Category: Shel’s Personal Life

By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , ,

Someone just asked on a LinkedIn group who inspired group members to go green. I decidced my answer is worth sharing here:

For me it was a gradual process with many key moments. Here are a few:

  • Age three, realizing I had some power over my environment and didn’t have to tolerate cigarette smoke in my own house. I destroyed several packs of cigarettes at a party my parents threw–their guests had left the packs lying on the coffee table.
  • Age 12, feeling injustice in a much more personal and direct way: I had to pay adult price for a movie ticket but sit in the children’s section. I started a boycott of that theater, and have not been back in 42 years–even though it was my neighborhood theater until I went to college.
  • 1974, doing a research project on the pros and cons of nuclear power, I discovered that there were no pros but a lot of very serious cons–and recognized that I had to be actively involved in changing this country’s energy picture.
  • Beginning to read (in the late 1970s) sustainability thinkers like Amory Lovins, Hazel Henderson, Ralph Borsodi, Helen and Scott Nearing–and to learn via magazine articles some of the ugly history of car companies buying up and yanking out trolley tracks, etc.
  • 1981, having an 80-something woman demonstrate to me that we could wash dishes with about 5 percent of the water I’d been using, by turning the water off, soaping them all, and turning on a small stream to rinse.
  • In 1999, learning so much from my fellow organizers of Save the Mountain—and proving that we could in fact harness enough citizen energy to protect our endangered mountain range

There are many more, continuing to the present day. Going green is a process.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Demographics/Psychographics, Energy & Sustainability, Frugality/Frugal Fun, Green Business, Marketing Trends/News, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , , , , , , ,

This is a reminder of two critical concepts for the coming years:

1. Money is not a goal; it is a means of accomplishing something. While having more money means you can purchase the goods or services you want, there are often other ways to accomplish the goal.

2. Buying stuff is not the only way to accomplish something.

Here’s a look at how to leverage other  methods of getting your needs met and your wants fulfilled.

Zipcar just commissioned a study on the sharing habits of Millennials, showing that they are more willing to share not just cars, but a wide range of resources, than their parents and grandparents.

That may be true of the majority culture, but there are plenty of us older folks who know a good thing when they see it. I’ve been lifelong practitioner of this sort of approach, and a public advocate all the way back to at least 1995, when I published my fourth book, The Penny-Pinching Hedonist. I’m turning 55 on Saturday, and here are some among many sharing experiences I’ve had over the years:

  • As a college student in Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1973-76, I became aware of a mostly Quaker community called The Vale. Instead of everyone going out and buying a lawnmower, they pitched in and bought a communal tractor.
  • In 1990, when laser printers cost several thousand dollars, I organized a co-op and brought in a bookstore owner, a community activist, and a magazine publisher to share the costs of purchasing one (it lived at my house, since I organized it).
  • As a member of Servas since 1983 and Couchsurfing since 2009, I’ve shared my home with strangers traveling through, and received hospitality form others on three continents.
  • My neighbors, a Republican mainstream farm family, constantly drive each other’s vehicles. The question seems to be what’s the best car, truck, or tractor for the task, and not who owns it.
  • Two decades ago, I was on the board of a group called Homesharing in Hampshire County: a mainstream social service agency that matched up people with extra space in their homes (often elders in need of both companionship and home/property maintenance) with people who needed a place to live.
  • Thirty years ago, I lived in a community in West Philadelphia (a place with good public transit), where three or four cars were shared among about 120 people, as needed, and users paid a small fee per mile to cover costs. When we needed to make a supermarket run or fill our water jugs (we all hated the municipal water, so we self-bottled 50 gallons at a time at a spring in the next town), we borrowed one of the communal cars. Most of this community lived in group housing: six or eight people sharing a big old Victorian. It worked out very nicely.
  • For a decade at least, Freecycle has provided a formal structure to get rid of stuff you no longer need by passing it on to someone else, or to get something you need without having to buy it.

The article, in The Atlantic, also linked to a cool website (and concept) called Collaborative Consumption, which may be increasingly important as we try to turn the world green.

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By Posted on Posted in Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, Energy & Sustainability, Entrepreneurship, Ethics: General, Green Business, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Transparency vs. Secrecy Tagged with ,

It’s been a good year for recognition of my work for a better world. In October, I was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame (View pictures and read the transcript here.)

And then last night, I received notification that I (as the human face of GreenAndProfitable.com) am the very first business in the country to be certified by Green America at the Gold level (which was a fairly arduous process involving several reviews of an extensive questionnaire covering socially responsible investing, supply chain, commitment to social and economic justice, and, of course, environmental benchmarks, among other things).

I’m thrilled. After 40 years in the environmental world, it is nice to have people notice.

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By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life, Uncategorized Tagged with ,

Got to brag on myself here. I was deeply honored to be inducted in October, honoring my 40 years of work as an environmental activist and wrier. Now I just found out the National Environmental Hall of Fame put up a whole spiffy page about the event.

I welcome your comments about it here.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, Shel's Personal Life

Yesterday was a challenge to find the bright side of things. But proving that I am in fact a PR guy, here’s how I spin it:

  • My e-mail started working again by itself, and the 16 hours it was down is nothing compared to the 55 hours without power after the snowstorm (though I’d have rather done something else with the hour-plus of testing I did)
  • When I finally got through to person #5 on the 40-minute tech support call, he not only got my fax working properly in just a couple of minutes but he was a pleasure to talk to
  • I used a big chunk of the on-hold time to go through two weeks of Twitter new-follower profiles and follow back the interesting ones
  • I actually liked the guy who came to do a $69 duct cleanout and tried to bait-and-switch me into a $1900 home repair project (and Groupon offers a satisfaction guarantee, so I should get my $69 back)
  • Despite waiting until almost the end of the month, I went late enough in the day for my car inspection sticker that nobody was ahead of me
  • It was a beautiful day and I got a nice hike in the woods
  • Before all this craziness started, I got a nice piece of client work completed early in the morning

    • I decided decades ago to have a happy life, and it was an excellent decision. I see days like this as merely a reminder of that resolve, even if I do feel rather heavily tested at the moment.

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    By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, People Helping People, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , ,

    Earlier today, I was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame, recognizing my 40 years of work for the environment (as a writer, speaker, and organizer). Pretty good, considering I’m only 54. Yup, I’ve been doing this work since I was 14.

    Among the accomplishments NEHF cited: my work in founding Save the Mountain, an environmental group I founded in my town of Hadley, Massachusetts to protect the Mount Holyoke Range when it was threatened by a large and nasty housing development…my work in the safe energy movement (my first book was on why nuclear power makes no sense, in fact)…initiating the first nonsmokers’ rights regulations in Northampton, MA (and one of the first in the state)…and of course, my award-winning eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green.

    Shel Horowitz receives his membership in the National Environmental Hall of Fame from Judith Eiseman
    Shel Horowitz is inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame. Credit: Andy Morris-Friedman

    In my acceptance, I mentioned that I felt this award was really for all of the several thousand people who worked on these campaigns, and the millions who work on these kinds of causes around the world. I was delighted to accept on their behalf.

    Sweetly enough, the range was visible from the award location behind (Barstow’s store)

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    By Posted on Posted in General Commentary, Networking, Shel's Personal Life Tagged with , ,

    Last night, I opened an e-mail about the Occupy Wall Street protests from one of the people who send me progressive political mail.

    To my amazement, it was forwarded from an old boss of mine (1979 and 1980)—someone I’d wanted to stay in touch with and had searched for online. And suddenly, there he was. I wrote to him last night, but he hasn’t written back yet.

    I still remember the first time something like this happened: I was still on AOL, so this was 1994 or 1995—and in came an e-mail from an old high school buddy. We’ve been in contact ever since.

    We all leave footprints all over Cyberspace. And those of us with somewhat uncommon names can connect again. I’ve done it dozens of times now.  Facebook makes it particularly easy for connections like old classmates, because you can actually search the alumni of your school. But Facebook is not the only game in town. Last year, I tracked down two high school friends through their own websites.

    Who would you like to have back in your life again? Maybe they’re out there, waiting for you to reach out.

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    By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Events, Peace and War, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Shel's Personal Life, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , , ,

    This morning, a reporter posted a query on HARO (a free service that matches reporters with story sources) asking,

    Were you a protester/activist back in the 1960s? If so, what's
your reaction to the current Wall Street protest and the
off-shoots around the country?

    I thought my response was worth sharing with a wider audience:

    

    Hi, Sondra, I went to my first demonstration about the Vietnam war in 1969 and was very active in protests all through the 1970s and beyond. I was arrested at Seabrook in 1977, committed civil disobedience but was not arrested at the Wall Street Acton in 1979, was a peacekeeper for the million-person march for peace in 1982. I probably still attend three to five demonstrations in a typical year, mostly local (Western Massachusetts) –but I did go to massive demos in Washington and NYC to try to keep us out of Iraq in 2002-03. Also, using other methods than street demonstrations, I have been an active organizer for decades. My biggest success was forming a group called Save the Mountain, which generated widespread community support and blocked a particularly horrible housing proposal next to a state park–after all the “experts” said there was nothing we could do.
    

    As it happens, today I’m getting on a bus for an evening conference on sustainability in NYC, and staying over for the night. Tomorrow morning my plan is to go to Wall Street and see how things are going.
    

    As a teenager, I had a poster in my room with a picture of a peace demonstration and the caption, “It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest –Abraham Lincoln”–and I guess that pretty much sums up my feeling.
    

    Obama has been a very weak president, falling short on issue after issue about bringing the “change” he was elected to create. He has given us a slower–and in some cases faster (like drone killings)–version of the “new normal” that developed under the illegal government of George W. Bush. No one has even been indicted for the crimes against the people by the Bush government or by the looters in suits in the financial industry. I believe strongly in the power of nonviolent protest, and am thrilled to see a new generation stepping forward, willing as we were to disrupt their lives in order to make a difference. Street protest is certainly not the only approach, and I believe we need multiple simultaneous nonviolent approaches. The country has gotten so topsy turvy and out of balance that I don’t think Richard Nixon would be tolerated by the Republican Party anymore (he’s probably to the left of Obama, if you watch both men’s actions rather than their words), and even their ‘sainted’ Reagan would be too far left to be nominated today. We desperately need an effective Left in this country, and the Occupy movement is stepping up, even if it has not figured out yet how to articulate its mission and goals.
    
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    Memo to Mark Zuberberg: You are not invincible. Facebook did not get to be the top social media network because it was terrific, but only because it’s so much better than MySpace. There’s always been lots of room for improvement, and yet, in the 4 years I’ve been a Facebooker, at least half the changes make it harder to use and/or more intrusive.
    

    And now, with Google+ waiting in the wings, your position is precarious. Just as it did with search, Google provides a qualitatively better user experience; all it needs now is an active and vibrant user base. Meanwhile, Facebook’s user experience just took a serious turn for the worse. Again.
    

    Some of these bone-headed things I just don’t understand, especially when you think about how much of Facebook’s income stream is generated by professional marketers—marketers who have, in many cases, invested significant time and money into their fanpages and their ad campaigns.
    

      

    • All of a sudden, the default is NOT to get mail from Facebook. Facebook’s fastest growing demographic segments are 40 and over, and (unlike our children) we, for the most part, don’t spend our entire waking lives on social media. For those accustomed (as I am) to going on Facebook by following an e-mail link, you’ve just cut out much of their viewing time, unless they notice and switch the setting from the default (which I did).
      • 

    • Used to be, when you added a friend, you got access to your friend category lists and could add someone to multiple lists with a couple of clicks. Now, it shows just a few. Even clicking “Show All Lists” results in only the first nine choices. I have about 40 categories, in part because of the (idiotic and now finally abandoned, I think) 20-name limit on how many people you could send a notice to at once within a friend category. So for categories where I know a lot of people, like high school buddies, residents of my area, and marketers, I have multiple lists. Now I have no way to put people in the right category unless it’s one of the first nine in my selection. UGH! Google+ got this one right from the very beginning, noting that we have different types of people in our lives, and message/interact with them differently. Mark, do you really think paying my VA to do this simple thing for me is going to add value to my perception of Facebook?
      • 

    • Links from e-mails go to unexpected places. Several times, I’ve tried to click on a discussion and end up in my main page. then I have to hunt for the person I’m talking to, figure out where the message history is that day, and waste time. When that happens, the temptation is great to simply not continue the conversation.
      • 

    

    Mind you, I’m not criticizing the changes just because they’re new and different (though it does seem that just as we learn how to navigate the latest interface, it shifts again). Some of them improve the experience. I like getting an e-mail with a whole thread worth of posts. I like the ticker. And I like that Facebook quietly introduced the long-sought feature a couple of months ago that allows owners of a fanpage to e-mail their fans (those who’ve clicked Like).
    

    But really, you have to wonder if they’ve ever heard of beta-testing or focus groups over there. In the words of one well-known marketer who posted a comment on my annoyed post, “Google+ here we go!”
    
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    I finally got up the courage to visit our garden, which had been swamped by Hurricane Irene.
    

    Our Garden and Barstow's hay and cornfields, 8/29/11
    Our Garden and Barstow's hay and cornfields, 8/29/11
    

    The Friday before the storm hit, we busied ourselves hauling out tomatoes, soybeans, basil…anything that was ready to pick. Sunday, when the rain stopped, we thought we’d come through unscathed—until Monday morning, when we got up and saw that the Connecticut River, normally in that area at least 500 yards from the state highway, was lapping at the edges of the road. The entire corn and hayfield surrounding our garden was under water. The gate, about three feet above the ground, was at the water line.
    

    While the water receded within a couple of days, we were strongly advised NOT to eat anything else from the garden—and once we found out that Greenfield, farther upriver, was not treating its sewage after the storm, we weren’t all that interested in harvesting anything else anyway. and I couldn’t bring myself to even go down there to view the wreckage until now.
    

    On the good side, the hayfield is coming back. Fresh green growth has come up over the silt and if you don’t look too closely, it looks normal.
    

    But the garden was another matter. All the corn, sesame, tomatoes, some of the broccoli, some of the beans, and nearly all the eggplant was dead. The whole place stank. About the three of the broccoli plants and one eggplant had survived, and the broccoli actually looked quite good (not that I was going to take any). One eggplant had grown on the surviving plant.
    

    While I recognize that we got off very easy compared to neighbors just a few miles north, or the farmers whose farm we live on who lost 30 acres of cow corn and hay, it still made me deeply sad.
    

    Next year, perhaps, we’ll start a small garden up by the house, which is on a hill and stayed totally fine during the storm.
    

    It made me thank about how lucky we are to have essentially unlimited supplies of food; when our garden fails, we do not starve. We can go buy some just a few miles away. Many people in the world are not so fortunate, and if their crops fail, they face starvation. As a society, we should set up distribution networks to eliminate that kind of threat.
    
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