water, and money–my ebook, Painless Green: 111 Tips to Help the Environment, Lower Your Carbon Footprint, Cut Your Budget, and Improve Your Quality of Life—With No Negative Impact on Your Lifestyle. I normally sell this for $9.95, but as my Earth Day gift to you, you can get it at no cost. Just visit PainlessGreenBook.com and enter “earthdayblog” in the code box. This will also sign you up to my informative Clean and Green Club monthly newsletter.

Our national museum, the Smithsonian Institution, has organized an online Earth Optimism Summit with a fantastic lineup including Denis Hayes, who organized that 1970 Earth Day…Christiana Figueres, top negotiator of the Paris Accords…NASA’s former Chief Scientist and current director of the National Air And Space Museum Ellen Stofan…Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org (among many others)
Another national virtual summit, Earthday Live 2020, offers three days of programming and a strong social justice focus.

A group based near me in Western Massachusetts, Climate Action Now, offers several Earth Day events starting this evening with a 6:30 ET panel of legislators and activists. This may be especially interest if you live in Massachusetts, but it’s virtual and open to all.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Consumer Issues, Eco-friendly, Environment, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, localism/locavore, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This morning, I read a few articles on zero-waste in Green America’s spring issue, published about a month ago:

Moving our Passover Seder to Zoom was one of our eco-friendly changes. Shown: seder plate and Zoom on two monitors.
Moving our Passover Seder to Zoom was one of our eco-friendly changes

There’s plenty in those three articles that absolutely makes sense in today’s world–but there’s also quite a bit that’s at least temporarily obsolete.

With tips about how to bring reusable containers into the stores and organizing used clothing sharing events, it made me nostalgic for that very recent time before everything changed. And with a strong focus on combining climate, waste, and social justice, it was a refreshing reminder at how much more aware even we green folks are than most of us were 20 or 30 years ago.

True, it’s a bit more challenging to maintain a green lifestyle these days. But for the planet, it’s been a chance to recharge. The enormous reduction in motor vehicles on the road, planes in the sky, and factories running at full capacity allows our air and water to clean and regenerate themselves. And not to be Malthusian (and certainly not that I think this is a good thing), but the massive wave of deaths does reduce strain on the earth’s resources.

These positive changes have been somewhat offset by a dramatic uptick of certain other resources. Medical equipment, sanitation products, and even toilet paper are in short supply–and even more concerning, so are the medical personnel and hospital beds. And I’m guessing that as a world population, we’re generating a lot more waste and reusing a lot less.

In our own two-person, one-cat house, we’ve shifted some things as well. Our new routines might provide useful examples of how to be protected while staying as green as practical, so I’ll share a few of the details.

Water Use

What with not only washing our hands constantly for a full 20 seconds but taking a new glass or spoon every time and throwing our clothes in the washing machine every time we go to the store, our water use is probably triple what it was. We used to run the dishwasher about two, maybe three times in a typical week; now it’s more like five or six.

But even when we’re washing our hands so many times per day, we don’t turn the water on full force, and we turn it off when we’re not actually rubbing our hands under the faucet. We use just enough water to do a good job.

Fortunately, our heat and hot water are both on a green system powered by residual heat from cow poop and food waste running through our farmer neighbors’ methane digesters, and we live in an area where water is not scarce.

Cleaning Supplies

We’re also using somewhat more disposable paper products–but not all that much. For years, we’ve tended to use rags rather than paper towels to clean surfaces or mop up spills. But we are using paper towels or wipes to do things like keep our hands from touching door handles going into or out of a public place, wiping down shopping carts, etc. And of course, disinfecting the packaging we buy is something we never did before, and that uses a few paper towels.

My wife made us each a reusable mask. Since we’re usually shopping no more than once a week, it’s easy to wash them between uses.

We are not stockpiling, and we think the idea is silly. We’ve always bought toilet paper in 12-roll packs, and when we’re about half through, we get another 12-pack. When our bottle of dish soap gets down to half, we buy one more bottle. These patterns have not changed.

We are using more laundry detergent. Normally, we use a reusable laundry ball in the washing machine. We still do for regular wash, but for those post-shopping loads, we use hot or warm water, which the laundry ball isn’t designed for. We are almost through the box of earth-friendly detergent we bought about four years ago, but when that’s done, we inherited a huge tub of Arm & Hammer natural laundry powder when my stepfather died in 2018. I expect that it will last us the rest of our lives, considering we mostly use the laundry ball.

Packaging

As green consumers, we don’t bring a huge amount of packaged food into the house to begin with, and we save reusable glass and plastic containers when we do. We actually choose our brands of yogurt and hummus in part by whether we can put the containers and lids through the dishwasher and reuse them–and we use them until they break, usually at least 20 times. (We also factor in taste, quality, and price, of course.) Since forever, we use those jars to store bulk beans and grains, spices, and flours. Now, if we buy boxed cereal, for example, we wipe down the box and then either take the inner liner out and put it in a box we just finished, or put the cereal in jars.

When we buy bread or loose produce, we remove it from the plastic bag it came from and put it in one we’ve had pre-crisis; we have an entire hamper full of them. Cans get washed down with disinfectant, but other than cat food (which we buy in cases so the cans are protected), a small amount of canned beans, and coconut milk, we used almost no canned products anyway.

Since we’re not driving much, we have the luxury of leaving non-perishables in the car for a few days to decontaminate on their own–and while we still disinfect when we bring them in, we’re not quite as hyper-vigilant

Most of our produce is harvested at or near our home by the CSA farm we belong to, farmers at the local farmers markets and farm stands, or in our own garden. We’re washing everything more carefully. We’re washing citrus with soap. We’re peeling items like salad carrots instead of just grating the peels in with the rest of the carrot–but leaving peels on for cooked foods when appropriate, since heat kills the virus.

For years, we’ve kept reusable totebags in the car and brought them with us into stores. Now, we leave them in the car, load everything back into the shopping cart, unbagged, after it’s scanned, and then load them into our own bags at the car. So we’re still not getting bags, for the most part. This does mean we avoid shopping on bad-weather days.

Transportation and Shopping Choices

We live out in the country, seven miles from town. We’ve always ganged our errands into as few trips as practical, but now we’ve become almost religious about it. Going through the decontamination process every time we go shopping is annoying enough that we’re trying to shop no more than weekly, and preferably every two weeks. When we go, we think about everything we might need for 14 days, where we can get it with the fewest stops (rather than the lowest prices), and what route minimizes the miles to visit those stores.

One of the greenest things to do at this time is to actively support local independent businesses. We’ve shifted a much bigger percentage of our shopping dollars to the businesses we want to make sure survive, the ones that make our community a desirable place to live. We’re also ordering more online from these local businesses, and either picking up curbside or getting things shipped.

And sadly, we can’t car pool anymore. When we meet our friend who lives a mile from us to hike together (10 feet apart), she and we arrive in separate cars.

I haven’t needed any clothing except a package of socks I ordered online and picked up curbside. I would probably not go to a used clothing store right now, because it could be a germ factory. But I did arrange no-contact pickups for some books someone was giving away on our local Buy Nothing community, and for some items I had to offer. I let the books sit in the car and I will wipe them down before I shelve them.

 

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Environment, General Commentary, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, People Helping People, poverty, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

Like everyone else, I’ve been a bit grumpy (and a lot horrified) as the world shuts down to slow the spread of the killer virus COVID-19. But I also find myself being grateful for some of the changes.

Grumps (things I miss a lot)

  1. Hugs (I still get them with my beloved spouse, thankfully)
  2. Gathering with friends in person
  3. Travel
  4. Potlucks
  5. Restaurants

    US military photo of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus.
    US military photo of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus.

Gratitudes (places where I see improvement)

  1. Gatherings of widely dispersed friends and family over Zoom (tonight, we’re hosting a Passover Seder with participants in seven US states)
  2. Still finding ways to make new friends–like the Sustainability Director for a major US city who became my friend after we were in the same breakout room in a Zoom webinar (and who then had me present to her daughter’s online learning group of high school kids)
  3. An explosion of “compassionate creativity,” from the Italians singing on their balconies to the outpouring of live and recorded concerts, Broadway shows, and more, to the business owners who still pay their idled staff
  4. The people who are using this situation to examine where our society could be improved both now and even long after the crisis ends: developing new approaches in addressing the carbon/climate crisis, education, transportation, health care, bringing people out of poverty, and more
  5. Watching people rediscover nature (all the hiking and biking trails near me are getting heavy use) and realize that there’s more to life than looking at screens all the time

Resources

Forbes Magazine’s list of aid programs for US businesses

Good article on the impact of Coronavirus on corporate social responsibility

Extensive list of resources for businesses trying to cope (mostly Australian)

While-you-wait résumés over Zoom and free résumé critiques by email—and if you’re unemployed because of the virus, your first cover letter is a gift when you get your résumé written (this is an offer from me personally)

What are your highlights in this time? Please post in the comments.

 

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Activism, Branding, Democracy, Diversity, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Ethics in Government, Gratitude, language, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Psychology, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , ,
Elizabeth Warren hugs a woman in front of Homestead Detention Center

Regardless of what you think of her politics, her personality, or anything else, you have to admit she is quite a wordsmith.  Personally, I thought Elizabeth Warren was the best presidential candidate I’ve ever had the chance to vote for. But after her dismal Super Tuesday, it was clearly time for her to get out. She used the opportunity to be memorable once again, and to remind us that it was never about her, but about the movement.

Elizabeth Warren hugs a woman in front of Homestead Detention Center
Elizabeth Warren hugs a woman in front of Homestead Detention Center

Warren’s amazing pep talk of a withdrawal statement was one of the most remarkable pieces of oratory-in-writing (and, I’m guessing, oratory delivered in person to our campaign staff) I’ve ever seen. Since many readers of this blog are professional communicators, it’s worth analyzing and learning from it. Here it is, with my commentary:

I want to start with the news. I want all of you to hear it first, and I want you to hear it straight from me: today, I’m suspending our campaign for president.

No shilly-shallying, no evasion. Straight to the unpleasant truth.

I know how hard all of you have worked. I know how you disrupted your lives to be part of this. I know you have families and loved ones you could have spent more time with. You missed them and they missed you. And I know you have sacrificed to be here.

Acknowledging how her volunteers and staff have put their lives on hold. Few candidates do this. More should.

So from the bottom of my heart, thank you, for everything you have poured into this campaign.

Not just acknowledging, but giving direct thanks.

I know that when we set out, this was not the call you ever wanted to hear. It is not the call I ever wanted to make. But I refuse to let disappointment blind me – or you – to what we’ve accomplished. We didn’t reach our goal, but what we have done together – what you have done – has made a lasting difference. It’s not the scale of the difference we wanted to make, but it matters – and the changes will have ripples for years to come.

Rooting the disappointment in optimism and accomplishment.

What we have done – and the ideas we have launched into the world, the way we have fought this fight, the relationships we have built – will carry through, carry through for the rest of this election, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Going for the long-term view.


So think about it:

  • We have shown that it is possible to build a grassroots movement that is accountable to supporters and activists and not to wealthy donors – and to do it fast enough for a first-time candidate to build a viable campaign. Never again can anyone say that the only way that a newcomer can get a chance to be a plausible candidate is to take money from corporate executives and billionaires. That’s done.

Look how she frames this: as a forever improvement to a broken system. Wonderfully bold.

  • We have also shown that it is possible to inspire people with big ideas, possible to call out what’s wrong and to lay out a path to make this country live up to its promise.

  • We have also shown that race and justice – economic justice, social justice, environmental justice, criminal justice – are not an afterthought, but are at the heart everything that we do.

And at the heart of this message. This was a campaign based from the start in social justice.

  • We have shown that a woman can stand up, hold her ground, and stay true to herself – no matter what.

Something we needed a certain amount of assurance about, after the debacle of 2016.

  • We have shown that we can build plans in collaboration with the people who are most affected. You know just one example: our disability plan is a model for our country, and, even more importantly, the way we relied on the disability communities to help us get it right will be a more important model.

This collaborative approach is rare in political campaigns, especially at the presidential level. Acknowledging the contributions of experts who don’t merely study but actually LIVE the experience in formulating policy.

And one thing more: campaigns take on a life and soul of their own and they are a reflection of the people who work on them.

This campaign became something special, and it wasn’t because of me. It was because of you. I am so proud of how you all fought this fight alongside me: you fought it with empathy and kindness and generosity – and of course, with enormous passion and grit.

Fairly typical kudos to the staff and volunteers. Nicely done, but other candidates have done the same.

Some of you may remember that long before I got into electoral politics, I was asked if I would accept a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was weak and toothless. And I replied that my first choice was a consumer agency that could get real stuff done, and my second choice was no agency and lots of blood and teeth left on the floor. And in this campaign, we have been willing to fight, and, when necessary, we left plenty of blood and teeth on the floor. And I can think of one billionaire who has been denied the chance to buy this election.

Back to the long-haul strategy, the idea that this is a fight that takes time, and that there are victories along the way, from years past to even as recently as this week

Now, campaigns change people. And I know that you will carry the experiences you have had here, the skills you’ve learned, the friendships you have made, will be with you for the rest of your lives. I also want you to know that you have changed me, and I will carry you in my heart for the rest of my life.

Doesn’t she sound like she’s giving a graduation speech? She’s reminding them of the inspiring, even life-changing experience they all had together in support of this larger cause: building a movement.

So if you leave with only one thing you leave with, it must be this: choose to fight only righteous fights, because then when things get tough – and they will – you will know that there is only option ahead of you: nevertheless, you must persist.

A lot going on in these three lines. A command to do what’s right, a reminder that you’ll face deep-seated opposition, and a call-back to the popular meme that sprung up around her after Mitch McConnell refused to let her read Coretta Scott King’s remarks on the Senate floor. McConnell was the one who said, “Nevertheless, she persisted,” and within days, that was on bumper stickers all around the country

You should all be so proud of what we’ve done together – what you have done over this past year.

  • We built a grassroots campaign that had some of the most ambitious organizing targets ever – and then we turned around and surpassed them.

  • Our staff and volunteers on the ground knocked on over 22m doors across the country.

  • They made 20m phone calls and they sent more than 42m texts to voters. That’s truly astonishing. It is.

  • We fundamentally changed the substance of this race.

Not just listing some of the accomplishments, but quantifying them. She’s reminding them that she is a policy wonk, that she uses data to substantiate her claims and justify her many detailed plans.

You know a year ago, people weren’t talking about a $0.02 wealth tax, universal childcare, cancelling student loan debt for 43 million Americans while reducing the racial wealth gap, or breaking up big tech. Or expanding Social Security. And now they are. And because we did the work of building broad support for all of those ideas across this country, these changes could actually be implemented by the next president.

Again, reminding them how they helped to change the discourse and make space for the next president to put these things into practice.

A year ago, people weren’t talking about corruption, and they still aren’t talking about it enough – but we’ve moved the needle, and a hunk of our anti-corruption plan is already embedded in a House bill that is ready to go when we get a Democratic Senate.

A subtle call to get that Democractic Senate majority, and a subtle reminder of the large pile of bills passed by the House but in limbo in the Senate.

We also advocated for fixing our rigged system in a way that will make it work better for everyone – regardless of your race, or gender, or religion, regardless of whether you’re straight or LGBTQ. And that wasn’t an afterthought, it was built into everything we did.

A universalist call for inclusion and intersectionality that manages to avoid insulting white working class straight Christian men, who are just as much “everyone” as those who identify as other than that.

And we did all of this without selling access for money. Together 1.25 million people gave more than $112m to support this campaign. And we did it without selling one minute of my time to the highest bidder. People said that would be impossible. But you did that.

Again, she is rewriting the expectation of what’s not only possible but can become normal.

And we also did it by having fun and by staying true to ourselves. We ran from the heart. We ran on our values. We ran on treating everyone with respect and dignity.

Social change can be fun! As Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.”

You know liberty green everything was key here – my personal favorites included the liberty green boas, liberty green sneakers, liberty green make up, liberty green hair, and liberty green glitter liberally applied. But it was so much more.

A bit of branding. In truth, I hadn’t noticed this. Warren’s signs have been blue-and-white for years (I live in Massachusetts and I’ve seen them since 2012).

Four-hour selfie lines and pinky promises with little girls.

In other words, what you staff and volunteers did helps to shape the next generation. A strong claim to deeper meaning.

And a wedding at one of our town halls. And we were joyful and positive through all of it.

Celebratory! And a talking point: what other candidate would inspire a wedding at a Town Hall, and what other candidate would make space for that to happen?

We ran a campaign not to put people down, but to lift them up –

Another message of empowerment, and a huge contrast with the incumbent.

and I loved pretty much every minute of it.

OK, so she’s probably exaggerating. But it is clear that she loved most of it. It’s obvious that she enjoys debating, meeting constituents and fans, showing up with media in tow even at a detention center for migrant children, doing funny TV appearances, chowing down regional food, showing off her policies, etc.

So take some time to be with your friends and family, to get some sleep, maybe to get that haircut you’ve been putting off – you know who I’m talking about.

Humor in the face of stress and disappointment, followed by…

Do things to take care of yourselves, gather up your energy, because I know you are coming back. I know you – and I know that you aren’t ready to leave this fight.

Another call to stay active and involved.

You know, I used to hate goodbyes. Whenever I taught my last class or when we moved to a new city, those final goodbyes used to wrench my heart. But then I realized that there is no goodbye for much of what we do. When I left one place, I took everything I’d learned before and all the good ideas that were tucked into my brain and all the good friends that were tucked in my heart, and I brought it all forward with me –

Reiterating that the fight goes on, and so do the policy wins and the friendships.

and it became part of what I did next. This campaign is no different. I may not be in the race for president in 2020, but this fight – our fight – is not over. And our place in this fight has not ended.

Because for every young person who is drowning in student debt, for every family struggling to pay the bills on two incomes, for every mom worried about paying for prescriptions or putting food on the table, this fight goes on. For every immigrant and African American and Muslim and Jewish person and Latinx and trans woman who sees the rise in attacks on people who look or sound or worship like them, this fight goes on.

Reiterating the intersectionality piece, the economic and social justice pieces, and the importance of defending the most vulnerable members of society.

And for every person alarmed by the speed with which climate change is bearing down upon us, this fight goes on. And for every American who desperately wants to see our nation healed and some decency and honor restored to our government, this fight goes on. And sure, the fight may take a new form, but I will be in that fight, and I want you in this fight with me. We will persist.

Bringing in the environment, which hadn’t shown up here so far. And again, reminding of how low the bar has fallen.

One last story. One last story. When I voted yesterday at the elementary school down the street, a mom came up to me. And she said she has two small children, and they have a nightly ritual. After the kids have brushed teeth and read books and gotten that last sip of water and done all the other bedtime routines, they do one last thing before the two little ones go to sleep. Mama leans over them and whispers, “Dream big.” And the children together reply, “Fight hard.”

A big, emotional close. Showing how the campaign’s motto is changing lives into the next generation. I would have ended it there but she has one more inspirational line:

Our work continues, the fight goes on and big dreams never die.

Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail