global warming is real, people. But you knew that already… January 20, 2012

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-temps.html

Posted by No Impact Man himself, Colin Beavan. A reminder that global warming is real. Neat video and graph are download-able.

Our lives will definitely be changing, along with the climate. What are you doing to ease the transition? I’d love to hear about it. (See Mr. Bevan’s website, No Impact Man, for ideas if you need a jump start).

What am I doing about it, you ask of me? Well, I’m working on my book, which will offer readers a way to connect their actions to their values, with the assumption that most of us have values that can be inclusive of the environment (compassion, respect, fairness, etc.). It just may come as a surprise that we have to consciously choose to apply those values, and it may involve changing those habits that have allowed us to move through life on autopilot. Visit my website for more on this.

Looking for an agent now; manuscript should be more or less complete in a couple of months. If no agent bites, I plan on self-publishing. EcoSoul could be available as early as mid-year. Don’t worry, I’ll keep you posted. It will be my first book, and I’m very excited about it.

Stay cool…

30 second habit January 9, 2012

I just heard a great piece on the radio this morning, about habits. I’m all about habits – those little individual, innocuous behaviors that we all have, that are wasteful of increasingly precious resources.

Stanford professor Dr. BJ Fogg is working from the theory that habits are unconscious (duh!) and in order to change them, you need to start with baby steps. And, this is the real reason why so many people fail at their new year’s resolutions – as the professor describes it, resolutions are abstract ideas, not tied to a single behavior. But, to make that resolution reachable, all you have to do is break it down into 30 second increments to eliminate decision-making from the sequence. If you have to decide (am I going to the gym today?), you’ve left yourself open to talking yourself out of it.

So what habit could you green? You probably don’t make a decision to leave the water running while you’re brushing your teeth, or to grab 20 napkins from the to-go counter, or to leave the lights on all over the house. To change unconscious behaviors like these, make one decision now (turn the water off; take 1 napkin; hit the light switch every time you go through a doorway) and work at it until this little action becomes a habit.

5 steps to a Green Mission Statement December 14, 2011

A green mission statement is invaluable as a declaration of goals.

For businesses, its the first step toward walking the green talk – and if your competitors are talking, this little statement can give you a big boost in setting you apart from the others. For individuals and families, a green mission statement focuses your efforts and emotional energy.

First, writing a statement allows you to articulate your own values and concerns, prioritizing your efforts. Its true we can’t solve all the world’s problems, but we can give ourselves permission to focus only on two or three that are most important to us, and not worry so much about the rest. Second, knowing your mission is driven by your own deeply held values and concerns, you will feel confident that you’ll take the necessary actions toward your goals because you actually care. The emotional energy will build in with the positive feedback. Third, moving your actions into alignment with your values increases your personal integrity, another positive feedback loop.

1. From a long list, select causes and issues that cause you feelings of stress or guilt. The list should include issues from all aspects of the Triple Bottom Line (environmental, economic, and social). As far as I can tell, there is no comprehensive listing, like you might find for values when doing this same exercise for a typical mission statement. For help on this, see my previous post for a starter list.

2. Of the words you circled, rate them on a scale of 1 – 10, with 1 being your top priority (or causing the strongest reaction of stress or guilt).

3. From a long list of value words (see franklincovey.com for help with this step), circle the values you appreciate the most. Then rate them on a scale of 1 – 10 (1 is most important to you).

4. Now compare your top 5 words from each list. Are there connections here? Do you see how certain values could be associated with improvements in some of the issues you identified?

5. Build your green mission statement around your top 2 – 3 (maximum) issues. Keep it simple and straight-forward, bullet points are ok. Avoid over-simplified or generic statements like “we are committed to a greener workplace.” Or, use that only as a starting point – identify your specific causes. This is important as you start living your mission – it’s all about focus.

Matt Courtland, senior consultant with The Natural Strategy, offers this advice when writing your statement, “An environmental mission statement is the sum of three parts: Why + Goal + Success. Why is this topic important to us? We believe … What is our end goal? We want to … How is success measured? We envision a world ….” The “why” of your statement can be answered by the value words you selected.

Here are a few corporate green mission statements as examples:

From Four Seasons hotel:

Four Seasons involves employees and guests in the common goal of preserving and protecting the planet. We engage in sustainable practices that conserve natural resources and reduce environmental impact. As importantly, sustainable tourism will enhance and protect the destinations where Four Seasons operates for generations to come. [followed by listing of current activities]

From Ad Spice Promotional Marketing:

Ad Spice Promotional Marketing is a full-service screen-printing, embroidery, and promotional products firm. We specialize in helping you engage your target market using well-designed, high-quality, promotional products made with respect for people and our planet. Our mission goes beyond making a profit for owners and stakeholders to creating a positive impact on our community and a lower and more beneficial impact on our planet. [goes on to list specific organizations they are affiliated with]

Need help putting it all together? Advisors at re:Think will review your green mission statement for free. Contact info@rethinkyourworld.com

mission: green possibilities November 24, 2011

There are tons of resources on the web and in books for writing personal and business mission statements. (I first learned how from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People; now he has an online tool.) But they all start with a selection of values – lists of words that describe traits or actions that appeal to you, that you wish to emulate or do more of in your life: compassion, giving, loyalty, etc.

For a green mission statement, what you need to start with are the worldly concerns that cause you stress – not just environmental concerns of pollution, toxic chemicals, or dying lakes but all the issues that underlie the Triple Bottom Line: environmental, economic, and social issues of our times. When you look around and are heartsick with concern about homelessness, children going hungry in your own community, or the abandoned brownfield site at the edge of town – these are all interconnected and all must be addressed to get the human ecosystem healthy again. (Learn more about the triple bottom line).

What seems to be missing from the world is a comprehensive listing of these concerns. In the same way that a listing of value words facilitates the making of a mission statement, the following list (by no means comprehensive) is meant as a way of kick-starting your thoughts about where you want to spend your emotional energy.

It’s a first stab, so please don’t hesitate to send feedback – this list will be expanded and refined in my book. Here goes:

water conservation                    waste management                 industrial toxics                              workers rights

water purity                                  recycling                                    health and safety (products)       gov’t oversight (lack)

water waste                                  composting                               food safety (system-wide)            corporate lobbying

marine life conservation          litter                                             health and safety (food)               pollution cleanup

water / climate                           wastefulness                              animal welfare                               wild animal conservation

wetland destruction                  reuse                                            animal rights                                  homelessness

access to childcare                   resource conservation             industrial pollution                       welfare

access to healthcare                 hazardous waste                      agricultural pollution                   children’s rights

access to education                  scavengers                                  transportation pollution             children’s health

immigration                               over packaging                         land use                                          minimum wage

worker safety                             financial security                       land planning                              corporate responsibility (lack)

community stability                 local economy                            local jobs                                        soil health

soil conservation                      crime                                            personal safety                              public transportation

energy conservation               alternative energy                      energy efficiency                           transportation wastefulness

homage to Wendell Barry November 4, 2011

I’ve been doing some research this week for my book, and have been reading Wendell Berry. I’m embarrassed to say I hadn’t read his work until now, though I had heard his name for many years now, referenced by many other authors and environmental thinkers. My loss – I’ve been totally inspired by, and humbled by, his eloquence and sharp yet poetic logic. Today I want only to quote a few passages, to give you an idea of where my thoughts are going:

(from the essay “A Native Hill”, contained in the book The Art of the Common Place, the Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, edited by Norman Wirzba; used without permission but with great respect)

… When I lived in other places I looked on their evils with the curious eye of a traveler; I was not responsible for them; it cost me nothing to be a critic, for I had not been there long and I did not feel that I would stay.

… What I am has been to a considerable extent determined by what my forebears were, by how they chose to treat this place while they lived in it; the lives of most of them diminished it, and limited its possibilities, and narrowed its future. And every day I am confronted by what inheritance I will leave. What do I have that I am using up? For it has been our history that each generation in this place has been less welcome to it than the last. There has been less here for them. At each arrival there has been less fertility in the soil, and a larger inheritance of destructive precedent and shameful history.
- page 8

We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us, and that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.
- page 20

oops I did it again October 29, 2011

I did it again… despite having about 7 cloth bags in the trunk of my car, I still managed to leave the drug store with a plastic bag for 3 items. Why is it so hard to do this one simple thing?

Can I blame it on human nature? General laziness? It’s not that I loooove plastic bags and secretly want to keep using them. No, I think it’s just plain habit. My whole life I’ve been able to walk out of any store, carrying my purchase in a convenient container provided by the store. Now I have to provide it; I guess that’s actually a pretty big change when you think of it that way.

OK, so how to make this new habit as easy to stick to as walking? I’ll have to carry my bags with me. Literally, on my person – or an extension of my person, the purse. Keep that extra bag, and the stainless steel travel mug, and metal utensils, and cloth hanky / napkin in my purse. I recently (ha! actually a couple of years ago) upgraded to a beautiful leather tote bag (handmade by a local artist), which actually will hold all this stuff without bulging. Unfortunately, I still have a long-time avoidance of big purses, so I often grab my wallet out of the purse and leave that bulk behind.

Guys – you’re on your own. Unless you have a bag or pack that you carry as regularly as most women carry purses. It’s ok, your man-bag can take on a whole new level of utility by carrying all your green gear.

Maybe I just need to learn to think ahead… hmmm… that sounds like it would solve a lot of problems at once. If I’m thinking ahead, I’m planning my car trips, I have an idea of where I’m going to be eating… wow, efficiency instead of convenience. Is it really giving something up (plastic bags) or gaining a new skill?

Lipstick on a pig? October 26, 2011

The other day, I bought some new makeup – an eyeliner and an eyeshadow (4 colors in one!). I am rather ambivalent about makeup – I’ll go days without a speck, and other days I really want to glam it up; and of course there are all the inbetween days… the last time I bought new makeup, I spent days researching brands; noticing what was available at my usual shopping locations, then looking those brands up to see which were the cleanest, greenest ones (Dr. Hauschka, but it seems so expensive to be buying it at the grocery store; or Laura Mercier at Sephora – both get high ratings on GoodGuide.com).

This time around, it was totally on a whim; I was at Rite Aid and just couldn’t resist the low price… so for about $14, what did I get?

Revlon Colorstay 12 hour Eye Shadow, #345 Sterling Rose: mica (organ system toxicity, persistent and bioaccumulative, human immune system toxicant), boron nitride (not assessed for safety in cosmetics), dimethicone (organ system toxicity),  calcium aluminum borosilicate (neurotoxicity, organ system toxicity), talc (often contaminated, not assessed for safety in cosmetics), cyclopentasiloxane (persistant and bioaccumulative, organ system toxicity), polypropylene (human immune system toxicant), trimethylsiloxysilicate (not assessed for safety in cosmetics), nylon-12 (not assessed for safety in cosmetics), acrylates/ dimethicone copolymer (not assessed for safety in cosmetics)… and that’s just in the top 10 listed out of 19, PLUS another 12 that “may” also be in there (depending on the color).

Maybelline Master Drama by Eyestudio, cream pencil bold brown: Isododecane (not assessed for safety in cosmetics), PEG/PPG-19/19 Dimethicone (violation of industry recommendations for use), cyclopentasiloxane (persistent and bioaccumulative, may be carcinogenic, endocrine disruptor, organ system toxicity, ecotoxicity), synthetic wax (also called paraffin wax; limited data), hydrogenated polydicyclopentadiene (not assessed for safety in cosmetics; by the way, also used as a depilatory. In my eyeliner?), C20-40 alcohols (not assessed for safety in cosmetics), nylon-12 (not assessed for safety in cosmetics), perfluorononyl dimethicone (not assessed for safety in cosmetics), polyglyceryl-4 diisostearate polyhydroxystearate sebacate – polyglyceryl-4 diisostearate/ polyhydroxystearate/sebacate (for all that, not assessed for safety in cosmetics), polyethylene (irritant, human immune system toxicant, missing safety data noted by industry review). Again, only the top 10 ingredients out of 12, plus another 9 that may or may not be in there.

Still feel like the cosmetics industry is keeping our health and safety in mind? The bigger issue here is that these same ingredients, plus hundreds more, are bombarding you every day: through your skin, in the air and in the water. No wonder babies are being born “pre-polluted” these days. While it will take legislative action to force companies to take the toxics out, many have already done so, or never did to begin with – its worth the effort to find these ethical manufacturers and support them with your dollars. In the meantime, sign the petitions when they come around, and vote!

www.EWG.org and www.safecosmetics.org are great resources for doing your own research.

I used EWG’s Skin Deep database to find out about these ingredients, and www.goodguide.com for info on the brands.

the Story of Exasperation October 19, 2011

I just finished reading Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff book, and I haven’t felt as jazzed about the future of our planet, nor as depressed about it at the same time since I read Cradle to Cradle.

The jazzed part: Annie does an amazing job at detailing the complex interactions of our Stuff. Simple, like the film, “The Story of Stuff” but packed with all the interesting and weird facts that the Story in based on.

The depressing part: her meticulous research shows how pervasive Stuff is, and especially how some people have used the so-called free market system to benefit at the expense of other people, and especially at the expense of our planet.

Her book is a triumph of investigative research, passionate arguments, and really good story telling. I get such a clear picture of the state of our planet and especially of our culture of Stuff that I begin shutting down emotionally. It is not a pretty picture, and it is so much easier to stick my head in the sand than deal with this mess – especially my own complicity in it (I love my Stuff!).

The good news is that with such a clear understanding of how our world is so tightly linked to everything else (hitched to everything in the universe, to paraphrase John Muir) it is possible to see, actually have faith that the actions of a few dedicated people (you and me and a few million of our like-minded fellows) can shift the tide of cultural habits and create a more sustainable world for everyone.

But that doesn’t let the politicians and CEOs off the hook!

10 ways to a greener holiday December 10, 2010

1. spend less on stuff

 Make a pact with your family and friends: establish a price cap, make it “kids only”, or do a secret santa so each person only has to give one gift. Visit the network for voluntary simplicity, www.simpleliving.net  for more ideas

2. spend more on people

Donate in others’ names to favored charities. Give what’s comfortable for you – a great way to stick to your budget .

 3. give a new tradition

Forego the usual cost and waste of conventional paper wrapping, and try using fabric. The Japanese art of Furoshiki is all about the experience of the gift – not just the object being given, but the presentation, anticipation, and action of revealing the gift. The fabric wrappings can be reused, or even be the beginning of a new tradition – passed on from gift giver to receiver, within family circles or beyond. www.squidoo.com/gift-wrap for background, or get started with these easy to follow diagrams: www.env.go.jp/en/focus/attach/060403-5.html

 4. get the real thing

Real tree, real trimmings: Decorate your heart out; enjoy the wonderful aroma of natural pine or fir. The maintenance and clean up isn’t difficult – keeping the tree watered and a little periodic vacuuming. Mostly, not disturbing cut branches keeps them from dropping too many needles. Plant, mulch, or compost your greenery at the end of the season.

 5. eat local

Feast on seasonal, local produce. Consider an heirloom turkey (or other “heritage” meat) for the centerpiece of the meal, if desired. start with your local CSA (community supported agriculture) to find local markets or to order online. Or, use the USDA’s national listing: www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml

 6. get crafty

Homemade gifts hold their sentimental value far longer than their store-bought counterparts. If Martha Stewart doesn’t appeal, homemade goodies are also a big hit – and they don’t have to be gourmet or fancy to be successful. Remember, it’s the thought that counts.

 7. save paper & postage (& transportation energy)

The seasonal family newsletter may be dreaded to write, but is a very practical (at the least) means of staying in touch with far flung family and friends. Doing it electronically saves money and other indirect costs. Not sure about bucking tradition? Check out what Emily Post has to say about the annual family newsletter.

 8. stay home

If you have a choice in the matter, choose to stay home. Be thankful that you have loved ones to spend the holiday with, even if they are your family of choice rather than birth. If you must travel, is driving or rail an option over flying? If you are host to visitors, consider purchasing carbon credits (relative to the distance traveled) as a gift.

9. get into the spirit

Reconnect with or strengthen your religious or spiritual practice. Focus on your values, and remind yourself what practicing those ideals looks like.  

10. stress less

It’s supposed to be fun! Avoid long lines and hassles at crowded check out counters, but don’t miss out on the fun seasonal things that happen in (often) crowded places – ice skating, caroling, eggnog… and enjoying the people you love.

Happy holidays from everyone at www.rethinkyourworld.com

Faucetful of blessings November 26, 2010

The day after Thanksgiving is as good a time as any to be thankful for the conveniences in our lives: clean water from the tap, sanitation in a flush, and the (mostly) invisible infrastructure that makes it all work. Here’s four ways to conserve that most basic of our resources, water, and help ensure there will continue to be a-plenty:

1. Broken sprinkler shut-off: this special valve prevents irrigation water (10 gallons per minute) from being wasted at a broken sprinkler head by holding the water in the pipe. This will save about 65% more water than an irrigation system without this feature. Around $4 (www.conservco.us)
2. Shorter shower: the Waterpebble (www.dry-planet.com) tracks your water usage from the valve, with the first use establishing your normal shower time. Each subsequent shower, it alerts you when you’ve reached that point, flashing slightly earlier on each shower to subtly speed up the amount of time you spend in the water by 5% over three showers. About $12.
3. Native Grass: the University of Nebraska is developing a new type of lawn grass, based on buffalo grass which is native to the US. Traditional grass used for lawns (like fescue or blue grass) are native European strains, thus needing more water and general maintenance. About 50 cents per sod plug (www.toddvalleyfarms.com)
4. Go with the Flow: installing low-flow aerators on your faucets couldn’t be easier; for a few bucks at your local hardware store, take the average 2.2 gallons per minute (gpm) down to meet the EPA standard of 1.5 gpm. Take it even further by using Niagra Conservation’s aerator, which has 3 settings: .5, 1.0, or 1.5 gpm, allowing you to adjust based on the task at hand. About $11.50 (www.niagaraconservation.com)

 The upside of saving water (besides the obvious) is parallel energy savings – less hot water used = less energy spent heating and moving it.

These tips and more from Popular Science, www.popsci.com

The average American uses almost 1200 gallons of water per day – that includes “virtual” water. For more on water conservation, and an interactive water footprint calculator, try www.h2oconserve.com . I used the calculator, and am relieved that my individual use is “only” 820 gallons per day – incredible… that still seems like a ridiculous amount. I think I’ll be ordering those aerators…