Trying to sustain an unsustainable culture
Our nation and our so-called leaders are paying scant attention, but in every moment, Reality is teaching the lesson of the day: We cannot sustain a culture that’s unsustainable. So the consensus trance prevails as we continue to disregard the magnitude of our challenges and futilely search for illusive signs of the much-anticipated economic recovery that lives only in our dreams.
I’ll have more to say about this topic in the weeks and months to come, but for now hear the words of James Howard Kuntsler:
What’s going on in the US economy is a slow-motion convulsion from which we will emerge as a very different nation with a different economy. The wild irresponsibility of the media in pretending otherwise is only going to make the convulsion worse, more painful, more socially and politically destructive. The convulsion can be described with precision as one of compressive contraction. Historic circumstances are requiring us to change our behavior, to make new arrangements for everyday life in all the major particulars: capital accumulation and deployment; food production; commerce; habitation; transport; education; and health care. These new arrangements must be organized at a smaller and finer scale, and on a much more local basis.
[ . . . ]
If we don’t attend to the transformation of American life by downscaling our activities and changing the way they are carried out, and re-localizing them, we will see our society disintegrate - and I use the word “dis-integrate” with purposeful precision. Everything will come apart - our political arrangements, our households, our health and well-being.
You can read the entire essay by visiting Kuntsler’s blog, but if you’re offended by the F-word, then I suggest you satisfy yourself with Kuntsler’s thoughts contained in this post. And though this is way off topic, if you’re interested in the many uses of that controversial word–as a verb, adverb, adjective, command, conjunction, exclamatory, noun and pronoun–click here for a thorough explanation by Tom Wolfe in his novel I am Charlotte Simmons, a book that Shonnie and I just finished listening to.
Monday, November 23rd, 2009City Council candidates answer questions “yes” or “no”
Folks running for political office frequently prefer to offer at least two answers to every question. At their candidate forum on September 15, People Advocating Real Conservancy (PARC) decided to ask candidates “yes” or “no” questions about local land use issues that have already been debated at length in our community.
Below is the Candidate Scorecard from the forum. You will notice that Cecil Bothwell was the only candidate participating who offered a “yes” or “no” answer on every question. In addition, Cecil was also the only candidate who said “yes” to #7–taking back our park land from Stewart Coleman by Eminent Domain and #10–creating a green space on city land in front of the Basilica.
You may watch the video version of the questions by clicking the links below:
Click HERE for questions 1, 2 and 3.
Click HERE for questions 4 and 5.
Click HERE for questions 6 and 7.
Click HERE for questions 8 and 9.
You may also wish to check out City Council candidates’ responses to the WNC for Change questionnaire by clicking here.
Remember to vote in the city primary election this Tuesday, October 6 from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. at your precinct polling place.
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009Sign petition calling for a stronger energy bill
From MoveOn.org
Strengthen the clean energy bill
Powerful oil and coal interests have had a stranglehold on our energy policy, demanding loopholes, bailouts, and giveaways from taxpayers. They’ve won concessions in the energy bill to preserve their profits and weaken the bill’s ability to deliver on the full promise of clean energy jobs.
But now, progressives are coming together to push back. MoveOn has joined with groups across the progressive movement, from the Sierra Club to ACORN to Oxfam to Rock the Vote, to tell Congress to stand strong against the special interests that seek to weaken the clean energy bill at every turn.
We can strengthen and improve this bill, if progressive leaders in Congress will join our fight. Can you sign MoveOn’s petition to Congress?
A compiled petition with your individual comment will be presented to your Representative.
Sign the petition now by clicking here.
Of synchronicity, new friendships and global warming
Some sages say that there are no accidents, that everything happens for a reason. So I don’t think it was any accident that Chuck Dayton and I teamed up to travel to Al Gore’s Climate Project Summit in Nashville last weekend.
Chuck, a retired environmental lawyer from Minneapolis, spends around half the year in the mountains of North Carolina with his wife Sara Evans. Though we’d never met, we decided to drive to Nashville together and be roommates once we arrived.
The Climate Project Summit
The Summit itself was a deeply rewarding experience. Vice President Gore spoke to us about the challenges of global warming and took us through his updated slide show. The part of his message that has stuck with me most was about how we humans respond to fear. We respond well to immediate dangers—snakes, fire, attack. We also respond promptly to learned dangers, such as the smell of gas in the house. It is more challenging for us to respond appropriately to dangers that come at us incrementally, such as global warming, since the effects of any action we take to combat the climate crisis will only be evident years hence.
Chuck’s 70th birthday came on the second day of the conference, and all 500 participants who’d gathered from around the world sang “Happy Birthday” to him. When VP Gore took the stage immediately afterward, he had a few words to say 
about the occasion: “Happy birthday, Chuck. You know, of course, that 70 is the new 69.”
We were treated to some heavy hitters—R.K. Pachauri, Executive Director of the IPCC, the group that received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with Gore; David Suzuki, award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster; and Maggie Fox, CEO of The Alliance for Climate Protection, among others.
At the beginning of his presentation, Suzuki thanked former President George Bush for stealing the 2000 election and setting Gore free to do the work he was doing. Gore said that Suzuki reminded him of story about Winston Churchill. After losing an election, one of Churchill’s aides stated that “This was a blessing in disguise.” “Damn good disguise,” Churchill retorted.
The American Clean Energy & Security Act recently passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee was recognized
as a huge step in the right direction. According to Gore: “The bill represents a crucial step forward in addressing the global climate crisis, the need for millions of new green jobs to end the recession, and the national security threats that have long been linked to our growing dependence on foreign oil and other fossil fuels.” Furthermore, it was deemed essential that the U.S. to go to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December showing that we mean business.
Heading back home
During the trip home (five or so hours from Nashville to Western North Carolina), Chuck and I had a chance to talk about a lot more than global warming and found lots of common ground. I learned that Chuck’s family had run an outfitting company at the Boundary Waters Wilderness for decades, that he’d played rugby at Dartmouth, that he’d left a large law firm in the early 1970s to start an environmental law firm, that he’d been deeply involved in helping protect the wilderness of the Boundary Waters, that he and his wife Sara Evans, spent around half the year in North Carolina and half in Minnesota, that the folks who’d been involved in his law firm got together regularly for outdoor adventures (the latest one a sea kayaking trip in the Sea of Cortez at Baja California), and that 11 of these folks were coming down to celebrate his birthday with him, Sara, and his newer North Carolina friends.
Honoring Chuck and his 70 years on this planet
Last night Shonnie and I traveled to Waynesville to join celebrants for a dinner to honor Chuck. We not only had nametags, but on them in a smaller font were the names of two other guests with whom we might want to connect since we likely had something in common with them.
Chuck was honored by a medley of songs from Charles Dayton’s Creative Weirdness Band made up of the Minnesota contingent, whose songs included one to the tune of the Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Big Bad 
Chuck” a la “Big John” and finally a version of “Those Were the Days My Friend.”
These are the days my friend
They just might never end
We’ll sing and dance forever and a day
We’ll watch the stars he’ll sight
At Jasper Lake at night
For we are friends, we’ll always be that way
Next a local fishing buddy recounted some stories about his outings with Chuck. After that Si Kahn, folksinger and grassroots organizer, led all of us in singing “We Honor the Dreamers,” a tribute to Chuck, a “dreamer who works for our dreams.”
Then Chuck took center stage, speaking of his gratitude for those in attendance and the sentiments they’d expressed that evening. “This would be a good memorial service,” he declared. Chuck spoke of his hopes and dreams for the future, indicating that at the age of 70, he wasn’t done yet. In closing, he quoted a portion of Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses.” The final lines:
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Finally, some square dancing to the tunes of the bluegrass band and led by Joe Sam Queen, state senator for Haywood and surrounding counties.
The celebration continues for Chuck, Sara and the friends from Minnesota, including hikes on local mountain trails and other adventures before the guests head northward on Monday.
Right now I’m sitting here feeling deep gratitude for my new friendship with such an honorable, compassionate and courageous man and for the synchronicity that brought us together.
Happy birthday, my friend, and may you celebrate many more!
* * *
Our Creator, throughout the heavens,
Hallowed be your flame.
In a trillion suns your kingdom comes,
In the tiniest cell, your will be done.
Give us each day, a bird in flight,
a flower’s perfume, a bright star’s light.
Lead us not on a path of greed,
Teach us to tread lightly,
taking only what we need.
For ours is a journey from ignorance to understanding
From separation to Oneness with You,
In the glorious energy of the universe.
Amen
Strive Not to Drive Week May 11-15
Help Mother Earth and reduce your carbon footprint. Participate in Strive Not to Drive during the week of May 11-15 by walking, biking, carpooling and riding the bus. Pass this along to your friends and family and encourage them to do the same. If you live in Western North Carolina, sign up now at Blue Ridge Commuter Connections.
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009Simply living means living more simply.
Earlier this month, my wife, Shonnie, and I attended a two-day workshop, Simpler Living as Spiritual Practice, sponsored by Holy Ground, a feminist Christian retreat organization based here in Asheville. Shonnie and I had already taken a number of steps toward a simpler life: we’d moved into a modest condo, given away or sold everything that didn’t fit comfortably in it, gotten rid of one of our two autos, and committed to riding our bikes to work at least one day a week. The no-TV-during–the-week agreement had fallen by the wayside, but, hey, I’m only human. Nonetheless, we thought it might be time to take simplicity to the next level.
During the weekend, we heard from folks who were eliminating the unessential so they could use their time for what was most important to them. We discussed actions we could take to walk lightly on our planet—using the sun for heating, buying locally grown food, purchasing less stuff. But more importantly, we questioned some of our underlying cultural assumptions, including:
- Humans are the center of the universe. Not only is the nonhuman world subservient to the human world, its value is based solely on its value to humans.
- Humans stand separate and apart from the rest of nature.
- Our economy must continue to grow no matter the cost; nature is merely an economic resource.
As we considered these routinely unexamined beliefs, we began to understand their flaws and how they have led us to the dreadful ecological conditions we now confront. We obtained a better understanding regarding how we Americans, who make up approximately five percent of the world’s population and consume about twenty five percent of the world’s resources (Juliet Schor, The Overspent American), are doing more than our share to create the environmental devastation that threatens life on our planet. And we committed to take action to help turn things around.
A week later I was about halfway through the Asheville Citizen-Times half-marathon, soaked with sweat and drizzle, longing for the trails of the nearby mountains. I usually feel enlivened when I’m running on the trails; running on pavement this day was just hard work. I put my head down, gritted my teeth, and moved inexorably toward the finish. As I ran I considered how much of my time is spent moving from human-built structure to human-built structure rather than in the outdoors in the natural world—in tune with the cycles of day and night, the seasons of the year, birth and death. When I live like this it’s no wonder that I believe I am separate from the natural world; it’s no wonder that I lose touch with who I really am; it’s no wonder that I don’t fully consider the impact of my actions on my planet.
Often it’s easy to believe that the ecological problems confronting us, perhaps even threatening our existence as a species (certainly threatening the existence of other species) are too huge and complex for me to deal with. I can recycle; I can turn down the water heater thermostat; I can replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones. But there is a greater reality to grasp here. I am not merely one who understands the necessity of reversing the ecological degradation. I am also part of the web of life that is being degraded. I come to discern, as John Seed has put it, that I am not only protecting the forest; I am part of the forest protecting myself.
When I find a way to quiet my egocentric, know-it-all mind and examine the validity of my unverified assumptions, my path becomes clear. I intuitively know that I am connected to everything in the universe, that when I care for the spider that has crawled onto my leg, I am caring for myself. I grasp that my time here is limited. And I possess a sense of urgency regarding what must be done. I recognize that, ultimately, the universe supports us and shows us the way. All we have to do is pay attention, and our actions will flow out of love—for ourselves and our planet—with a passion that cannot be denied.
* * *
I wrote this commentary for publication in the Asheville Citizen-Times on September 28, 2002, and I post it again now since it has relevance to the crises we find ourselves in now. Since participating in the Holy Ground workshop, we have taken the following additional actions toward living our lives more simply and more congruently with our deepest values:
- Taken steps to make our home as energy efficient as possible
- Installed compact fluorescent light bulbs
- Added insulation overhead
- Replaced leaky windows with thermopane windows
- Installed storm door
- Installed foam switch plate and outlet covers
- Purchased green energy
- Committed to walk or bike whenever possible (We went five days recently without getting in our car.)
- Bought local, natural produce whenever possible from grocery stores, farmers’ markets and community supported agriculture
- Committed to using natural cleaning products
- Recycled and composted to the extent that we only generate garbage in quantities that require us to take it to curbside only every six to eight weeks.
- Simplified our wardrobes, wearing natural fabrics that don’t require dry cleaning
- Written about why simpler living is important and how to do it
- Supported local businesses and eschewed big box stores
- Supported local, state and national political candidates who understand the importance of living simpler lives
We’re the Big 3: We don’t need to compete!
Truth in advertising from The Beast.
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard
So as we were getting rid of some extraneous stuff that doesn’t really fit in our 1000-square-foot townhouse (anyone need 
a laptop with Windows 98?), our friend Adrian sent us a link to The Story of Stuff. After watching the compelling and enlightening video, I decided I didn’t need those new jeans after all. From the website:
The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.
Click this link to watch The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard or cut and paste this URL into your browser: http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html.
