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