No Impact Man

It's my blog...

... so if I feel like taking a day off from the environment, I guess I can, right?

Because sometimes you don't want to talk about environmentalism or lifestyle change or any of the other constantly over-earnest stuff you usually say.

Sometimes, you just want to say how much you dig your girl.

So, tonight, we're at the Hudson River Park and a woman is stretching after her run. Isabella asks me what the woman is doing. I tell Isabella, "Why don't you go ask her?"

So Isabella marches over and, straining my ears, I hear Isabella say, "What are you doing?"

"Running," says the woman.

"No, when you were bending over like this," Isabella says, and doubles over.

Next thing, after this unknown woman has explained why runners need to stretch, she is showing Isabella all her family pictures in her phone and Isabella is asking questions.

Isabella stands up, runs over to me, hugs me, kisses me, grabs a handful of blueberries from our picnic and goes back to the lady.

I love watching Isabella develop relationships with people, completely independent of me.

If you can't take the time to brag about your kid, is the planet even worth saving?

Have a great weekend!

About looking for someone to blame

Oh hell, I do it. Probably all of us do. We choose a scapegoat and decide that they're the ones to blame for the problems. Some of us try to blame the people who work for "the corporations."

Now, personally, I *do* believe that corporate structure, where shareholders are rewarded for a corporation's profits but are legally insulated from the downsides of its malfeasance, is problematic (read more here).

But lately, I've been conversing a lot with people who are far more familiar with corporate culture than me. And they have explained it like this:

When you go to business school and then spend ten years in a corporate environment, it becomes normal to look at balance sheets as a kind of a puzzle and to ask yourself what can make the liabilities go down and what can make the receipts go up.

To make the receipts go up, the formulas go, you either need more customers or you need your existing customers to buy more. Hmmm. What could make your existing customers buy more? 

Let's say you're at a processed food company. But in a way, processed food, widgets, tires--when you're in the bowels of a corporation--are all kind of the same thing. Wherever you work, you simply need to sell more units. You find ways to manipulate the balance sheet.

So you work at the food company and you need to sell more units. One of your food scientists has told you that adding a little extra salt and fat could cause customers to increase the amount they eat at a single serving by 50 percent.

Oh, great. More units sold. Add the salt and fat, please.

You're a brand manager and--guess what?--sales have gone through the roof and you get a promotion. By the way, you're a great dad or mom, a good community member, a kind boss. You have a great heart and you love people very much.

Not only that, but you're kind of proud because you've obviously made a product that your customers like more and feel happier. And, all those people whose retirement depends on your company's revenue, are now that much more secure.

The only problem is, everybody is suddenly talking about a child obesity epidemic and pointing their fingers at people like you and saying you're evil.

But the truth is, you're not evil at all. You're actually kind. And you did what you were trained to do. Not once in your career has anyone asked you to assess the impact of your product on the body mass of "consumers." It simply never occurred to you.

And why should it?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not being remotely sarcastic here. I'm being totally serious. The actions of good people in not-so-good structures end up in not-so-good results. That doesn't make the good person bad.

Looking for people to blame misses the point. The point here is that these problems are nuanced. Scapegoating people isn't going to help. What will? Understanding them. Examining their challenges. Accepting that they are in difficult situations.

And then: finding ways to help them.

Watch the trailer for No Impact Man: The Documentary

First of all, on Wednesday (7/15) at noon EST, I'm moderating an online discussion--a "webinar"--on so-called "green banking." Want to be part of the discussion? Click here.

But meanwhile, if you want a sneak preview of the trailer of the No Impact Man documentary, which comes out at the same time as the book, click here. Exciting!

What we'd gain if we built things to last

That's my little girl Isabella's Teddy. He's forty years old. Back when my wife was a little girl, her own mother brought Teddy home from Italy. He's so well made that he's lasted all this time.

Lots of nights we have talks about Teddy. Isabella wants to know about when her mom was little and how she played with Teddy, too.

As things age, they collect stories. Stories of our families that connect us to them.

In my own case, I have a pair of my grandfather's cufflinks and his watch. When I have to give a talk or go to a meeting that tests my confidence, I wear them. It makes me feel like something about him is there backing me up.

In other words, when things are made well, and they last, we can often get way more pleasure from them than we might from something new. We come to cherish our things. We come to cherish our lives.

Yet, these days, instead of making things to last, manufacturers make things to break. Everything from poorly made Teddy bears to watches you throw away when the battery runs out to cell phones and even fridges.

When you think about it, it's crazy.

Things are built to break or go out of date, so that we have to work really hard to buy the same things over and over again. Meanwhile, remaking all of this stuff plunders our planetary resources and makes for clouds of carbon dioxide which causes global warming.

What if we only had to buy our possessions once? Our telephones, once. Our computers, once. Our furniture, once. Our watches, once. Our teddy bears, once.

Maybe the objects we surround ourselves would end up being like old friends. Maybe, with having to manufacture so much less, we'd end up with is a more healthy planet along with a lot more fond memories.

What fills you with awe?

Once in a while, even though it's trendy, these days, not to talk about other species when we talk about environmentalism, I like to reconnect with that about our planet that fills me with wonder.

And for me, one of those things is whales. The video below is a gift for you.

Meanwhile, what about our planet fills you with awe?

Another way to fill the craving to shop

Shopping is an American social pastime, but the problem is that shopping from "want," instead of from "need," causes the use of planetary resources we can't afford to burn. We talked about this a little here.

Yesterday, I mentioned how much fun my daughter Isabella had running out to a farm field to harvest vegetables. Harvesting? Shopping? Harvesting? Shopping?

Wait! Aren't they kind of the same thing?

Here are the excellent thoughts on the subject of a regular reader and commenter, who calls herself Linda from Deerfield:

I keep thinking about Isabella being thrilled by "going out into the field to harvest a squash". Am I imagining things, or does this not point to a gloriously healthy direct substitute for shopping?

I read about a potato farmer who ran out of harvest time and profitability, so he invited the public to dig their own and take them home -- much to his surprise, literally thousands came. I once took my friend and little one to a rural orchard, mistakenly assuming that few people had discovered the delight of an afternoon plucking apples and sipping cider -- I was stunned by the huge line of families in cars waiting to pay their fee and gain entry.

There is evidently a great hunger within us to harvest our own food, but still we stand by and let the orchards and farms fall to developers.

How to get your child to eat almost any vegetable

Ask my little girl Isabella what she wants to eat and it's either a. grilled cheese sandwich or b. peanut butter and jelly. Suggest that she should eat her spinach, broccoli or brussels sprouts first and you get an encyclopedic explanation of why she can't eat it--it doesn't taste good, it's too hot, you have to chew it too much, etc etc etc.

But the other weekend we stayed with our friends Rachel and Steffen Schneider at Hawthorne Valley Farm (from which we buy our produce as part of local eating). Rachel took Isabella out into the field to harvest a squash and then they cooked it together. Isabella wolfed it down.

The picture above shows Isabella with a squash she picked out of our own community garden today. We also harvested some lettuce. Isabella can't wait to eat them both.

So, if your child is anything like mine, here is what you have to do to get your child to eat just about any vegetable: let them grow it for themselves!

A sad observation I had on a mountain

See that picture? That's where I stayed last week for some quick R & R in the countryside. An incredibly beautiful place.

At lunch one day, I briefly met two women, sitting at the next table. While I was eating, I overheard one say to the other, "Do you think there will be enough shops in town to keep us occupied?"

Here we were, on a mountain. By a lake. With horses. And canoes. My new friends were only here for one day. But the only thing they could think to do was leave and go shopping.

I'm not judging. I just feel sad.

I think we tend to know what we're taught. And instead of being taught to enjoy our beautiful habitat, so many of us have been taught to shop, and by the associated resources use, contribute to its destruction.

If a mountain is reflected in a lake, and we're all too busy too notice, is it still beautiful?

Want to help get people engaged in the environment?

That's the goal of the new No Impact Project that we've launched. The mission is to engage citizens in lifestyle and social change that leads to both happier people and a happier planet (you can read a little about the No Impact Project here).

Anyway, in line with the No Impact philosophy of using resources effectively, we're looking for volunteers who might want to help out from around the country. We're really excited to be at the stage where we can start forming a community around this work.

Here are the type of skills we're looking for, though the list is not exclusive. We could probably find a way to put most anyone one to work!

• Research
• Copy-editing
• Community organizing
• Event planning and production
• General administrative skills
• Social media coordination
• Publicity
• Other ways you think you could help that we haven't thought of

Since we'll be having a events throughout the country and since we can all telecommute anywhere, we'd be glad to hear from folks everywhere.

Drop a line to Stephanie by clicking here.

Thanks so much!

So how do we feel about the cap and trade bill?

As you know, the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill narrowly passed in the house on Friday. Here's what the New York Times said about it:

The vote was the first time either house of Congress had approved a bill meant to curb the heat-trapping gases scientists have linked to climate change. The legislation, which passed despite deep divisions among Democrats, could lead to profound changes in many sectors of the economy, including electric power generation, agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

The bill’s passage, by 219 to 212, with 44 Democrats voting against it, also established a marker for the United States when international negotiations on a new climate change treaty begin later this year.

At the heart of the legislation is a cap-and-trade system that sets a limit on overall emissions of heat-trapping gases while allowing utilities, manufacturers and other emitters to trade pollution permits, or allowances, among themselves. The cap would grow tighter over the years, pushing up the price of emissions and presumably driving industry to find cleaner ways of making energy.

You may have read a post I wrote supporting the bill here.

But how do I feel now? Worried. We've notched one very small step forward on climate change, but the bill as it stands, has a lot of problems. In fact, Greenpeace even came out against it because it's so weak (read here). The job is far from over. We have a lot of work to do.

My question for you is, how do you feel about the passage of ACES? Do you feel pleased or worried? Where do you think we go from here? Please leave your comments here at the blog.