CHOICES FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVING

www.ecochallenge.org
NWEI’s EcoChallenge is an opportunity to change your life for good.

Northwest Earth Institute

107 SE Washington St, Ste 240
Portland, OR 97214
NWEI

503.227.2807
fax: 503.227.2917
www.nwei.org
 .

Choices for Sustainable Living

Thank you for your interest in exploring sustainability, and for taking action to address environmental
challenges. The course is designed to help break big issues into bite-sized pieces. Choices for Sustainable
Living provides participants a powerful opportunity to explore sustainability more deeply and learn its
unique meaning from individual, societal and global perspectives. This discussion course was adapted
exclusively for Bank of America. All adaptations were made with approval from NWEI staff.

Before each discussion session you should read the chapter and be prepared to discuss it. The attached
copy is for your participation in this course. Copyright permissions do not allow reproductions of this
material for others so please do not forward your copy to others. Please direct them to Rich Brown
(richard.e.brown@bankofamerica.com) to receive a copy.

NWEI is a small nonprofit, and we are primarily funded by member contributions and the sale of our
course books. We sincerely appreciate your support of our work, and thank you in advance for not
distributing this course material to others without special permission. If you'd like to know more about
Northwest Earth Institute, visit nwei.org or contact us at contact@nwei.org. We'd love to hear from you!

Best Regards.

The Northwest Earth Institute Staff and Rich Brown, Bank of America
 Copyright 2012

By

Northwest Earth Institute

107 SE Washington Street, Suite 235
Portland, OR 97214
(503) 227-2807
Email: contact@nwei.org
Website: www.nwei.org

Requests for permission to reproduce any materials

in this course book should be directed to
Northwest Earth Institute.

See “Permissions” page for information

on reading materials; these cannot be
reproduced without separate permission.

NWEI is deeply grateful for the generosity of the following volunteers,

who gave their time and expertise to develop this coursebook:
Jane Carr, Caroline Cozens, Chris Mullins, Lena Rotenberg,
Betty Shelley, and Kevin Van Driesche.

Layout and Typography: Margaret Parker

Curriculum Development: Lacy Cagle

This publication was printed using 100 percent post-consumer waste, FSC certified recycled paper,
and vegetable-based inks, and is 100 process-chlorine free.

This discussion course was adapted exclusively for Bank of America from Northwest Earth Institute’s original discussion
course on Choices for Sustainable Living, published in 2012. All adaptations were made with approval from NWEI staff.
If you’d like to know more about Northwest Earth Institute and their programs, visit www.nwei.org.
 3

T A B L E O F

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

HOW TO START A DISCUSSION COURSE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

GUIDELINES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

EVALUATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

SESSION ONE: A CALL TO SUSTAINABILITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

“You Are Brilliant and the Earth Is Hiring” by Paul Hawken. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
“Definitions of Sustainability”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
“Why Bother?” by Michael Pollan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
“Advice from an Accidental Activist” by Colin Beavan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
“Easter’s End” by Jared Diamond. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Video for Discussion: “Where Good Ideas Come From” by Steven Johnson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
“Systems Thinking and the Iceberg Model” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

SESSION TWO: ECOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

“Ecological Principles” by Michael K. Stone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
“What Would It Take?” by Johan Rockstrom, interview by Mary Hoff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
“Water Is Life” by Osprey Orielle Lake. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
“The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Go Hungry” by Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
“Sequoia National Park Is Stuck in Pollution Hell” by John Metcalfe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
“The Ecology of Disease” by Jim Robbins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
“The Earth Is Full” by Paul Gilding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

SESSION THREE: FOOD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

“What’s Eating America” by Michael Pollan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
“Beyond ‘Free’ or ‘Fair’ Trade” by Mike Wold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
“A Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change” by the Environmental Working Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
“Stalking the Vegetannual” by Barbara Kingsolver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
“The Pringles Problem” by Anna Lappé. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
“A Look at the $175 in your Compost” by Dana Gunders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
“The Need for Radical Homemakers” by Shannon Hayes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
“A Seat at the Table” by Carolyn Steel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Contents
4

SESSION FOUR: COMMUNITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

“12 Features of Sustainable Community Development”
by Steven Peck and Guy Dauncey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
“The Shareable Future of Cities” by Alex Steffen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
“Inside Ithaca’s EcoVillage” by Katerina Athanasiou. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
“Stapleton: Repurposing a Site”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
“To Build Community, an Economy of Gifts” by Charles Eisenstein. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
“Forging Friendlier Neighborhoods”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
“How to Build Community” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

SESSION FIVE: TRANSPORTATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

“Visualize Gasoline” by Richard Heinberg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
“Chain of Fuels: The Story of a 20,000 Mile Spinach Salad” by Amanda Little. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
“We Love Our Cars, but Can They Be Bad for Us?” by Dan Burden. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
“Little Town Makes Big Leap toward Smart Travel” by Washington State Department
of Transportation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
“How to Make Biking Mainstream: Lessons from the Dutch” by Jay Walljasper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
“Complete Streets Fundamentals”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

SESSION SIX: CONSUMPTION AND ECONOMY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

“Detroit Speech” by Robert F. Kennedy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
“What Isn’t for Sale?” by Michael J. Sandel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
“Fight Consumerism: Love Your Stuff” by James Shelley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
“Off the Pedestal” by James Gustave Speth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
“The Problem with No Growth” by Francis Moore Lappé. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
“Saving the Earth on the Cheap” by Paul Rauber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

SESSION SEVEN: VISIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

“Free Your (Eco)Mind” by Frances Moore Lappé. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
“On Gratitude” by Alex Stark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
“To Live or Not to Live” by Derrick Jensen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
“Boulder Votes to Free Its Electric Company” by Valerie Schloredt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
“The Great Disruption” by Paul Gilding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Video for Discussion: “Growing Our Way into a New Economy” by Stephen Ritz. . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
“Living Green Isn’t a Sacrifice” by Donella Meadows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

CALL TO ACTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

MEMBERSHIP FORM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

PERMISSIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Contents NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


INTRODUCTION
Recently the term “sustainability” has become so
popularized and commercialized it is hard to know what it
means anymore. Sustainability is a complex and contested
concept, but at its best represents the hope for a healthy,
just and bright future for us all. We offer Choices for
Sustainable Living as an opportunity to move beyond the
hype to explore sustainability more deeply.
Throughout this course, participants will examine
sustainability from individual, societal and global
perspectives. The readings are intended to invoke
meaningful discussion. Each week as you meet with
your discussion group, we invite you to bring your own
experience and critical thinking to the process. Whether you
agree or disagree, you will have an opportunity to clarify
your views and values. Ultimately, we hope this process
inspires you and others to make choices to live with more
intention on Earth..
Choices for Sustainable Living is comprised of seven
sessions, designed for weekly discussion. Each session
includes readings, questions for the group, a “Putting
It into Practice” list of suggested actions and “Further
Readings and Resources.” We suggest sharing your goals
for change with your group during the optional “Call to
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
5
Action” session. This last session is encouraged as a way
for your group to celebrate the completion of the course,
share goals and progress and consider ways the group
might continue to work together.
For resources on getting the discussion group started,
visit www.nwei.org and click on the “Course Resources”
page for flyers, organizing guides and press releases. “How
to Start a Discussion Course” on page 6 provides further
information about organizing a course. You may also contact
our office at (503) 227-2807. To become a member of NWEI
and support the sharing of this work with others, please join
at www.nwei.org/join or complete the membership form on
page 135.
Twenty years ago, NWEI founders Dick and Jeanne Roy
began this work of bringing people together to discuss the
important issues of our times. Since then, over 140,000
people have taken NWEI courses and been inspired to take
responsibility for Earth. We trust that you too will find this
experience to be of deep and lasting value.
We invite you to connect with us online at www.nwei.org,
or visit our blog at blog.nwei.org, or our Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/NorthwestEarthInstitute.
Introduction
6
How to Start a Discussion Course
Thank you for your interest in the programs offered
by the Northwest Earth Institute. The following tips
are for those of you who would like to organize NWEI
discussion groups.
We are thrilled that you have taken the initiative to
order Choices for Sustainable Living. While this book has
tremendous stand-alone value, please keep in mind that it
was designed to be used with others in a group dialogue
setting. As such, we ask that you consider inviting others to
participate in the process with you. Below, please find steps
for doing so. If you have any questions about the process,
please visit our website at www.nwei.org or contact any
member of NWEI’s Outreach Team at (503) 227-2807, or by
email at contact@nwei.org. If you have joined an already
formed group, please consider organizing future courses.
We hope you benefit from participating in this course.
STEP 1: FORM GROUP(S) —
IDEAL SIZE IS 8-12 PEOPLE.
In certain regions, an NWEI representative may be
available to assist you in getting started. Visit www.nwei.
org/n_american_network to see a list of regions where NWEI
representatives may be available to mentor new groups and
offer introductory presentations on NWEI.
TIPS FOR STARTING YOUR NWEI COURSE:
• Invite others to join NWEI programs via newsletters, email
networks, personal invitations or the media. Download
NWEI program flyers at www.nwei.org. Include location
information, times and dates for the entire program. Set
clear registration deadlines for signups.
• Order any remaining materials from NWEI and get
discussion course books to participants before the date of
the first group meeting.
• Call a noontime meeting or host a brown bag lunch in a
workplace to offer an informal presentation on NWEI
programs and how they work.
• Host an introductory group meeting at your workplace,
home, community or faith center, or local library.
• Visit www.nwei.org/course_resources to download the
Course Organizer’s Guide for additional tips and resources.
STEP 2: BEFORE THE FIRST SESSION
• Get course books to participants well in advance of the
first meeting. Make sure to ask participants to complete
the first reading/action plan assignment before they come
to the first session.
• As the course organizer, you should plan to serve as the
facilitator for the first session.
How to Start a Discussion Course
• Recruit one of the course participants to serve as the first
session opener.
STEP 3: FIRST SESSION — GETTING STARTED
TAKE THE FOLLOWING MATERIALS WITH YOU TO
THE FIRST SESSION: 1) Course book, 2) Course schedule
(enclosed) for participants to sign up for opener, facilitator,
and notetaker roles for the remaining sessions.
HAVE A ROUND OF INTRODUCTIONS. Introductions
serve several important functions, even if the group is
already well acquainted. Participants begin to know each
other on a personal level and have an opportunity to “get
each person’s voice into the room.” A person who has spoken
and been listened to early in the session is more likely to
participate in the rest of the session. Ask participants to say
their names and share something meaningful or fun about
themselves. As the organizer of your group, you should give
your answer first to model the length and content.
DESCRIBE THE GROUP PROCESS. NWEI programs are
designed to encourage discussions that clarify personal
values and attitudes. Consensus is not the goal, and the
group should not seek to reach agreement at the expense
of diversity of opinion. Most groups meet for an hour to
an hour and a half for each meeting. Each session will be
led by a volunteer facilitator from the group. Point out the
“Guidelines for the the Facilitator, Opener and Notetaker” on
page 8.
DISTRIBUTE THE REGISTRATION FORM or email
participants the link to NWEI’s online registration form to
ensure you have complete and current contact information
for all participants. If using the paper registration form,
please scan it and email to contact@nwei.org or mail it to us
at the address on the form. You may wish to keep a copy for
future correspondence with participants.
CALL ATTENTION TO THE EVALUATION FORM IN
EACH DISCUSSION GUIDE. Encourage participants to fill
out the evaluation form on page 9 and share any feedback
with NWEI. They can do this by mailing the form to us or
by completing our online evaluation form, available at
www.nwei.org.
FILL OUT THE COURSE SCHEDULE (found on the next
page). This gives group members an opportunity to sign up
to present an opening. Information on opening, facilitating
and taking notes is included at the beginning of each
course book.
STEP 4: FIRST SESSION —
DESCRIBE/PRESENT THE OPENING
Please reference “Guidelines for the Facilitator, Opener
and Notetaker” located on page 8.
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE
 7

STEP 5: FIRST SESSION — STEP 7: DURATION OF NWEI PROGRAM

FACILITATING THE DISCUSSION
EXPLAIN THE ROLE OF THE FACILITATOR, OPENER
AND NOTETAKER. Tell the group that you will help keep
the discussion personal, focused, and balanced among
the participants. Show them the “Guidelines” on page 8.
Encourage each person to review these before taking their
turn at facilitation, opening or taking notes.
CIRCLE QUESTION. Following the opening, the first
step is for each person to answer the Circle Question found
at the beginning of each session. The question provides a
focus for the day’s discussion.
STEP 6: FIRST SESSION — CLOSING
Watch the time, and stop discussion a few minutes
before the session is scheduled to end. Note whether the
Course Schedule is completed. If not, work with participants
to complete it. Confirm the time and place for the next
meeting. Be sure to end the class on time. This shows
respect for the participants, and demonstrates that their
time commitment is predictable.
Your group will meet around seven times, depending on
the meeting dates set by participants. Each session will
be led by a rotating facilitator from the group. Note the
“Putting it into Practice” and “Further Reading” lists at the
beginning of each session for ideas on further educational
opportunities as well as tips for applying the learning into
your life.
CLOSING
FINAL SESSION — A CALL TO ACTION. The final session
in each discussion course book is an optional celebration,
and is an opportunity to:
• Celebrate the completion of the program and evaluate
your experience.
• Discuss options for continuing as a group, reflect on
actions taken during the course and consider goals and
action items to implement.
• Consider organizing other NWEI programs in your
community, workplace or organization.
Don’t hesitate to contact NWEI with questions or
for assistance. If you enjoyed this experience and would like
to support the Northwest Earth Institute’s work, please see
our membership form on page 135.

COURSE SCHEDULE FOR CHOICES FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVING

This course schedule may be useful to keep track of meeting dates and of when you will be facilitating or providing
the opening.
Course Coordinator :_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Phone :________________________________________
Mentor (if applicable ):____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Phone :________________________________________
Location For Future Meetings :___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CLASS SESSION DATE OPENING FACILITATOR NOTETAKER

A Call to Sustainability _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ecological Principles _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Food _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Community _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Transportation _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Consumption and Economy _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Visions of Sustainability _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
PLANNERS
Celebration and
Call to Action* _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*After the last regular session, your group may choose to have a final meeting and celebration. This meeting celebrates the
completion of the course, and may include a potluck lunch or dinner and is an opportunity for evaluation and consideration of
next steps.
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  How to Start a Discussion Course
8

GUIDELINES
FOR THE FACILITATOR, OPENER AND NOTETAKER
For each session of this course, one participant brings an “opening,” a second participant facilitates the discussion , and
a third participant takes notes on each person’s commitment to action. The roles rotate each week with a different group
member doing the opening and facilitating. This process is at the core of the Earth Institute culture — it assumes we gain our
greatest insights through self-discovery, promoting discussion among equals with no teacher.
✦ ✦ ✦
FOR THE SESSION FACILITATOR The facilitator should ensure that the action
As facilitator for one session, your role is to stimulate item discussion:
and moderate the discussion. You do not need to be an • allows each person’s action item to be discussed for
expert or the most knowledgeable person about the topic. 1-2 minutes;
Your role is to: • remains non-judgmental and non-prescriptive;

• Remind the designated person ahead of time to bring • focuses on encouraging fellow group members in their
an opening. commitments and actions.

• Begin and end on time. FOR THE SESSION OPENER

• Ask the questions included in each chapter, or your own.
• Make sure your group has time to talk about their
commitments to action — it is a positive way to end
each gathering.
• Keep discussion focused on the session’s topic. A deli­cate
balance is best — don’t force the group into the questions,
but don’t allow the discussion to drift too far.
• Manage the group process, using the guidelines below:
A primary goal is for everyone to participate and to
learn from themselves and each other. Draw out quiet
participants by creating an opportunity for each person
to contribute. Don’t let one or two people dominate the
discussion. Thank them for their opinions and then ask
another person to share.
Be an active listener. You need to hear and understand
what people say if you are to guide the discussion effec­
tively. Model this for others.
The focus should be on personal reactions to the readings
— on personal values, feelings, and experiences.
The course is not for judging others’ responses.
Consensus is not a goal.
• Bring a short opening, not more than a couple of
minutes. It should be something meaningful to you, or
that expresses your personal ap­pre­ciation for food or
the natural world. Examples: a short personal story, an
object or photograph that has special meaning, a poem,
a visualization, etc. We encourage you to have fun and
be creative.
• The purpose of the opening is twofold. First, it pro­vides a
transition from other activities of the day into the group
discussion. Second, since the opening is personal, it allows
the group to get better acquainted with you. This aspect of
the course can be very rewarding.
FOR THE NOTETAKER
At the end of each session, each participant will commit
to one action item they will complete before the next
meeting. They will share their action with the group, and it
is your responsibility as notetaker to record each person’s
commitment to action. 
Each week the notetaker role will rotate. During the
portion of discussion focused on action items, the notetaker
from the previous meeting will read aloud each person’s
action item, and group members will have the opportunity
to share their successes and struggles in implementing their
actions. The new notetaker for that week will then record
each person’s commitment for the next meeting.

For more information on the NWEI process and organizing a course, see “How to Start a Discussion Course” on page 6.

Guidelines NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

 9

C H O I C E S F O R S U S T A I N A B L E L I V I N G

EVALUATION
PART 1. PLEASE FILL OUT WEEKLY, while your thoughts and opinions are fresh in your mind. We suggest removing this
page to use as a bookmark as you read through to course. Rate the seven sessions.

POOR CHOICE.......... EXCELLENT COMMENTS:

1. A Call to Sustainability   1    2    3    4    5

2. Ecological Principles   1    2    3    4    5
3. Food     1         2         3         4         5
4. Community     1         2         3         4         5
5. Transportation     1         2         3         4         5
6. Consumption and Economy     1         2         3         4         5
7. Visions of Sustainability   1    2    3    4    5

Were the following articles helpful? Circle “Y” if we should use the article next time or “N” if we should look for better
reading material. Leave blank if you didn’t read it or have no opinion.

COMMENTS:

1. “You Are Brilliant and the Earth Is Hiring”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

“Definitions of Sustainability”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Why Bother?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Advice from an Accidental Activist”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Easter’s End” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
Video for Discussion: “Where Good Ideas Come From”. . . . . . . Y   N
“Systems Thinking and the Iceberg Model”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

2. “Ecological Principles”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

“What Would It Take?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Water Is Life”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Go Hungry”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Sequoia National Park Is Stuck in Pollution Hell”. . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“The Ecology of Disease”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“The Earth is Full”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

3. “What’s Eating America”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

“Beyond ‘Free’ or ‘Fair’ Trade” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“A Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Stalking the Vegetannual”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“The Pringles Problem”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“A Look at the $175 in your Compost”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“The Need for Radical Homemakers”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“A Seat at the Table” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Evaluation
10

4. “12 Features of Sustainable Community Development” . . . . . . Y   N

“The Shareable Future of Cities” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Inside Ithaca’s EcoVillage”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Stapleton: Repurposing a Site”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“To Build Community, an Economy of Gifts”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Forging Friendlier Neighborhoods”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“How to Build Community”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

5. “Visualize Gasoline”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

“Chain of Fuels: The Story of a 20,000 Mile Spinach Salad”. . Y   N
“We Love Our Cars, but Can They Be Bad for Us?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Little Town Makes Big Leap toward Smart Travel” . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“How to Make Biking Mainstream:
Lessons from the Dutch”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Complete Streets Fundamentals”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

6. “Detroit Speech”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

“What Isn’t for Sale?”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Fight Consumerism: Love Your Stuff”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Off the Pedestal”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“The Problem with No Growth” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Saving the Earth on the Cheap”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

7. “Free Your (Eco)Mind”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N

“On Gratitude”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“To Live or Not to Live” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Boulder Votes to Free Its Electric Company”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“The Great Disruption” by Paul Gilding. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
Video for Discussion:
“Growing Our Way into a New Economy”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y   N
“Living Green Isn’t a Sacrifice” by Donella Meadows. . . . . . . . . . Y   N

PART 2.   PLEASE COMPLETE AT END OF COURSE.

Has the course made a difference in your life?   o Yes   o No    Please describe what actions you are taking or plan to take in
response to the course.______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please list other articles, books or other resources that should be included in the course. Identify chapter/pages and the
session where they should be included.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What has been the most valuable aspect of the course?_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please email your completed evaluation to contact@nwei.org, or send to NWEI, 107 SE Washington St., Suite 235, Portland,
OR 97214. Thank you for your participation!

Evaluation NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

 11

S E S S I O N 1

A CALL TO
SUSTAINABILITY
On my first Boy Scout trip, in the mid-1950s, I learned the basic environmental principle that
we should leave the campsite as we found it. We were told that the next group of hikers deserved no less,
and that in fact we should clean the site up if those before us had been careless.
I did not as a child understand that the campsite would be global or that
the next hikers would include unborn generations.
— John Sitter

SESSION GOALS SESSION BACKGROUND

• To get acquainted, to set a schedule for future meetings
and to identify volunteers to lead an opening, facilitate
and take notes for each session.
• To consider ways of measuring and defining
sustainability. To reflect on the measures and meanings
of sustainability that speak to us most.
• To begin to identify ways that our society has become
unsustainable, and to engage with possible solutions.
• To reflect on the roles individuals have in creating and
changing practices in society.
• To begin to understand and practice systems thinking.
While sustainability is a term and concept widely
referenced around the world, it remains elusive and
contested. The term “sustainable” can be used to promote
divergent views: for example, sustainable development
places the emphasis on human activity, while sustainable
ecosystems may require as limited human interference
as possible. In this session, we consider ways of grasping
the meaning and vision of sustainability, and our roles
in creating a sustainable world. The idea and practice of
systems thinking is also introduced.

SUGGESTED GROUP ACTIVITY

Using the Iceberg Model described in this session, pick a local issue (or event) that your group would like to
address. Start brainstorming what the underlying patterns, structures and mental models are. As the course
continues, consider actions your group can take to address your concerns and work for greater change.
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
12

Circle Question

Where do you find your deepest connection with the natural world?
Reminder to the facilitator: The circle question should move quickly. Elicit an answer from
each participant without questions or comments from others. The facilitator’s guidelines are on page 8.

SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Because sustainability is such a complex topic, it can
be overwhelming and raise feelings of various sorts.
What feelings did the readings for this session bring
up for you?
2. Paul Hawken proposes that the Earth is hiring and
needs us all to step up. What job would you apply for?
3. Consider the “Definitions of Sustainability.” Which
definitions or ideas struck you the most? Did you gain
any new insights?
4. What is your answer to Michael Pollan’s question,
“Why bother?”
5. Where in your life do you experience the split between
what we think and what we do that Michael Pollan
refers to? What can you do to reconcile that gap?
6. Colin Beavan says that we assume that if our ideas
were any good, someone else would have implemented
them already. Are there any ideas you’ve had for
positive change that you would like to consider?
7. Jared Diamond wrote, “Eventually Easter’s growing
population was cutting the forest more rapidly than
the forest was regenerating.” What evidence do you see
that our societies are using similar practices today?
8. In what ways can you connect with others
to share hunches and create good ideas for
sustainable practices?
PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
Choose one action to commit to this week, then
share your struggles and successes with your
group at your next group meeting. Here are some ideas to
get you started:
• Avoid disposables such as paper cups, towels, and napkins.
Carry your own water bottle and mug.
• Eliminate junk mail and mail order catalogs.
• Arrange for a home energy audit and follow through.
• Bike, walk, and use public transportation or carpools to
reduce auto travel.
• Reduce water pollution: Declare your yard a chemical-free
zone. (More pesticides are used in yards [per unit of land]
than on farms.) Pull weeds by hand, mulch heavily, and don’t
expect perfection.
• If you can’t follow Pollan’s suggestion to plant a garden,
what can you do to insert yourself into the system and
make lasting change? Decide on one or two actions, set
a plan and timeline for accomplishment, and make them
happen!
NWEI hosts an annual EcoChallenge every October. To
find out more about this event, visit www.ecochallenge.org.

FURTHER RESOURCES
Interested in finding out more on the topics presented in this session? Visit our website for
further readings and resources: www.nwei.org/choices-for-sustainable-living-resources.
Join our Facebook page to continue the discussion online:
www.facebook.com/northwestearthinstitute.

Session 1/A Call to Sustainability NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


YOU ARE BRILLIANT,
AND THE EARTH IS HIRING
by Paul Hawken
Paul Hawken delivered this speech to the 2009 graduating
class of the University of Portland.
When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if
I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut,
honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.”
No pressure there.
Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you
are going to have to figure out what it means to be a
human being on earth at a time when every living system is
declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a
mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper
published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.
Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are
the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.
This planet came with a set of instructions, but we
seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like
don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get
overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been
broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so
ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on
one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour,
with no need for seat belts, lots of room in coach, and really
DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
Renewable resources: Natural resources that
through biological or natural processes can reproduce
or be replenished on a scale that sustains their
consumption rate. Examples of renewable resources
include solar and wind energy and biomass. Non-
renewable resources include fossil fuels, uranium, metal
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
13
good food — but all that is changing.
There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma
you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice
to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant,
and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send
recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets,
ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably
cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the
deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in
the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what
is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see
if it was impossible only after you are done.
When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about
the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at
the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t
pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet
the people who are working to restore this earth and the
lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got
a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary
people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable
odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice,
and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote,
“So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those
who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary
power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better
description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the
world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms,
jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refugee camps,
deserts, fisheries, and slums.
You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows
how many groups and organizations are working on the
most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty,
deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human
rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has
ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather
than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of
power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and
gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size
of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning
to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea,
not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants,
businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists,
ores, and certain aquifers.
Systems thinking: A way of approaching problems
that focuses on how various elements within a system
— which could be an ecosystem, an organization, or
something more dispersed such as a supply chain —
are related to and influence one another.
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
14
government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students,
incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers,
poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street
musicians, the President of the United States of America,
and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the
Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.
There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is
ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then
see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from
the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s
willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover,
reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what
you had to do, and began, though the voices around you
kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description
of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of
connectedness to the living world.
Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers,
even if the evening news is usually about the death of
strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even
mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots.
Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and
global movement to defend the rights of those they did not
know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except
on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were
largely unknown — Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah
Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of
it: at that time three out of four people in the world were
enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings
had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was
greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed
the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders,
meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the
economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first
time in history a group of people organized themselves to
help people they would never know, from whom they would
never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of
millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of
non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship,
non-governmental organizations, and companies who place
social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic
goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled
in history.
The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in
your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of
biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are
conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future
economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes
without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people
without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed
regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only
species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We
have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy
earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it.
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print
life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the
future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic
product. We can just as easily have an economy that is
based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can
either create assets for the future or take the assets of the
future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation.
And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and
cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to
get rich, it is a way to be rich.
The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million
centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our
bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this
very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa,
and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are
inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell
is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of
you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not
human cells. Your body is a community, and without those
other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each
human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions
of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular
activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion
actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros
after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times
more processes than there are stars in the universe, which
is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said
science would discover that each living creature was a “little
universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms,
inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars
of heaven.”
So I have two questions for you all: First, can you
feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One
septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your
body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder
instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called
life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge
of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully
not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that
are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our
innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive
to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively
humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming
together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if
the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one
would sleep that night, of course. The world would create
new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious,
made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come
out every night and we watch television.
This extraordinary time when we are globally aware
of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten
civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years,
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and
beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done
great things and we have gone way off course in terms of
honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing,
stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The
generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night.
They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a
miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons
you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss.
The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not
DEFINITIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainable development is meeting the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.
— Our Common Future, UN World Commission on
Environment and Development
Sustainability is equity over time. As a value, it refers
to giving equal weight in your decisions to the future as
well as the present. You might think of it as extending
the Golden Rule through time, so that you do unto
future generations (as well as to your present fellow
beings) as you would have them do unto you.
— Robert Gilman, Director, Context Institute
Sustainability is human consumption based on
biospheric production or, using the Earth’s resources at
a rate slower than they regenerate.
— Jim Merkel, founder of the Alternative Transportation
Task Force and author of Radical Simplicity
Sustainability is the possibility that humans and
other life flourish on Earth forever. Possibility is
only a word about bringing forth out of nothingness
something we desire to become present, but possibility
may be the most powerful word in our language
because it enables us to visualize and strive for a
future that is not available to us in the present. …
Sustainability is ultimately a story about a world of
flourishing and care.
— John Ehrenfeld, director of the International Society
for Industrial Ecology
Sustainability is part of a trend to… consider
the whole instead of the specific. Sustainability
emphasizes relationships rather than pieces in
isolation… . Sustainability is not at all about regressing
to primitive living conditions. It is about understanding
our situation, and developing as communities in ways
that are equitable, and that make sense ecologically
and economically.
— Center for Sustainable Communities
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
15
the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make
sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if
your life depends on it.
Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental
activist, and author of many books, including Blessed Unrest: How
the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No
One Saw It Coming (2007). He was presented with an honorary
doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill
Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May 2009, when he delivered this speech at
the University of Portland. www.paulhawken.com
Activities are sustainable when they:
• use materials in continuing cycles,
• use continuously reliable sources of energy,
• come mainly from the potentials of being human, i.e.,
communication, creativity, coordination, appreciation,
and spiritual and intellectual development.
Activities are non-sustainable when they:
• require continual inputs of
non-renewable resources,
• use renewable
resources faster
than their rate
of renewal,
• cause
cumulative
degradation
of the
environment,
• require
resources in
quantities that
could never be
sustainable for all
people,
• lead to the extinction of
other life forms.
— M. Nickerson, coordinator, Guideposts for a
Sustainable Future Project
Watch Use of the Term Sustainability —
Native Perspectives at http://bit.ly/OiWtJ5.
In this video, Larry Merculieff (Aleut) critiques the
use and meaning of the term “sustainability,” and he
speaks to the potential for human beings to draw upon
our inherent intelligence to live in alignment with all
of creation.
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
16

Tell me: How did it come to pass that virtue — a quality that
for most of history has generally been deemed, well, a virtue
— became a mark of liberal softheadedness? How peculiar,
that doing the right thing by the environment — buying the
hybrid, eating like a locavore — should now set you up for
the Ed Begley Jr. treatment.
And even if in the face of this derision I decide I am going
to bother, there arises the whole vexed question of getting
it right. Is eating local or walking to work really going to
reduce my carbon footprint? [For example,] a handful of
studies have recently suggested that in certain cases under
certain conditions, produce from places as far away as New
Zealand might account for less carbon than comparable
WHY BOTHER? domestic products. True, at least one of these studies was
co-written by a representative of agribusiness interests in
by Michael Pollan (surprise!) New Zealand, but even so, they make you wonder.
If determining the carbon footprint of food is really this
Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as
complicated, and I’ve got to consider not only “food miles”
individuals hoping to do something about climate change,
but also whether the food came by ship or truck and how
and it’s not an easy one to answer. I don’t know about you,
lushly the grass grows in New Zealand, then maybe on
but for me the most upsetting moment in “An Inconvenient
second thought I’ll just buy the imported chops at Costco, at
Truth” came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me,
least until the experts get their footprints sorted out.
constructing an utterly convincing case that the very
There are so many stories we can tell ourselves to
survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by
justify doing nothing, but perhaps the most insidious is that,
climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the
whatever we do manage to do, it will be too little too late.
closing credits, when we are asked to . . . change our light
Climate change is upon us, and it has arrived well ahead of
bulbs. That’s when it got really depressing. The immense
schedule. Scientists’ projections that seemed dire a decade
disproportion between the magnitude of the problem Gore
ago turn out to have been unduly optimistic: the warming
had described and the puniness of what he was asking us to
and the melting is occurring much faster than the models
do about it was enough to sink your heart.
predicted. Now truly terrifying feedback loops threaten to
But the drop-in-the-bucket issue is not the only problem
boost the rate of change exponentially, as the shift from
lurking behind the “why bother” question. Let’s say I do
white ice to blue water in the Arctic absorbs more sunlight
bother, big time. I turn my life upside-down, start biking
and warming soils everywhere become more biologically
to work, plant a big garden, turn down the thermostat so
active, causing them to release their vast stores of carbon
low I need the Jimmy Carter signature cardigan, forsake
into the air. Have you looked into the eyes of a climate
the clothes dryer for a laundry line across the yard, trade
scientist recently? They look really scared.
in the station wagon for a hybrid, get off the beef, go
So do you still want to talk about planting gardens?
completely local. I could theoretically do all that, but what
I do.
would be the point when I know full well that halfway
Whatever we can do as individuals to change the way
around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-
we live at this suddenly very late date does seem utterly
footprint doppelgänger in Shanghai or Chongqing who
inadequate to the challenge. It’s hard to argue with Michael
has just bought his first car is eager to swallow every bite
Specter, in a recent New Yorker piece on carbon footprints,
of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace
when he says: “Personal choices, no matter how virtuous,
every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling no longer to emit. So
cannot do enough. It will also take laws and money.” So it
what exactly would I have to show for all my trouble?
will. Yet it is no less accurate or hardheaded to say that
A sense of personal virtue, you might suggest, somewhat
laws and money cannot do enough, either; that it will also
sheepishly. But what good is that when virtue itself is
take profound changes in the way we live. Why? Because
quickly becoming a term of derision? And not just on the
the climate-change crisis is at its very bottom a crisis of
editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal or on the lips
lifestyle — of character, even. The Big Problem is nothing
of the vice president, who famously dismissed energy
more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday
conservation as a “sign of personal virtue.” No, even in the
choices, most of them made by us (consumer spending
pages of The New York Times and The New Yorker, it seems
represents 70 percent of our economy), and most of the
the epithet “virtuous,” when applied to an act of personal
rest of them made in the name of our needs and desires
environmental responsibility, may be used only ironically.
and preferences.
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the
problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not
really serious about changing — something our politicians
cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do. Indeed,
to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand
schemes, to save us from our predicament represents
precisely the sort of thinking — passive, delegated,
dependent for solutions on specialists — that helped get us
into this mess in the first place. It’s hard to believe that the
same sort of thinking could now get us out of it.
Thirty years ago, Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer
and writer, put forward a blunt analysis of precisely this
mentality. He argued that the environmental crisis of the
1970s — an era innocent of climate change; what we would
give to have back that environmental crisis! — was at its
heart a crisis of character and would have to be addressed
first at that level: at home, as it were. He was impatient with
people who wrote checks to environmental organizations
while thoughtlessly squandering fossil fuel in their everyday
lives — the 1970s equivalent of people buying carbon
offsets to atone for their Tahoes and Durangos. Nothing was
likely to change until we healed the “split between what we
think and what we do.” For Berry, the “why bother” question
came down to a moral imperative: “Once our personal
connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to
choose: we can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty
and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort
to change the way we think and live.”
For Berry, the deep problem standing behind all the other
problems of industrial civilization is “specialization,” which
he regards as the “disease of the modern character.” Our
society assigns us a tiny number of roles: we’re producers
(of one thing) at work, consumers of a great many other
things the rest of the time, and then once a year or so
we vote as citizens. Virtually all of our needs and desires
we delegate to specialists of one kind or another — our
meals to agribusiness, health to the doctor, education
to the teacher, entertainment to the media, care for the
environment to the environmentalist, political action to
the politician.
As Adam Smith and many others have pointed out,
this division of labor has given us many of the blessings
of civilization. Specialization is what allows me to sit at
a computer thinking about climate change. Yet this same
division of labor obscures the lines of connection — and
responsibility — linking our everyday acts to their real-
world consequences, making it easy for me to overlook
the coal-fired power plant that is lighting my screen, or
the mountaintop in Kentucky that had to be destroyed
to provide the coal to that plant, or the streams running
crimson with heavy metals as a result.
Of course, what made this sort of specialization possible
in the first place was cheap energy. Cheap fossil fuel allows
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
17
us to pay distant others to process our food for us, to
entertain us and to (try to) solve our problems, with the
result that there is very little we know how to accomplish
for ourselves. Think for a moment of all the things you
suddenly need to do for yourself when the power goes
out — up to and including entertaining yourself. Think, too,
about how a power failure causes your neighbors — your
community — to suddenly loom so much larger in your life.
Cheap energy allowed us to leapfrog community by making
it possible to sell our specialty over great distances as
well as summon into our lives the specialties of countless
distant others.
Here’s the point: Cheap energy, which gives us climate
change, fosters precisely the mentality that makes dealing
with climate change in our own lives seem impossibly
difficult. Specialists ourselves, we can no longer imagine
anyone but an expert, or anything but a new technology
or law, solving our problems. Al Gore asks us to change
the light bulbs because he probably can’t imagine us doing
anything much more challenging, like, say, growing some
portion of our own food. We can’t imagine it, either, which is
probably why we prefer to cross our fingers and talk about
the promise of ethanol and nuclear power — new liquids and
electrons to power the same old cars and houses and lives.
The “cheap-energy mind,” as Wendell Berry called it, is
the mind that asks, “Why bother?” because it is helpless
to imagine — much less attempt — a different sort of
life, one less divided, less reliant. Since the cheap-energy
mind translates everything into money, its proxy, it prefers
to put its faith in market-based solutions — carbon taxes
and pollution-trading schemes. If we could just get the
incentives right, it believes, the economy will properly value
everything that matters and nudge our self-interest down
the proper channels. The best we can hope for is a greener
version of the old invisible hand. Visible hands it has no
use for.
But while some such grand scheme may well be
necessary, it’s doubtful that it will be sufficient or that it
will be politically sustainable before we’ve demonstrated to
ourselves that change is possible. Merely to give, to spend,
even to vote, is not to do, and there is so much that needs to
be done — without further delay. In the judgment of James
Hansen, the NASA climate scientist who began sounding the
alarm on global warming [over] 20 years ago, we have only 10
years left to start cutting — not just slowing — the amount
of carbon we’re emitting or face a “different planet.” Hansen
said this more than [six] years ago, however; [six] years have
gone by, and nothing of consequence has been done. So:
[four] years left to go and a great deal left to do.
Which brings us back to the “why bother” question and
how we might better answer it. The reasons not to bother
are many and compelling, at least to the cheap-energy mind.
But let me offer a few admittedly tentative reasons that we
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
18
might put on the other side of the scale:
If you do bother, you will set an example for other
people. If enough other people bother, each one influencing
yet another in a chain reaction of behavioral change,
markets for all manner of green products and alternative
technologies will prosper and expand. (Just look at the
market for hybrid cars.) Consciousness will be raised,
perhaps even changed: new moral imperatives and new
taboos might take root in the culture. Driving an S.U.V. or
eating a 24-ounce steak or illuminating your McMansion
like an airport runway at night might come to be regarded
as outrages to human conscience. Not having things might
become cooler than having them. And those who did change
the way they live would acquire the moral standing to
demand changes in behavior from others —
from other people, other corporations, even
other countries.
All of this could, theoretically, happen. What
I’m describing (imagining would probably be
more accurate) is a process of viral social
change, and change of this kind, which is
nonlinear, is never something anyone can plan
or predict or count on. Who knows, maybe the
virus will reach all the way to Chongqing and
infect my Chinese evil twin. Or not. Maybe
going green will prove a passing fad and will
lose steam after a few years, just as it did in the
1980s, whenRonald Reagan took down Jimmy Carter’s solar
panels from the roof of the White House.
Going personally green is a bet, nothing more or less,
though it’s one we probably all should make, even if the odds
of it paying off aren’t great. Sometimes you have to act as
if acting will make a difference, even when you can’t prove
that it will. That, after all, was precisely what happened in
Communist Czechoslovakia and Poland, when a handful of
individuals like Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik resolved
that they would simply conduct their lives “as if” they lived in
a free society. That improbable bet created a tiny space of
liberty that, in time, expanded to take in, and then help take
down, the whole of the Eastern bloc.
So what would be a comparable bet that the individual
might make in the case of the environmental crisis? Havel
himself has suggested that people begin to “conduct
themselves as if they were to live on this earth forever and
be answerable for its condition one day.” Fair enough, but
let me propose a slightly less abstract and daunting wager.
The idea is to find one thing to do in your life that doesn’t
involve spending or voting, that may or may not virally rock
the world but is real and particular (as well as symbolic)
and that, come what may, will offer its own rewards. Maybe
you decide to give up meat, an act that would reduce your
carbon footprint by as much as a quarter. Or you could try
this: determine to observe the Sabbath. For one day a week,
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
abstain completely from economic activity: no shopping, no
driving, no electronics.
But the act I want to talk about is growing some — even
just a little — of your own food. Rip out your lawn, if you
have one, and if you don’t — if you live in a high-rise, or have
a yard shrouded in shade — look into getting a plot in a
community garden. Measured against the Problem We Face,
planting a garden sounds pretty benign, I know, but in fact
it’s one of the most powerful things an individual can do —
to reduce your carbon footprint, sure, but more important,
to reduce your sense of dependence and dividedness: to
change the cheap-energy mind.
A great many things happen when you plant a vegetable
garden, some of them directly related to climate
change, others indirect but related nevertheless.
Growing food, we forget, comprises the original
solar technology: calories produced by means of
photosynthesis. Years ago the cheap-energy
mind discovered that more food could be
produced with less effort by replacing sunlight
with fossil-fuel fertilizers and pesticides, with
a result that the typical calorie of food energy
in your diet now requires about 10 calories of
fossil-fuel energy to produce. It’s estimated
that the way we feed ourselves (or rather, allow
ourselves to be fed) accounts for about a fifth of
the greenhouse gas for which each of us is responsible.
Yet the sun still shines down on your yard, and
photosynthesis still works so abundantly that in a
thoughtfully organized vegetable garden (one planted from
seed, nourished by compost from the kitchen and involving
not too many drives to the garden center), you can grow
the proverbial free lunch — CO2-free and dollar-free. This
is the most-local food you can possibly eat (not to mention
the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious), with a carbon
footprint so faint that even the New Zealand lamb council
dares not challenge it. And while we’re counting carbon,
consider too your compost pile, which shrinks the heap
of garbage your household needs trucked away even as it
feeds your vegetables and sequesters carbon in your soil.
What else? Well, you will probably notice that you’re getting
a pretty good workout there in your garden, burning calories
without having to get into the car to drive to the gym. (It
is one of the absurdities of the modern division of labor
that, having replaced physical labor with fossil fuel, we now
have to burn even more fossil fuel to keep our unemployed
bodies in shape.) Also, by engaging both body and mind, time
spent in the garden is time (and energy) subtracted from
electronic forms of entertainment.
You begin to see that growing even a little of your own
food is, as Wendell Berry pointed out 30 years ago, one
of those solutions that, instead of begetting a new set of
problems — the way “solutions” like ethanol or nuclear
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

power inevitably do — actually beget other solutions, and
not only of the kind that save carbon. Still more valuable
are the habits of mind that growing a little of your own food
can yield. You quickly learn that you need not be dependent
on specialists to provide for yourself — that your body is
still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its
own support. If the experts are right, if both oil and time
are running out, these are skills and habits of mind we’re
all very soon going to need. We may also need the food.
Could gardens provide it? Well, during World War II, victory
gardens supplied as much as 40 percent of the produce
Americans ate.
But there are sweeter reasons to plant that garden, to
bother. At least in this one corner of your yard and life, you
will have begun to heal the split between what you think
and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer
and producer and citizen. Chances are, your garden will
re-engage you with your neighbors, for you will have
produce to give away and the need to borrow their tools.
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
19
You will have reduced the power of the cheap-energy mind
by personally overcoming its most debilitating weakness: its
helplessness and the fact that it can’t do much of anything
that doesn’t involve division or subtraction. The garden’s
season-long transit from seed to ripe fruit —  will you get
a load of that zucchini?! — suggests that the operations of
addition and multiplication still obtain, that the abundance
of nature is not exhausted. The single greatest lesson the
garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need
not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and
people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we
bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without
diminishing the world.
This article originally appeared in the April 20, 2008 edition of The
New York Times Magazine. Michael Pollan is a contributing writer
to The New York Times Magazine and is the Knight Professor
of Journalism at UC Berkeley. His newest book is Food Rules:
An Eater’s Manual (2009).
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
20
ADVICE FROM AN ACCIDENTAL ACTIVIST —
HOW A REGULAR GUY
FOUND SOME SUPER POWER
by Colin Beavan
So many of us have good ideas for helping the world. But
we tuck our ideas away. I did. I’d tell myself that if the idea
were any good someone else would have already done it.
That I’m not capable of making a difference. I’d sit on my
ideas, get on with my “life,” and then feel angry at the world
because the problems I cared about didn’t get solved.
I had that fear of going first.
Then I took my first hapless step into what I call
accidental activism. In 2006, I started a project where
I lived as environmentally as possible for a year — with my
little family, on the ninth floor of an apartment building in
the middle of New York City — to attract attention to the
world’s environmental, economic, and quality of life crises.
I had no experience as an activist. Yet suddenly my
project caught fire.
My book and film, both titled No Impact Man, ended
up being translated into 20-plus languages. Some
philanthropists appeared and offered me funding to hire
consultants to get NoImpactProject.org off the ground.
About 20,000 people have now participated in our
educational immersion program, No Impact Week.
And how have I felt through all this?
Like a deer in the headlights.
How am I supposed to stand up to all this? Surely
people can see how selfish and shortsighted I am? That
I’m sometimes mean to my family? People like me aren’t
supposed to do things like this. We’re supposed to wait for
people who have their acts together, and follow them.
But if we wait for those people, we’re done for.
There are a lot of people who know way more about
activism and citizen engagement than me. I’m pretty
ordinary. Frankly, I don’t even always want to be of service.
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
But I’ve now learned a lot about how to be an ordinary
person, filled with self-doubt, who still takes the risk of
trying to do something about the world. Maybe you’re like
me. And maybe the things that have helped me will help
you, too.
BE STUPID ENOUGH TO TAKE THE FIRST STEP
My first step was just to begin living with the lowest
possible environmental impact. A few people said
I was “too stupid to know that one person can’t make a
difference.” Think on this story (with apologies for high
schmaltz quotient):
Two frogs — one very smart and one very stupid — are
caught in a bowl of cream. The sides are too steep to climb
and they have no foothold to jump. The stupid one begins to
swim as hard and fast as he can. The smart one looks over
and says to himself, “He’s too stupid to know that all that
effort will make no difference.” 
Having weighed the hopelessness of the situation, the
smart one decides that the most intelligent thing is to give
up. So — Blub! — he drowns. The stupid one keeps trying.
Just when his legs are about to give out the cream starts to
get thicker. His struggling has churned the cream to butter.
He’s surprised to find himself on solid ground. He jumps out.
By stupidly pursuing the first step (swimming), the second
step (jumping out) appeared, as if by magic.
The question is not whether you can make a difference.
The question is, do you want to be the person who tries?
Do you want to be like the smart frog, who relies on the
brain that tells him there is no solution, or the stupid frog,
whose heart tells him to try anyway?
Maybe you care about food deserts and kids not having
access to good food, or maybe it’s incarceration of local
youth, or maybe, like me, you worry about inaction on
climate change. Whatever it is, pick up your placard or call
your senator or gather your friends. Don’t worry about
the second step. Just be too stupid to know the first step
won’t work.
USE YOUR PERSONAL STORY TO
INSPIRE A MOVEMENT
Part of the reason one person can make a difference
is that one person’s efforts soon inspire other people’s
efforts. So inspire other people to get involved by sharing
your personal story. Not just the story, say, of the hungry
children in the Global South who you are trying to help, but
your own story.
In No Impact Man, I share stories of how I tried to keep
my food fresh without a refrigerator, how I had to eat
mostly cabbage in the winter, and how I washed my laundry
by hand. People didn’t suddenly realize that they, too, should
hand-wash their clothes. Instead, they learned, not that they
should make a difference — which statistics and figures tell
us — but that they can make a difference — which personal
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

stories have the power to tell.
It is through the personal that people connect with
the political.
No matter what your cause, look for the powerful,
personal story about how you got involved and how being
involved has improved your life in some way. I’ve heard
it said we shouldn’t have to tell these stories — that
people should automatically care. The thing is, once they
know, people do care. The problem is that they are often
overwhelmed by it. So the job is not to shove information at
them that makes them feel guilty for not doing something.
The job is to give them a story that shows them how to
do something.
GET OFF THE INTERNET AND INTO REAL LIFE
Back in the ’60s, a string of civil rights sit-ins began when
four students from a black college in North Carolina sat
down at a whites-only Woolworth lunch counter. In the end,
about 70,000 students participated in sit-ins that spread
across the state. As Malcolm Gladwell points out in a recent
New Yorker article, the action didn’t start with lots of
Twitter followers. It started with lots of flesh-and-blood (as
opposed to Facebook) friends.
The strong social bonds and long-standing mutual trust
gave those first four students the bravery to stand up
for themselves. Gladwell says that the strong ties of real
friendship and community — not the weak ties of the virtual
world — are necessary to make us feel supported enough to
take meaningful risks for our values.
I ran a blog at NoImpactMan.com and many thousands of
people came there to discuss their views on and methods
of environmental living. It was a good thing. In the absence
of real-life communities of shared environmental values,
the blog provided a lot of people with some measure of
community support. But the stronger, more action-oriented
communities are formed in my work when people come
together for our No Impact Weeks.
One of the most accomplished friendship-based
communities I am familiar with, 350.org, the grassroots
climate organization, began with a group of students who
lived together at college and then in the Bay Area. They
have grown their little house party into an international
organization of hundreds of thousands of climate activists.
They use the Web to aggregate the actions of thousands of
friendship-based groups. But the point is the actions taken
by small communities of friends or neighbors — not the
information sharing.
So use the Internet, of course. But use it to get people to
“One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices
around you kept shouting their bad advice.”
— Mary Oliver
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
21
do things in real life. What if the many hours spent leaving
angry comments on the Huffington Post were instead spent
gathering once a week in a coffee shop. Sooner or later, real
action — as opposed to real, um, clicks — might occur. Get
people to come together. They need each other.
TRUST YOUR VISION
So you have your idea, you’ve taken your first step, you’ve
gathered like-minded people, and now you have a little
bit of energy and success. Great news! This is when the
critics and second-guessers arrive. That’s a reason for not
getting started in the first place, right? Nobody bothers to
second-guess you when you’re just fantasizing about your
great idea.
I suddenly found myself invited to go on Good Morning
America with Diane Sawyer. As they say: WTF? I was
horrified. I’m sure I had an overinflated sense of my own
importance, but I was worried I could send people in the
wrong direction.
I had no real endorsement other than — again — my
own trust in my intentions. I had to go on national television
trusting in myself and my vision.
Absolutely the hardest thing of all was this: I had to
accept that I might be wrong and do it anyway.
Sadly, lots of arguments break out in activist
communities about best methods. People tear each other
apart as though the scenario is either/or when really it’s
and/also. We need many shoulders against many doors.
What I’ve learned as I’ve come to meet so many amazing
engaged citizens is that it takes many different strategies
and many different styles to make the changes we’re
hoping for.
So trust your vision. You may find that the biggest
sacrifice you can make for the world is to face the
possibility of being publicly wrong. And to move
forward anyway.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF
Once you get involved in this kind of work, the pressures
mount — many of them from within rather than without.
We need to take care of both the insides and the outsides.
I started by saying you just need to take the first step, but
this step is just as important. If you can’t sustain yourself,
you can’t sustain your work.
No Impact Man, in many ways, began as an extension of
my meditation practice. A lot of the confidence I needed
came from inklings of understanding of the Truth —
whatever the hell that is. And of Service. But while I was
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
22

making time for TV appearances and press interviews and

rallies and favors and guest appearances on blogs I lost time
for my meditation.
Then anxiety arrived. And depression. I was running on
fumes. I was draining the battery without charging it. The
good news is that I am back to my regular practice. I feel
better. Of course, I’m not saying you should necessarily
meditate, just that you need to find what suits you to take
care of your insides.
About the outsides: A couple of years ago, after so many
TV interviews and radio interviews and international press
appearances (and, by the way, repeatedly having to face
accusers who said I was trying to get rich from the world’s
problems), I looked at my bank balance and saw I had about
$200 left — about $3,000 less than my monthly nut. I’d
been working all my waking hours on what I believed in and
couldn’t take care of myself. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to
change much (like, I began to ask to get paid when someone
asked me to make a speech) but I did have to face my guilt
and confront my monkish self-image. There is a meme in our
culture: You can be a monk or a merchant. Monks do good
and merchants make money. If you make any money — if
you find a way to take care of your outsides — you can’t be
an ascetic monk, and you’re not really doing good.
 Imagine, though, if we create a new meme. What if we
show each other how wonderfully well we’re managing as a
result of taking our ideas for social change and running with
them? What if we bragged about outperforming the bankers
every so often? EASTER’S END
But even if we don’t get the chance to do that, we should
at least make good homes out of our lives. Without loving by Jared Diamond
ourselves, the love for others will wither. By taking the Among the most riveting mysteries of human history
burden of the world on our shoulders, we leave no room for are those posed by vanished civilizations. Everyone who
the strength of others. In other words, have fun! has seen the abandoned buildings of the Khmer, the
After all, the world isn’t worth saving if there isn’t time Maya, or the Anasazi is immediately moved to ask the
for joking around. same question: Why did the societies that erected those
Besides, we might as well enjoy ourselves when you structures disappear? 
realize how much work there is to get done. With two wars Their vanishing touches us as the disappearance of
in progress, melting ice caps, and an economic system other animals, even the dinosaurs, never can. No matter
teetering on the brink of collapse, there just isn’t time to how exotic those lost civilizations seem, their framers were
wait for some guru or leader to give us permission to act on humans like us. Who is to say we won’t succumb to the same
our good ideas. fate? Perhaps someday New York’s skyscrapers will stand
Who’s going to fix things if it isn’t us? I can’t help thinking derelict and overgrown with vegetation, like the temples at
that the time has come for us to take back our culture. It’s Angkor Wat and Tikal. 
time for every citizen with a good idea to get to work, to Among all such vanished civilizations, that of the
trust yourself, to start. Sooner or later you have to accept former Polynesian society on Easter Island remains
the fact that you need no other authority than your good unsurpassed in mystery and isolation. The mystery stems
intentions and your loving heart. especially from the island’s gigantic stone statues and its
Colin Beavan wrote this article for Can Animals Save Us?, the impoverished landscape.
Spring 2011 issue of YES! Magazine. Colin speaks widely to My friend David Steadman, a paleontologist, has been
audiences around the country. He is founder of the No Impact working with a number of other researchers who are
Project. The paperback edition of his book No Impact Man was carrying out the first systematic excavations on Easter
published in 2010 by Picador. intended to identify the animals and plants that once lived

Session 1/A Call to Sustainability NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


there. Their work is contributing to a new interpretation of
the island’s history that makes it a tale not only of wonder
but of warning as well.  visit have discovered no trace of the islanders’ having any
Easter Island, with an area of only 64 square miles, is
the world’s most isolated scrap of habitable land. It lies
in the Pacific Ocean more than 2,000 miles west of the
nearest continent (South America), 1,400 miles from even
the nearest habitable island (Pitcairn). Its subtropical
location and latitude help give it a rather mild climate,
while its volcanic origins make its soil fertile. In theory,
this combination of blessings should have made Easter a
miniature paradise, remote from problems that beset the
rest of the world.  ancient roads between the quarries and the coast, as if the
The island derives its name from its discovery by the
Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, on Easter (April 5) in 1722.
Roggeveen’s first impression was not of a paradise but of
a wasteland: “its wasted appearance could give no other
impression than of a singular poverty and barrenness. “
The island Roggeveen saw was a grassland without a
single tree or bush over ten feet high. Modern botanists
have identified only 47 species of higher plants native
to Easter, most of them grasses, sedges, and ferns. The
list includes just two species of small trees and two of
woody shrubs. With such flora, the islanders Roggeveen
encountered had no source of real firewood to warm
themselves during Easter’s cool, wet, windy winters. Their
native animals included nothing larger than insects, not even
a single species of native bat, land bird, land snail, or lizard.
For domestic animals, they had only chickens.  the giant statues for miles, even before
European visitors throughout the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
estimated Easter’s human population
at about 2,000, a modest number
considering the island’s fertility. Despite
the Polynesians’ well-deserved fame as
a great seafaring people, the Easter
Islanders who came out to Roggeveen’s
and Cook’s ships did so by swimming or
paddling canoes that Roggeveen described
as “bad and frail.” Their craft, he wrote,
were “put together with manifold small
planks and light inner timbers, which they
cleverly stitched together with very
fine twisted threads. . . . But as they
lack the knowledge and particularly
the materials for caulking and making
tight the great number of seams of the
canoes, these are accordingly very leaky,
for which reason they are compelled to spend half the time
in bailing.”
With such flimsy craft, Polynesians could never have
colonized Easter from even the nearest island, nor could
they have traveled far offshore to fish. The islanders
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
23
Roggeveen met were totally isolated, unaware that other
people existed. Investigators in all the years since his
outside contacts. Yet the people living on Easter claimed
memories of visiting the uninhabited Sala y Gomez reef 260
miles away, far beyond the range of the leaky canoes seen
by Roggeveen. How did the islanders’ ancestors reach that
reef from Easter, or reach Easter from anywhere else? 
Easter Island’s most famous feature is its huge stone
statues, more than 200 of which once stood on massive
stone platforms lining the coast. At least 700 more, in all
stages of completion, were abandoned in quarries or on
carvers and moving crews had thrown down their tools and
walked off the job. Most of the erected statues were carved
in a single quarry and then somehow transported as far as
six miles — despite heights as great as 33 feet and weights
up to 82 tons. The abandoned statues, meanwhile, were as
much as 65 feet tall and weighed up to 270 tons.
Roggeveen himself quickly recognized the problem the
statues posed: “The stone images at first caused us to be
struck with astonishment,” he wrote, “because we could not
comprehend how it was possible that these people, who
are devoid of heavy thick timber for making any machines,
as well as strong ropes, nevertheless had been able to
erect such images.” Roggeveen might have added that the
islanders had no wheels, no draft animals, and no source of
power except their own muscles. How did they transport
erecting them? To deepen the mystery, the
statues were still standing in 1770, but by 1864
all of them had been pulled down, by the
islanders themselves. Why then did they
carve them in the first place? And why
did they stop? 
The fanciful theories of the past
must give way to evidence gathered
by hardworking practitioners in three
fields: archeology, pollen analysis,
and paleontology. The earliest
radiocarbon dates associated with
human activities are around A.D.
400 to 700, in reasonable agreement
with the approximate settlement
date of 400 estimated by linguists.
The period of statue construction
peaked around 1200 to 1500, with
few if any statues erected thereafter.
Densities of archeological sites suggest a large
population; an estimate of 7,000 people is widely quoted by
archeologists, but other estimates range up to 20,000.
Archeologists have also enlisted surviving islanders in
experiments aimed at figuring out how the statues might
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
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have been carved and erected. Twenty people, using only
stone chisels, could have carved even the largest completed
statue within a year. Given enough timber and fiber for
making ropes, teams of at most a few hundred people could
have loaded the statues onto wooden sleds, dragged them
over lubricated wooden tracks or rollers, and used logs as
levers to maneuver them into a standing position. Rope
could have been made from the fiber of a small native tree,
related to the linden, called the hauhau. However, that tree
is now extremely scarce on Easter, and hauling one statue
would have required hundreds of yards of rope. Did Easter’s
now barren landscape once support the necessary trees?  Such evidence lets us imagine the island onto which
That question can be answered by the technique of
pollen analysis, which involves boring out a column of
sediment from a swamp or pond, with the most recent
deposits at the top and relatively more ancient deposits at
the bottom. The absolute age of each layer can be dated by
radiocarbon methods. Then begins the hard work: examining
tens of thousands of pollen grains under a microscope,
counting them, and identifying the plant species that
produced each one by comparing the grains with modern
pollen from known plant species.
[From this analysis, a] striking new picture that emerged
of Easter’s prehistoric landscape. For at least 30,000
years before human arrival and during the early years of
Polynesian settlement, Easter was not a wasteland at all.
Instead, a subtropical forest of trees and woody bushes
towered over a ground layer of shrubs, herbs, ferns, and
grasses. In the forest grew tree daisies, the rope- yielding
hauhau tree, and the toromiro tree, which furnishes a dense,
mesquite-like firewood. The most common tree in the forest
was a species of palm now absent on Easter but formerly
so abundant that the bottom strata of the sediment column
were packed with its pollen. The Easter Island palm was
closely related to the still-surviving Chilean wine palm,
which grows up to 82 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter. The
tall, unbranched trunks of the Easter Island palm would
have been ideal for transporting and erecting statues and
constructing large canoes. The palm would also have been a
valuable food source, since its Chilean relative yields edible
nuts as well as sap from which Chileans make sugar, syrup,
honey, and wine.  its tree species extinct.
Recent excavations by David Steadman have yielded a
picture of Easter’s original animal world as surprising as the
picture of its plant world. Easter is too cool for the coral
reefs beloved by fish, and its cliff-girded coastline permits
shallow-water fishing in only a few places. Less than a
quarter of the bones in its early garbage heaps (from the
period 900 to 1300) belonged to fish; instead, nearly one-
third of all bones came from porpoises.  constructing the big seagoing canoes no longer existed. The
On Easter, porpoises would have been the largest animal
available — other than humans. The porpoise species
identified at Easter, the common dolphin, weighs up to 165
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
pounds. It generally lives out at sea, so it could not have
been hunted by line fishing or spearfishing from shore.
Instead, it must have been harpooned far offshore, in big
seaworthy canoes built from the extinct palm tree. 
In addition to porpoise meat, Steadman found, the early
Polynesian settlers were feasting on seabirds. For those
birds, Easter’s remoteness and lack of predators made
it an ideal haven as a breeding site, at least until humans
arrived. With at least 25 nesting species, Easter was the
richest seabird breeding site in Polynesia and probably in
the whole Pacific. 
Easter’s first Polynesian colonists stepped ashore some
1,600 years ago, after a long canoe voyage from eastern
Polynesia. They found themselves in a pristine paradise.
What then happened to it? The pollen grains and the bones
yield a grim answer. 
Pollen records show that destruction of Easter’s forests
was well under way by the year 800, just a few centuries
after the start of human settlement. Then charcoal from
wood fires came to fill the sediment cores, while pollen
of palms and other trees and woody shrubs decreased or
disappeared, and pollen of the grasses that replaced the
forest became more abundant. Not long after 1400 the
palm finally became extinct, not only as a result of being
chopped down but also because the now ubiquitous rats
prevented its regeneration: of the dozens of preserved palm
nuts discovered in caves on Easter, all had been chewed by
rats and could no longer germinate. While the hauhau tree
did not become extinct in Polynesian times, its numbers
declined drastically until there weren’t enough left to make
ropes from.
The fifteenth century marked the end not only for
Easter’s palm but for the forest itself. Its doom had been
approaching as people cleared land to plant gardens; as
they felled trees to build canoes, to transport and erect
statues, and to burn; as rats devoured seeds; and probably
as the native birds died out that had pollinated the trees’
flowers and dispersed their fruit. The overall picture is
among the most extreme examples of forest destruction
anywhere in the world: the whole forest gone, and most of
 
The destruction of the island’s animals was as extreme
as that of the forest: without exception, every species
of native land bird became extinct. Even shellfish were
overexploited, until people had to settle for small sea snails
instead of larger cowries. Porpoise bones disappeared
abruptly from garbage heaps around 1500; no one could
harpoon porpoises anymore, since the trees used for
colonies of more than half of the seabird species breeding
on Easter or on its offshore islets were wiped out. 
In place of these meat supplies, the Easter Islanders
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

intensified their production of chickens, which had been
only an occasional food item. They also turned to the largest
remaining meat source available: humans, whose bones
became common in late Easter Island garbage heaps. Oral
traditions of the islanders are rife with cannibalism; the
most inflammatory taunt that could be snarled at an enemy
was “The flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth.”
With no wood available to cook these new goodies, the
islanders resorted to sugarcane scraps, grass, and sedges
to fuel their fires.  one-quarter and one-tenth of its former number. People
All these strands of evidence can be wound into a
coherent narrative of a society’s decline and fall. The first
Polynesian colonists found themselves on an island with
fertile soil, abundant food, bountiful building materials, and
all the prerequisites for comfortable living. They prospered
and multiplied.  we ask ourselves, Why didn’t they look around, realize what
After a few centuries, they began erecting stone statues
on platforms, like the ones their Polynesian forebears had
carved. With passing years, the statues and platforms
became larger and larger, and the statues began sporting
ten-ton red crowns — probably in an escalating spiral of
one-upmanship, as rival clans tried to surpass each other
with shows of wealth and power.
Eventually Easter’s growing population was cutting the
forest more rapidly than the forest was regenerating. The
people used the land for gardens and the wood for fuel,
canoes, and houses — and, of course, for lugging statues.
As forest disappeared, the islanders ran out of timber and
rope to transport and erect their statues. Life became more
uncomfortable — springs and streams dried up, and wood
was no longer available for fires.  are starting to grow back again on this abandoned garden
People also found it harder to fill their stomachs, as land
birds, large sea snails, and many seabirds disappeared.
Because timber for building seagoing canoes vanished,
fish catches declined and porpoises disappeared from the
table. Crop yields also declined, since deforestation allowed
the soil to be eroded by rain and wind, dried by the sun,
and its nutrients to be leeched from it. Intensified chicken
production and cannibalism replaced only part of all those
lost foods. Preserved statuettes with sunken cheeks and
visible ribs suggest that people were starving.  By now the meaning of Easter Island for us should be
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
25
With the disappearance of food surpluses, Easter Island
could no longer feed the chiefs, bureaucrats, and priests
who had kept a complex society running. Surviving islanders
described to early European visitors how local chaos
replaced centralized government and a warrior class took
over from the hereditary chiefs. The stone points of spears
and daggers, made by the warriors during their heyday in the
1600s and 1700s, still litter the ground of Easter today. By
around 1700, the population began to crash toward between
took to living in caves for protection against their enemies.
Around 1770 rival clans started to topple each other’s
statues, breaking the heads off. By 1864 the last statue had
been thrown down and desecrated. 
As we try to imagine the decline of Easter’s civilization,
they were doing, and stop before it was too late? What were
they thinking when they cut down the last palm tree? 
I suspect, though, that the disaster happened not with a
bang but with a whimper. The forest the islanders depended
on for rollers and rope didn’t simply disappear one day — it
vanished slowly, over decades. Perhaps war interrupted the
moving teams; perhaps by the time the carvers had finished
their work, the last rope snapped. In the meantime, any
islander who tried to warn about the dangers of progressive
deforestation would have been overridden by vested
interests of carvers, bureaucrats, and chiefs, whose jobs
depended on continued deforestation. The changes in forest
cover from year to year would have been hard to detect:
yes, this year we cleared those woods over there, but trees
site here. Only older people, recollecting their childhoods
decades earlier, could have recognized a difference.
Gradually trees became fewer, smaller, and less
important. By the time the last fruit-bearing adult palm tree
was cut, palms had long since ceased to be of economic
significance. That left only smaller and smaller palm
saplings to clear each year, along with other bushes and
treelets. No one would have noticed the felling of the last
small palm. 
Session 1/A Call to Sustainability
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chillingly obvious. Easter Island is Earth writ small. Today,

again, a rising population confronts shrinking resources. We
too have no emigration valve, because all human societies
are linked by international transport, and we can no more
escape into space than the Easter Islanders could flee into
the ocean. If we continue to follow our present course, we
shall have exhausted the world’s major fisheries, tropical
rain forests, fossil fuels, and much of our soil by the time my
sons reach my current age. 
Every day newspapers report details of famished SYSTEMS THINKING
countries — Afghanistan, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone,
Systems thinking is a way of approaching problems
Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Zaire — where soldiers
that asks how various elements within a system — which
have appropriated the wealth or where central government
could be an ecosystem, an organization, or something more
is yielding to local gangs of thugs. With the risk of nuclear
dispersed such as a supply chain — influence one another.
war receding, the threat of our ending with a bang no longer
Rather than reacting to individual problems that arise,
has a chance of galvanizing us to halt our course. Our risk
a systems thinker will ask about relationships to other
now is of winding down, slowly, in a whimper. Corrective
activities within the system, look for patterns over time, and
action is blocked by vested interests, by well-intentioned
seek root causes.
political and business leaders, and by their electorates, all of
As a complement to the materials in Choices for
whom are perfectly correct in not noticing big changes from
Sustainable Living, you are invited to try out a simple but
year to year. Instead, each year there are just somewhat
powerful systems thinking tool to see if it can help you find
more people, and somewhat fewer resources, on Earth. 
new insight into a topic that is of particular interest to you.
It would be easy to close our eyes or to give up in despair.
If mere thousands of Easter Islanders with only stone A SYSTEMS THINKING MODEL: THE ICEBERG
tools and their own muscle power sufficed to destroy
“...we are not seeing a new world, but rather our old world
their society, how can billions of people with metal tools
through new eyes. “
and machine power fail to do worse? But there is one
One systems thinking model that is helpful for
crucial difference. The Easter Islanders had no books and
understanding global issues is the iceberg model. We know
no histories of other doomed societies. Unlike the Easter
that an iceberg has only 10 percent of its total mass above
Islanders, we have histories of the past — information that
the water while 90 percent is underwater. But that 90
can save us. My main hope for my sons’ generation is that
percent is what the ocean currents act on, and what creates
we may now choose to learn from the fates of societies
the iceberg’s behavior at its tip. Global issues can be viewed
like Easter’s.
in this same way.
This article appeared in Discover magazine, August 1995. Edited
by the Northwest Earth Institute. Jared Diamond is the author LEVELS OF THINKING
of Collapse and Guns, Germs, and Steel and is a professor of 1. The Event Level
physiology at the UCLA School of Medicine. The event level is the level at which we typically perceive
the world, for instance, waking up one morning to find we

Video for Discussion: WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM by Steven Johnson
Before you meet to discuss Session One, watch this video from
Steven Johnson together or individually:
http://bit.ly/aiyr9d
In this four-minute video, Steven Johnson addresses the universal
questions: What sparks the flash of brilliance? How does
groundbreaking innovation happen? Answering in his infectious,
culturally omnivorous style, using his fluency in fields from
neurobiology to popular culture, Johnson provides the complete,
exciting, and encouraging story of how we generate the ideas
that push our careers, our lives, our society, and our culture forward.

Session 1/A Call to Sustainability NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

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have caught a cold. While problems observed at the event
level can often be addressed with a simple readjustment,
the iceberg model pushes us not to assume that every issue
can be solved by simply treating the symptom or adjusting
at the event level.
2. The Pattern Level
If we look just below the event level, we often notice
patterns. Similar events have been taking place over time
— we may have been catching more colds when we haven’t
been resting enough. Observing patterns allows us to
forecast and forestall events.
3. The Structure Level
Below the pattern level lies the structure level. When we
ask, “What is causing the pattern we are observing?” the
answer is usually some kind of structure. Increased stress
at work due to the new promotion policy, the habit of eating
poorly when under stress, or the inconvenient location
of healthy food sources could all be structures at play in
our catching a cold. According to Professor John Gerber,
structures can include the following:
1. Physical things — like vending machines, roads,
traffic lights or terrain.
2. Organizations — like corporations, governments,
and schools.
3. Policies — like laws, regulations, and tax structures.
4. Ritual — habitual behaviors so ingrained, they are
not conscious.
4. The Mental Model Level
Mental models are the attitudes, beliefs, morals,
expectations, and values that allow structures to continue
functioning as they are. These are the beliefs that we often
learn subconsciously from our society or family and are
likely unaware of. Mental models that could be involved in us
catching a cold could include: a belief that career is deeply
important to our identity, that healthy food is too expensive,
or that rest is for the unmotivated.
PUTTING THE LEVELS TOGETHER
Take a look at the diagram below to see the Iceberg
Model applied to an instance of catching a cold.

THE ICEBERG
A Tool for Guiding Systemic Thinking

EVENTS React
What just happened?
Catching a cold.

PATTERNS/TRENDS Anticipate
What trends have there been over time?
I’ve been catching more colds
when sleeping less.

UNDERLYING STRUCTURES Design

What has influenced the patterns?
What are the relationships between the parts?
More stress at work, not eating well, difficulty
accessing healthy food near home or work.

MENTAL MODELS Transform

What assumptions, beliefs and values do people hold
about the system? What beliefs keep the system in place?
Career is the most important piece of our identity,
healthy food is too expensive, rest is for the unmotivated.

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GIVE IT A TRY! QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER AFTER

As you go through the course, select an environmental
event that strikes you as urgent, important, or interesting.
Write the event (what is observable about the event) at the
top of the blank iceberg below and work your way down
through the patterns, underlying systems and mental
models, adding as many as you can think of. It can also be
useful to move up and down between levels as you think
more about the event. Events to start with could include:
the inclusion of a favorite animal on the Endangered
Species list, the selection of food at a local supermarket,
a problem encountered on public transit recently, or any
other events you find significant.
TRYING OUT THE ICEBERG MODEL
1. Does the iceberg model help broaden your perspective?
If so, how might this new perspective be helpful?
2. Consider the concept of entry, or “leverage” points. These
are points at which to intervene in a system that could
lead to systemic transformation. Does the exercise
show you any new entry points at which you are inspired
to intervene?
3. What issues that have frustrated you might be
interesting to analyze with the Iceberg Model?
Adapted from:
• Escalated Thinking. See http://escalatedthinking.com/tools_
systems_thinking_iceberg.html

THE ICEBERG
A Tool for Guiding Systemic Thinking

EVENTS React
What just happened?

PATTERNS/TRENDS Anticipate
What trends have there been over time?

UNDERLYING STRUCTURES Design

What has influenced the patterns?
What are the relationships between the parts?

MENTAL MODELS Transform

What assumptions, beliefs and values do people hold
about the system? What beliefs keep the system in place?

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S E S S I O N 2

ECOLOGICAL
PRINCIPLES
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web,
we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
— Chief Seattle

SESSION GOALS SESSION BACKGROUND

• To explore ecological principles as the foundation
of sustainability.
• To become acquainted with some of the environmental
issues we currently face.
• To consider how to further align our behavior with
ecological principles.
“Everything is connected” sounds like a tired platitude,
but it is an accurate description of the systems that enable
all Earthlings to remain alive. Even though we won’t even
try to address “everything” in this session, it will be the
heaviest session in this course when it comes to concepts
and data. Unfortunately the data aren’t all that positive, so
this session may also be somewhat depressing. Imagine this
session as the way up a roller coaster — we promise that
the rest of the course will be much easier and that more
positive readings will follow!

SUGGESTED GROUP ACTIVITY

• Brainstorm in your group ways you can influence policy to lessen the impact of pollution in places like Sequoia
National Park or a river or park close to you that is contaminated (e.g. writing a group letter to your politicians
and/or newspaper; sharing the information with all your internet connections, etc.).
• The Water Footprint Calculator at National Geographic (http://on.natgeo.com/arudbn) allows you to see how
much water your lifestyle uses. Categories include home, diet, energy and stuff. Did anything surprise you
about the water usage of your lifestyle?

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30

Circle Question

Unlike other species, we foul our own nest. Why do you think we do that?
Reminder to the facilitator: The circle question should move quickly. Elicit an answer from
each participant without questions or comments from others. The facilitator’s guidelines are on page 8.

SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Several of the articles in this session illustrate that
local actions can have far-reaching consequences.
Which of these consequences concerns you most?
2. Do you feel afraid about what we’re doing to the
planet? Explain.
3. How could you further align your behavior with
ecological principles?
7. What can we learn from water’s natural qualities?
8. What do you think of the idea of water having its
own rights?
9. In “The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Go Hungry,” Astyk and
Newton assert that “the only alternative to the death
of millions in a game of global chicken is for everyone
to accept that the world cannot afford rich people —
in any nation.” Do you agree? Why or why not?

4. Are you convinced that human development must
become subordinate to Earth system boundaries, as
argued by Johan Rockstrom? How might your day-to-
day life be different if you were to follow that directive
in your own household?
5. What did you learn about your habits from the
Ecological Footprint activity? Did any of the results
surprise you?
10. In “The Ecology of Disease,” Jim Robbins says, “When
we do things in an ecosystem that erode biodiversity
— we chop forests into bits or replace habitat with
agricultural fields — we tend to get rid of species that
serve a protective role.” What examples of this in your
region come to mind?
11. What struck you most in Paul Gilding’s “The Earth
is Full?”

6. How is electricity generated where you live? What

are some of its impacts on the environment and on
animal populations? Don’t forget to consider impacts
of extraction (e.g., mountaintop removal, fracking, oil
spills, pipeline construction, etc.) and of obsolescence
(e.g., dams, nuclear waste).

FURTHER RESOURCES
Interested in finding out more on the topics presented in this session? Visit our website for
further readings and resources: www.nwei.org/choices-for-sustainable-living-resources.
Subscribe to our blog at blog.nwei.org; we post links to
new resources and inspiring stories regularly.

continued on next page

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PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
Choose one action to commit to this week, then
share your struggles and successes with your
group at your next group meeting. Here are some ideas to
get you started:
• Avoid packaging that cannot be kept in the recycling loop
or returned to the earth. For example:
̏̏Carry your own durable shopping bag.
̏̏Select food and beverages in glass or metal rather than
plastic containers.
̏̏Carry a food container when you go to a restaurant or
deli and use it to package leftovers or deli food.
• Reduce your water usage in more impactful ways than just
taking shorter showers. Ideas include:
̏̏Eat less meat. The amount of water used to supply an
average home with meat is twice the amount used in
the home.
̏̏Replace your lawn with native vegetation or let it dry up
in the summer.
• What are the main sources of pollution in the area where
you live? (Consider both air and water.) Are there animal
vulnerabilities or extinctions due to air or water pollution
close to your region? How can you take action (individually
or systemically) to reduce this pollution?
• Choose one habit or practice highlighted in your
EcoFootprint results that needs improvement. Find
one way to work specifically on changing that practice
this week.
NWEI hosts an annual EcoChallenge every October. To
find out more about this event, visit www.ecochallenge.org.

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
Ecological footprint: A measure of the human causing harm to human health or to the environment,
demand on Earth’s ecosystems. Ecological footprint an absence of scientific consensus that the action or
analysis compares human demands on nature with policy is harmful should not delay steps to contain
the biosphere’s ability to regenerate resources and or prevent the possible negative consequences of
provide services.  that action or policy. The principle implies that there
Ecology: The study of the relationships that is a social responsibility to protect the public from
living organisms have with each other and with exposure to harm, when scientific investigation has
their physical environment. found a plausible risk. The precautionary principle is
Ecosystem: A community of living and non-living most often applied in the context of the impact of
things that interact and work together. All the parts human actions on the environment and human health, as
work together to make a balanced system. both involve complex systems where the consequences
Ecosystem services: The processes by which the of actions may be unpredictable.
environment produces resources that we often take for Systems theory: The interdisciplinary study
granted (i.e. clean water, pollination of food producing of systems in general, that considers a system as a set
plants, pest control, erosion regulation). of interdependent parts with the goal of elucidating
Precautionary principle: The precautionary principle principles that can be applied to all types of systems at
states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of all nesting levels in all fields of research.

“When we use these words and we talk about plants having a strategy to do this or
wanting this or desiring this, we’re being metaphorical obviously. I mean, plants
do not have consciousness. But, this is a fault of our own vocabulary.
We don’t have a very good vocabulary to describe what others species do to us,
because we think we’re the only species that really does anything.”
― Michael Pollan

C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Session 2/Ecological Principles

32
ECOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES
by Michael K. Stone
In order to create sustainable communities that
are compatible with nature’s processes we need basic
ecological knowledge. Center for Ecoliteracy cofounder
Fritjof Capra lists these as some of the fundamental facts
of life:
• Matter cycles continually through the web of life.
• Most of the energy driving the ecological cycles flows from
the sun.
• Diversity assures resilience.
• One species’ waste is another species’ food.
• Life did not take over the planet by combat but by
networking.
Understanding these facts requires first understanding
the patterns and processes by which nature sustains
life, including networks, nested systems, cycles, flows,
development, and dynamic balance.
NETWORKS
All living things in an ecosystem are
interconnected through networks of relationship.
They depend on this web of life to survive. For
example: In a garden, a network of pollinators promotes
genetic diversity; plants, in turn, provide nectar and pollen
to the pollinators.
NESTED SYSTEMS
Nature is made up of systems that are nested
within systems. Each individual system is
an integrated whole and — at the same time — part of
larger systems. Changes within a system can affect the
sustainability of the systems that are nested within it as
well as the larger systems in which it exists. For example:
Cells are nested within organs within organisms within
ecosystems.
SIX BIG AND INTERRELATED ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES WE FACE TODAY
1. Population growth
2. Increasing resource use
3. Premature extinction of plants and animals (loss of biodiversity)
4. Destruction and degradation of wildlife habitats
5. Pollution
6. Climate change
Session 2/Ecological Principles
CYCLES
Members of an ecological community depend on
the exchange of resources in continual cycles.
Cycles within an ecosystem intersect with larger regional
and global cycles. For example: Water cycles through a
garden and is also part of the global water cycle.
FLOWS
Each organism needs a continual flow of
energy to stay alive. The constant flow of
energy from the sun to Earth sustains life and drives most
ecological cycles. For example: Energy flows through a
food web when a plant converts the sun’s energy through
photosynthesis, a mouse eats the plant, a snake eats the
mouse, and a hawk eats the snake. In each transfer, some
energy is lost as heat, requiring an ongoing energy flow into
the system.
DEVELOPMENT
All life — from individual organisms to species
to ecosystems — changes over time. Individuals
develop and learn, species adapt and evolve, and organisms
in ecosystems coevolve. For example: Hummingbirds and
honeysuckle flowers have developed in ways that benefit
each other; the hummingbird’s color vision and slender bill
coincide with the colors and shapes of the flowers.
DYNAMIC BALANCE
Ecological communities act as feedback
loops, so that the community maintains a
relatively steady state that also has continual fluctuations.
This dynamic balance provides resiliency in the face of
ecosystem change. For example: Ladybugs in a garden eat
aphids. When the aphid population falls, some ladybugs die
off, which permits the aphid population to rise again, which
supports more ladybugs. The populations of the individual
species rise and fall, but balance within the system allows
them to thrive together.  
“Ecological Principles” by Michael K. Stone was originally published
by the Center for Ecoliteracy. © Copyright 2004-2011 Center for
Ecoliteracy. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. For
more information, visit www.ecoliteracy.org.
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

WHAT WOULD IT TAKE?
PROTECTING EARTH FROM CATASTROPHE
An interview with Johan Rockstrom by Mary Hoff
What would it take to shape a planet on which people,
other living things, and the systems that support us can
sustainably coexist? In this article, Momentum magazine
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
33
journalist Mary Hoff speaks with resilience strategist
Johan Rockstrom on what it would take to protect the
Earth’s systems from catastrophic failure.  
WHY DO WE NEED TO THINK ABOUT PROTECTING
EARTH’S SYSTEMS FROM CATASTROPHIC FAILURE? 
The basic reason is that major advances in Earth system
science now show that humanity is facing the risk of
large-scale, potentially catastrophic tipping points that
could hamper human development. The evidence shows
that we may have entered a whole new geological epoch,
the Anthropocene, where humans constitute the main
geological force changing planet Earth. The planetary
boundaries framework was developed to address this
new reality.
But the insight of the Anthropocene gives you only
the very first step, because it just indicates we have a
high degree of human pressure. The second is the risk of
nonlinear change, which comes out of resilience theory and
from empirical evidence that particular ecosystems have
multiple stable states. We see evidence that lakes and
forests and wetlands can have different equilibria — so
you have a savanna system that may be stable and thriving,
Session 2/Ecological Principles
34
but it can also tip over and become an arid steppe if pushed
too far by warming, land degradation, and biodiversity
loss. A clear-water lake can become a murky, biodiversity-
low anoxic lake. Unfortunately, the science is increasingly
showing that even large systems can tip. There’s
paleoclimatic evidence that if oceans get an overload of
phosphorus, they could collapse with large dead zones. The
largest ice sheets also show evidence of shifts between ice-
covered and ice-free states.
We asked ourselves: OK, so if we are in the
Anthropocene, and if we are at risk or have evidence of
large regional to global tipping points, then what is our
desired state for planet Earth? What is the state at which
Earth needs to be in order to support human well-being in a
world of 7 — soon to be 9 — billion people?
Paleoclimatic records show clearly that the past 10,000
years, the Holocene, is a remarkably stable period in which
we went from being a few hunters and gatherers to become
more sedentary agriculture-based civilizations, which then
moved us to the current populated modern era. So there’s
robust evidence that the Holocene is our desired state
and the only state we know that can support the modern
economy. If we know that, we can also define the biophysical
preconditions: What are the Earth system processes
that determine the Holocene’s familiarity? Can we for
those processes identify tipping points we want to avoid?
The insight of the importance of the Holocene stability
provides humanity with a science-based analysis of global
sustainability goals that should be met to provide us safe
operating space for human development.
WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO PROTECT EARTH’S
SYSTEMS FROM CATASTROPHIC FAILURE?  of species equivalent to losing the dinosaurs 65 million
There are so many challenges and steps that need
to be taken. But if one thinks of it as entering a funnel,
I think a broad entry point is the need for a shift in mind-
set. It might sound a bit awkward — the first thing one
thinks of is probably new economic paradigms, really hard
new governance structures, new policies. All of that is
of course required, but the precondition is that modern
society reconnect to the biosphere, which in turn requires
a mind shift. Today we operate the world with our growth
paradigm and our economic imperative and our social
imperative as being the supreme goals for our societies.
We then add, at best, sustainable development, corporate
social responsibility and all the good work we’re doing
with clean tech and efforts to be more efficient, all with
the explicit goal of minimizing environmental impacts
within the overarching growth paradigm. The insights of
the Anthropocene and tipping points show this paradigm
doesn’t work anymore. We have to reverse the whole order
and agree that the biosphere is the basis for everything
else. This is quite dramatic, because it means human
Session 2/Ecological Principles
development has to be subordinate to Earth system
boundaries. It changes the whole idea of macroeconomic
theory, because macroeconomic theory basically states
that as long as you put the right price on the environment,
you automatically get the most cost-efficient way of solving
environmental problems.
The second dimension is the idea of planetary
stewardship, which means taking ourselves from 196
nation-states operating in their own interest as individual
entities to joint governance at the planetary scale. We need
to strengthen global governance. We need a global agency
that governs, monitors, verifies, and reports on whether
we’re on aggregate meeting planetary boundaries. That
is something a world environment organization could do.
This is not to say bottom-up initiatives are not important.
On the contrary, they are a precondition for success. But
in the Anthropocene, where we need to urgently bend
the global curves of negative environmental change, we
need to provide leadership also at the global scale. This is
lacking today.
HOW URGENT IS THIS? 
There is more and more scientific evidence that suggests
it is very urgent. For climate, biodiversity and nitrogen, we
are already in the slippery danger zone where we cannot
exclude tipping over thresholds. On climate, we’re seeing
evidence of a destabilization of the Arctic ice sheet. On
nitrogen, we’re seeing clear evidence of major tipping points
where lakes are losing their capacity to support human
well-being due to overuse of nitrogen and phosphorus
particularly in modern agriculture. On biodiversity, we’ve
reached the point where humanity is causing an extinction
years ago — at the same time we’re also learning how much
we depend on biodiversity. We have increasing evidence
we need to back off also on phosphorus and that we’re
approaching dangerous boundaries for freshwater and for
land. So we have a decade right now that is very decisive.
And the reason it’s urgent is not that we risk catastrophic
outcomes in one year or five years or 10 years. It is because
what we do today injects changes in Earth systems that
may cause thresholds in 50 years’ time, 100 years’ time.
The future of coming generations is thus truly in this
generation’s hands. And we have already committed
ourselves to major risks of tipping points in the coming
century. That’s why we need to go much, much faster on
turning back into the safe operating space.
For the boundaries that we have already transgressed,
we can’t exclude that this decade is a determining decade,
that we need to bend the curves of negative environmental
change before 2020. There’s a lot of strong evidence that’s
the case.
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE
 35

WHAT IF WE DO TAKE THIS TO HEART? WHAT

COULD WE HOPE FOR? 
That’s a very interesting question, because there’s very
little or no science to suggest that a global transition to
sustainability, a global transition to a future within planetary
boundaries, would be a worse world than the world we
know today. On the contrary, there is increasing evidence
to suggest that a transition can be done while providing us
with good chances of prosperity even on a crowded planet.
But there is a big “but”: And the big but is, have we already
gone too far? And that we simply don’t know yet.

Published in association with Momentum , a print, online and

multimedia magazine for environmental thought leaders produced
by the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment. 
CALCULATING YOUR
ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
SOLUTIONS: some shifts involved in bringing about
As a goal, sustainability is hard to visualize. The
the environmental or sustainability revolution.
ecological footprint is a metaphor that helps bring
Question: Which three of these shifts do you think are the concept of sustainability to life. It provides
most important? Why? a way to measure our individual impact on the
earth, both locally and globally. An awareness of
Current Sustainability the impact of our community’s actions on finite
Emphasis Emphasis world resources is the first step toward shrinking
that footprint.
Pollution Cleanup
➜ Pollution
Prevention
Before you meet with your group to discuss
this session, please take the time to calculate your
ecological footprint using one of the calculators
below. Share your results with your group, and

➜
Waste Disposal brainstorm ideas of practices and habits that can
Waste Prevention reduce your individual and collective footprints.
(Bury or Burn)
• Earth Day Network’s Ecological Footprint Quiz
(www.earthday.org/footprint-calculator): This
Protecting
Species ➜ Protecting
Habitat
Ecological Footprint Quiz estimates the number
of Planet Earths that would be required to provide
enough resources for everyone if they lived like
you. By answering just a few easy questions, you

➜
Environmental Environmental can see how many acres are required to produce
Degradation Restoration the resources needed for your lifestyle, what
area of your lifestyle generates the most carbon
dioxide, and how you can reduce your impact.
Allow yourself about 15 minutes to complete
Increasing
Resource Use ➜ Less
Resource Use the quiz.
• EPA’s Household Carbon Footprint Calculator
(http://tinyurl.com/EPACarbonCalculator):
The EPA’s online calculator can help you get an
Population
Growth ➜ Population
Stabilization estimate of your household’s greenhouse gas
emissions, explore actions you can take to reduce
your impact, and figure out how much you can
Depleting and save (in dollars and emissions) by taking those
Degrading
Natural Capital ➜ Protecting
Natural Capital
actions. You’ll need your current electric, gas, and/
or oil bills and about 15 minutes.

C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Session 2/Ecological Principles

36
WATER IS LIFE
by Osprey Orielle Lake
I do not know exactly when it happened: perhaps during a
summer swim as I weightlessly flew underwater, dreaming
of curious sea lions who glided upstream with me from
their ocean home. It might have been years later as I canoed
miles upriver to catch a glimpse of a fledgling osprey.
Somewhere, though, my body became a part of the Big River
watershed in Northern California. The waters’ spirit cracked
open my heart, bidding me to always remember that this
natural beauty is not only a luxury to revere, but also an
indispensable key to our collective coherence as a species.
The simple and profound equation is this: Water is life.
Yet the startling reality is that today, more than a billion
people worldwide do not have access to safe drinking
water, resulting in nearly 2 million fatalities a year — mostly
children — due to waterborne diseases. With water scarcity
increasing due to human population growth, pollution,
and climate change, clearly our relationship to water
must change.
First and foremost, we must secure access to clean and
safe water as a basic human right for everyone in every
country. This will require not only changing our detrimental
use of water, but also ensuring that no institutions or
Session 2/Ecological Principles
corporations impede this life-giving right to water.
Communities around the world are now engaged in critical
struggles to protect their local waters, and it is time that
we uphold water as a global commons for all. The United
Nations took an important step toward this goal in 2010
with its adoption of a resolution recognizing the human
right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation.
To support efforts to protect and defend water, we also
can look beneath the surface of the stream into the deeper
currents of our understanding about it, and in this manner
begin healing our relationship with this irreplaceable liquid.
Big River is part of the Mendocino watershed where
I have spent much of my life. This gentle, sauntering body
of water, whose sloping banks are adorned with willow,
fir, and redwood trees, emerges just south of town to join
the Pacific Ocean. The redwoods and the entire river’s
integrity have almost been lost on numerous occasions due
to efforts to log even the last hoary stands. Taking in this
beauty involves awareness of the river’s story, her health,
her wonders, and her battle — like that of rivers around the
world — to survive.
Everything has been touched by water. It has sculpted
the landscape of our world, and we, too, are shaped by
water. As we look upon the fluid-cut forms — mountains
and gorges shaped by snowmelt rivers; craggy shorelines
chiseled by waves — so, too, is our consciousness molded.
Not only is this fluid element able to carve and define
form, it can also be shaped into any matrix. When water
enters any crevice, container, or living entity it will round
each corner, bending into every imaginable configuration.
And water openly embraces the volume of all things that
enter it, yielding to every surface and shape, enveloping a
thing completely or, if it is in motion, gliding around it. As
I walk Big River, I watch tumbling streams effortlessly flow
around several large boulders and then just as easily accept
a tossed stone. I think the unique properties of water have
a lot to teach us about living in balance with the planet, each
other, and our very own nature. After all, at an average of 70
percent liquid, we are primarily unmoored water strolling
about this planet. Given our makeup of 70 percent water,
we are, in fact, more like each other than not. No matter our
ancestry, ethnicity, religion, nationality, or DNA, we are most
essentially water.
In the shallows of a tranquil pool along Big River, a white
feather is gliding like a sailboat, held up by the water;
it is floating. Pliancy and cohesion together: We would
do well to model our thoughts and behavior after these
liquid attributes.
The guiding ways of water can be found everywhere.
There is an indigenous saying that the moon is the heart
of the forest. Beyond just poetic imagery, the moon is, in
fact, directly affecting the movement of water in all the
trees and plants of the forest, gravitationally, pumping as a
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

heart does. Biologists have studied how water moves and
expands in trees and how, in addition to suction and ionic
bonding, this movement might be linked to the cycles of the
moon and the corresponding forces of lunar gravitational
pull. While plants and trees devoutly look to the cycles of
the moon for their rhythm in rise and fall, so, too, do the
oceanic tides. Can we humans, as personal vessels of water,
disbelieve that we are deeply influenced by these same
lunar-water cycles?
Only modern humans have attempted to defile water’s
natural flow, straightening it into rigid pipes, suppressing
mighty river gyrations behind huge walled dams, and
subjugating waterways to linear cement canals.
Since 1950, as the demand for water globally has more
than tripled, the number of major dams worldwide has
grown from 5,000 to 45,000. Many rivers have been drained
dry because water is lost through evaporation in dammed
reservoirs, and then diverted and siphoned off all along
the length of a river, drastically decreasing or altogether
stopping the flow.
In her book Last Oasis, Sandra Postel of the Global Water
Policy Project tells us, “The Nile in Egypt, the Ganges in
South Asia, the Amu Dar’ya and Syr Dar’ya in Central Asia,
the Yellow River in China, and the Colorado River in North
America are among the major rivers that are so dammed,
diverted, or overtapped that little or no fresh water reaches
its final destination for significant stretches of time.”
As a Californian, I am painfully aware of my state’s
participation in the hijacking and heartbreak of the Colorado
River. What happens to the well-being and very spirit of the
water when we stop its primordial, sacred flow? I cannot
help but think that damming rivers is a great offense to the
wild rights belonging to water.
Our ever-expanding industrial civilization uses water
without restraint in almost every aspect of manufacturing
and as a waste container for every contaminant imaginable.
Today, due to chemical poisoning of waterways and
waterborne diseases, millions of people die annually. A 2010
United Nations Environment Program study reports that
at least 1.8 million of these fatalities are children under
5 years old — that is, one child every 20 seconds. Maude
Barlow, director of the Blue Planet Project, warns us, “The
destruction of aquatic ecosystem health, and the increasing
water scarcity, are … the most pressing environmental
problems facing humankind.”
Although in water-wealthy countries problems of
scarcity are often hidden, most of the world is currently
thirsting for pure, clean water to drink. People in many
countries, most often the women, must walk for miles each
day to collect water for their immediate needs, carrying
containers that can weigh up to 50 pounds when they are
full. Sadly, the hard-won water is often polluted and sickens
the household. It is no wonder people in these regions are
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
37
shocked to learn that other people flush their toilets with
clean water.
Even though 70 percent of our Earth’s surface is water,
the main portion of it, 97 percent, is salt water. Much of
the remaining 3 percent that is fresh is held in snow and
glaciers, leaving about 1 percent available. Unabated
pollution is reducing the purity of this invaluable 1 percent.
Further, the impact of climate change is increasing hot
spots around the planet, while watershed runoff is being
reduced from shrinking glaciers and fewer wet snowpacks.
The ways of water are increasingly reflecting our human
actions through a multitude of extremes: from long-term
droughts and unseasonable floods to rising sea levels.
As we look toward mitigating increasing water crises, we
can no longer do so in isolation from the climate crisis,
scientifically or politically.
At the same time, our human populations are rapidly
growing, and scientists predict that by 2020, 35 nations
will experience severe water shortages. Already, a third of
Earth’s population is struggling as a result of inadequate
freshwater supplies. It is important to remember that there
is the same amount of water on our planet now as there
was thousands of years ago, but the number of people has
greatly increased. We need to listen to what the water is
telling us and develop a new consciousness about this life-
giving element. Good water practices are at the core of a
viable Earth etiquette.
The importance of working together as a world
community is one of the messages that water seems to be
telling us. Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet
Union and current president of Green Cross International,
wrote in the foreword to Water, The Drop of Life: “Without
water security, social, economic and national stability are
imperiled. This is magnified where water is shared across
borders — and becomes crucial where water stress exists
in regions of religious, territorial or ethnic tension. Thus we
are faced with a mighty challenge.”
Water molecules do not exist individually, on their own;
it is their very nature to be in continuous relationship
Session 2/Ecological Principles
38
with one another. At this poignant moment, can the
global community, following water’s example, address
our challenges collectively and come together with a new
understanding of water as a sacred commons?
We have an opportunity to respond now in a timely
and creative manner with healthy community relations to
successfully navigate cross-border water conflicts and
to help people who are suffering from an immediate lack
of water resources. There are myriad innovative water
resource solutions. Villagers in the small Chilean coastal
town of Chungungo, with the help of Canadian engineers,
followed nature’s example, installing huge mesh nets in
the mountains above the village to act like the eucalyptus
trees in the area and catch coastal fog. The droplets are
funneled into pipes that carry the sky water into tanks
for Chungungo. Similar fog-collecting projects have been
developed in Mexico, Croatia, Nepal, and other countries,
and in both urban and rural areas around the world rainwater
catchment is a growing source of water conservation
and collection.
New technologies will certainly be instrumental in
resolving transboundary issues. Speaking at the eighth
Stockholm World Water Symposium, Jerome Delli Priscoli,
senior adviser at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Institute
for Water Resources, explained that through satellite
technologies, countries sharing watersheds have the ability
to accurately view the water use in an entire region, leading
to more openness and clarity in negotiations, as there is no
longer the possibility of secreting data.
Priscoli went on to state, “The symbolic content of water
as cleansing, healing, rebirth, and reconciliation can provide
a powerful tool for cooperation and symbolic acts of
reconciliations so necessary to conflict resolution in other
areas of society. … Rekindling the sense of sacred water …
is one way to facilitate the escalation of debate on water
cooperation to higher levels and thus impact the capacity to
reach cooperation and to manage conflict.”
Understanding that water is sacred and the very essence
of life is universal to indigenous cultures. This is also true of
people who live close to the land, as any farmer will tell you.
Because of this respect, many societies have acknowledged
water as a shared commons. In our consumer-market-
driven world, however, water is increasingly becoming a
commodity for sale, accessible only to those who can afford
it. Citizens in communities worldwide are taking a stand
to protect their local water basins from commoditization
and are learning how best to defend and care for this
irreplaceable source of life.
Water is the oldest reflective surface known to humans,
and it is in this mysterious liquid glass that we first had the
opportunity to see ourselves. Water is not only a cosmic
mirror reflecting all of creation back to itself in images of
lakeside trees, animals that come for a drink, and the ever-
Session 2/Ecological Principles
changing water-bearing sky, but also a mirror for the inward-
looking eyes of the human soul. Ancient Hellenic seekers
traveled long distances to the Temple of Delphi to seek
counsel by peering into the bowl of divination waters.
This scene reminds us that at one time people
everywhere openly honored this divine liquid. In civilizations
worldwide, water was known to be holy, each droplet a
miracle of life. People frequently went on pilgrimages to
sacred wells, divine springs, mystical lakes, and healing
baths. A river was a holy place. Almost every civilization
believed that life originated in the sea, and many referred to
the ocean as the Mother Waters.  
With a spiritual relationship to water universally
understood, there were sacred water sites in every part of
the world, and to this day, water has held an ongoing place
of sanctity both symbolically and physically in our modern
world. Islamic, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and Hindu
traditions all impart the story of four sacred rivers of life
that originate in paradise and flow to the four directions of
the world, while ceremonial washing and cleansing are a part
of many religious rituals.
I need to remember these traditions and stories when
I am bathing, cleaning, drinking, and washing at my home,
bringing this respect to the water that touches my skin.
I want to simply and unshyly say, I love water. It is a love that
I find is universal among all people.
From snow-capped mountains to white-capped sea,
there are multitudes of bodies of moving water, our Earth’s
lifeblood flowing through tens of thousands of veins. This
yet-untamed liquid landscape moves through our hearts to
the heart of the great ocean, and so I am hopeful because
the heart is the most trusted place of power — it has the
courage to be vulnerable, humble, and unafraid; strong, loyal,
and unflinching.
In this way, we can make our stand by water.
D.H. Lawrence wrote:
Water is H2O,
hydrogen two parts,
oxygen one,
but there is also a third thing,
that makes it water 
and nobody knows what that is.
I would not claim to know this third thing. I would
simply suggest here the possibility that the ingredient is
water love.
Osprey Orielle Lake is the founder and director of the Women’s
Earth and Climate Caucus and an international advocate
for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. Excerpted
from Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature by
Osprey Orielle Lake (White Cloud Press), the recipient of a 2011
Nautilus Book Award. 
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

THE RICH GET RICHER,
THE POOR GO HUNGRY
by Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton
What is the most common cause of hunger in the world?
Is it drought? Flood? Locusts? Crop diseases? Nope. Most
hunger in the world has absolutely nothing to do with food
shortages. Most people who go to bed hungry, both in rich
and in poor countries, do so in places where markets are
filled with food that they cannot have.
Despite this fact, much of the discourse about reforming
our food system has focused on the necessity of raising
yields. Though it is true that we might need more food
in coming years, it is also true that the world produces
more food calories than are needed to sustain its entire
population. The problem is unequal access to food, land, and
wealth, and any discussion must begin not from fantasies of
massive yield increases, but from the truth that the hunger
of the poor is in part a choice of the rich.
Inequity and politics, not food shortages, were at the
root of almost all famines in the 20th century. Brazil, for
example, exported $20 billion worth of food in 2002, while
millions of its people went hungry. During Ethiopian famines
in the 1980s, the country also exported food. Many of even
the poorest nations can feed themselves — or could in a
society with fairer allocation of resources.
It can be hard to grasp the degree to which the Western
lifestyle is implicated. We don’t realize that when we buy
imported shrimp or coffee we are often literally taking
food from poor people. We don’t realize that our economic
system is doing harm; in fact, the system conspires to make
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39
it nearly impossible to figure out whether what we’re doing
is destructive or regenerative.
We have been assured that “a rising tide lifts all boats,”
that it is necessary for us to make rich people richer,
because that will, in turn, enrich the poor. The consequences
have been disastrous — for the planet and for the people
whose food systems have been disrupted, who never had a
chance to be lifted by any tide.
Journalist Jeremy Seabrook, in his book The
No-Nonsense Guide to World Poverty, describes First World
efforts to eliminate poverty and hunger this way:
“It is now taken for granted that relief of poverty is the
chief objective of all politicians, international institutions,
donors and charities. This dedication is revealed most
clearly in a determination to preserve [the poor]. Like all
great historical monuments, there should be a Society
for the Preservation of the Poor; only, since it is written
into the very structures of the global economy, no special
arrangements are required. There is not the remotest
chance that poverty will be abolished, but every chance that
the poor themselves might perish.”
It is hard for many of us to recognize that the society we
live in helps create poverty and insecurity, but it is true. Our
economy is based on endless growth. We’re told that if the
rich get richer, it makes other people less poor. Think about
it for a moment — about how crazy that is. Wouldn’t it make
much more sense to enrich the poor directly, to help them
get land and access to resources?
Historically, rural people have been quite poor, but
often, despite their poverty, could grow enough food to
feed themselves. Over recent decades, however, industrial
agriculture and widespread industrialization have moved
large chunks of the human population into cities, promising
more wealth. But rising food and energy prices (rising
because of this move and this urban population’s new
demands for energy and meat) have left people unable to
feed their families.
Multinational food companies have also worked their
way into the food budgets of the poor. Faith D’Aluisio and
Peter Menzel are the authors of Hungry Planet. “Few of
the families we met [in the developing world] could afford
a week’s worth of a processed food item at one time,”
they report in the Washington Post, “so the global food
companies make their wares more affordable by offering
them in single-serving packets.”
Around the world, industrial agriculture has consolidated
land ownership into the hands of smaller and smaller
populations. Rich nations dumped cheap subsidized grain
on poor nations. Local self-sufficiency was destroyed. Now,
as the price of food has risen dramatically, those created
dependencies on cheap grain, which doesn’t exist anymore,
mean that millions are in danger of starvation.
Real alleviation of poverty and hunger means
Session 2/Ecological Principles
40
reallocating the resources of our world into the hands of
people who need them most. This is not only ethically the
right thing to do, it is necessary. There is no hope that newly
industrializing nations will help us fight climate change if it
means a great inequity between their people and those of
the United States. Russia, India, and China have all said so
explicitly. The only alternative to the death of millions in a
game of global chicken is for everyone to accept that the
world cannot afford rich people — in any nation.
What is the best strategy of reallocation? One — that is,
for those of us who live in nations where there is plenty of
land and food so that we don’t have to rely on the exports
of poor nations — would be to enable the world’s farmers
to eat what they grow and to have sufficient land to feed
themselves and their neighbors.
Most of the world’s poorest people are urban slum
dwellers (often displaced farmers) or land-poor farmers,
agroecologist Peter Rosset notes. Both groups are
increasing, in large degree because of economic policies
that favor food for export and allow large quantities of land
to be held in the hands of the richest.
“The expansion of agricultural production for export,
controlled by wealthy elites who own the best lands,
continually displaces the poor to ever more marginal
“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land,
purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people. ”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt
Session 2/Ecological Principles
areas for farming,” Rosset writes in Food Is Different.
“They are forced … to try to eke out a living on desert
margins and in rainforests. As they fall deeper into
poverty … they are often accused of contributing to
environmental degradation.”
In this system, poor people who depend on the land,
and who best understand the urgency of preserving it, are
forced by necessity to degrade and destroy it — and they,
rather than we, are held responsible. But a large part of the
responsibility rests on the way we eat. This is an important
point, because it acknowledges that there are things that
we in wealthy nations can do to enable poorer people to eat
better — or even to eat at all.
One way to do this is simply to grow our own food, to rely
not on foods grown thousands of miles away but on foods
grown at local farms and gardens. We also can concentrate
on creating food sovereignty in poor nations. We can cut
back on global food trade, importing primarily high-value,
fair-traded dry goods that take little energy to transport,
and place limits on food speculation, which drives up prices
so that multinational corporations can get richer at the
expense of the poor.
Most of all, we can recognize that self-sufficiency is
as urgent in the rich world as in the poor. Globalization’s
demise is coming. The rising costs of transportation and the
trade deficit in the United States make it inevitable that we
will increasingly be looking to meet our basic needs locally.
When we grow our own food, or buy it directly from
local farmers, we take power away from multinationals. We
make it harder for them to extract wealth and the best land
of other nations — and if they don’t need that land, local
farmers may be able to use it for their own needs.
We also put power in the hands of our neighbors, many of
whom are also victims of globalization. There are 49 million
people in the United States who can’t consistently afford
a basic nutritious diet. It turns out that the things that
make us poor — lack of education, lack of access to land
and home, and the industrial economy — are precisely the
things that make other people poor. By creating local food
systems, we can enrich our immediate neighbors as we stop
impoverishing our distant ones.
Excerpted from the book A Nation of Farmers, a rousing work by
Sharon Astyk and Aaron Newton about “defeating the food crisis
on American soil.” Published in 2009 by New Society, a wellspring
of ideas on sustainability and social change. www.newsociety.com 
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2010 photo of Sequoia National Park at sunset by Mike Baird

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK IS STUCK when sunlight frazzles chemicals adrift in the air. However,
IN POLLUTION HELL Sequoia seedlings are “suspected to be more vulnerable
to ozone injury,” according to the National Park Service,
by John Metcalfe spelling trouble for the future of the species. 
Ozone is just one of the pollutants that drifts up into the
The famed redwoods of Sequoia National Park are
firs from sprawling farms and truck-clotted highways below.
slowly yet surely being replaced by another kind of enduring
These other nasty substances can also be found in the air
landmark: a sky-spanning carpet of lung-blistering smog.
around Sequoia:
Wafting in on an eddy that swirls over the heavily
PCBs: These industrial byproducts have found a home in
industrialized San Joaquin Valley, the tainted air gives a
the serene glens and streams of California’s forests. Says
diseased touch to any plant or human it encounters in the
the NPS: “Some PCBs have negative effects on animals
mountains. Because of the perpetual gas-shower of ozone,
by imitating specific hormones in concentrations as small
PCBs and aerosolized fertilizers, Sequoia has the worst air
as parts per trillion. They can cause changes in wildlife
pollution of any national park in the country.
reproductive capacity, longevity, intelligence, and behavior,
Hikers might cough and hack on days with particularly
or can lead to cancer or mutations.”
bad air quality, as high levels of ozone can provoke lesions
Pesticides: Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley spray out
on the lungs, according to a depressing AP story on the
an incredible amount of insect-killing chemicals, 37,000 tons
park’s environmental woes. Here’s the AP’s update on how
in 2010 alone. Not all of it stays on the ground. Researchers
bad it’s gotten in the land of the giant redwoods, located
have yet to do a formal study linking California’s pesticide
just east of Fresno:
use to impaired wildlife in the parks, but the NPS is aware of
“Ozone levels here are comparable to urban settings such
“circumstantial evidence” that suggests it’s happening. This
as L.A.,” said Emily Schrepf of the nonprofit advocacy group
evidence includes the fact that peregrine falcons at Moro
the National Park Conservation Association as she beheld
Rock have never managed to have babies; their eggshells
the diminished view. “It’s just not right.”
are thinner, and sometimes whiter and chalkier, than they
This is not the place to take in a whiff of fresh mountain
should be. The park service also is concerned about frogs:
air. Smog is so bad that signs in visitors centers caution
The foothill yellow-legged frog completely disappeared
guests when it’s not safe to hike. The government
from these parks in the 1970s, and today exists in the Sierra
employment website warns job applicants that the
Nevada only in a handful of widely scattered populations
workplace is unhealthy. And park workers are schooled
along the western foothills. The frog is much more common
every year on the lung and heart damage the pollution
can cause.
Wheezing backpackers aside, the pollution is also
afflicting the treasured trees, which can be nearly 3,500 Same view...
years old and are part of a Congressionally mandated, living
national shrine. About 90 percent of Jeffrey pines around
the Giant Forest show evidence of ozone damage. Their
needles are chlorotically mottled and fall out earlier than
usual. Such yellowed, balding pines can’t draw as much
energy from photosynthesis. They become stunted with
smaller age rings. ...on a Bad Day ...on a Good Day
The iconic Sequoias that dot the park like radio antennae
seem more resistant to the effects of ozone, created Source: NPS

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on the opposite side of the San Joaquin Valley (in the
foothills of the Coast Range), upwind from pesticide
drift. Synthetic chemical drift may also be playing a role
in the ongoing decline in mountain yellow-legged frogs in
these parks, though other factors, such as non-native fish
introduction to park lakes, are also likely to be important.
John Metcalfe is a staff writer at The Atlantic Cities.
THE ECOLOGY OF DISEASE
by Jim Robbins
There’s a term biologists and economists use these days
— ecosystem services — which refers to the many ways
nature supports the human endeavor. Forests filter the
water we drink, for example, and birds and bees pollinate
crops, both of which have substantial economic as well as
biological value.
If we fail to understand and take care of the natural
world, it can cause a breakdown of these systems and come
back to haunt us in ways we know little about. A critical
example is a developing model of infectious disease that
shows that most epidemics — AIDS, Ebola, West Nile,
SARS, Lyme disease and hundreds more that have occurred
over the last several decades — don’t just happen. They are
a result of things people do to nature.
Disease, it turns out, is largely an environmental issue.
Sixty percent of emerging infectious diseases that affect
Session 2/Ecological Principles
humans are zoonotic — they originate in animals. And more
than two-thirds of those originate in wildlife.
Teams of veterinarians and conservation biologists are
in the midst of a global effort with medical doctors and
epidemiologists to understand the “ecology of disease.”
It is part of a project called Predict, which is financed by
the United States Agency for International Development.
Experts are trying to figure out, based on how people alter
the landscape — with a new farm or road, for example —
where the next diseases are likely to spill over into humans
and how to spot them when they do emerge, before they can
spread. They are gathering blood, saliva and other samples
from high-risk wildlife species to create a library of viruses
so that if one does infect humans, it can be more quickly
identified. And they are studying ways of managing forests,
wildlife and livestock to prevent diseases from leaving the
woods and becoming the next pandemic.
It isn’t only a public health issue, but an economic one.
The World Bank has estimated that a severe influenza
pandemic, for example, could cost the world economy
$3 trillion.
The problem is exacerbated by how livestock are kept
in poor countries, which can magnify diseases borne by
wild animals. A study released earlier this month by the
International Livestock Research Institute found that more
than two million people a year are killed by diseases that
spread to humans from wild and domestic animals.
The Nipah virus in South Asia, and the closely related
Hendra virus in Australia, both in the genus of henipah
viruses, are the most urgent examples of how disrupting
an ecosystem can cause disease. The viruses originated
with flying foxes, Pteropus vampyrus, also known as
fruit bats. They are messy eaters, no small matter in this
scenario. They often hang upside down, looking like Dracula,
wrapped tightly in their membranous wings, and eat fruit
by masticating the pulp and then spitting out the juices
and seeds.
The bats have evolved with henipah over millions of
years, and because of this co-evolution, they experience
little more from it than the fruit bat equivalent of a cold. But
once the virus breaks out of the bats and into species that
haven’t evolved with it, a horror show can occur, as one did in
1999 in rural Malaysia. It is likely that a bat dropped a piece
of chewed fruit into a piggery in a forest. The pigs became
infected with the virus, and amplified it, and it jumped to
humans. It was startling in its lethality. Out of 276 people
infected in Malaysia, 106 died, and many others suffered
permanent and crippling neurological disorders. There is
no cure or vaccine. Since then there have been 12 smaller
outbreaks in South Asia.
In Australia, where four people and dozens of
horses have died of Hendra, the scenario was different:
suburbanization lured infected bats that were once forest-
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

dwellers into backyards and pastures. If a henipah virus
evolves to be transmitted readily through casual contact,
the concern is that it could leave the jungle and spread
throughout Asia or the world. “Nipah is spilling over, and
we are observing these small clusters of cases — and it’s
a matter of time that the right strain will come along and
efficiently spread among people,” says Jonathan Epstein,
a veterinarian with EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based
organization that studies the ecological causes of disease.
That’s why experts say it’s critical to understand
underlying causes. “Any emerging disease in the last 30 or
40 years has come about as a result of encroachment into
wild lands and changes in demography,” says Peter Daszak, a
disease ecologist and the president of EcoHealth.
Emerging infectious diseases are either new types of
pathogens or old ones that have mutated to become novel,
as the flu does every year. AIDS, for example, crossed into
humans from chimpanzees in the 1920s when bush-meat
hunters in Africa killed and butchered them.
Diseases have always come out of the woods and wildlife
and found their way into human populations — the plague
and malaria are two examples. But emerging diseases have
quadrupled in the last half-century, experts say, largely
because of increasing human encroachment into habitat,
especially in disease “hot spots” around the globe, mostly
in tropical regions. And with modern air travel and a robust
market in wildlife trafficking, the potential for a serious
outbreak in large population centers is enormous.
The key to forecasting and preventing the next pandemic,
experts say, is understanding what they call the “protective
effects” of nature intact. In the Amazon, for example,
one study showed an increase in deforestation by some
4 percent increased the incidence of malaria by nearly 50
percent, because mosquitoes, which transmit the disease,
thrive in the right mix of sunlight and water in recently
deforested areas. Developing the forest in the wrong way
can be like opening Pandora’s box. These are the kinds of
connections the new teams are unraveling.
Public health experts have begun to factor ecology into
their models. Australia, for example, has just announced a
multimillion-dollar effort to understand the ecology of the
Hendra virus and bats.
It’s not just the invasion of intact tropical landscapes that
can cause disease. The West Nile virus came to the United
States from Africa but spread here because one of its
favored hosts is the American robin, which thrives in a world
of lawns and agricultural fields. And mosquitoes, which
spread the disease, find robins especially appealing. “The
virus has had an important impact on human health in the
United States because it took advantage of species that do
well around people,” says Marm Kilpatrick, a biologist at the
University of California, Santa Cruz. The pivotal role of the
robin in West Nile has earned it the title “super spreader.”
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43
And Lyme disease, the East Coast scourge, is very
much a product of human changes to the environment: the
reduction and fragmentation of large contiguous forests.
Development chased off predators — wolves, foxes,
owls and hawks. That has resulted in a fivefold increase
in white-footed mice, which are great “reservoirs” for the
Lyme bacteria, probably because they have poor immune
systems. And they are terrible groomers. When possums or
gray squirrels groom, they remove 90 percent of the larval
ticks that spread the disease, while mice kill just half. “So
mice are producing huge numbers of infected nymphs,” says
the Lyme disease researcher Richard Ostfeld.
“When we do things in an ecosystem that erode
biodiversity — we chop forests into bits or replace habitat
with agricultural fields — we tend to get rid of species
that serve a protective role,” Dr. Ostfeld told me. “There
are a few species that are reservoirs and a lot of species
that are not. The ones we encourage are the ones that play
I = P × A × T
Most scientists today agree that the driving
forces behind environmental deterioration
are three factors: population size and growth,
overconsumption, and the use of environmentally
harmful technologies. The I=PAT formula
summarizes the impact of human activity on the
environment: Human Impact (I) on the environment
equals the product of P= Population, A= Affluence,
and T= Technology. All of these factors need to be
considered when planning for a sustainable future.
Use the calculator at www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
15391515 to find out how many people there were
when you were born, and where our population is
now. How, if at all, do you feel the impact of more
people on the planet?
Session 2/Ecological Principles
44

reservoir roles.”
Dr. Ostfeld has seen two emerging diseases —
babesiosis and anaplasmosis — that affect humans in the
ticks he studies, and he has raised the alarm about the
possibility of their spread.
The best way to prevent the next outbreak in humans,
specialists say, is with what they call the One Health
Initiative — a worldwide program, involving more than 600
scientists and other professionals, that advances the idea
that human, animal and ecological health are inextricably
linked and need to be studied and managed holistically.
“It’s not about keeping pristine forest pristine and free
of people,” says Simon Anthony, a molecular virologist
at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia
University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “It’s learning
how to do things sustainably. If you can get a handle on what
it is that drives the emergence of a disease, then you can
learn to modify environments sustainably.”
The scope of the problem is huge and complex. Just an
estimated 1 percent of wildlife viruses are known. Another
major factor is the immunology of wildlife, a science in
its infancy. Raina K. Plowright, a biologist at Pennsylvania
State University who studies the ecology of disease,
found that outbreaks of the Hendra virus in flying foxes in
rural areas were rare but were much higher in urban and
suburban animals. She hypothesizes that urbanized bats are
sedentary and miss the frequent exposure to the virus they
used to get in the wild, which kept the infection at low levels.
That means more bats — whether from poor nutrition, loss
of habitat or other factors — become infected and shed
more of the virus into backyards.
The fate of the next pandemic may be riding on the work
of Predict. EcoHealth and its partners — the University of
California at Davis, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the
Smithsonian Institution and Global Viral Forecasting — are
looking at wildlife-borne viruses across the tropics, building
a virus library. Most of the work focuses on primates,
rats and bats, which are most likely to carry diseases that
affect people.
Most critically, Predict researchers are watching
the interface where deadly viruses are known to exist
and where people are breaking open the forest, as they
are along the new highway from the Atlantic to the
Pacific across the Andes in Brazil and Peru. “By mapping
encroachment into the forest you can predict where
the next disease could emerge,” Dr. Daszak, EcoHealth’s
president, says. “So we’re going to the edge of villages,
we’re going to places where mines have just opened up,
areas where new roads are being built. We are going to talk
to people who live within these zones and saying, ‘what you
are doing is potentially a risk.’ ”
It might mean talking to people about how they butcher
and eat bush meat or to those who are building a feed
lot in bat habitat. In Bangladesh, where Nipah broke out
several times, the disease was traced to bats that were
raiding containers that collected date palm sap, which
people drank. The disease source was eliminated by
placing bamboo screens (which cost 8 cents each) over
the collectors.
EcoHealth also scans luggage and packages at airports,
looking for imported wildlife likely to be carrying deadly
viruses. And they have a program called PetWatch to warn
consumers about exotic pets that are pulled out of the
forest in disease hot spots and shipped to market.
All in all, the knowledge gained in the last couple of years
about emerging diseases should allow us to sleep a little
easier, says Dr. Epstein, the EcoHealth veterinarian. “For
the first time,” he said, “there is a coordinated effort in 20
countries to develop an early warning system for emerging
zoonotic outbreaks.”
Jim Robbins is a frequent contributor to the Science section of
The New York Times. A freelance journalist for over thirty years,
Jim lives with his family in Helena, Montana. Used by permission of
The New York Times. All rights reserved.

“Sustainability is a new idea to many people, and many find it hard to understand.
But all over the world there are people who have entered into the exercise of
imagining and bringing into being a sustainable world.
They see it as a world to move toward not reluctantly, but joyfully,
not with a sense of sacrifice, but a sense of adventure. A sustainable world
could be very much better than the one we live in today.”
― Donella H. Meadows, The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update

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 45

THE EARTH IS FULL polar bears or forests, though it certainly is. I’m saying our
approach simply can’t be sustained. [These are] those pesky
by Paul Gilding rules of physics. When things aren’t sustainable, they stop.
So our economy will stop growing. Stop because of
Let me begin with four words that provide the context
the end of cheap resources and because of the economic
for this week. Four words that will come to define
impacts of having so degraded the planet, especially our
this century.
oceans, fresh water, climate and soil.
Here they are — The Earth Is Full.
But that’s not possible you might think. We can’t stop
Full of us. Full of our stuff. Full of our waste. Full of our
economic growth — society will fall apart!
demands. Yes, we are a brilliant and creative species. But we
Economic growth is an idea so central to our society that
have created a little too much stuff.
it is rarely questioned. While growth has certainly delivered
So much in fact, that our economy is now bigger than its
many benefits, we sustain a belief that is crazy — that we
host, our planet. This is not a philosophical statement. It’s
can have infinite growth on a finite planet. A belief that
just science — based in physics, chemistry and biology.
somehow, markets can overcome the laws of physics.
There are many science-based analyses of this. They
Well, I’m here to tell you, the emperor has no clothes, the
all point to the same conclusion — we’re living beyond
crazy idea is just that — crazy. And now, with the earth full,
our means. The eminent scientists of the Global Footprint
it’s game over.
Network for example, calculate we need about 1.5 earths to
Mother nature doesn’t negotiate — she just sets rules
sustain this economy — so to keep operating at our current
and explains consequences. And these are not esoteric
level, we would need 50 percent more earth than we’ve got.
limits — this is about food, water, soil and climate — the
In financial terms, this would be like always spending
practical and economic foundations of our lives.
50 percent more than your income, going further into debt
So the idea, that we can smoothly transition to a highly
every year. But you can’t borrow natural resources, so we’re
efficient, solar powered, knowledge based economy,
burning through our capital — or stealing from the future.
transformed by science and technology so that 9 billion
So when I say full, I mean really full — well past any
people in 2050 can lead lives of abundance and digital
margin for error, well past any dispute about methodology.
downloads is a delusion. The many billions of poor people in
What this means is our economy is not sustainable.
China, India and Africa don’t want an iTunes store, they want
I’m not saying it’s not nice, or pleasant. Or that it’s bad for
cars, chickens, milk, houses and TVs. They want stuff that is
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made with other stuff.
It’s not that it’s not possible to feed, clothe and house us
all, and have us live decent lives. We certainly could. But the
idea that we will smoothly grow our way there from here,
with a few minor hiccups, is just wrong. And it is dangerously
wrong because it means we’re not getting ready for what’s
really going to happen.
See, what happens when you push a system past its
limits, past the margin for error and then keep on going, at
an ever accelerating rate, is that the system stops working
and breaks down. That’s what will happen to us.
Many of you will be thinking, but we can still stop this. If
it’s really that bad, we’ll react. Let’s look at that idea. We’ve
had 50 years of warnings, thorough science proving the
urgency of change, economic analysis that shows not only
can we afford it, but its much cheaper to act early. Yet, the
reality is we’ve done pretty much nothing to change course.
We’re not even slowing down. On climate change for
example, last year we had the highest global emissions
ever. The story on food, on water, on fisheries is all much
the same.
So when does this breakdown begin? In my view it is
well underway.
I understand that most people don’t see it. Although the
world is an integrated system, we rarely see it that way. We
see individual issues — the Occupy protests, various debt
crises and growing inequality; resource constraint, financial
system overload and spiking food prices. Recessions,
money’s influence in politics or accelerating climate chaos.
But we mistakenly see them in isolation, as individual
problems to be solved.
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In fact it’s the system in the painful process of breaking
down. Our system — of debt fuelled economic growth,
of ineffective democracy, of overloading planet Earth —
is eating itself alive.
The crisis is no longer preventable; the question is how
will we respond?
Of course we can’t know what will happen, but just take
a moment now and imagine how this might unfold based on
what the best science is telling us.
Imagine our economy, when the carbon bubble bursts —
when the financial markets realise that if we are to stop the
climate spiraling out of control, the oil and coal industries
are finished.
Imagine war between China, India and Pakistan as climate
impacts spark conflict over food and refugees.
Imagine the Middle East without oil income, and
collapsing governments. Imagine our just in time, low margin
food industry, and our highly stressed agricultural system,
failing and super market shelves being empty.
Imagine 30 percent unemployment in America and a real
debt default as the global economy is gripped by fear and
uncertainty.
Imagine what you will tell your children. When they ask
you: “So, in 2012, what was it like? When you’d just had the
hottest decade on record, for the third decade in a row,
when every scientific body in the world told you we had
a major problem, when the oceans were acidifying, when
food and oil prices were hitting record highs, when people
were rioting in the streets of London and Occupying Wall St.
When the system was so clearly breaking down, mum and
dad — What did you think? What did you do?”
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

So how do you feel when you imagine the lights going out
on the global economy, when your assumptions about your
future fade away.
Take a moment and breathe, and ask yourself. What do
you feel right now? Perhaps anger? Denial? Or fear?
We can’t know the future, and we have to live with
uncertainty. But when we think about such possibilities, and
denial ends, fear tends to be the dominant response, and for
good reason. We are in danger, all of us — and we’ve evolved
to respond to danger with fear — to motivate a powerful
reaction, to help us bravely face a threat.
But this time it’s not a tiger at the cave mouth. You can’t
see the danger at your door, but if you look, you can see it at
the door of your civilization.
That’s why we need to feel our response now, while the
lights are still on. If we wait, until the crisis takes hold, we
may panic and hide. If we feel it now and think it through, we
will realise we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.
Yes, things are going to get ugly. It will happen soon,
certainly in our lifetime. But there’s every reason to believe
we can get through all of what’s coming.
You see, those people who have faith that humans
can solve any problem; that technology is limitless; that
markets can be a force for good, are in fact right. The only
thing they’re missing is that it takes a good crisis to get us
moving. When we feel fear, and we fear loss, we can achieve
extraordinary things.
Consider our response in war. When Pearl Harbour was
bombed, in took just 4 days for the government to ban the
production of civilian cars and redirect the auto industry.
From there to rationing of food and energy.
Consider how a company responds when faced with
bankruptcy, and how change that seemed impossible just
gets done.
Consider how a person diagnosed with a life threatening
illness can suddenly make life style changes that were
previously too difficult.
Scientists like James Hansen tell us, we may need to
eliminate net CO2 emissions from the economy, in just a
few decades.
I wanted to know what that would take. So I worked with
Professor Jorgen Randers from Norway to develop a plan —
we called it the One Degree War Plan, indicating the scale of
focus and mobilisation required.
To my surprise achieving zero net CO2 emissions in
“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
47
two decades is actually pretty easy and pretty cheap.
Not very cheap but certainly less than the cost of a
collapsing civilisation.
You can read the details, but in summary, we can
transform our society and our economy; we can do it with
proven technology, at an affordable cost with existing
political structures. The only thing we have to change is how
we think and how we feel.
This is where you come in.
When we think about the future I paint, we should all feel
a bit of fear. But fear can be paralyzing or motivating. We
need to accept the fear, then we need to act.
We need to act like the future depends on it. We need
to act like we only have one planet. We can do this. I know
the free market fundamentalists tell you that more growth,
more stuff and 9 billion people going shopping, is the best
we can do. They’re wrong. We can be more. Much more.
We have achieved remarkable things since working
out how to grow food some 10,000 years ago. We have a
powerful foundation of science, technology and knowledge
— more than enough to build a society where 9 billion
people can lead decent, meaningful and satisfying lives. The
earth can support that. If we choose the right path.
We can choose this moment of crisis to ask, and answer,
the big questions of society’s evolution.
What do we want to be when we grow up? When we move
past this bumbling adolescence, where we think there are
no limits and suffer delusions of immortality.
Well, it’s now time to grow up. To be wiser, and calmer and
more considered.
Like generations before us, we’ll be growing up in war.
Not a war between civilizations, but a war for civilization.
For the extraordinary opportunity to build a stronger,
happier society. One that plans on staying around into
middle age.
We can choose life over fear. We can do what we need to
do. But it will take every entrepreneur, every artist, every
scientist and every communicator. Every mother, every
father and every child. Every one of us.
This could be our finest hour.
Paul Gilding delivered this speech at TED 2012 Long Beach
California on February 28, 2012. Former global CEO of Greenpeace,
Paul is an independent writer, advisor and advocate for action on
climate change and sustainability.
Session 2/Ecological Principles
48

LANDSCAPE FOR LIFE

Homeowners and gardeners can have an important role in creating environments in their gardens that begin to repair the
web of life. Working with nature rather than fighting against it can help you create a landscape that is healthier for you, your
loved ones, migratory birds and butterflies, and the planet generally.  
A program called Landscape for Life (landscapeforlife.org) is one way you can get started. Their website has a wealth of
information, and people can offer classes following their curriculum. A class being offered in your area may be a great way to
connect with others and learn together.
The lecture series covers the roles of soil, water, storm water management, plants, and materials chosen to use in a
sustainable landscape or garden. Landscape for Life is sponsored by the U.S. Botanic Garden and the Lady Bird Johnson
Wildflower Center.

HOW THEY COMPARE

Conventional Landscape Sustainable Landscape What Can I Do?

Requires regular application of
potable water to sustain the garden.
Minimizes the use of potable water: Use plants adapted to local rainfall
Plants can be supported by the annual patternsUse alternatives to municipal
precipitation of the area, drinking water for irrigation
use harvested rainwater and/or air Avoid polluting water resources
conditioner condensate, and
direct runoff from impervious
surfaces to the garden.

Garden trimmings are disposed of in Garden trimmings are composted Use Compost
the landfill. and/or used as mulch.

Fertilizers are needed to support The natural soil food web and organic Support the soil food web
healthy plant growth. matter from on-site vegetation
promote healthy plant growth.

The reuse of site structures or
materials at the end of the project life
is not considered.
Landscapes are designed to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
minimize waste and disposal. Purchase local or indigenous materials
Garden structures and features can
be adapted and reused in place or
easily deconstructed and reclaimed
or recycled.

The layout and design of landscapes Design solutions grow from the Learn about your ecoregion
are somewhat homogenous and place and are representative of the Select the right plants
replicate standard templates across local soils, vegetation, materials
the country. and culture.
Chart used with permission of Landscape for Life, landscapeforlife.org

Session 2/Ecological Principles NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

 49

S E S S I O N 3

FOOD
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
— Michael Pollan

SESSION GOALS SESSION BACKGROUND

• To understand the relationship between eating
and sustainability.
• To consider the resources required to produce the food
we eat.
• To consider the impact our food choices have on our
health and the health of the planet.
• To commit to personal change around our food choices.
Eating is an essential natural process for all living
organisms, yet many of us have limited awareness of
how our eating habits impact the natural world. With
industrialized agricultural practices and increased
processing, marketing, and bioengineering, most of us are
far removed from the sources of our food. The authors in
this session look at some of the problems we currently face,
as well as various practical steps to take toward producing
and eating food sustainably.

SUGGESTED GROUP ACTIVITY

Choose a food everyone in your group eats and look into how it is grown, harvested, transported, processed, etc.
This exercise should help you see not only the environmental and justice impacts of production of certain foods,
but also how much certain companies are willing to share about their operations and employee treatment.

C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Session 3/Food

50

Circle Question

Were you inspired this week to change any of your food habits?
If so, which ones will you first work to change?
Reminder to the facilitator: The circle question should move quickly. Elicit an answer from
each participant without questions or comments from others. The facilitator’s guidelines are on page 8.

SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. In what ways can the discussion of food help
us to think about an equitable, healthy and
sustainable world?
2. How many of the foods you ate today contained corn?
3. Consider all the ways in which fossil fuels might have
been used to produce or transport the foods you
ate today.
4. What surprised you most about the effects of Free
Trade practices on Mexico? What are some ways in
which your food choices affect others?
5. What is one way you could change your diet to make it
more sustainable?
6. What is your answer to Kingsolver’s question, “Is
it such a stretch to make moral choices about food
based on the global consequences of its production
and transport?”
7. Were you raised with “the botanically outrageous” idea
of “having everything always?” Are there any foods
whose seasonality and origins you haven’t thought
about?
8. Why do you buy processed food? In what other ways
could you meet these needs?
9. After reading about food waste, are there changes you
would make in the purchase and use of fresh foods?
10. While “Tips for a Lower Carbon Diet” illustrates some
practical everyday decisions we can make, where else
in the larger food system can we intervene in order to
reduce our carbon footprint?
11. In what ways could you make food preparation at home
simpler and more efficient?
12. Carolyn Steel says “Caring about food is tantamount
to treasuring life; the opposite is also true. So what
would the world be like if we truly valued food?”
Respond to her question.
PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
Choose one action to commit to this week, then
share your struggles and successes with your
group at your next group meeting. Here are some ideas to
get you started:
• Pick one processed food you buy regularly and notice the
ingredients. Do you know what each of those ingredients is
and/or where it comes from?
• Check out the farmers markets and subscription farms
(CSAs) in your area. Buy foods that are in season and grown
locally and organically.
• Keep informed on agricultural legislation. Write or call
your elected officials to let them know what kind of food
system you’d like to see.
• Plant your own garden. Even planting a window sill herb
garden or small pot of lettuce is a great step in taking
control of your own food chain.
• Start a compost pile or a worm bin for disposing of food
scraps and nourishing the soil.
• Find out what local groups are doing to address food
issues and see how you can get involved.
NWEI hosts an annual EcoChallenge every October. To
find out more about this event, visit www.ecochallenge.org..

FURTHER RESOURCES
Interested in finding out more on the topics presented in this session? Visit our website for
further readings and resources: www.nwei.org/choices-for-sustainable-living-resources.
Join our Facebook page to continue the discussion online:
www.facebook.com/northwestearthinstitute.

Session 3/Food NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
Foodprint: The ecological footprint of a particular
type of food, including the resources needed and
the greenhouse gases and pollution emitted by the
processes of growing, harvesting, transporting,
processing, storing, and cooking that food item.
Organic: The term organic can refer to a form of
agriculture, the food produced using those organic
farming methods, or the accreditation that organic
producers receive. Organic foods are produced
without synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers,
are not genetically modified, and are not processed
using irradiation, industrial solvents or chemical food
additives. The organic farming movement was birthed
in the 1940s as a response to the industrialization
of agriculture.
Agribusiness: In the agriculture industry,
agribusiness is a broad term for various businesses
involved in food production. When used by critics of
industrialized agriculture, agribusiness is synonymous
with large-scale, industrialized, corporate farming.
Monoculture: The agricultural practice of producing
a single crop on a wide area of land. It is a very
commonly used practice in industrial agriculture and
is designed to allow large yields by standardizing
the planting, maintenance and harvesting of a crop.
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
51
However, monocultures are much more vulnerable to
disease than polycultures and can quickly deplete soil
of important nutrients.
Fair Trade: According to FINE, an informal
association of the four main fair trade networks, fair
trade is “a trading partnership, based on dialogue,
transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity
in international trade. It contributes to sustainable
development by offering better trading conditions to,
and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and
workers — especially in the global South. Fair trade
organizations, backed by consumers, are engaged
actively in supporting producers, awareness raising and
in campaigning for changes in the rules and practice of
conventional international trade.”
Free Trade: A trade system that allows and
encourages traders to trade across national boundaries
without government interference, such as taxes or
other trade barriers. Most countries of the world are
members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which
limits tariffs and trade barriers in international trade.
Many argue against the practices of free trade and the
WTO, claiming that free trade exploits workers and
increases economic and social inequality between the
rich and the poor.
WHAT’S EATING AMERICA
by Michael Pollan
Descendants of the Maya living in Mexico still sometimes
refer to themselves as “the corn people.” The phrase is not
intended as metaphor. Rather, it’s meant to acknowledge
their abiding dependence on this miraculous grass, the
staple of their diet for almost 9,000 years.
For an American like me, growing up linked to a very
different food chain, yet one that is also rooted in corn, not
to think of himself as a corn person suggests either a failure
of imagination or a triumph of capitalism.
Or perhaps a little of both. For the great edifice of
variety and choice that is an American supermarket rests
on a remarkably narrow biological foundation: corn. It’s not
merely the feed that the steers and the chickens and the
pigs and the turkeys ate; it’s not just the source of the flour
and the oil and the leavenings, the glycerides and coloring
in the processed foods; it’s not just sweetening the soft
drinks or lending a shine to the magazine cover over by the
checkout. The supermarket itself — the wallboard and joint
compound, the linoleum and fiberglass and adhesives out
of which the building itself has been built — is in no small
Session 3/Food
52
measure a manifestation of corn.
There are some 45,000 items in the average American
supermarket, and more than a quarter of them contain corn.
At the same time, the food industry has done a good job
of persuading us that the 45,000 different items or SKUs
(stock keeping units) represent genuine variety rather than
the clever rearrangements of molecules extracted from the
same plant.
How this peculiar grass, native to Central America and
unknown to the Old World before 1492, came to colonize
so much of our land and bodies is one of the plant world’s
greatest success stories. I say the plant world’s success
story because it is no longer clear that corn’s triumph is such
a boon to the rest of the world.
At its most basic, the story of life on earth is the
competition among species to capture and store as
much energy as possible — either directly from the
sun, in the case of plants, or, in the case of animals,
by eating plants and plant eaters. The energy is stored
in the form of carbon molecules and measured in
calories: the calories we eat, whether in an ear of
corn or a steak, represent packets of energy once
captured by a plant. Few plants can manufacture
quite as much organic matter (and calories) from the
same quantities of sunlight and water and basic
elements as corn.
The great turning point in the modern
history of corn, which in turn marks a key
turning point in the industrialization of our
food, can be dated with some precision to the
day in 1947 when the huge munitions plant at Muscle
Shoals, Alabama, switched over from making explosives
to making chemical fertilizer. After World War II, the
government had found itself with a tremendous surplus of
ammonium nitrate, the principal ingredient in the making
of explosives. Ammonium nitrate also happens to be an
excellent source of nitrogen for plants. Serious thought
was given to spraying America’s forests with the surplus
chemical, to help the timber industry. But agronomists in
the Department of Agriculture had a better idea: spread the
ammonium nitrate on farmland as fertilizer. The chemical
fertilizer industry (along with that of pesticides, which are
based on the poison gases developed for war) is the product
of the government’s effort to convert its war machine to
peacetime purposes. As the Indian farmer activist Vandana
Shiva says in her speeches, “We’re still eating the leftovers
of World War II.”
F1 hybrid corn is the greediest of plants, consuming
more fertilizer than any other crop. Though F1 hybrids
were introduced in the 1930s, it wasn’t until they made
the acquaintance of chemical fertilizers in the 1950s that
corn yields exploded. The discovery of synthetic nitrogen
changed everything — not just for the corn plant and the
farm, not just for the food system, but also for the way life
Session 3/Food
on earth is conducted.
All life depends on nitrogen; it is the building block from
which nature assembles amino acids, proteins and nucleic
acid; the genetic information that orders and perpetuates
life is written in nitrogen ink. But the supply of usable
nitrogen on earth is limited. Although earth’s atmosphere
is about 80 percent nitrogen, all those atoms are tightly
paired, nonreactive and therefore useless; the 19th-century
chemist Justus von Liebig spoke of atmospheric nitrogen’s
“indifference to all other substances.” To be of any value to
plants and animals, these self-involved nitrogen atoms must
be split and then joined to atoms of hydrogen.
Chemists call this process of taking atoms from the
atmosphere and combining them into molecules useful to
living things “fixing” that element. Until a German Jewish
chemist named Fritz Haber figured out how to turn this trick
in 1909, all the usable nitrogen on earth had at one time
been fixed by soil bacteria living on the roots of leguminous
plants (such as peas or alfalfa or locust trees) or, less
commonly, by the shock of electrical lightning, which can
break nitrogen bonds in the air, releasing a light rain
of fertility.
In his book Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber,
Carl Bosch and the Transformation of World Food
Production, Vaclav Smil pointed out that “there is
no way to grow crops and human bodies without
nitrogen.” Before Haber’s invention, the sheer
amount of life earth could support — the size of
crops and therefore the number of human bodies
— was limited by the amount of nitrogen that bacteria
and lightning could fix. By 1900, European scientists had
recognized that unless a way was found to augment this
naturally occurring nitrogen, the growth of the human
population would soon grind to a very painful halt. The
same recognition by Chinese scientists a few decades later
is probably what compelled China’s opening to the West:
after Nixon’s 1972 trip, the first major order the Chinese
government placed was for 13 massive fertilizer factories.
Without them, China would have starved.
This is why it may not be hyperbole to claim, as Smil
does, that the Haber-Bosch process for fixing nitrogen
(Bosch gets the credit for commercializing Haber’s idea)
is the most important invention of the 20th century. He
estimates that two of every five humans on earth today
would not be alive if not for Fritz Haber’s invention. We can
easily imagine a world without computers or electricity, Smil
points out, but without synthetic fertilizer billions of people
would never have been born. Though, as these numbers
suggest, humans may have struck a Faustian bargain with
nature when Fritz Haber gave us the power to fix nitrogen.
Fritz Haber? No, I’d never heard of him either, even
though he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1918 for
“improving the standards of agriculture and the well-being
of mankind.” But the reason for his obscurity has less to do
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

with the importance of his work than an ugly twist of his
biography, which recalls the dubious links between modern
warfare and industrial agriculture: during World War I, Haber
threw himself into the German war effort, and his chemistry
kept alive Germany’s hopes for victory, by allowing it to make
bombs from synthetic nitrate. Later, Haber put his genius
for chemistry to work developing poison gases — ammonia,
then chlorine. (He subsequently developed Zyklon B, the gas
used in Hitler’s concentration camps.) His wife, a chemist
sickened by her husband’s contribution to the war effort,
used his army pistol to kill herself; Haber died, broken and in
flight from Nazi Germany, in a Basel hotel room in 1934.
His story has been all but written out of the 20th century.
But it embodies the paradoxes of science, the double edge
to our manipulations of nature, the good and evil that
can flow not only from the same man but from the same
knowledge. Even Haber’s agricultural benefaction has
proved to be a decidedly mixed blessing.
When humankind acquired the power to fix nitrogen,
the basis of soil fertility shifted from a total reliance
on the energy of the sun to a new reliance on fossil
fuel. That’s because the Haber-Bosch process works by
combining nitrogen and hydrogen gases under immense
heat and pressure in the presence of a catalyst. The heat
and pressure are supplied by prodigious amounts of
electricity, and the hydrogen is supplied by oil, coal or, most
commonly today, natural gas. True, these fossil fuels were
created by the sun, billions of years ago, but they are not
renewable in the same way that the fertility created by a
legume nourished by sunlight is. (That nitrogen is fixed by a
bacterium living on the roots of the legume, which trades a
tiny drip of sugar for the nitrogen the plant needs.)
Liberated from the old biological constraints, the farm
could now be managed on industrial principles, as a factory
transforming inputs of raw material — chemical fertilizer —
into outputs of corn. And corn adapted brilliantly to the new
industrial regime, consuming prodigious quantities of fossil
fuel energy and turning out ever more prodigious quantities
of food energy. Growing corn, which from a biological
perspective had always been a process of capturing sunlight
to turn it into food, has in no small measure become a
process of converting fossil fuels into food. More than half
of all the synthetic nitrogen made today is applied to corn.
From the standpoint of industrial efficiency, it’s too
bad we can’t simply drink petroleum directly, because
there’s a lot less energy in a bushel of corn (measured in
calories) than there is in the half-gallon of oil required
to produce it. Ecologically, this is a fabulously expensive
way to produce food — but “ecologically” is no longer the
operative standard. In the factory, time is money, and yield
is everything.
One problem with factories, as opposed to biological
systems, is that they tend to pollute. Hungry for fossil
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
53
fuel as hybrid corn is, farmers still feed it far more than it
can possibly eat, wasting most of the fertilizer they buy.
And what happens to that synthetic nitrogen the plants
don’t take up? Some of it evaporates into the air, where
it acidifies the rain and contributes to global warming.
Some seeps down to the water table, whence it may come
out of the tap. The nitrates in water bind to hemoglobin,
compromising the blood’s ability to carry oxygen to the
brain. (I guess I was wrong to suggest we don’t sip fossil
fuels directly; sometimes we do.)
It has been less than a century since Fritz Haber’s
invention, yet already it has changed earth’s ecology. More
than half of the world’s supply of usable nitrogen is now
man-made. (Unless you grew up on organic food, most of the
kilo or so of nitrogen in your body was fixed by the Haber-
Bosch process.) “We have perturbed the global nitrogen
cycle,” Smil wrote, “more than any other, even carbon.” The
effects may be harder to predict than the effects of the
global warming caused by our disturbance of the carbon
cycle, but they are no less momentous.
The flood of synthetic nitrogen has fertilized not just the
farm fields but the forests and oceans, too, to the benefit
of some species (corn and algae being two of the biggest
beneficiaries) and to the detriment of countless others. The
ultimate fate of the nitrates spread in Iowa or Indiana is to
flow down the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico, where
their deadly fertility poisons the marine ecosystem. The
nitrogen tide stimulates the wild growth of algae, and the
algae smother the fish, creating a “hypoxic,” or dead, zone
as big as New Jersey — and still growing. By fertilizing the
world, we alter the planet’s composition of species and
shrink its biodiversity.
And yet, as organic farmers (who don’t use synthetic
fertilizer) prove every day, the sun still shines, plants and
their bacterial associates still fix nitrogen, and farm animals
still produce vast quantities of nitrogen in their “waste,”
so-called. It may take more work, but it’s entirely possible
to nourish the soil, and ourselves, without dumping so
much nitrogen into the environment. The key to reducing
our dependence on synthetic nitrogen is to build a more
diversified agriculture — rotating crops and using animals
to recycle nutrients on farms — and give up our vast,
nitrogen-guzzling monocultures of corn. Especially as
the price of fossil fuels climbs, even the world’s most
industrialized farmers will need to take a second look at
how nature, and those who imitate her, go about creating
fertility without diminishing our world.
This article appeared in the June 15, 2006 issue of Smithsonian.
Michael Pollan is an award-winning author of numerous books
and articles on the interactions between humans and nature. His
work includes The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four
Meals and the New York Times bestseller, The Botany of Desire: A
Plant’s-Eye View of the World.
Session 3/Food
54
BEYOND ‘FREE’ OR ‘FAIR’ TRADE:
MEXICAN FARMERS GO LOCAL
by Mike Wold
Tío Joel rode his small donkey down the dirt road to his
greenhouse to show us his solution to keeping small farmers
on their land in southern Mexico. At about seventy years old,
he could handle a machete or lift a 20-kilo sack of compost
as easily as any of us, though the brace he wore around his
waist was a sign of problems to come.
Taking a break from chopping green manure for compost
for his popular tomatoes, he explained why a campesino like
him could benefit from using organic methods: “In the
harvest this year a lot of tomatoes were being harvested
and the price went way down to five pesos per kilo, but
we sell ours for seven. I go from house to house and sell it
small-scale, but we sell out our tomatoes because they’re
well-known … on Sunday we ran out of tomatoes, we sell so
many.”
Trade policy in the United States usually gets cast
into two opposing camps — ”free” trade and “fair” trade,
a dichotomy that assumes local production in the Global
South must be sold elsewhere. Indeed, we usually think of
the demand for local, organic foods as coming from North
America or Europe. But within countries like Mexico, there’s
another way to approach the issue, looking at global import
and export versus local production and consumption. In the
United States, it has emerged as the “localist” movement,
which to many seems an unaffordable luxury compared to
the accessibility of cheap imported food. But in the state
of Oaxaca, Mexico, raising and eating your own food and
producing for the local market has become a strategy
Session 3/Food
for cultural and economic survival in a hostile trade
environment.
In southern Mexico, the cost of corn production is now
higher than its world market price. By standard economic
logic, Mexican campesinosshould give up raising corn and
grow another crop to sell on the world market, leave their
land entirely for a job in the city, or migrate north.
Many farmers have done just that, swelling the ranks
of undocumented workers in the United States and the
underemployed in overpopulated cities at home. Others,
however, have stayed on the land and are finding ways
to survive and even prosper. I traveled with a group from
the United States, organized by the nonprofits Witness
for Peace, Community Alliance for Global Justice, and the
Washington Fair Trade Coalition, to Oaxaca state’s Mixteca
region to find out how and why.
Mexico is the birthplace of corn, and corn is the mainstay
of the Mexican diet. It’s hard to imagine a Mexico that
doesn’t raise corn.
Yet when the the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) was signed 17 years ago, one of its immediate
consequences was a five-fold increase in corn imports into
Mexico. U.S. corn sells at well below the cost of Mexican
corn, not just because American agriculture is more
“efficient” (due to heavy use of machinery and chemical-
based fertilizers), but because subsidies for U.S. corn
bolster the industry’s economic leverage.
But in places like Oaxaca’s Santo Tomás Mazaltepec,
farmers — and eaters — still prefer local over the yellow
corn usually grown in the United States. “The local corn
produces more and better tortilla material than imported
corn…and also you can tell the difference in the flavor,” said
one farmer we talked to. “A disadvantage is that we have
really low production — we can barely produce enough
for ourselves…and we have periods of the year when we
have really severe drought conditions…There are the
government stores that sell corn but what’s sold there is
the yellow corn…that may come from the United States…
[there are] a lot of chemical fertilizers in it and pesticides
and herbicides and they can sell it here much cheaper than
we do, so we’re obligated to sell ours cheaper ...”
As a result of these social and economic fluctuations,
much of Mexico’s countryside has been depopulated. In
San Pedro Coxcaltepec, there are few young people for old-
timers like Tío Joel to pass their farms on to.
According to Tío Martín, another Coxcaltepec farmer, “It
used to be that there were 12 or 15 people…in each house,
and now…it’s two people here, two people there; there’s
just no people left. When we try to do tequio [traditional
volunteer community service], it used to be…there were
lots of people helping out; now it’s really hard because it’s
just us older folks.”
Eleazar García, a farmer in his thirties, added that “the
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE
 55

important challenge is that there are [still] a number of around the cornfield; these greens are ecologically adapted
young folks here and we want to convince them that this to the cornfield environment — they don’t grow in such
is dignified work and that it’s a very important role in the profusion away from the fields — and are an important
feeding of one’s family…The campesino always appreciates source of vitamin A and other nutrients in the village diet.
having food… to not worry about always having money in In the 1980s, new organizations in the Oaxaca
your pocket …[as] they say around here, highlands, such as CEDICAM (Center for Integral
we’re not worried — if I’ve got beans, I’ve Campesino Development of the Mixteca), started working
got something to eat.” with campesinos to find alternatives to the damaging
Enter the “localist” movement pesticides, monocrops, and hybrid seeds promoted by
— or better, the movement for the Green Revolution throughout the 60s and 70s by
food sovereignty, the principle building on traditional practices that were adapted to
that for a community to have the area — all while using new insights from organic
control of its destiny, it must farming to increase yields.
have substantive control of the Unlike the urban poor in Mexico, farmers in San
production of the food it consumes. Pedro Coxcaltepec say that the post-NAFTA rise
People need to be able to choose what in the price of tortillas didn’t affect
they eat. them at all. “I raise all the corn I need,”
Subsistence farmers in one of them told me.
southern Mexico are in a much Unfortunately, farmers also need cash
better position to raise what to participate in the modern world and buy
they eat than most dwellers in goods they can’t produce themselves.
U.S. cities. They’ve been doing So the challenge is to find something
it for a long time. In Oaxaca, besides corn to sell on the market.
there are dozens of different That way young people will want
varieties of corn, each adapted to stay and farm there and, in doing
to a particular set of climatic so, keep their traditional economy
conditions, elevation, and soil. alive. CEDICAM has helped farmers
Even the grass that was the like Tío Joel use greenhouses from a
wild precursor of corn still failed development project in the valley
grows in the Oaxaca hills. to raise vegetables to sell — not on
Furthermore, over thousands the world market, but in nearby towns,
of years, indigenous Mexican farmers where people will pay for fresh, local
have evolved a sophisticated means produce.
of sustainably farming on steep Another organization, Puente
slopes and easily eroded soils. Unlike a la Salud Comunitaria (Bridge to
typical U.S. agricultural practice, Community Health), has helped several
Oaxacan farmers traditionally communities revive the cultivation of
plant beans and squash in their cornfields. Beans use the amaranth, a grain which originated in the Mixteca region
cornstalks for support and add nitrogen — a nutrient that and still grows wild there, but which was almost entirely
is depleted by growing corn — to the soil. Squash can grow eradicated by the Spanish, who thought it was associated
between the corn stalks; the vines can be left in place as with pagan practices. Amaranth has much higher protein
a green manure for adding nutrients to the field after the than corn and, unlike corn in the modern market, still has
harvest. Farmers also allow wild greens to grow in and a high market value in Oaxaca — thus it can serve dual

“‘You are what you eat’ is a truism hard to argue with, and yet it is, as a visit to a
feedlot suggests, incomplete, for you are what what you eat eats, too.”
— Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Session 3/Food

56

purposes of improving village nutrition and providing a

viable cash crop.
The Environmental
In Santo Tomas Mazaltepec, the availability of the high-
Working Group (EWG)
protein grain has had a significant effect on nutrition in the
recommends buying
community. Mothers who added small amounts of locally
organic whenever
grown amaranth — less than an ounce a day — to their
possible. Not only is it
children’s daily meals as an experiment said that the kids
smart to reduce your
were clearly more energetic and growing better.
exposure to pesticides,
Food sovereignty isn’t limited to farmers in rural areas.
but buying organic sends
Most of the people in Oaxaca City are within one or two
a message that you support
generations of living off the land and still know something
environmentally friendly farming
about growing their own food. Given the steep rise in food
practices that minimize soil erosion, safeguard
prices in Mexico since NAFTA was signed, city-dwellers
workers and protect water quality and wildlife.
who grow at least some of their own food can supplement
However, organics are not accessible or
meager incomes to insulate themselves and their families
affordable for everyone, so the EWG created the
from the effects of layoffs and low wages; this also
Shopper’s Guide™ to help consumers make the
increases their resilience during the frequent political
healthiest choices given their circumstances.
struggles that occur in Oaxaca between the population as a
EWG always recommends eating fruits
whole and the corrupt government. The ability to eat during
and vegetables, even conventionally grown,
strikes may make the difference between winning or losing
over processed foods and other less
the struggle.
healthy alternatives.
Growers María and Laurentina started raising oyster
DIRTY DOZEN PLUS™ mushrooms two years ago; a year ago, they were working
Buy these organic: hard to explain to people in the produce markets how to
cook the mushrooms; this year, the demand for mushrooms
1. Apples 7. Grapes
is enough that they’re looking for ways to increase their
2. Celery 8. Spinach production and capacity, like buying a refrigerator to store
3. Sweet bell peppers 9. Lettuce their own spores in, rather than having to buy them, and
4. Peaches 10. Cucumbers to store their crops for a few days. Another urban farmer
5. Strawberries 11. Blueberries — talked about what a help it was to her household budget not
6. Nectarines — domestic to have to go to the market for tomatoes, cilantro, parsley,
imported 12. Potatoes and celery.
These farmers and urban gardeners are not looking for
PLUS hand-outs or foreign aid. What they need is a supportive
environment for their survival and the rejuvenation of a
+ Green beans
once-sustainable rural economy. The United States can help
+ Kale/Greens by supporting trade policies that don’t pit Mexican small-
+ May contain pesticide residues of special concern scale agriculture against U.S. agribusiness and create an
economic environment that supports the rest of the world
CLEAN 15™ in growing its own food. NAFTA is up for renewal in a few
Lowest in pesticide: years, offering us a chance to do exactly that.
1. Onions 9. Eggplant “If you really want to combat hunger in the world,” farmer
2. Sweet Corn 10. Kiwi Eleazar García told us as he showed us the difference
3. Pineapples 11. Cantaloupe — between thriving cornstalks in a field that had been
domestic fertilized with cheap organic compost, and stunted corn in
4. Avocado
a field that had been fertilized with chemicals for too many
5. Cabbage 12. Sweet potatoes
years, “it’s in the hands ofcampesinos. They live on what
6. Sweet peas 13. Grapefruit
they grow.”
7. Asparagus 14. Watermelon
15. Mushrooms Mike Wold wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national,
8. Mangoes
nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas
with practical actions. Mike is a regular contributor to Real
Copyright © Environmental Working Group,
Change newspaper in Seattle and a long-time activist on
www.ewg.org. Reprinted with permission.
immigration and related social justice issues.

Session 3/Food NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


A MEAT EATER’S GUIDE
TO CLIMATE CHANGE
by the Environmental Working Group
EAT LESS MEAT + CHEESE AND BUY GREENER
WHEN YOU DO
Americans’ appetite for meat and dairy — billions of
pounds a year from billions of animals — takes a toll on
our health, the environment, climate and animal welfare.
Producing all this meat and dairy requires large amounts of
pesticides, chemical fertilizer, fuel, feed and water. It also
generates greenhouse gases and large amounts of toxic
manure and wastewater that pollute groundwater, rivers,
streams and, ultimately, the ocean. In addition, eating large
quantities of beef and processed meats increases your
exposure to toxins and is linked to higher rates of health
problems, including heart disease, cancer and obesity.
U.S. meat consumption has held steady for the past
several years, but Americans consume 60 per cent more
than Europeans (FAO 2009) and the global appetite for
meat is exploding. From 1971 to 2010, worldwide production
of meat tripled to around 600 billion pounds while global
population grew by just 81 percent (US Census Bureau,
International Data
Base). At this rate, production will double by 2050
to approximately 1.2 trillion pounds of meat per year,
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
57
requiring more water, land, fuel, pesticides and fertilizer and
causing significant damage to the planet and global health
(Elam 2006).
It doesn’t have to be this way. You can do something
about it. By eating and wasting less meat (especially red
and processed meat) and cheese, you can simultaneously
improve your health and reduce the climate and
environmental impact of food production. And when you do
choose to eat meat and cheese, go greener. There are many
environmental, health and animal welfare reasons to choose
meat and dairy products that come from organic, pasture-
raised, grass-fed animals. It may cost more, but when
you buy less meat overall, you can afford to go healthier
and greener.
WHY GO ORGANIC, GRASS-FED AND
PASTURE-RAISED?
HEALTH BENEFITS
A considerable number of studies show that grass-fed
beef has less fat and more nutrients than far more common
and less expensive grain-fed beef (Duckett 1993, 2009;
Rule 2002; UCS 2006). A 2009 study comparing both types
found that grass-fed beef had lower total saturated and
mono-unsaturated fat, more heart healthy omega-3 fatty
acids, a lower (and healthier) ratio of omega-6 to omega-3
fatty acids, and higher levels of vitamin E, beta-carotene
and B-vitamins (Duckett 2009). Choosing certified organic
and/or grass-fed products reduces your exposure to traces
of sub-therapeutic antibiotics and artificial hormones that
are given to conventionally raised animals. Going organic
also reduces exposure to toxins from pesticides that might
accumulate in animal fat.
LOWER RISK OF DISEASE
Food from free-range, pasture-raised animals may also
reduce the risk of bacterial contamination. A 2007 study
found that the prevalence of fecal salmonella in open-
pasture chicken farms was about half that of conventional
farms (16 percent versus 30 percent) (Siemon 2007).
Other studies have found that grassfed cattle carry less
E. coli overall than grain-fed, confined animals (Russell
2000, Bailey 2003). Organically raised meat may also be
safer. A recent USDA- funded study found that salmonella
prevalence in fecal samples from organic poultry farms was
significantly lower than in samples from conventional farms
(6 percent versus 39 percent). Similarly, only 5 percent of
organic feed samples were contaminated with salmonella,
versus 28 percent of conventional feed samples (Alal 2010).
ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS
Well-managed grazing and grass-fed operations are
better for the environment. They use fewer energy-
intensive inputs and, by regularly moving animals to fresh
pasture and keeping them away from streambeds, they
Session 3/Food
58

spread the manure more evenly and improve the quality and
quantity of forage growth.
This helps to conserve soil, reduce erosion and water
pollution, increase carbon sequestration and preserve
biodiversity and wildlife (Johnson 2002, FAO 2009, Pelletier
2010). Organic feed production and grazing practices are
also better for the environment. They reduce fertilizer and
pesticide runoff into waterways, and the use of compost,
cover-cropping and rotational grazing helps build healthy,
productive and water-conserving soils. Organic methods
also enhance pest and weed resistance without the use of
chemicals and ultimately foster greater resiliency in the
face of extreme weather and climate change.
CLIMATE IMPACT
There are few definitive studies of the net amount of
greenhouse gas emissions from grass-fed versus confined-
feedlot, grain-fed meat. Since pasture-raised cattle gain
weight more slowly than grain-fed animals (an average of
25 percent slower in one recent study (Gurian-Sherman
2011), those animals take longer to reach slaughter weight
and consequently emit more methane and nitrous oxide.
Confined cattle gain weight much more quickly on their
high-starch corn feed.
These higher emissions may be offset, however, by the
carbon sequestration benefits that well-managed pasture
systems can provide (Pelletier 2010). Rotational grazing
and the application of organic soil treatments can have a
significant impact on building up soil carbon in pastureland
(Follet 2001, Conant 2001). Far fewer energy-intensive
inputs are used in grass-fed beef production.
The climate impact of grass-fed animals depends on
factors that vary greatly from one production system to
another. They include: average weight gain and quality
of forage (the slower the animals gain weight, the more
methane they emit); the rate of soil carbon sequestration;
and crowding (greater density of animals means more
concentrated manure deposits and higher methane and
nitrous oxide emissions). Much more research is needed
to determine the comparative climate impact of pasture-
based versus confined feedlot systems.
CONCLUSION
EATING LESS, GREENER AND HEALTHIER MEAT IS GOOD
FOR YOUR HEALTH AND THE PLANET
Climate impacts are just one factor in choosing what to
eat. There are many compelling health, environmental and
animal-welfare reasons to eat less meat and to opt for meat
from organic, pasture-raised, grass-fed animals. It may cost
more, but when you buy less meat overall you can afford
healthier, greener meat.
Eating and wasting less meat (especially red meat) and
cheese can simultaneously improve our health and reduce
the climate and environmental impact of food. Choosing
grass-fed, free-range, pasture-raised and/or organic
products also helps to expand market demand. As the
market grows, more farmers and ranchers will choose more
sustainable and humane production methods, which in turn
will make these products more affordable and available.
Choosing healthier, greener food is important, but
significantly cutting the greenhouse gas emissions
that contribute to climate change will also require
governmental action. We all need to get engaged to push for
comprehensive public policies that put the nation on a path
to greener energy. Reducing meat production’s negative
impacts on soil, air and water will take stronger regulatory
enforcement and better policies — in addition to significant
changes in meat consumption habits.
Copyright © Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org.
Reprinted with permission. EWG uses the power of public
information to protect public health and the environment.

“While it is true that many people simply can’t afford to pay more for food,
either in money or time or both, many more of us can.
After all, just in the last decade or two we’ve somehow found the time in the day
to spend several hours on the internet and the money in the budget
not only to pay for broadband service, but to cover a second phone bill
and a new monthly bill for television, formerly free.
For the majority of Americans, spending more for better food
is less a matter of ability than priority.”
— Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto

Session 3/Food NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


STALKING THE VEGETANNUAL
by Barbara Kingsolver
An extraordinary feature of modern humans is that we
seem to think we’ve broken the shackles of our food chain
and walked right out of it. If we don’t know beans about
beans, that may be fine with us. Asparagus, potatoes, turkey
drumsticks — you name it, most of us here in America
don’t have a clue how the world makes it. Sometimes I think
I’m exaggerating the scope of the problem, and then I’ll
encounter an editor (at a well-known nature magazine)
who’s nixing the part of my story that refers to pineapples
growing from the ground. She insisted they grew on trees.
Or, I’ll have a conversation like this one:
“What’s new on the farm?” asked a friend of mine, a
lifelong city dweller and gourmet cook who likes for me to
keep her posted by phone. This particular conversation was
in early spring, so I told her what was up in the garden: peas,
potatoes, spinach.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “When you say, ‘the potatoes
are up,’ what do you mean?” She paused, reformulating her
question: “What part of the potato comes up?”
“Um, the plant part,” I said. “The stems and leaves.”
“Wow,” she said. “I never knew a potato had a plant part.”
Most people of my grandparents’ generation had an
intuitive sense of agricultural basics: when various fruits
and vegetables come into season, which ones keep through
the winter, how to preserve the others. On what day
autumn’s frost will likely fall on their county, and when to
expect the last one in spring. Which crops can be planted
before the last frost, and which must wait. What animals
and vegetables thrive in one’s immediate region and how to
live well on those, with little else thrown into the mix beyond
a bag of flour, a pinch of salt, and a handful of coffee. Few
people of my generation, and approximately none of our
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
59
children, could answer any of those questions, let alone
all of them. This knowledge has largely vanished from
our culture.
If potatoes can surprise some part of their audience by
growing leaves, it may not have occurred to most people
that lettuce has a flower part, too. It does. They all do.
Virtually all non-animal foods we eat come from flowering
plants. Exceptions are mushrooms, seaweeds, and pine nuts.
If other exotic edibles exist that you call food, I salute you.
Flowering plants, known botanically as angiosperms,
evolved from ancestors similar to our modern-day conifers.
The flower is a handy reproductive organ that came into its
own during the Cretaceous era, right around the time when
dinosaurs were for whatever reason getting downsized.
In the millions of years since then, flowering plants have
established themselves as the most conspicuously
successful terrestrial life forms ever, having moved into
every kind of habitat, in infinite variations. Flowering plants
are key players in all the world’s ecotypes: the deciduous
forests, the rainforests, the grasslands. They are the desert
cacti and the tundra scrub. They’re small and they’re large,
they fill swamps and tolerate drought, they have settled
into most every niche in every kind of place. It only stands to
reason we would eat them.
Flowering plants come in packages as different as an
oak tree and violet, but they all have basic life history in
common. They sprout and leaf out; they bloom and have
sex by somehow rubbing one flower’s boy stuff against
another’s girl parts. Since they can’t engage in hot pursuit,
they lure a third party, such as bees, into the sexual act —
or else (depending on species) wait for the wind. From that
union comes the blessed event, babies made, in the form
of seeds cradled inside some form of fruit. Finally, sooner
or later — because after that, what’s the point anymore?
— they die. Among the plants known as annuals, this life
history is accomplished all in a single growing season,
commonly starting with spring and ending with frost. The
plant waits out the winter in the form of a seed, safely
protected from weather, biding its time until conditions are
right for starting over again.
Excluding the small fraction of our diet supplied by
perennials — our tree fruits, and nuts — we consume
annuals. Our vegetal foods may be leaves, buds, fruits,
grains, or other seed heads, but each comes to us from
some point along this same continuum, the code all annual
plants must live by. No variations are allowed. They can’t
set fruit, for example, before they bloom. As obvious as
this may seem, it’s easy enough to forget in a supermarket
culture where the plant stages constantly present
themselves in random order. And that’s just the beginning.
Biology teachers face kids in classrooms who may not even
believe in the metamorphosis of bud to flower to fruit and
seed, but rather, in some continuum of pansies becoming
Session 3/Food
60
petunias becoming chrysanthemums because that’s the
reality they witness as land-scrappers come to city parks
and surreptitiously yank one flower before it fades from its
prime, replacing it with another.
The same disconnection from natural processes may
be at the heart of our country’s shift away from believing
in evolution. In the past, principles of natural selection
and change over time made sense to kids who’d watched
it all unfold. Whether or not they knew the terminology,
farm families understood the processes well enough to
imitate them: culling, selecting, and improving their herds
and crops. For modern kids who intuitively believe in the
spontaneous generation of fruits and vegetables in the
produce section, trying to get their minds around the slow
speciation of the plant kingdom may be a stretch. The
process by which vegetables come
into season may appear, in this
context, as random as the lottery.
But it isn’t. Here’s how it goes. First
come the leaves: spinach, kale, lettuce, and
chard (at my latitude, this occurs in April
and May). Then more mature heads of leaves
and flower heads: cabbage, romaine, broccoli,
and cauliflower (May through June). Then
tender young fruit-set: snow peas, baby squash,
cucumbers (June), followed by green beans, green
peppers, and small tomatoes (July). Then more
mature, colorfully ripened fruits: beefsteak tomatoes,
eggplants, red and yellow peppers (late July through
August). Then the large, hard-shelled fruits with developed
seeds inside: cantaloupes, honeydews, watermelons,
pumpkins, winter squash (August through September). Last
come the root crops, and so ends the produce parade.
To recover an intuitive sense of what will be in season
throughout the year, picture an imaginary plant that
bears over the course of one growing season all the
different vegetable products we can harvest. We’ll call it
a vegetannual. Picture its life passing before your eyes
like a time-lapse film: first, in the cool early spring, shoots
poke up out of the ground. Small leaves appear, then bigger
leaves. As the plant grows up into the sunshine and the
days grow longer, flower buds will appear, followed by
small green fruits. Under midsummer’s warm sun, the fruits
grow larger, riper, and more colorful. As days shorten into
the autumn, these mature into hard-shelled fruits with
appreciable seeds inside. Finally, as the days grow cool, the
vegetannual may hoard the sugars its leaves have made,
pulling them down into a storage unit of some kind: a tuber,
bulb, or root.
Plainly, all the vegetables we consume don’t come from
the same plant, but each comes from a plant, that’s the
point — a plant predestined to begin its life in the spring
and die in the fall. (A few, like onions and carrots, are
Session 3/Food
attempting to be biennials but we’ll ignore that for now.)
What we choose to eat from each type of vegetable plant
must come in its turn — leaves, buds, flowers, green fruits,
ripe fruits, hard fruits — because that is the necessary
order of things for an annual plant. For the life of them, they
can’t do it differently.
Some minor deviations and a bit of overlap are allowed,
but in general, picturing an imaginary vegetannual plant is
pretty reliable guide to what will be in season, wherever
you live. If you find yourself eating a watermelon in April,
you can count back three months and imagine a place
warm enough in January for this plant to have launched its
destiny. Mexico maybe, or southern California. Chile is also
a possibility. If you’re inclined to think this way, consider all
of the resources it took to transport a finicky fruit
the size of a human toddler to your door, from
that locale.
Our gardening forebears meant
watermelon to be the juicy, barefoot
taste of a hot summer’s end, just as a
pumpkin is the trademark fruit of late October. Most
of us accept the latter, and limit our jack-o’-lantern
activities to the proper botanical season. Waiting
for a watermelon is harder. It’s tempting to reach
for melons, red peppers, tomatoes, and other late-
summer delights before the summer even arrives.
But it’s actually possible to wait, celebrating each
season when it comes, not fretting about its being absent at
all other times because something else good is at hand.
If many of us would view this style of eating as
deprivation, that’s only because we’ve grown accustomed to
the botanically outrageous condition of having everything,
always; this may be the closest thing we have right now to
a distinctive national cuisine. Well-heeled North American
epicures are likely to gather around a table where whole
continents collide discreetly on a white tablecloth: New
Zealand lamb with Italian porcinis, Peruvian asparagus,
Mexican lettuce and tomatoes, and a hearty French
Bordeaux. The date on the calendar is utterly irrelevant.
I’ve enjoyed my share of such meals, but I’m beginning
at least to notice when I’m consuming the United Nations
of edible plants and animals all in one seating (or the WTO
is more like it). On a winter’s day not long ago I was served
a sumptuous meal like this, finished off with a dessert of
raspberries. Because they only grow in temperate zones,
not the tropics, these would have come from somewhere
in the Southern Hemisphere. I was amazed that such small,
eminently bruisable fruits could survive a zillion-mile trip
looking so good (I myself look pretty wrecked after a mere
red-eye from California), and I mumbled some reserved
awe over that fact. I think my hostess was amused by my
country-mouse naïveté. “This is New York,” she assured me.
“We can get anything we want, any day of the year.”
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

So it is. And I don’t wish to be ungracious, but we get
it at a price. Most of that is not measured in money, but
in untallied debts that will be paid by our children in the
currency of extinctions, economic unravelings, and global
climate change. I do know it’s impolite to raise such
objections at the dinner table. Seven raspberries are not
(I’ll try to explain someday to my grandkids) the end of the
world. I ate them and said “thank you.” But I’m continually
amazed by the manner in which we’re allowed to steal from
future generations, while commanding them not to do that
to us, and rolling our eyes at anyone who is tediously PC
enough to point this out. The conspicuous consumption
of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a
spiritual error, or even bad manners.
It’s not that our culture is unacquainted with the idea of
food as a spiritually loaded commodity. We’re just particular
about which spiritual arguments we’ll accept as valid for
declining certain foods. Generally unacceptable reason:
environmental destruction, energy waste, the poison of
workers. Acceptable: it’s prohibited by a holy text. Set down
a platter of country ham in front of a rabbi, an imam, and
a Buddhist monk, and you may have just conjured three
different visions of damnation. Guests with high blood
pressure may add a fourth. Is it such a stretch, then, to make
moral choices about food based on the global consequences
of its production and transport? In a country where 5
percent of the world’s population glugs down a quarter of all
the fuel, also belching out that much of the world’s pollution,
we’ve apparently made big choices about consumption.
They could be up for review.
The business of importing foods across great distances
is not, by its nature, a boon to Third World farmers, but
it’s very good business for oil companies. Transporting a
single calorie of a perishable fresh fruit from California to
New York takes about eighty-seven calories’ worth of fuel.
That’s as efficient as driving from Philadelphia to Annapolis
and back in order to walk three miles on a treadmill in a
Maryland gym. There may be people who’d do it. Pardon me
while I ask someone else to draft my energy budget.
In many social circles it’s ordinary for hosts to
accommodate vegetarian guests, even if they’re carnivores
themselves. Maybe the world would likewise become more
hospitable to diners who are queasy about fuel-guzzling
foods, if that preference had a name. Petrolophobes?
Seasonaltarians? Lately I’ve begun seeing the term
“locavores,” and I like it: both scientifically and socially
descriptive, with just the right hint of livin’ la vida loca.
Slow Food International has done a good job of putting
a smile on this eating style. Rather than a pious frown,
even while sticking to the quixotic agenda of fighting
overcentralized agribusinesses. The engaging strategy of
the Slowies (their logo is a snail) is to celebrate what we
have, standing up for the pleasures that seasonal eating
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61
can bring. They have their work cut out for them, as the
American brain trust seems mostly blank in that subject.
Consider the frustration of the man who wrote in to a
syndicated food columnist with this complaint: having
studied the [former] food pyramid brought to us by the
U.S. Dietary Guidelines folks, he had his marching orders
for “2 cups of fruit, 2½ cups of vegetables a day.” So he
marched down to his grocery and bought (honest to Pete)
eighty-three plums, pears, peaches, and apples. Outraged,
he reported that virtually the entire lot was rotten, mealy,
tasteless, juiceless, or hard as a rock and refusing to ripen.
Given the date of the column, this had occurred in
January or February. The gentleman lives in Frostburg,
Maryland, where they would still have been deeply involved
in a thing called winter. I’m sure he didn’t really think tasty,
tree-ripened plums, peaches, and apples were hanging
outside for the picking in the orchards around… um, Frost-
burg. Probably he didn’t think “orchard” at all — how many
of us do, in the same sentence with “fruit?” Our dietary
guidelines come to us without a roadmap.
Concentrating on local foods means thinking of fruit
invariably as the product of an orchard, and a winter squash
as the fruit of a late autumn farm. It’s a strategy that will
keep grocery money in the neighborhood, where it gets
recycled into your own school system and local businesses.
The green spaces surrounding your town stay green, and
farmers who live nearby get to grow more food next year,
for you. This also happens to be a win-win strategy for
anyone with taste buds. It begins with rethinking a position
that is only superficially about deprivation. Citizens of
frosty worlds unite, and think about marching past the
off-season fruits: you have nothing to lose but your mealy,
juiceless, rock-hard and refusing to ripen.
Locally grown is a denomination whose meaning is
incorruptible. Sparing the transportation fuel, packaging,
and unhealthy additives is a compelling part of the story.
But the plot goes beyond that. Local food is a handshake
deal in a community gathering place. It involves farmers
with first names, who show up at the market week after
week. It involves consumers who remember that to be
human is to belong to a food chain, wherever and whenever
we find ourselves alive. It means remembering the truest
of all truths: we are what we eat. Stepping slowly backward
out of a fuel-driven industry of highly transported foods will
alter more than a person’s grocery list. Such small, stepwise
changes in personal habits aren’t trivial. Ultimately, they will
add up to the story of who we were on this planet: what it
took to keep us alive, what we left behind.
This article appeared in the March/April 2007 issue of Orion
Magazine. Barbara Kingsolver is an award-winning author. In 2000
she received the National Humanities Medal, our nation’s highest
honor for service through the arts. Her most famous work is her
full-length narrative non-fiction, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.
Session 3/Food
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THE PRINGLES PROBLEM:
PROCESSED FOODS AND THE PLANET
by Anna Lappé
Large agribusiness companies understand one thing
for sure: Processing is profitable. The margin on Pringles
sure beats what’s possible selling potatoes. Customers
are willing to pay four dollars a pound for a product that’s
only 40 percent potatoes and 60 percent fillers, when they
could buy a pound of potatoes for a dollar. Even “classics”
like Coca-Cola, which first entered the market in 1886,
have received a twentieth-century, processed-foods face-
lift. After the 1970s invention of high-fructose corn syrup
provided a sweet (and cheap) alternative to sugar, Coke
switched its formula. By the mid-1980s, sugar was out; corn
was in.
Even old standbys like fruits and vegetables are now
mainly delivered after serious processing. By 1999, half of
all vegetables bought in the United States were canned,
frozen, or dried, and nearly half of the fruit we consumed
was in the form of juice. And the vast majority of the meat in
our refrigerators — from the bacon to the burgers — came
from animals raised on factory farms, in close confinement
and fed on diets that include genetically modified corn
and soybeans.
Typical supermarket shelves are now lined with
processed products bursting with multisyllabic ingredients
like high-fructose corn syrup and preservatives and
additives. Each step required to make these processed
foods, and their multitude of ingredients, adds to the
climate change toll. Compared with whole fruits and
vegetables, legumes and grains, processed foods require
more energy to be produced — from the chemical fertilizers
needed to grow the corn-based sweeteners to the synthetic
compounds used to ensure that Twinkies stay moist; from
freezing, canning, drying, and packaging the products
to making the additives and preservatives. In particular,
Session 3/Food
processed-foods ingredients like palm oil carry with them a
high emissions toll.
Plus, chances are, the more processed the product
you’re eating, the less you will know, or be able to know,
about the ingredients. I don’t mean to pick on the Pop-
Tart, but it’s an easy target. The energy history of this
breakfast classic is just one example of the climate impacts
embedded in processed foods. You may be surprised to
learn all that goes into making these so-thin-they-fit-into-
your-toaster treats. Among the ingredients are gelatin,
made from by-products of the meat and leather industries;
sodium pyrophosphate, commonly used in household
detergents as a water softener; monocalcium phosphate,
a leavening agent typically found in bird and chicken feed;
tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a preservative, also
found in household varnishes and lacquers; and three
different artificial colorants, including Red No. 40 (banned
in Denmark, Belgium, France, and other European Union
countries because of concerns about its impact on human
health). The list goes on.
To get from household-varnish ingredient and chemical
additive to a tasty treat requires intensive processing,
and the energy required to power and operate the
manufacturing plants adds to the emissions toll of every
Pop-Tart. One manufacturing plant that journalist Steve
Ettlinger visited to trace Twinkie ingredients for his expose
Twinkie, Deconstructed almost fills one square mile. That’s
roughly sixteen and a half football fields, and the plant uses
enough electricity to power 160,000 homes.
Add in the energy required to produce the packaging
to wrap the individual Pop-Tarts, the Pop-Tart boxes, and
the distribution boxes they are shipped in. We must also
add the emissions from transporting all the ingredients to
where the product is made. Consult the Food Technology
Buyer’s Guide and you’ll find twenty-eight companies to
source the Pop-Tart’s gelatin, from Taipei, Taiwan, to Tampa,
Florida. The monocalcium phosphate? The guide lists three
manufacturers, including two in China. Looking for a source
of that TBHQ? Try one of sixty-one companies, twenty of
which are based in China. And sodium pyrophosphate? Only
one manufacturer is noted; it’s in China, too.
In addition to those far-flung ingredients, it’s anyone’s
guess exactly where the Pop-Tart’s six corn-based
ingredients (corn syrup, cornstarch, etc.) originate, or the
leavening agents, the citric acid, and the colorings, like Blue
No. 1 and Yellow No. 6.
There’s still more to the climate impact of processed
foods, including another facet I was blind to until I began
this research: the spread of palm oil.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
Pick up a box of Quaker Chewy Granola Bars, Pringles, or
Philadelphia cream cheese, and global warming is probably
pretty far from your mind. But these treats — along with
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

a plethora of other popular products, including cosmetics,
soaps, shampoos, and fabric softeners — share a common
ingredient: a healthy serving of palm oil. As the push for
processed foods has skyrocketed, so has the demand for
these ingredients.
In the last decade, the production of palm oil has more
than doubled. Today, palm is the most widely traded
vegetable oil in the world, and demand is soaring in India
and China. This demand is coming from manufacturers
of cookies and crackers, yes, but roughly half the world’s
supply — twenty million tons — is being diverted to fuel.
Palm oil’s origins trace back to west Africa, where it was
produced on a small scale for local markets. In the mid-
1800s, Dutch colonists introduced the oil in Java, and in the
early 1900s, the British did the same in Malaysia. Today,
87 percent of the world’s palm oil originates in Malaysia
and Indonesia. As palm oil (and pulp and paper) plantations
expand in these countries, the consequences for the climate
are dramatic.
Here’s why. To establish plantations, producers raze
rainforests and drain peatlands, often forcibly taken from
communities. These peatswamp forests are home to
towering trees, sometimes as high as fifty meters and —
below the water’s surface — vast stores of peat, dead plant
material accumulated over millennia. When these swamps
are drained, the peat becomes exposed to air and the
carbon gets oxidized, releasing carbon dioxide. Then, once
dry, these lands become susceptible to fires that can burn
for months on end. As Lafcadio Cortesi, forest campaign
director at Rainforest Action Network, explains, “when
peatland is destroyed, it’s not just one hit of lost carbon.
There’s that big hit when you drain the peatland, but the hit
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63
is felt year after year.”
Though peatlands cover just 0.2 percent of the earth’s
surface their destruction is associated with 8 percent of
total global emissions, estimates Wetland International,
an advocacy group. Typically, you’ll see Indonesia ranked
twenty-first in global emissions. Factor in carbon dioxide
emissions from drained peat land and the country jumps to
number three, says Wetlands International.
Peatland in just one Indonesian province, about the size
of 2 percent of U.S. arable land, stores so much carbon that
were it all destroyed the emissions would equal a year’s
total — for the entire planet. Travel there and this loss
will be immediately evident. On a recent trip to Indonesia,
Cortesi described one four-hour drive through the heart of
palm oil production: “It was like driving across Iowa, except
instead of corn, you see palm — a vast green desert.”
While small-scale farmers still grow some oil palm in
Malaysia and Indonesia, private companies are rapidly
displacing them. In Indonesia, two thirds of palm plantations
are now owned by just ten companies. Agribusiness giants,
Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill are among the biggest
producers. ADM is a significant investor in Wilmar, the
world’s largest palm oil producer. Multinational Cargill is
the biggest importer of palm oil into the United States
where its oil ends up in the products of some big-name food
and consumer-product companies — Unilever, Procter &
Gamble, General Mills, to name a few.
Many of the biggest players dismiss the climate
concerns, arguing that the Roundtable on Sustainable
Palm Oil (RSPO), established in 2004 by industry and
international non-profits, is ensuring sustainable production
through guidelines and certification programs. While many
environmental advocates would agree the roundtable is a
step in the right direction, serious questions remain about
who is setting standards and monitoring practices. Says
RAN’s Cortesi, “The RSPO faces many of the same problems
other certification systems do: Who is policing them? Right
now, the companies are doing it themselves.”
Plus, even if there were improvements in production
practices, mounting demand means climate trouble. The
question we should be asking about palm oil, similar to the
question to ask of cattle and corn, is not just how can we
produce these foods to reduce the impact on the climate,
but how much should we produce. And the answer? Says
forest advocate Cortesi, “Let’s not just let the biggest
companies make that decision. Let’s look to science. Let’s
have justice and rationality guide our decision making. Let’s
ratchet down production and global demand. Then we can
talk about sustainability.”
Anna Lappé is a widely respected author and educator, renowned
for her work as a sustainable food advocate. This article is an
excerpt from her 2010 book Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate
Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It.
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A LOOK AT THE $175 IN YOUR COMPOST

by Dana Gunders

Have you ever considered what that rotten food in your

refrigerator costs? The average American family of four
throws out an estimated $130-175 per month in spoiled and
discarded food. That’s real money going straight into the
garbage or compost bin instead of paying off your credit
card bills.
Don’t get me wrong — I love compost. It’s just not the
best use of the staggering amount of resources that are
needed to grow all the food that never even gets eaten,
including the money you spent to buy it. If you don’t eat half
of that $10 fish, that’s $5 you’re throwing away.
Collectively, we consumers are responsible for more
wasted food than farmers, grocery stores, or any other part
of the food supply chain. We’re also wasting far more food
than ever before, as the average American today wastes
50 percent more food than 40 years ago. The truth is the
implications of our wasteful habits with food are just not on
most of our radars.
However, our British friends across the pond have
demonstrated that with some basic public awareness,
we can make big strides in food waste reduction. A public
awareness campaign in the United Kingdom has been
stunningly successful in reducing household food waste
by 18 percent in just five years. Doing the same here would
mean hundreds of dollars in savings for the average family.
There are many steps we can take to turn this food waste

RETAIL VALUES OF U.S. AVOIDABLE FOOD WASTE IN 2009 USING 2011 PRICES

60.00
Consumer

50.00 Retail
Distribution
Billions of Dollars

40.00

30.00

20.00

10.00

0.00
ef k en ts sh se rt y ls gs er
s ts es s es ices
Be Po
r
ck Mea ellfi ee gu air Oi Eg n Nu m rain abl
i h o D & te gu G t Ju
Ch r Sh C Y
he
r s ee Le ge &
he & at e s
Ot sh & ilk Ot ,r F Sw V ui
t
Fi
M
tte Fr
Bu

Source: Clean Metrics

Session 3/Food NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

 65

trend around, but one of the first is to understand just

what we’re wasting.
PERCENTAGE WASTED
Using USDA data, a recent report by Clean Metrics
BY THE AVERAGE AMERICAN CONSUMER
provides estimates of the retail value of all the food we
FOR SOME COMMON FOODS
Americans waste, broken down by categories of meat,
dairy, and fresh produce. Note that these numbers MEAT AND FISH
summarize the retail value of avoidable wasted food Fish — 40%
— that is, they do not include bones, peels, and fat that Pork — 29%
burns off during cooking. Beef — 20%
The winner? Vegetables, by a long shot. In 2009, U.S. Chicken — 15%
consumers spent a whopping $32 billion on vegetables Turkey — 35%
they bought, never ate, and ended up throwing away. By Tuna (can) — 17%
volume, tomatoes and potatoes are the most common
culprits, but that’s partially because they’re also the DAIRY
most commonly eaten vegetables in the U.S. If we look Milk — 20%*
by percentage, greens, onions, peppers, and pumpkins Eggs — 23%
(Halloween?) are tossed at the highest rates. Yogurt — 21%
You know your own food habits best, but here’s a Cheddar — 11%
peek into the average American kitchen garbage bin: Mozzarella — 31%
Take a moment to think about the products on this Swiss — 50%
list that most often go bad in your household. When
you go to the store, are you realistic about how much FRESH VEGGIES
you actually cook and eat? Do you know the best way Lettuce — 24%
to store food items, or how to tell when they’re actually Greens — 38%
bad? Do you take the time to freeze food you won’t eat Broccoli — 12%
in time? Tomatoes — 7%
The Love Food Hate Waste site has excellent Onions — 43%
advice for how to store many different foods and fun Garlic — 43%
recipe tools to help use up specific foods. They also Pumpkin — 69%
have a portion planner to help you cook just the right
amount. NRDC’s new food waste fact sheet has tips on FRESH FRUITS
what to think about when buying and storing food. And Oranges — 36%
there’s a wealth of knowledge out there in the form Lemons — 44%
of friends, family, and cookbooks. I like The Use-It-Up Grapes — 33%
Cookbook or The Frugal Foodie. Peaches — 42%
Awareness is the first step, so you’re already well Cherries — 51%
on your way. Now it’s time to take action. Observe your Mangoes — 10%
habits, educate yourself, try a new recipe or freeze Blueberries — 8%
something you haven’t frozen before, and get on the
journey to reducing your food waste, food bills, and food Source:USDA Economic Research Service
print all at the same time. Note: Estimates are by weight and include losses due
to cooking (e.g. fat and moisture that cook off) but do not
A version of this post originally appeared on Switchboard, include inedible parts such as bones or peels.
the blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Dana is a *Uses previous estimate because no new estimate
food and agriculture-focused project scientist for the Natural reported.
Resources Defense Council (NRDC), based in San Francisco.

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen
is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of
cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.”
‑ Laurie Colwin

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TIPS FOR A LOWER CARBON DIET

Eat what you buy, and don’t waste food. Check your Reduce your consumption of meat and dairy.
fridge and plan your meals before you shop. Use up Cows and sheep in particular emit methane as a
leftovers. Start with smaller portions. If you do need to by-product of their digestion. Methane is 20 times
throw food out, compost! more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse
Buy organic. Organic food is free of petroleum- gas. Sensible reduction in consumption of these food
derived fertilizers and pesticides, which is better for types can help you be healthier, save you money, and
your health, the health of farm workers, and the health reduce your greenhouse gas emissions.
of the planet.
Eat less processed food and more fresh, whole
foods. Believe it or not, whole, fresh foods are more
nutritious, cheaper and healthier than pre-made and
processed foods. Eating whole foods also reduces your
packaging waste as well as the cost of transporting
the food to factories and then to you, often overlooked
contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.
Eat seasonally. Learn what is in season in your area
and learn to cook it. If farms close to you are producing
food in the field, it doesn’t have to be shipped great
distances or be grown in a fossil fuel-heated hot house.
If you do buy out of season produce, go for foods with
longer shelf lives that can be shipped by boat (apples,
oranges bananas) instead of being shipped by plane
(asparagus, berries). An excellent way to learn to eat
seasonally is to shop at a farmers’ market or to sign up
for a CSA (see www.localharvest.org for options that Drink water from the tap. Fossil fuels are used both
are close to you). in the transportation of bottled water from factories
Grow your own food. Even if it’s just a small herb to stores and in the production of the plastic bottles
garden or one tomato plant, growing your own food themselves. The plastic bottle is used only once, and
connects you to the growing cycle in a tangible way. If then disposed of in the landfill or recycled. Not to
you’re growing organically and from seeds, the carbon mention that tap water is hundreds of times cheaper
footprint is negligible. Food from your own backyard than the bottled stuff! For more information, see The
or balcony is fresher, cheaper, and more nutritious than Story of Bottled Water: http://www.storyofstuff.org/
food that has been shipped from far away. movies-all/story-of-bottled-water/.

Session 3/Food NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


THE NEED FOR RADICAL HOMEMAKERS
by Shannon Hayes
“Radical homemakers are men and women who have
chosen to make family, community, social justice and
the health of the planet the governing principles of their
lives. They reject any form of labor or the expenditure
of any resource that does not honor these tenets.”
 — Shannon Hayes
…When I crunched the numbers, a farmer’s market
meal made of a roasted local pasture-raised chicken,
baked potatoes and steamed broccoli cost less than
four meals at Burger King, even when two of the meals
came off the kiddie menu. The Burger King meal had
negligible nutrional value and was damaging to our
health and planet. The Farmer’s Market menu cost
less, healed the earth, helped the local economy, was
a source of bountiful nutrients for a family of four, and
would leave ample leftovers for both a chicken salad
and a rich chicken stock, which could then be the base
for a wonderful soup. But, when push came to shove,
I knew that Burger King would win out. The reason?
Many people don’t take the time to roast a chicken,
let alone make a chicken salad from the leftovers or
use the carcass to make stock. Many mainstream
Americans have lost the simple domestic skills that
would enable them to live an ecologically sensible life
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67
with a modest or low income. …
Eating local, organic, sustainably raised, nutrient-
dense food is possible for every American, not just for
wealthy gourmets or self-reliant organic farmers. But,
to do it, we need to bring back the homemaker. …
As I looked more closely at the role homemaking
could play in revitalizing our local food system, I saw
that the position was a linch-pin for more than just
making use of garden produce and a chicken carcass.
Individuals who had taken this path in life were
building a great bridge from our existing extractive
economy — where corporate wealth was regarded
as the foundation of economic health, where mining
our earth’s resources and exploiting our international
neighbors was accepted as simply the cost of doing
business — to a life-serving economy, where the goal
is, in the words of David Korten, to generate a living for
all, rather than a killing for a few, where our resources
are sustained, our waters kept clean, our air pure, and
families can lead meaningful lives.”
Shannon Hayes writes and farms with three generations of
her family on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in West Fulton, NY. This
excerpt is from her book Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming
Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, published by
Chelsea Green.
EXCERPT FROM A SEAT AT THE TABLE
by Carolyn Steel
Food is necessary. The staff of life, it is unquestionably
the most intrinsically precious stuff we have in common.
In order to live, we must eat living things; there could
be no clearer indication of food’s significance than that.
How bizarre, then, that we have come to think of food as
something which should be cheap. There could be no better
illustration of our skewed value system.
Our failure to value food properly is the result of
industrialization and the split it created between city and
hinterland, which left the majority of consumers oblivious
to the realities of food production and the struggle for
survival they represent. One could argue that such oblivion
is civilization’s greatest achievement, but from a moral
standpoint, it is arguably its gravest weakness. If valuing life
forms the ethical core of society, we damage ourselves if we
fail to acknowledge life’s true cost. Thinking through food
can help us ground our values, because food is the perfect
metaphor for life. Like life, it is riddled with social, practical
Session 3/Food
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and ethical issues, ones we must address if we are to live
well. Caring about food is tantamount to treasuring life; the
opposite is also true. So what would the world be like if we
truly valued food?
“Very different” is the short answer. Food is the seed
from which we and our civilization grow; embedded in our
lives at every possible level, it has unparalleled influence
over us and our world. Indeed, we live in a form of “sitopia,”
or food place, so profound are the effects of our appetites
on our society and environment. Since we have forgotten
the true value of food, we have allowed a bad sitopia to
develop, full of the symptoms (high carbon emissions,
rainforest destruction, water depletion, soil degradation,
overfishing, pollution, obesity, type 2 diabetes, malnutrition,
etcetera) of a failed value system.
To create a good sitopia, we need not just restore to
food its true worth but live according to its principles. To
understand what this means, consider the shared meal.
Table manners are ancient rituals designed to strengthen
social bonds by ensuring that everyone present behaves
fairly and with mutual respect. In every past culture, how
one behaved at table was of supreme importance: In ancient
Athens, greed at table was taken as a sure sign of political
untrustworthiness. Even today, we intuitively understand
that table manners matter, and we are usually on our best
behavior whenever we eat with strangers.
In a globalized world, the sharing of food takes on
new significance. If we want to lead good lives, we must
extend our table manners to those we have never met
and to creatures at whose existence we can only guess.
Sharing food in this way becomes a means of living well,
both directly and metaphorically. The world produces
more than enough food to go around, yet 1 billion of us are
hungry, while a further billion are overweight or obese,
usually because they live on junk food. Both groups —
who together represent some two-sevenths of the global
population — are overwhelmingly poor, and both, in
different ways, are being failed by society. Since we are all
guests at the same table, one has to ask: Who is hosting the
meal? Governments, agribusinesses, supermarkets, trade
officials, communities, mothers: Whoever our metaphorical
hosts are, if they are feeding us badly, we should refuse
their food and find better ways of feeding ourselves. We
need a new social contract based on food, an agreement
between nations and citizens that we will share the bounty
of the global table fairly and not trash the furniture while
we eat. If we are to lead good lives, we need new “hosts”
Session 3/Food
with better “manners” to feed us: new social, political
and economic systems based on ethics derived through
food. We need different ways of planning, transforming
and inhabiting physical space, in recognition of the vital
relationship between city and country; respect for those
who work in food; and reverence for the places, plants and
animals from which food comes, a.k.a. the natural world.
Food is our closest connection to nature and the greatest
employer on Earth, so valuing it properly represents our
best hope of leading perpetuating, worthwhile, meaningful
lives. Best of all, since food is our most reliable source of joy,
we may as well follow Epicurus’ advice and take pleasure in
all it brings. By prizing food as a substance and a metaphor,
we can build the foundations of a good life. If that sounds
idealistic, it is because sitopia, in its ideal form, is utopia.
Carolyn Steel is an architect living in London and the author of The
Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives.
Imagine that you are at a potluck buffet and see
that you are first in the line. How do you know
how much to take?
Imagine that this potluck spread includes not
just food and water, but also all the materials
needed for shelter, clothing, healthcare and
education. It all looks and smells so good and you
are hungry. What will you heap on your plate? How
much is enough to leave for your neighbors behind
you in line?
Now extend this cornucopia to today’s global
economy, where the necessities for life come from
around the world. Six billion people, shoulder to
shoulder, form a line that circles around the globe
to Cairo, onto Hawaii over ocean bridges, then
back, and around the globe again, 180 more times.
With plates in hand, they too wait in line, hearty
appetites in place. And along with them are
giraffes and klipspringers, manatees and spiders,
untold millions of species, millions of billions of
unique beings, all with the same lusty appetites.
And behind them, the soon-to-be-born children,
cubs and larvae.  
Jim Merkel, Radical Simplicity  
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S E S S I O N 4

COMMUNIT Y
Community’s not a sentiment. It has to do with necessity — with people needing each other.
If you allow the larger industrial system to remove the pattern of needs that is the force
holding people together, then you lose the community.
— Wendell Berry

SESSION GOALS SESSION BACKGROUND

• To define and envision sustainable communities.
• To learn about innovative solutions developed by local
communities to support their members and reduce their
impact on Earth.
• To brainstorm what you can do to create sustainable
community where you live, and the benefits of doing so.
This session explores the role of community in creating a
more sustainable world. In smaller, more local communities,
individuals can often see the power of their collective actions
more clearly. In our neighborhoods, towns and cities where
we are connected by place and events, building supportive,
interdependent relationships can move communities to a
more sustainable way of living.

SUGGESTED GROUP ACTIVITY

Research friends’ houses, community centers, and local businesses and services within a twenty minute walk or
bike ride from where you live. Create a map of your walkable or bikeable community. Consider including on the
map: grocery stores, farmer’s markets, doctors and hospitals, libraries, parks, cafes and restaurants.

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Circle Question

What does community mean to you? Where do you find community?

Reminder to the facilitator: The circle question should move quickly. Elicit an answer from
each participant without questions or comments from others. The facilitator’s guidelines are on page 8.

SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What is one thing you could do to help create
community where you live?
2. Do you consider the people at your school, workplace
or volunteer place as one of your communities?
Why or why not?
3. What would it mean for your community to
be sustainable?
4. Peck & Dauncey list 12 features of sustainable
community development. To what extent has your town
or city implemented them? Do you think their list is
comprehensive, or are there other features?
PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
Choose one action to commit to this week, then
share your struggles and successes with your
group at your next group meeting. Here are some ideas to
get you started:
• Observe your use of social networking tools over the next
week. Share with your group what impact this had on your
connection to others.
• Get to know your neighbors:
̏̏Create a neighborhood directory.
̏̏Start a baby-sitting or buying co-op.

5. Have you ever experienced life in a community that
didn’t require you to drive a lot? What was it like as
compared to less dense communities?
6. Do agree with Steffen that what we want are not
things, but the capacities of things (like the drill)?
What would it take for you and your neighbors to share
equipment among yourselves?
7. Do any of the communities presented in these
readings seem particularly attractive or unattractive to
you? Explain.
8. Are there rundown or unused buildings or structures
in your community that could be repurposed like
Stapleton? How might you get such a project going
where you live?
9. If you were to pick one new action from the “Forging
Friendlier Neighborhoods” and “How to Build
Community” lists, which would it be? What might hold
you back from actually doing it?
10. Do you know your neighbors? How could you get to
know them better?
̏̏Organize a garage sale.
̏̏Host a block party or neighborhood potluck.
̏̏Compile a skills bank and trade services or start a
community work group.
̏̏Share power tools and gardening equipment.
• Find out about the availability of co-housing and
community gardens in your area and report back to your
group, or organize a tour for your group.
• Help maintain common spaces such as parks or sidewalks.
• Use a local lending library for tools, toys, party supplies
or books. For more ideas, check out the Center for a New
American Dream’s Guide to Sharing: http://tinyurl.com/
CommunityActionKit
NWEI hosts an annual EcoChallenge every October. To
find out more about this event, visit www.ecochallenge.org.

FURTHER RESOURCES
Interested in finding out more on the topics presented in this session? Visit our website for
further readings and resources: www.nwei.org/choices-for-sustainable-living-resources.
Subscribe to our blog at blog.nwei.org; we post links to
new resources and inspiring stories regularly.

Session 4/Community NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


12 FEATURES OF SUSTAINABLE
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
by Steven Peck and Guy Dauncey
What does it mean to be a “sustainable community”?
Below are several parameters by which to measure this
concept that can help planners and neighbors create
communities that are economically and environmentally
viable in the long term.
1. ECOLOGICAL PROTECTION
Farmland is being paved over at a rapid rate. It is not
only loss of farmland which worries people — it is also loss
of habitat, forest cover and recreational green space. In
Charleston, South Carolina, a study showed that depending
on the way it was designed, for the same number of houses
a proposed development could provide either 30 acres or
400 acres of green space. When green space is protected,
studies show that nearby property values can increase from
DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
LEED standard: LEED stands for Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design. Developed by the
U.S. Green Building Council, LEED is an international
certification system that provides building owners
and operators with a framework for identifying and
implementing practical and measurable green building
design, construction, operations and maintenance
solutions.
Peak Oil: Peak oil is the point in time when the
maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached,
after which the rate of production is expected to enter
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71
5 percent to 50 percent, as homeowners place value on
the amenity.
2. DENSITY AND URBAN DESIGN
The typical subdivision has 4-7 units of housing per
acre, making it hard for the residents to get around on foot,
and economically unviable to run a transit service to the
houses (because of the distances involved). Low density
development makes it difficult for small businesses to
operate successfully within residential areas, requiring
instead that they locate on major roadways or in malls. The
resulting segregation of land uses reinforces the need for
and use of cars.
Better models include a grid pattern of narrower streets,
sidewalks, smaller set-backs, front porches, the clustering
of homes (reducing the need for expensive infrastructure),
greater protection of green space, the use of urban
design codes, town squares and village centers planned
as attractive gathering places, and steps to encourage
pedestrian and bicycle travel, in addition to cars.
ultimate decline. US domestic oil production peaked
in 1970.Global production of oil fell from a high point in
2005, but has since rebounded. Most of the remaining
oil in the world is from unconventional sources, meaning
that the deposits are more difficult and dangerous
to extract. Rough estimates suggest that out of an
available 2 trillion barrels of oil, about half has been
consumed.
Urban infill: The use of land within a built-up area for
further construction, especially as part of community
redevelopment programs or smart growth.
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3. URBAN INFILL
Greenfield developments always require new land,
whereas urban infill initiatives are inherently more
sustainable, because they re-use land that has already
been urbanized. At its best, urban infill is a celebration
of city life, bringing new housing, commercial life and
neighborhood activity to a neglected or abandoned area.
Urban infill can make use of existing infrastructure and help
to financially support existing public transit systems and
commercial activities. Neighborhood design charrettes are
increasingly being used to involve many players in gathering
redesign ideas.
4. VILLAGE CENTRES
The standard modern subdivision is built without any
thought of including a small commercial centre within
walking distance of most of the homes. This lack of a
social gathering place has a subtle negative effect on
neighborhood life, since people have less occasion to meet
each other and build up the network of relationships that
creates a true community.
5. LOCAL ECONOMY
Conventional suburban development — especially in
“bedroom communities” — pays little attention to the
need for “complete” communities, i.e., a balance among
residential and employment development. Without a local
economy, the residents of a new development are obliged
to drive to work somewhere else, leaving the neighborhood
empty of life in the daytime, while filling up the roads and
releasing more carbon dioxide emissions.
6. SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT
A mixture of design strategies, including the provision
TRANSITION TOWNS
The Transition Movement is an international
grassroots movement that seeks to build
community resilience in the face of such challenges
as peak oil, climate change and the economic
crisis. Transition Initiatives seek to mitigate
these converging global crises by engaging
their communities in home-grown, citizen-led
education, action, and multi-stakeholder planning
to increase local self reliance and resilience. Find
out more about the Transition Movement at www.
transitionus.org or in the book The Transition
Companion by Rob Hopkins, published by Chelsea
Green. Find out if there’s Transition movement
in your community at http://transitionus.org/
initiatives-map.
Session 4/Community
of greenways, traffic calming and attractive pedestrian
connections, can encourage residents to walk or cycle
around, increasing their health and enjoyment, while
reducing C02 emissions. Narrower roads reduce the paved
surface area and lower construction costs. By enabling
a family to live with one car instead of two (or without a
car), a larger percentage of their income can go towards a
home mortgage.
7. AFFORDABLE HOUSING
A sustainable community involves human diversity and
variety — but the high cost of housing in many modern
subdivisions effectively excludes people of different
income levels. More sustainable communities encourage a
mix of housing types and income levels by adopting housing
policies such as density bonusing (allowing a higher density
of development in exchange for including amenities such
as parks in the development), inclusionary zoning or by
creating land trusts and encouraging non-profit housing.
8. LIVABLE COMMUNITIES
A sustainable community is one that provides ample
opportunity for sociability, personal development, and
community participation. The New Urbanism makes a
conscious effort to design for community as a whole,
including the community facilities that make a place more
than a set of roads flanked by houses. Something as small
and inexpensive as a community barbecue pit on common
land can bring people together, and add livability.
9. SEWAGE AND STORMWATER
The normal approaches here are (a) to pipe the sewage
to whatever treatment plant exists locally or to plan an
individual septic field for every house, and (b) to collect
the stormwater run-off in an engineered underground
system and pipe it to the nearest river or ocean. From an
engineering perspective, this seems efficient.
From nature’s perspective, however, things look a
little different. That sewage may only receive primary or
secondary treatment, allowing all sorts of nutrients to be
wasted, and all sorts of chemical pollutants to be entering
the ecosystem. Those septic fields take up a lot of space,
and make it hard to cluster houses together in order to
protect green space. And those underground stormwater
drains carry away the rainwater that used to permeate
gradually into soil, allowing the root systems of trees
and shrubs to feed. The greater the paved area within a
development, the more stormwater is collected, and the
less is returned to the ground.
The sustainable approach to sewage looks in two
directions, towards (a) individual composting toilets
coupled with miniature constructed wetlands, for graywater
treatment, and (b) tertiary sewage treatment systems
with source control programs, or large-scale constructed
wetlands to control stormwater run-off.
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10. WATER
Because of their more compact nature, sustainable
developments can use up to 35 percent less water for
lawns than a typical low density subdivision, and up to three
times less herbicides and pesticides. There are numerous
opportunities to improve water use and management using
green roof technology in buildings, and designing parking
lots and roadways in a manner that allows for the ground to
absorb water rather than removing it. The reestablishment
of wetlands in degraded rivers and streams is another
approach to improving water quality and quantity
management while also providing opportunities for habitat
and amenity space.
11. ENERGY
It has become accepted by leading scientists that
global climate change is probably the most serious global
environmental problem facing the world. The primary
cause is the burning of fossil fuels in our homes, cars and
factories. By designing a community with energy efficient
homes, where the residents can walk or cycle to local shops
and jobs, emissions can be significantly reduced. In regions
that experience hot summers, where asphalt and concrete
surfaces absorb heat, tree-planting turns out to be one of
the most cost-effective ways of reducing energy use and
emissions.
12. THE 3 ‘R’S
Buildings take up significant amounts of land, modify
natural hydrological cycles, affect biodiversity, have
major impacts on water and air quality, and are the final
destination of over 90 percent of all extracted materials
from the earth. For sustainable community design, the 3 ‘R’s THE SHAREABLE FUTURE OF CITIES
include the use of environmentally sound building materials,
construction wastes recycling, and the provision of in-house by Alex Steffen
recycling areas.
Climate change is already a heavy topic, and it’s getting
CONCLUSION heavier because we’re understanding that we need to do
Sustainable community development requires new ways more than we are. We’re understanding, in fact, that those of
of thinking about the interrelationship between economy, us who live in the developed world need to be really pushing
environment and community and new ways of examining towards eliminating our emissions. That’s, to put it mildly,
the full costs and benefits of alternatives to conventional not what’s on the table now. And it tends to feel a little
approaches to development. The benefits of implementing overwhelming when we look at what is there in reality today
sustainable communities can be significant in both the and the magnitude of the problem that we face. When we
short and long term — for developers, residents and society have overwhelming problems in front of us, we tend to seek
in general. simple answers. I think this is what we’ve done with climate
change. We look at where the emissions are coming from
Steven Peck is the founder and president of Green Roofs for — they’re coming out of our tailpipes and smokestacks and
Healthy Cities (www.greenroofs.org) and co-founder of Green so forth, and we say, okay, well the problem is that they’re
Infrastructure Foundation. Guy Dauncey is the author or co-author coming out of fossil fuels that we’re burning, so therefore,
of nine books, including The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions
the answer must be to replace those fossil fuels with clean
to Global Warming. Guy is the founder and president of the BC
Sustainable Energy Association.
sources of energy. While, of course, we do need clean
energy, I would put to you that it’s possible that by looking at
climate change as a clean energy generation problem, we’re
in fact setting ourselves up not to solve it.
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Session 4/Community
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The reason why is that we live on a planet that is rapidly
urbanizing. That shouldn’t be news to any of us. However,
it’s hard sometimes to remember the extent of that
urbanization. By mid-century, we’re going to have about
eight billion — perhaps more — people living in cities or
within a day’s travel of one. We will be an overwhelmingly
urban species. In order to provide the kind of energy that
it would take for eight billion people living in cities that are
even somewhat like the cities that those of us in the global
North live in today, we would have to generate an absolutely
astonishing amount of energy. It may be possible that we
are not even able to build that much clean energy. So if
we’re seriously talking about tackling climate change on
an urbanizing planet, we need to look somewhere else for
the solution.
The solution, in fact, may be closer to hand than we think,
because all of those cities we’re building are opportunities.
Every city determines to a very large extent the amount of
energy used by its inhabitants. We tend to think of energy
use as a behavioral thing — I choose to turn this light
switch on — but really, enormous amounts of our energy
use are predestined by the kinds of communities and cities
that we live in. If you look, for example, at transportation,
a major category of climate emissions, there is a direct
relationship between how dense a city is and the amount
of climate emissions that its residents spew out into the
air. The correlation, of course, is that denser places tend to
have lower emissions — which isn’t really all that difficult to
figure out, if you think about it.
Basically, we substitute, in our lives, access to the things
we want. We go out there and we hop in our cars and we
drive from place to place. And we’re basically using mobility
to get the access we need. But when we live in a denser
community, suddenly what we find, of course, is that the
things we need are close by. And since the most sustainable
trip is the one that you never had to make in the first place,
suddenly our lives become instantly more sustainable.
And it is possible, of course, to increase the density of the
communities around us.
Some places are doing this with new eco districts,
developing whole new sustainable neighborhoods, which
is nice work if you can get it, but most of the time, what
we’re talking about is, in fact, reweaving the urban fabric
that we already have. So we’re talking about things like
infill development: really sharp little changes to where we
have buildings, where we’re developing. Urban retrofitting:
creating different sorts of spaces and uses out of places
that are already there. Increasingly, we’re realizing that
we don’t even need to densify an entire city. What we need
instead is an average density that rises to a level where
we don’t drive as much and so on. And that can be done by
raising the density in very specific spots a whole lot. So you
can think of it as tent poles that actually raise the density of
Session 4/Community
the entire city.
And we find that when we do that, we can, in fact, have a
few places that are really hyper-dense within a wider fabric
of places that are perhaps a little more comfortable and
achieve the same results. Now we may find that there are
places that are really, really dense and still hold onto their
cars, but the reality is that, by and large, what we see when
we get a lot of people together with the right conditions
is a threshold effect, where people simply stop driving as
much, and increasingly, more and more people, if they’re
surrounded by places that make them feel at home, give
up their cars altogether. And this is a huge, huge energy
savings, because what comes out of our tailpipe is really
just the beginning of the story with climate emissions from
cars. We have the manufacture of the car, the disposal of
the car, all of the parking and freeways and so on. When
you can get rid of all of those because somebody doesn’t
use any of them really, you find that you can actually cut
transportation emissions as much as 90 percent.
People are embracing this. All around the world, we’re
seeing more and more people embrace this walkshed life.
People are saying that it’s moving from the idea of the
dream home to the dream neighborhood. When you layer
that over with the kind of ubiquitous communications that
we’re starting to see, what you find is, in fact, even more
access suffused into spaces. Some of it’s transportation
access. [Take, for example, Mapnificent and Google
Walking Maps, which show me how far I can get from my
home in 30 minutes using public transportation, or how to
do the greater Ridgeway.] It’s not all perfect yet. But the
technologies are getting better, and we’re starting to really
kind of crowdsource this navigation.
Part of what we’re finding with this is that what we
thought was the major point of manufacturing and
consumption, which is to get a bunch of stuff, is not, in fact,
how we really live best in dense environments. What we’re
finding is that what we want is access to the capacities of
things. My favorite example is a drill. Who here owns a drill,
a home power drill? Okay. I do too. The average home power
drill is used somewhere between six and 20 minutes in its
entire lifetime, depending on who you ask. And so what we
do is we buy these drills that have a potential capacity of
thousands of hours of drill time, use them once or twice
to put a hole in the wall and let them sit. Our cities, I would
put to you,are stockpiles of these surplus capacities. And
while we could try and figure out new ways to use those
capacities — such as cooking or making ice sculptures or
even a mafia hit — what we probably will find is that, in fact,
turning those products into services that we have access to
when we want them, is a far smarter way to go.
And in fact, even space itself is turning into a service.
We’re finding that people can share the same spaces, do
stuff with vacant space. Buildings are becoming bundles
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE
 75

of services. So we have new designs that are helping us

take mechanical things that we used to spend energy on
— like heating, cooling etc. — and turn them into things
that we avoid spending energy on. So we light our buildings
with daylight. We cool them with breezes. We heat them
with sunshine. In fact, when we use all these things, what
we’ve found is that, in some cases, energy use in a building
can drop as much as 90 percent. Which brings on another
threshold effect I like to call furnace dumping, which is,
quite simply, if you have a building that doesn’t need to be
heated with a furnace, you save a whole bunch of money up
front. These things actually become cheaper to build than
the alternatives.
Now when we look at being able to slash our product
use, slash our transportation use, slash our building energy
use, all of that is great, but it still leaves something behind.
And if we’re going to really, truly become sustainable cities,
we need to think a little differently. And certainly lots of
people have taken to heart this idea that a sustainable city
is covered in greenery.
Now all of these are fine projects, but they really have
missed an essential point, which is it’s not about the
leaves above, it’s about the systems below. Do they, for
instance, capture rainwater so that we can reduce water
use? Water is energy intensive. Do they, perhaps, include
green infrastructure, so that we can take runoff and water
that’s going out of our houses and clean it and filter it INSIDE ITHACA’S ECOVILLAGE
and grow urban street trees? Do they connect us back to
the ecosystems around us by, for example, connecting us by Katerina Athanasiou
to rivers and allowing for restoration? Do they allow for They are not hippie communes. They are not even about
pollination, pollinator pathways that bees and butterflies “living off the grid.” Largely unknown and misinterpreted,
and such can come back into our cities? Do they even take ecovillages are communities striving to “integrate a
the very waste matter that we have from food and fiber and supportive social environment with a low impact way of life,”
so forth, and turn it back into soil and sequester carbon — according to the Global Ecovillage Network.
take carbon out of the air in the process of using our cities? Just a few miles from Cornell’s campus is the EcoVillage
I would submit to you that all of these things are not at Ithaca (EVI), a secluded, beautiful community consisting
only possible, they’re being done right now, and that it’s a of residential groups, farms and a spirit of cooperation. EVI
darn good thing. Because right now, our economy by and is the brainchild of environmental activist Joan Bokaer, who
large operates as Paul Hawken said, “by stealing the future, developed the idea after a cross country environmental
selling it in the present and calling it GDP.” And if we have walk, where she visited over 200 communities and learned
another eight billion or seven billion, or six billion, even, how to demonstrate a sustainable way of life.
people, living on a planet where their cities also steal the EVI is comprised of two living communities, with a third
future, we’re going to run out of future really fast. But if we slated for construction in the near future: the First Resident
think differently, I think that, in fact, we can have cities that Group (FRoG), Second Neighborhood Group (SoNG) and
are not only zero emissions, but have unlimited possibilities Third Residential Ecovillage Experience (TREE). Designed
as well. with sustainability in mind, the homes employ passive solar
After working as a journalist on four continents, Alex Steffen heating, photovoltaic solar cells, super-insulated roofs,
co-founded and ran the online magazine Worldchanging.com from straw bale insulation and rainwater collection.
2003-2010. His most recent work is Carbon Zero, a book describing Houses are built with fewer rooms because common
cities that create prosperity not climate change, accelerating their houses (found in each residential group) allow access to
economies while reducing their climate emissions to zero. This large kitchens, offices, meeting areas and other amenities
article is taken from a transcript of his July 2011 TED Talk. in order to cut down on each villager’s individual ecological
footprint. In an effort to eat locally, the community

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76
purchases from West Haven Farm, an organic produce
farm that feeds about 1,000 people a week. The farm sells
directly to customers through its Community Shared
Agriculture (CSA) program and the Ithaca Farmers Market.
Also on EVI grounds is Kestrel Perch Berch Berry Farm,
another organic farm and CSA that grows strictly berries
and allows its customers to pick their own fruit.
In addition to sharing appliances such as lawnmowers
and laundry machines, citizens contribute to the community
personally, volunteering to do chores that range from
cooking to composting.
Stephanie Greenwood moved to EVI from England
three years ago. “The best part of living here,” she said, “is
being able to have total privacy as well as the support of
a community.”
Characterized by its accessibility, EVI was purposely
settled outside of the city of Ithaca to allow for more of a
“regular middle class organization,” co-founder Liz Walker
said. While many other ecovillages are more secluded and
rural, EVI aims to influence the mainstream.
Furthermore, co-housing initiatives allow for families
to purchase smaller, cheaper homes and allow access to
a multitude of resources through common houses, which
make living in EVI affordable. Walker said, “One of my
friends likes to say you could picture your mom living at the
EcoVillage at Ithaca.” With earth colored homes, gardens
abound and cars parked only on the outskirts of the village,
a warm, pedestrian community exists.
Propsective residents undergo a self-selection process
that involves group meetings and attendance at training
sessions meant to acclimate would-be residents of EVI with
the rhythms of everyday life in a shared-work environment.
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Jennifer Lewis of Dallas, Texas came with her husband
and son to explore EVI because, “nothing else looked as
established or settled.”
United by a common goal and characterized by local
culture, ecovillages are a vast and growing phenomenon.
Daniel Greenberg ’85 founded Living Routes, an
organization dedicated to exposing students to such
communities.
After two years in graduate school, Greenberg opted for
firsthand experience at an ecovillage in Findhorn, Scotland.
“I believe I learned more in the first day I stepped foot in
an actual community than probably the two years I spent
studying,” Greenberg said.
He then spent several years studying and teaching in
ecovillages before founding Living Routes, which offers
study abroad opportunities in ecovillages throughout
the world. With credit offered from the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, the program has an array of
classes and sessions throughout the year. The program
limits enrollment to about a dozen students per semester,
and is meant to foster cooperation through communal living
amongst students and the community.
Greenberg said, “They make the best campuses for
students to learn about sustainability by working and
living among people who are actually doing it. That’s what’s
transformative for students; they can take any of our
programs and afterwards they can no longer say ‘it can’t be
done’ because here are people living their lives with that
purpose.”
Since there are no strict guidelines that determine
a community’s status as an ecovillage, a wide variety of
communities exist, each sustaining unique values and
systems of operation. Economically and socially, each
site has its own rules and regulations. For example, some
communities share only cars while others pool their money
into one “collective income.”
Lois Arkin, founder of the Los Angeles Eco-Village,
has an ecovillage experience vastly different from the
residents of EVI. “The major challenge is learning to live a
kind of schizophrenic life, since life here on our block and
within the confines of our buildings is rather idyllic. But
walk a block away, and one is surrounded with the worst
of our city in terms of traffic and ugliness, concrete and
commercialization,” she said.
The functionality of each ecovillage is wholly dependent
on its inhabitants — everything from community
gatherings to decision making processes is flexible. By
avoiding restrictive regulations while upholding values of
community, the options offered by ecovillages aim to make
sustainability a fit for a variety of lifestyles.
This article originally appeared in The Cornell Daily Sun. The
newspaper serves the Cornell campus and its surrounding
community in Ithaca, New York. The Sun is entirely student-run.
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

STAPLETON: REPURPOSING A SITE
Compiled by Chris Mullins
When plans for a new Denver International Airport
outside of Denver, Colorado, began in 1989, proposals
for what to do with the outdated airport, Stapleton,
simultaneously got kick started. No sooner than the pointed
peaks of DIA’s Jeppeson Terminal scalloped the skyline in
1995, than the valuable land where Stapleton once stood
became grounds for the “green plan,” a world-recognized
outline for a sustainable community.
Stapleton is not only leading the way environmentally
but economically and socially, too. The community is an
integrated mix of uses, including several retail districts,
professional office spaces, light manufacturing and
neighborhoods featuring every type of new home.
Everything in one place. That’s the big idea. Stapleton
businesses have access to employees, kids have access to
great schools and everyone has easy access to shopping
and recreation without getting in a car.
Stapleton’s plan is the result of more than six years
of conversation and hundreds of town meetings with the
people of Denver. The challenge was what to do with this
unique property: 7.5 square miles of prime real estate
within city limits. How could we transform the old, vacant
Stapleton International Airport into a new place that would
be of enduring value to the community, provide a path
for future growth, and serve as an example of thoughtful,
sustainable redevelopment?
We’ve set new standards for redevelopment by recycling
an entire international airport — a very large tract of land
surrounded by city neighborhoods. We’re repurposing the
land and reintegrating it into the fabric of the city. Along the
way, we’ve crushed over 6 million tons of runway concrete
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77
and turned it into “Staplestone,” an aggregate used to
build roadways, bridges and bike paths in Stapleton and
throughout Colorado. And today we continue to adopt
environmentally friendly strategies. We’ve selected only
water-wise, native plants for our landscaping, and we’ve
designed greenways to clean storm water and provide
thriving wildlife habitats.
Perhaps the biggest impact of all derives from the fact
that every home in Stapleton is Energy Star® qualified.
This means that every Stapleton home consumes at least
30 percent less energy than the average new Denver
home. Quite a few new homes in Stapleton are almost 70
percent more efficient, and some super-efficient homes are
even net-zero energy users (which means they generate as
much energy as they use). So you have many options when
it comes to lowering utility bills and reducing your carbon
footprint. The same is true for commercial enterprises:
several commercial buildings in Stapleton are designed to
LEED® standards for energy-efficiency, water conservation
and indoor air quality.
High on the list of Stapleton’s key objectives are social
equity, diversity and opportunity. To help meet these
objectives, the planners have included a wide range of
housing types, densities and price points — beginning with
an attractive selection of affordable homes and spanning
the spectrum through the middle range of family homes,
townhomes and condominiums to the high end with its
semi-custom homes and urban estates. Why such a broad
range? Because different home types bring together people
of different backgrounds, incomes and life stages, creating
a stronger, more productive and more interesting social
fabric. The place becomes more … neighborly.
Source: http://stapletondenver.com/community/better-plan/
(compilation). Used with permission.
STAPLETON BY THE NUMBERS:
• 6 million tons of runway concrete has been
recycled from the old Stapleton airport
• 12,000 planned homes and apartments
• 10 million square feet of planned office space
• 1.5 million square feet of planned retail space
• 93 percent voluntary recycling rate among
residents
• 80 percent of Stapleton kids walk to school
• 36 miles of bike trails that connect to Denver’s
800-mile network
• 26,500+ trees planted (so far)
• 1 community garden
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TO BUILD COMMUNITY,
AN ECONOMY OF GIFTS
by Charles Eisenstein
Wherever I go and ask people what is missing from
their lives, the most common answer (if they are not
impoverished or seriously ill) is “community.” What happened
to community, and why don’t we have it any more? There are
many reasons — the layout of suburbia, the disappearance
of public space, the automobile and the television, the high
mobility of people and jobs — and, if you trace the “whys” a
few levels down, they all implicate the money system.
More directly posed: community is nearly impossible
in a highly monetized society like our own. That is because
community is woven from gifts, which is ultimately why
poor people often have stronger communities than rich
people. If you are financially independent, then you really
don’t depend on your neighbors — or indeed on any specific
person — for anything. You can just pay someone to do it, or
pay someone else to do it.
In former times, people depended for all of life’s
necessities and pleasures on people they knew personally. If
you alienated the local blacksmith, brewer, or doctor, there
was no replacement. Your quality of life would be much
lower. If you alienated your neighbors then you might not
have help if you sprained your ankle during harvest season,
or if your barn burnt down. Community was not an add-on to
life, it was a way of life. Today, with only slight exaggeration,
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we could say we don’t need anyone. I don’t need the farmer
who grew my food — I can pay someone else to do it.
I don’t need the mechanic who fixed my car. I don’t need the
trucker who brought my shoes to the store. I don’t need any
of the people who produced any of the things I use. I need
someone to do their jobs, but not the unique individual
people. They are replaceable and, by the same token,
so am I.
That is one reason for the universally recognized
superficiality of most social gatherings. How authentic can
it be, when the unconscious knowledge, “I don’t need you,”
lurks under the surface? When we get together to consume
— food, drink, or entertainment — do we really draw on the
gifts of anyone present? Anyone can consume. Intimacy
comes from co-creation, not co-consumption, as anyone in
a band can tell you, and it is different from liking or disliking
someone. But in a monetized society, our creativity happens
in specialized domains, for money.
To forge community then, we must do more than simply
get people together. While that is a start, soon we get tired
of just talking, and we want to do something, to create
something. It is a very tepid community indeed, when the
only need being met is the need to air opinions and feel that
we are right, that we get it, and isn’t it too bad that other
people don’t ... hey, I know! Let’s collect each others’ email
addresses and start a listserv!
Community is woven from gifts. Unlike today’s market
system, whose built-in scarcity compels competition in
which more for me is less for you, in a gift economy the
opposite holds. Because people in gift culture pass on their
surplus rather than accumulating it, your good fortune
is my good fortune: more for you is more for me. Wealth
circulates, gravitating toward the greatest need. In a gift
community, people know that their gifts will eventually
come back to them, albeit often in a new form. Such a
community might be called a “circle of the gift.”
Fortunately, the monetization of life has reached its peak
in our time, and is beginning a long and permanent receding
(of which economic “recession” is an aspect). Both out of
desire and necessity, we are poised at a critical moment of
opportunity to reclaim gift culture, and therefore to build
true community. The reclamation is part of a larger shift of
human consciousness, a larger reunion with nature, earth,
each other, and lost parts of ourselves. Our alienation
from gift culture is an aberration and our independence
an illusion. We are not actually independent or “financially
secure” — we are just as dependent as before, only on
strangers and impersonal institutions, and, as we are likely
to soon discover, these institutions are quite fragile.
Given the circular nature of gift flow, I was excited to
learn that one of the most promising social inventions
that I’ve come across for building community is called the
Gift Circle. Developed by Alpha Lo, co-author of The Open
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Collaboration Encyclopedia, and his friends in Marin County,
California, it exemplifies the dynamics of gift systems and
illuminates the broad ramifications that gift economies
portend for our economy, psychology, and civilization.
The ideal number of participants in a gift circle is 10-20.
Everyone sits in a circle, and takes turns saying one or two
needs they have. In the last circle I facilitated, some of
the needs shared were: “a ride to the airport next week,”
“someone to help remove a fence,” “used lumber to build a
garden,” “a ladder to clean my gutter,” “a bike,” and “office
furniture for a community center.” As each person shares,
others in the circle can break in to offer to meet the stated
need, or with suggestions of how to meet it.
When everyone has had their turn, we go around the
circle again, each person stating something he or she
would like to give. Some examples last week were “Graphic
design skills,” “the use of my power tools,” “contacts in local
government to get things done,” and “a bike,” but it could be
anything: time, skills, material things; the gift of something
outright, or the gift of the use of something (borrowing).
Again, as each person shares, anyone can speak up and
say, “I’d like that,” or “I know someone who could use one
of those.”
During both these rounds, it is useful to have someone
write everything down and send the notes out the next day
to everyone via email, or on a web page, blog, etc. Otherwise
it is quite easy to forget who needs and offers what. Also,
I suggest writing down, on the spot, the name and phone
number of someone who wants to give or receive something
to/from you. It is essential to follow up, or the gift circle will
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end up feeding cynicism rather than community.
Finally, the circle can do a third round in which people
express gratitude for the things they received since the
last meeting. This round is extremely important because in
community, the witnessing of others’ generosity inspires
generosity in those who witness it. It confirms that this
group is giving to each other, that gifts are recognized,
and that my own gifts will be recognized, appreciated, and
reciprocated as well.
It is just that simple: needs, gifts, and gratitude. But the
effects can be profound.
First, gift circles (and any gift economy, in fact) can
reduce our dependence on the traditional market. If people
give us things we need, then we needn’t buy them. I won’t
need to take a taxi to the airport tomorrow, and Rachel
won’t have to buy lumber for her garden. The less we use
money, the less time we need to spend earning it, and the
more time we have to contribute to the gift economy, and
then receive from it. It is a virtuous circle.
Secondly, a gift circle reduces our production of waste.
It is ridiculous to pump oil, mine metal, manufacture a table
and ship it across the ocean when half the people in town
have old tables in their basements. It is ridiculous as well
for each household on my block to own a lawnmower, which
they use two hours a month, a leaf blower they use twice
a year, power tools they use for an occasional project, and
so on. If we shared these things, we would suffer no loss of
quality of life. Our material lives would be just as rich, yet
would require less money and less waste.
In economic terms, a gift circle reduces gross domestic
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product, defined as the sum total of all goods and services
exchanged for money. By getting a gift ride from someone
instead of paying a taxi, I am reducing GDP by $20. When my
friend drops off her son at my house instead of paying for
day care, GDP falls by another $30. The same is true when
someone borrows a bike from another person’s basement
instead of buying a new one. (Of course, GDP won’t fall if
the money saved is then spent on something else. Standard
economics, drawing on a deep assumption about the infinite
upward elasticity of human wants, assumes this is nearly
always the case. A critique of this deeply flawed assumption
is beyond the scope of the present essay.)
Standard economic discourse views shrinking GDP as
a big problem. When the economy doesn’t grow, capital
investment and employment shrink, reducing consumer
demand and causing further drops in investment and
employment. For the last seventy years, the solution to such
crises has been (1) to lower interest rates to spur lending so
that businesses have access to funds for capital investment
and consumers have money to spend and create demand; (2)
to increase government spending to replace stalled growth
in consumer demand. These are known, respectively, as
monetary stimulus and fiscal stimulus. In both cases, the
goal is to “stimulate” the economy, to get it growing again.
Government policy in the present economic crisis has been
the same. Liberals and conservatives may disagree on
the amount and type of stimulus required, but rarely does
anyone question the desirability of growing the economy.
That is because, in the current debt-based, interest-bearing
money system, the absence of growth leads to rapid
concentration of wealth and economic depression.
Today, however, on the fringes of political and
environmental movements, the recognition is growing that
society and the planet can no longer sustain further growth.
For growth — which in GDP terms means the expansion in
the realm of monetized goods and services — ultimately
comes from the conversion of nature into commodities
and the conversion of social relationships into professional
services. Consider again the social gathering I described.
Why don’t we need each other? It is because all the gift
relationships upon which we once depended are now paid
services. They have been converted into service work which
“The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities;
but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant,
is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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the market converts into cash. What is there left to convert?
Whether fossil fuels, topsoil, aquifers, the atmosphere’s
capacity to absorb waste; whether it is food, clothing,
shelter, medicine, music, or our collective cultural bequest
of stories and ideas, nearly all have become commodities.
Unless we can find yet new realms of nature to convert into
good, unless we can find even more functions of human
life to commoditize, our days of economic growth are
numbered. What room for growth remains — for example
in today’s anemic economic recovery — comes only at an
increasing cost to nature and society.
From this perspective, a third consequence of the gift
circle and other forms of gift economy becomes apparent.
Not only does gift-based circulation subtract from GDP, it
also hastens the demise of the present economic system.
Any bit of nature or human relationship that we preserve
or reclaim from the commodity world is one bit less that
is available to sell, or to use as the basis for new interest-
bearing loans. Without constant creation of new debt,
existing debt cannot be repaid. Lending opportunities only
occur in a context of economic growth, in which the marginal
return on capital investment exceeds the interest rate. To
simplify: no growth, less lending; less lending, more transfer
of assets to creditors; more transfer of assets, more
concentration of wealth; more concentration of wealth, less
consumer spending; less consumer spending, less growth.
This is the vicious circle described by economists going
back to Karl Marx. It has been deferred for two centuries
by the ceaseless opening up, through technology and
colonization, of new realms of nature and relationship to the
market. Today, not only are these realms nearly exhausted,
but a shift of consciousness motivates growing efforts to
reclaim them for the commons and for the gift. Today, we
direct huge efforts toward protecting the forests, whereas
the most brilliant minds of two generations ago devoted
themselves to their more efficient clearcutting. Similarly,
so many of us today seek to limit pollution not expand
production, to protect the waters not increase the fish
catch, to preserve the wetlands — not build larger housing
developments. These efforts, while not always successful,
put a brake on economic growth beyond the natural limit
the environment poses. From the gift perspective, what is
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happening is that we no longer seek merely to take from
the planet, but to give back as well. This corresponds to the
coming of age of humanity, transitioning from a mother-
child relationship to earth, to a co-creative partnership in
which giving and receiving find balance.
The same transition to the gift is underway in the
social realm. Many of us no longer aspire to financial
independence, the state in which we have so much
money we needn’t depend on anyone for anything. Today,
increasingly, we yearn instead for community. We don’t
want to live in a commodity world, where everything
we have exists for the primary goal of profit. We want
things created for love and beauty, things that connect
us more deeply to the people around us. We desire to be
interdependent, not independent. The gift circle, and the
many new forms of gift economy that are emerging on the
Internet, are ways of reclaiming human relationships from
the market.
Whether natural or social, the reclamation of the gift-
based commonwealth not only hastens the collapse of a
growth-dependent money system, it also mitigates its
severity. At the present moment, the market faces a crisis,
merely one of a multiplicity of crises (ecological, social) that
are converging upon us. Through the turbulent time that is
upon us, the survival of humanity, and our capacity to build
a new kind of civilization embodying a new relationship to
earth and a new, more connected, human identity, depends
on these scraps of the commonwealth that we are able
to preserve or reclaim. Although we have done grievous
damage to earth, vast wealth still remains. There is still
richness in the soil, water, cultures and biomes of this
planet. The longer we persist under the status quo, the less
of that richness will remain and the more calamitous the
transition will be.
On a less tangible level, any gifts we give contribute
to another kind of common wealth — a reservoir of
gratitude that will see us through times of turmoil, when the
conventions and stories that hold civic society together fall
apart. Gifts inspire gratitude, and generosity is infectious.
Increasingly, I read and hear stories of generosity,
selflessness, even magnanimity that take my breath away.
When I witness generosity, I want to be generous too. In the
coming times, we will need the generosity, the selflessness,
and the magnanimity of many people. If everyone seeks
merely their own survival, then there is no hope for a new
kind of civilization. We need each others’ gifts as we need
each others’ generosity to invite us into the realm of the gift
ourselves. In contrast to the age of money where we can pay
for anything and need no gifts, soon it will be abundantly
clear: we need each other.
Charles Eisenstein is an essayist and author of the book The
Ascent of Humanity. To find out more about Charles, check out his
blog: http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/.
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FORGING FRIENDLIER NEIGHBORHOODS
Even if the houses on your street resemble
fortresses, it’s possible to create a close-knit
community. All it really takes is someone to get
things moving. Here’s how.
Start by making short, simple contacts.
Borrow milk or hand tools, ask advice, or offer to
help if you see a neighbor moving something heavy.
Make yourself accessible. Sit on your porch,
wash the car in the driveway, play games in the
front yard. When you see neighbors, don’t just wave
and head inside; stop and chat for a few minutes.
Work in the garden. It’s one of the best ways
to meet your neighbors because it requires a
lot of time outdoors. Find other people on your
block interested in sharing tools, cuttings, and
planting tips.
Start a babysitting co-op if you have young
children. Swapping coupons worth babysitting time
saves money — and opens the door to social get-
togethers.
Buy products and services in bulk. This
can include everything from firewood to food
to housecleaning services. Housecleaners, for
example, often give reduced prices to clients who
live near one another.
Organize a neighborhood garage sale,
followed by a potluck dinner. Leave flyers on
doorsteps asking people to give you a call if they’re
interested. That way nobody feels pressured to
participate.
Find people who’d like to meet regularly to
talk about books, share a meal, or watch videos.
Throw a block party at least four times a
year. (Annual events aren’t enough to keep people
in touch.) If you want, attach it to a holiday. Have
an Easter egg hunt, Fourth of July barbecue, or
Christmas caroling.
Organize an “adopt-a-house” program. Set
aside a weekend to fix up an older neighbor’s home
that needs repair.
Start a newsletter listing local events,
real estate transactions, births and deaths,
neighborhood break-ins — whatever’s important to
you and your neighbors.
Compile a neighborhood “skills bank,” a one
or two-page listing of people’s skills, interests,
and needs. Maybe there’s a mechanic, desktop
publisher, or child care worker on the block
looking for extra work, or a neighbor in need of
these services.
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S E S S I O N 5

TRANSPORTATION
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I  — I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”
— Robert Frost

SESSION GOALS SESSION BACKGROUND

• To discuss the impacts of current transportation
systems, including the transportation of goods.
• To learn about transportation options developed in
different communities.
• To discuss advocacy for transportation systems that
minimize impact on the environment while meeting
human needs.
Most travel in the United States is by car, often with a
single occupant — the driver. Planners and engineers have
built city streets and road systems to meet our transportation
demand and in doing so have encouraged even more traffic
without providing options for other modes of travel. About
28 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the US are
from transportation, including both transportation of people
and goods. Greenhouse gas emissions, congested roads,
noise, polluted runoff and rising gas prices point to the
unsustainability of our current transportation system.
This session looks at the problems of our current
transportation systems and how communities in the US and
overseas are providing options to enable residents to reduce
their dependence on driving.

SUGGESTED GROUP ACTIVITY

After reading this chapter, calculate your Transportation Footprint at www.terrapass.com/carbon-footprint-
calculator. Consider how you might reduce your driving miles while finding rewarding ways to meet your
transportation needs, save money, increase activity level and enjoy more sustainable modes of transportation.

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Circle Question

Name three things in your home that you love and that were produced 100 percent locally
(within about 100 miles from where you live).
Reminder to the facilitator: The circle question should move quickly. Elicit an answer from
each participant without questions or comments from others. The facilitator’s guidelines are on page 8.

SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is your favorite mode of transportation? Why is
it your favorite?
2. How does your experience differ when walking, biking
or driving?
3. Can you calculate the miles your lunch traveled to get
to your plate? Discuss your insights with your group.
4. In “Chain of Fuels,” Amanda Little asks, “Given the
related fuel usage and pollution, how could it possibly
be sustainable to source so much of our basic
sustenance from places so far away? And if such
consumption isn’t sustainable, what are the practical
alternatives and solutions?” What are your suggestions
for practical alternatives and solutions to our current
system for transporting food and other goods?
5. Has there been a time in your life when you were able
to walk to work or school? How did it feel?
6. Do your transportation choices lead to greater
or lesser involvement in your community? What
transportation options do you have for getting around
your neighborhood?
7. The little town of Coupeville, WA was able to make
transportation adjustments that saved money, reduced
emissions and helped people be healthier. What kinds
of changes would need to be made in your region in
order to bring about these benefits?
8. Is pollution from congestion a concern where you live?
What do you think could be done to reduce it?
9. Have you ever wished you could bring a transportation
system home with you from your travels? What did you
appreciate about it?
10. Discuss in your group some of the other benefits of
walkable streets beyond improved health.
11. What would complete streets look like for your
community?
PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
Choose one action to commit to this week,
then share your struggles and successes with
your group at your next group meeting. Here are some ideas
to get you started:
• Look up bus schedules and take a trip by bus this week.
• Share a ride to work, school or church instead of
driving alone.
• Of the foods you buy regularly, which travels the farthest?
Commit to replacing this food in your diet or another
creative way to reduce your food miles. For example, you
could commit to only buying one kind of tropical fruit per
week or not buying foods transported by air freight.
• Keep a Trip Calendar using www.rideshareonline.com to
calculate dollar savings and greenhouse gases saved.
• With your children, plan a Safe Route to School for walking
or biking.
• What are your personal transportation costs when you
include fuel, insurance, payments, maintenance, etc.? How
could you reduce the amount you spend on transportation
each month?
• Contact your local planning commission about the need for
complete streets in your neighborhood or city.
• Set up an online petition asking for carbon labeling on
products.
NWEI hosts an annual EcoChallenge every October. To
find out more about this event, visit www.ecochallenge.org.

FURTHER RESOURCES
Interested in finding out more on the topics presented in this session? Visit our website for
further readings and resources: www.nwei.org/choices-for-sustainable-living-resources.

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most-consumed fluid in the US after water. Each American

VISUALIZE GASOLINE
by Richard Heinberg
Next time you find yourself in traffic, try this nifty
thought exercise. Ignore the cars within your field of vision
and imagine instead the contents of their fuel tanks.
Visualize gasoline flowing up and down the highway.
Let’s assume the typical American car carries seven
gallons of refined petroleum product in its tank at any
given moment (a 15-gallon tank half-full). That’s a lot of
liquid to be carting around. In fact, gasoline is the second-
household consumes an average of 350 gallons of water per
day and 2.5 gallons of gasoline; milk, coffee, and beer clock
in at .15 gallons, .12 gallons, and .1 gallons respectively.
If you do this visualization exercise, you might find
yourself seeing rivulets, streams, and — in the case of big
freeways — rivers of gasoline coursing across the land. For
the US as a whole, 400 million gallons of gasoline enter the
flow every day. But, since we routinely carry more gasoline
with us than we intend to use immediately, the total amount
in car gas tanks at any given moment is roughly seven times
larger, so that America’s gasoline rivers slosh with 2.8 billion
gallons on any given day.
A real river or stream is the spine of a watershed and the
heart of a riparian ecosystem. Trees, shrubs, insects and
their larvae, fish, birds, amphibians, and mammals all derive
their livelihoods from flowing water.
A river of gasoline is sterile by comparison, even though
petroleum itself is composed of some of the same main
elements as living things — carbon and hydrogen. Oil is
a fossil fuel, after all, made of heaps and heaps of dead
algae compressed and heated over millions of years so that
carbohydrates became hydrocarbons. Gasoline rivers are
no place for non-human life forms: only the most daring
of weeds and foolhardy of animals venture there, with the
latter often ending up as road kill. Indeed, highways could be
thought of as rivers of death.
Water makes itself seen and felt as it falls from the sky
and collects in puddles, ponds, lakes, and oceans. The tiny

THE HIDDEN COSTS OF OIL

by Amory Lovins
America has been built and shaped by her ability to buy petroleum, half from foreign countries, some
to move people and goods freely and quickly, fueled considered national security threats. Oil dependence’s
by seemingly inexpensive oil. Thirteen million barrels hidden costs, paid not at the pump but through taxes
of oil a day is burned driving to work, hauling cargo, and indirect economic damage, total roughly twice the
jetting to meetings and vacations, and keeping our vast price of the oil itself — in round numbers, one and a
transportation system humming. That’s 73 percent of all half trillion dollars a year, or 12 percent of GDP, far more
the oil used in the United States.  than the nation’s total energy bill — plus any costs to
But this unprecedented mobility comes with big independence, security, health, and environment.
costs and risks. Americans pay two billion dollars a day
From Reinventing Fire, 2011. Used with permission.

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
Food miles: The term “food miles” refers to the distance food travels from the location where it is grown to
the location where it is consumed, or in other words, the distance food travels from farm to plate. This distance
has been steadily increasing over the past fifty years. In 2005 it was estimated that in North America, fruits and
vegetables travel an average of 1,500 miles (2,414 kilometers) before reaching your dinner table.

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fraction of Earth’s water that enters municipal delivery
systems temporarily disappears into a maze of pipes but
soon re-emerges at the ends of faucets and showerheads.
Gasoline is covert and furtive by comparison. Oil
emerges from wells and, via pipelines, enters refineries;
from these, gasoline gushes through more pipes that carry
it to regional distribution centers, whence it is delivered by
tanker truck to filling stations. We travel to those stations
to dispense gas by hose into the tanks of our cars; from
those tanks it is delivered to its final moment of combustion
within the engine. At no point along its path is oil or gasoline
customarily exposed to public view.
What we see instead, for the most part, is the automobile
— a painstakingly crafted exoskeleton that carries gasoline
and humans from place to place — and a
landscape substantially altered to suit
automobiles. We obsess over our cars:
they are our symbols of freedom and
status. We judge them by the elegance
of their design, their top speed, and
their acceleration. We revere their
brand names — Mercedes, Ferrari,
Jaguar, Bentley, Cadillac, Lexus.
We take for granted the gasoline
that makes them go, until a gauge
or warning light on the dashboard
forces us to pull over and buy more. Yet
without gas there would be no point to the
automobile; even the brawniest Porsche could do no more
than ornament a driveway.
We complain about the price of gasoline, yet at four
dollars per gallon it is cheaper than coffee, beer, or milk —
cheaper even than most bottled water.
Unlike those other liquids, gasoline is explosive. It
literally gives us a bang — and a fairly big bang, at that.
Visualize slowly pushing your car miles at a time, your leg
and arm muscles straining to move a ton or two of metal,
and you may gain some appreciation for how much power
is being released by each drop of the gasoline that speeds
our cars down the road with virtually no effort required on
our part.
Visualize gasoline-powered civilization arising as if by
some maniacally accelerated evolutionary process. It all
began so recently, in the mid-nineteenth century, and spread
across the globe in mere decades. Automobiles mutated
and competed for dominance on vast networks of roads
built to accommodate them. Shopping malls and parking
garages sprang up to attract and hold them. And powering
it all was an ever-widening but mostly invisible river of
gasoline — the poisonous blood of 700 million dinosaur-like
machines that now dot landscapes around the world.
Visualize gasoline’s combustion by-products spewing
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out of millions of tailpipes and into the air breathed by
children. As we pump oil out of the ground we transfer
ancient carbon from the Earth’s crust into the atmosphere
at a rate of 5.2 metric tons per car per year. A car that gets
25 miles per gallon of gasoline spews 47 gallons of CO2 per
mile (at standard temperature and pressure). Like gasoline,
carbon dioxide is invisible most of the time; you have to use
your powers of visualization to see the thickening blanket of
CO2 that traps more and more of Earth’s heat.
Visualize ancient subterranean oil reservoirs rapidly
depleting, with half of Earth’s entire inheritance of
conventional crude converted to CO2 and water during
the lifetime of an average baby boomer (1950-2025).
Already, nations are straining to adjust to
declining oil abundance, searching
for alternatives, and fighting
over what’s left. No, we’re
not running out of oil. We’ve
only begun tapping tar sands,
tight oil, and polar oil. But what’s left,
though impressive in quantity, will be
expensive, risky, and slow to extract.
Visualize a time, years or decades
from now, when machines designed
to burn gasoline sit idle, rusting, and
abandoned. No, we won’t quickly and
easily switch to electric cars. In order for
that to happen, the economy would have
to keep growing, so that more and more people could afford
to buy new (and more expensive) automobiles. A more likely
scenario: as fuel gets increasingly expensive the economy
will falter, rendering the transition to electric cars too little,
too late.
Visualize life without gasoline. You might as well start
doing so now, at least in imagination; soon enough, this will
no longer be an exercise. One way or another, you’ll be using
much less gasoline than you do today. How will your food be
grown and transported? How will you get around? Will your
job still exist? How will your community function?
Visualizing gasoline won’t make more of it magically
appear. But understanding the extent of our dependence
on it helps us address our vulnerability to the inevitable
process of depletion. Imagining a world without gasoline
could be a useful first step in preparing for a future that’s
coming at us whether we’re ready or not.
Author Richard Heinberg is widely regarded as one of the world’s
most effective communicators of the urgent need to transition
away from fossil fuels. Richard’s latest book, The End of Growth:
Adapting to Our New Economic Reality, makes a compelling
argument that the global economy has reached a fateful,
fundamental turning point. This piece originally appeared in the
May 10, 2012 Energy Bulletin: www.energybulletin.net
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

CHAIN OF FUELS
by Amanda Little
THE STORY OF A 20,000-MILE SPINACH SALAD
Preparing a dinner salad would seem to be a guilt-free
exercise for even the most conscientious consumer, but this
routine task left me nerve racked one winter evening soon
after my visit to Ken McCauley’s Kansas farm. It started
with the spinach, a velvety green bundle that I happened to
notice came from Cal-Organic farms — located on Golden
State soil some 2,000 miles from my Nashville, Tennessee,
grocer. Then I spotted “Mexico” in fine print under the
“Ripe Now!” sticker on my avocado. My other ingredients
— carrots, red bell pepper, cucumber, mushrooms, garlic,
olive oil, and lemon — hailed from as far away as China,
Chile, Italy, and Honduras. It wasn’t hard to deduce, with the
help of a dusty high school atlas, that my salad fixings had
traveled a combined distance of more than 20,000 miles
to my chopping block, via fuel-hungry trucks, ships, and
airplanes spewing untold pounds of CO2 . My organic salad
suddenly looked like a globetrotting energy boondoggle.
I had talked with McCauley about the fossil fuels
consumed by fertilizer and farming equipment, but here
was another, even bigger piece of the agricultural picture.
What happens to our food after it leaves the farm? Growing
and harvesting crops only accounts for 20 percent of the
total energy consumption of our food system, as I’d learned
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
87
from Michael Pollan — the rest is used in processing,
transportation, and storage. So how much fuel does it take
to ship, truck, and fly the contents of a standard meal to our
dining room tables?
A quick Web search brought up some alarming statistics.
There’s actually a term, “food miles,” that refers to the
distance food travels from where it’s grown to where it’s
consumed. One recent study by Iowa State University’s
Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture found that on
average, produce sold in the Midwest travels about 1,500
miles “from farm to fork.” The study examined the travel
routes of different fruits and vegetables from farms
throughout the continental United States to the main food
market of Chicago, Illinois. Only pumpkins and mushrooms
traveled fewer than 500 miles to reach the market, while
broccoli, cauliflower, grapes, peas, spinach, and lettuce were
all trucked more than 2,000 miles to market.
In the decades before the agribusiness movement,
American grocers were supplied, in large part, by local
family farms. In those days, consumers were accustomed
to eating seasonal produce that would have to be frozen,
canned, or pickled for winter months.
Local foods [now] account for less than 1 percent of
total agricultural sales in the United States, according to
government data. In recent years, the United States has
imported more than 25 billion pounds of produce annually
from international farms — farms primarily located in warm
climates with year-round growing seasons. In 2008, imports
accounted for more than half of our fresh fruit supply and
nearly a quarter of our fresh vegetables. I could not find
an official calculation for the average distance traveled by
produce shipped and air-freighted internationally, but a
conservative estimate would put it at well over 2,000 miles.
The more I read about this sprawling food distribution
network, the more I puzzled over the problems inherent in
my 20,000-mile salad. In a world of rocketing fuel prices
and global warming, my run-of-the-mill dinner seemed
outrageously lavish — absurd, even. Given the related fuel
usage and pollution, how could it possibly be sustainable to
source so much of our basic sustenance from places so far
away? And if such consumption isn’t sustainable, what are
the practical alternatives and solutions? It’s hard enough
to reengineer certain industries and institutions — cars,
plastics, farms, even the U.S. military — to operate in a
world without oil. But how do you begin transforming the
unthinkably vast and terrifically fast global network of
planes, ships, trains, and trucks that deliver products at all
hours of the day and night to store shelves?
What I’d begun to realize as I counted up my food miles
was something obvious to an economist but imperceptible
to most American consumers: the modern global economy
depends on long-distance supply chains — the intricate and
complex processes by which companies move materials,
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n
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parts, and finished products to consumers. This never-
ending flow of global goods makes economic sense [due] in
part to cheap energy.
We’re all complicit. In our modern American lifestyles
we’ve grown accustomed to a dizzyingly wide selection of
product choices at rock-bottom prices, a function of the
so-called Walmart effect. To support this level of variety
and affordability in our consumer goods, we depend on
low-wage workers in developing nations whose cheap labor
keeps production costs way down. The hitch, from a fuel
standpoint (considered apart from the many social justice
concerns raised by fair-trade advocates), is that these
workers live in far-flung locales — often literally on the
other side of the world — so their products quietly, invisibly
consume energy as they traverse entire nations and oceans
before entering our homes.
The contents of my own home told this very story. After
my salad reckoning, I wandered from my kitchen through
the rest of the house and noticed, with fresh perspective,
that my dining table is from Vietnam, my porch swing from
Malaysia, my car from Japan, my bedsheets from India, my
alarm clock from Taiwan, my tea candles from Singapore,
my desk from Sweden, my couch from Hong Kong. It
took a global village, I marveled, to manufacture what I’d
previously seen as routine, daily amenities. Gathering up
these household items from the far corners of the world
was a process dependent on the very same fuel
that powers our wars, moves our cars, builds our
plastics, and nourishes our farms.
CONSIDER THE BANANA
The first step in
understanding the bigger
picture — and future — of
supply chains, I reasoned,
was to take a closer look
at my 20,000-mile salad
and the food distribution
system behind it. So I called up
Edgar Blanco, a research scientist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center
for Transportation and Logistics who is investigating
the carbon impacts of food transportation.
As for my salad conundrum, Blanco gave me reasons
for both comfort and concern. On the one hand, higher
food miles don’t necessarily translate into higher energy
use. “An apple that travels from Chile by ship to my Boston
grocer,” he explained, “can actually require less fuel and
have a smaller carbon footprint than an apple that has been
trucked in from Washington State.” Two reasons: First, the
U.S.-raised produce may be cultivated with higher amounts
of fertilizer and more machinery intensive farming practices
than the long-distance produce, canceling out some of
the fuel savings that come from shorter delivery routes.
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n 
Second, and most important, fossil fuel consumption
depends on, among other factors, what mode of transport
your food takes. The most efficient modes are train and
ship, which — remarkably — burn about nine times less
energy per ton-mile traveled than trucks, and thirty-three
times less than airplanes.
The worrisome news was that, despite the inefficiencies
of truck travel, more than 85 percent of the produce
transported in America shuttles between states via
eighteen-wheelers. Only about 15 percent is delivered by
train. (This disproportionate reliance on trucks is one more
consequence of the widespread dismantling of railways
in the mid twentieth century that fundamentally shaped
America’s cities and transportation systems.) If you add up
the distances traveled annually in the national, regional, and
local U.S. food transport systems, it amounts to roughly
3 billion miles.
And that’s just for produce that travels inside the
United States. Blanco walked me through the logistics of
transporting produce to the United States from abroad.
“Consider a simple banana,” he told me. The vast majority
of bananas consumed in the United States are grown on
hundreds of farms throughout Central America, where they
are picked while still green, placed in cardboard packaging,
and hauled via trucks to central distribution hubs. The
bananas are immediately refrigerated to inhibit ripening,
repackaged in sturdier boxes, and trucked to coastal
shipping ports. Here they are loaded into temperature-
controlled containers that hold nearly a thousand
banana boxes each, and then sent on their ocean
voyage. Once they arrive at U.S. ports, these
same containers are hauled to hundreds of
distribution centers throughout the United
States by trucks (one eighteen-wheeler
carries the cargo of a single shipping
container). At these U.S. hubs, the
bananas are stripped of some of
their packaging and stored for four
days in specially designed airtight
rooms pumped full of ethylene
gas (a petrochemical), which rapidly
ripens the fruit to its yellow color. Shrink-
wrapped and repackaged, the bananas are then driven
to tens of thousands of grocers by another round of
refrigerated trucks.
”In total, the bananas go through at least five different
transportation legs and three different stages of packaging
from farm to grocer,” Blanco told me. By his calculations,
when you add up the energy required to transport the
bananas and to manufacture their plastic and cardboard
packaging, on average the distribution of each 40-pound
box of bananas produces between 20 and 40 pounds of
CO2 -the emissions equivalent of burning I to 2 gallons of
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

gas. That adds up — way up — given that the United States
imports roughly 6 billion pounds of bananas from Central
America every year.
The environmental and cultural problems posed by
long-distance food delivery have captured the attention of
many consumers and retailers. In recent years, a subculture
of “locavores” has sprung up — consumers who limit their
diets to foods that can be found within a roughly 100-mile
radius of their homes. Patron saints of this movement
include bestselling authors Michael Pollan and Barbara
Kingsolver, who have chronicled the Amishlike existences
they led while growing much of their own sustenance,
slaughtering their meats, preserving their food for the
winter months, and eschewing basics that are mostly
grown overseas such as coffee, cocoa (chocolate), sugar,
and tropical fruits. These sacrifices, as they’ve written,
reaped big rewards, including the enjoyment of fresher and
more flavorful foods, personally reconnecting to the land,
supporting small scale organic family farms threatened by
agribusiness, in addition to wiping out food miles.
The trend has caught on — recent years have seen a
surge in local eating, with farmers’ markets almost tripling
in number from only around 1,755 in 1994 to more than
4,500 in 2008. Top chefs and eateries have begun to offer
local fare. Cris Comerford, the Obama family’s White House
executive chef, for instance, is a local foods advocate, and
a popular section of the cafeteria at Google’s northern
California headquarters is the “150 Club,” which serves food
purchased within 150 miles of the campus.
These are encouraging trends — but they don’t solve
the problem of my own 20,000-mile salad. The truth is, I’d
love to eat a low-carbon footprint diet, if only I could find
enough time and money to shop exclusively at farmers’
markets, let alone to grow and preserve my own food. For
better or worse, I need a more mainstream solution. So
I went searching for answers at the Bentonville, Arkansas,
headquarters of Walmart — the retailer that sells more
goods to more Americans than any other. Surprisingly, it
was there that I found the most revealing news yet about
the challenges of and potential alternatives to America’s
long distance food distribution system.
THE WRITING IS ON THE WAL-MART
Walmart, the world’s biggest food distributor, has also
recently become America’s biggest purchaser of local
produce. In 2008, the company sold $400 million worth
of locally grown fruits and veggies, sourcing one fifth
of its produce locally in the summer months. Walmart
isn’t alone in this shift toward local foods. Whole Foods
sources about 17 percent of its produce annually from
local farms. Consumer demand for these products is
soaring, said Whole Foods’ global produce coordinator,
Karen Christensen, because of “a growing consciousness
in our culture about both climate change and connecting
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
89
to local communities in an increasingly globalized world.”
That growing consciousness is particularly pronounced in
England, where in 2008 the supermarket chain Tesco began
a “carbon labeling” program for seventy thousand products,
ranging from tater tots to televisions. The labels reveal the
estimated amount of greenhouse gas generated from the
production, transportation, and use of each item.
I asked Walmart’s director of sustainability, Matt
Kissler, to explain why the retail behemoth was going local.
Catalyst of suburban sprawl and employer of 1.8 million
(many with gripes about schedules, pay, and benefits),
Walmart personifies the corporate consolidation that has
hurt local farms, businesses, and sustainable small-town
living. Kissler, whose family farms potatoes and apples in
Michigan, said the decision was strictly bottom-line: “It’s
win-win — you get better tasting products that are more
affordable,” he told me.
Hauling produce unnecessary distances means the
grower is earning less money, Walmart is earning less, and
the customer is paying more because the money is going
into increasingly expensive fuel. (Walmart has its own
truck fleet of more than 200,000 vehicles — it doesn’t hire
an independent trucking company to handle distribution
— so the company is keenly attuned to fuel costs.) “You
can also deliver a much fresher product to the retailer
that lasts longer on shelves,” Kissler added, “and reduce
the labor costs of stocking those products.” Local foods
additionally cut down on packaging costs because produce
that’s trucked shorter distances requires less protective
cardboard and insulation.
Before Walmart sourced all the peaches sold in its three
thousand megastores from only two suppliers; now the
company buys 12 million pounds of peaches annually from
farms strategically located near Walmart hubs in eighteen
different states. This change alone kept the company’s
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n
90
delivery trucks from burning about 110,000 gallons of diesel
in 2008, and sliced its customers’ farm-to-fork distance by
670,000 miles. Another example: the cilantro for Walmart’s
East Coast stores used to come from California, but the
company transferred the contract to farmers in Florida,
where the herb can be grown just as easily (these farmers
had been growing alfalfa but readily agreed to change their
crop to secure the Walmart contract). That action alone
slashed a quarter million food miles in a single season and
saved Walmart another $1 million in fuel costs. Pleased
with the fuel savings that come with shorter supply chains,
Walmart is applying this strategy on a national level to
corn, tomatoes, and eventually dozens of other fruits and
veggies, in the hope of encouraging a greater diversity
of available produce within regional food markets. It’s a
wonderful irony, I thought, that this consolidated retail
giant would become a major catalyst working against
consolidation and perhaps eventually against the monocrop
agribusiness model fostered by the Green Revolution.
Kissler made no bones about the fact that long-distance
products will, in all probability, always comprise a large
chunk of the agricultural market, since local foods are
fundamentally limited by narrow variety and short growing
seasons. There’s no getting around the fact that the soil
of northern states such as Minnesota and Maine yields
crops for as little as four months, while other states with
wet growing seasons have limits on variety because they
can’t grow crops vulnerable to mold. “The consumer is
boss,” said Kissler. ‘’So as long as the boss wants bananas in
January we are going to have to source them from outside
of the United States.” The same goes for the year-round
demand for springtime asparagus, summer squash, tropical
mangoes, and autumnal beets. (While it would be possible to
grow these products off-season in huge local greenhouses,
artificially heating such indoor farms can consume more
energy than trucking the products in from tropical climes.)
While the message I got from Walmart was heartening
— local, fuel-saving foods will make up an ever-bigger
portion of the national produce market — I realized, as
I browsed the grocery shelves of the Bentonville Walmart
Supercenter, that I had in fact only scratched the surface
of the bigger food supply chain picture. Supply chains for
fresh produce are in credibly simple — primitive, even —
compared to those of more complex products with many
component parts. Try counting up the food miles of a
product made from a long list of ingredients — it’s all but
impossible. We live in a world where it can take dozens of
nations to produce a microwave dinner, for instance, or even
a single loaf of bread.
Amanda Little is an author and journalist and teaches investigative
journalism at Vanderbilt University. This article is an excerpt from
Amanda’s book Power Trip: The Story of America’s Love Affair with
Energy (2010).
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n 
TRANSPORTATION COUNTS
1. Tons-km of goods transported in 2007-8,
in billions: China: 10,170. USA: 6,200. EU-27:
4,088.
2. Tons-km of goods transported in 1997, in
billions: China: 1,823. USA: 5,935. EU-15: 2,870
3. Passengers-km transported in 2008, in billions:
USA: 8,451. China: 2,337.
4. Population in 2008, in millions:
China: 1,325. USA: 305.
5. Percentage of seafood consumed in the United
States that is imported: 83 
6. Weight of all food consumed by people in 2009
in the United States, in billions of pounds: 654
Percent that was imported from abroad: 17
Weight of all food consumed per capita in 2009
in the United States, in pounds: 2,100
7. Percentage of all U.S. railway freight cars that
are currently in storage: 23
8. Estimated value of government subsidies that
will go to the oil and gas industries between
August 2011 and 2015: $78,155,000,000
9. Estimated number of cars that it takes to
produce as much CO2 as a single large cargo
ship: 10,000
10. Percentage of all worldwide carbon emissions
attributable to tourism: 5
11. Tons of CO2 that All Nippon Airways expects
to save per month by asking passengers to use
the bathroom before boarding: 4.2
12. Tons of foreign rice that Japan must buy each
year, according to WTO agreements: 751,776
Sources:
1. http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/energy/Resources/
Lectures/transport-land.html
2. http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/energy/Resources/
Lectures/transport-land.html
3. http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/energy/Resources/
Lectures/transport-land.html
4. http://www.prb.org/publications/datasheets/2008/2008wpds.aspx
5. Harper’s Index, September 2010
6. http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/international-markets-trade/us-
agricultural-trade/import-share-of-consumption.aspx
7. Harper’s Index, October 2010
8. Harper’s Index, October 2011
9. Harper’s Index, August 2009
10. Harper’s Index, August 2008
11. Harper’s Index, January 2010
12. Harper’s Index, August 2008
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

WE LOVE OUR CARS,
BUT CAN THEY BE BAD FOR US?
by Dan Burden
While I attended college in the late ‘70s in Western
Montana, I lived without a car. I was just an ordinary young
man, fit and eating heartily but burning calories because
I was using my feet and legs to transport myself. I was also
getting to know my neighbors, making friends and building
strong, interactive social circles.
For one class I entered a formal debate about America’s
automobile habits. My premise was that our growing use of
cars was becoming an addiction that if not curtailed, could
bring ruin to our national values. By traveling under my own
power, I had been seeing and experiencing things first-hand
and engaging in the happenings of my community. Because
he drove a car most places, my debate opponent lacked
the community interaction I had received from walking and
bicycling. His transportation choice limited his awareness
and knowledge, not an uncommon situation when oil
was cheap. I won the debate because I had become well-
grounded in understanding community.
“The automobile, satisfier of private needs, demands, and whims,
has created an insatiable demand for access, and a whole profession of planners
and engineers both serving and further stimulating that demand.
The result has been cities with streets and street systems dedicated to the
automobile to the virtual exclusion of all other uses.”
— Donald and Bruce Appleyard, from Livable Streets
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
91
At the time of this debate few people had any idea of
the extent of change an auto-centric focus would have on
both the human and natural habitats. We hadn’t coined
the term, “nature deficit disorder” (distancing nature from
where we live). We had not yet labeled the concept of “free
range children,” something we took for granted as we grew
up and then would take from our own children. While we
were asking scientists and technicians to send people to
the moon and back, we were abandoning the ability of our
children to go to school and back under their own power. In
our technical glee to do the impossible, we were losing our
footing to do the ordinary.
My college years were early in the era of crazy urban
growth. The economy went through a series of booms.
Busts were short and small. Most of us took for granted
that building our cities and entire transport systems
around motorized vehicles was a good thing. We didn’t think
about the range and depth of environmental and social
consequences that would accrue from building nearly 4
million miles of public roadways and 61,000 square miles of
parking lots in the U.S.
We now find ourselves captured by the car culture.
Studies show that 82 percent of us live in suburban
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n
 92

lots become islands of heat in summer. They ooze oil for the
MOTOR GASOLINE CONSUMPTION Motor  Gasoline  Consump1on  in  Top  25   next rainfall to wash pollution into underground and surface
IN TOP 25 COUNTRIES, 2009 waters. The complex fabric of life on the planet is being
Countries,  2009  
Total final consumption in billions of gallons harmed in ways we are just barely beginning to understand.
The promised mobility of the car produced staggering
140.0
  amounts of unintended consequences. Endless streams
120.0
  of traffic grow longer every year. Analysts figure that
100.0
  the first two hours of our workday pay for our personal
80.0
  transportation, and estimate that the time we spend sitting
60.0
  in traffic is equivalent to two weeks of vacation. Most of
40.0
  Total
 
us are Final
 Cand
trapped onsump6on
 
must drive(in
 bto
illions
 
work each day; so we
20.0
  of
  g allons)
 
complain about congestion, which implies that we need to
0.0
  build more roads. In the past thirty years, when land, steel,
concrete and asphalt were cheaper, we built roads as fast as
the money would flow, adding 2 percent to our nation’s road
network annually. At the same time, traffic grew 5 times
faster than the population. We now know that additional
Source: Data compiled by Earth Policy Institute (www.earth-policy.org) road capacity induces even more traffic.
  We have reached
from International Energy Agency (IEA), IEA Oil Information Statistics, the point where the costs of maintaining our roadway
Source: Data
electronic compiled
database, by Earth Policy Institute
at http://stats.oecd.org, (www.earth-­‐policy.org
retrieved 16 September 2011; ) from International Energy Agency
systems have surpassed our ability to pay for them.
(IEA), IEA Oil Information Statistics, electronic database, at http:\\stats.oecd.org, retrieved 16 September
converted from metric tons to gallons using IEA, Oil Information 2011 (Paris:
2011; converted
2011), p. I.31. from metric tons to gallons using IEA, Oil Information 2011 (Paris: 2011), p. I.31.
 
What fools indeed we mortals are
places, all dependent on cars. Cars have now become a
predominant feature of urban habitat, and many people are
To lavish care upon a Car, 

unhappy with the result. In a world where nature teaches With ne’er a bit of time to see

that species must be flexible and responsive to survive, About our own machinery!
our limited transportation choice has left us inflexible and
— John Kendrick Bangs
vulnerable.
One thing I did not envision in my college years was
how our car dependent transportation system would Car dependence and big roads have created other
cumulatively contribute to long-term changes in Earth’s impacts. People have lost their ability to walk safely and
climate. Back then trends were already well underway, comfortably in their immediate communities. The resulting
though barely recognized. We now know that climatic inactivity has ushered in an era of serious health impacts,
changes are affecting our economy, health, crop yields, and as 60 percent of the population is now overweight or obese.
even our social lives. America has become the fattest nation in world history, and
In addition, the cost of road construction has been we are not solving this problem. The situation is not all due
expensive in more than just dollars. Big roads enabled flight to auto addiction and built environments; what and how
to the suburbs for the more affluent, while new highway much we eat also matters. But our lifestyles and mental
construction ripped gashes through existing neighborhoods. conditions (as measured by the quadrupling of our intake
Both trends impoverished the social fabric of our cities, of anti-depressants) are directly linked to where and how
leading to decline in urban vitality. Those left behind in we live.
urban centers had diminished mobility with less access to Yet even as gas prices are on the increase, many still vote
services, quality education and jobs. This process robbed against funding the pathways from our downward spiral.
us all of the ability to mix with those of other social classes They tender the false belief that investments in active
and cultures in what were once diverse neighborhoods. transportation facilities and transit are unaffordable frills.
The more immediate consequences of our dominant We even hear from some elected leaders that rebuilding
transportation choice are equally unfortunate. The air in America to make it more sustainable and economically
our built environments is so smoggy that the number of vital is a conspiracy to undermine the traditional economic
children suffering from allergies and asthma has risen to engine of America. But in places where voters are aware
the frightening level of one child in five. Not just humans, enough to make sustainable choices, they know that trails,
but nearly all life suffers from this air and water pollution. sidewalks, bike lanes, trees and other amenities are only
Wildlife becomes roadkill. Natural habitats are paved over a small percentage of total street construction costs.
with the land’s last crop, asphalt. Treeless roads and parking Most have found those investments offer many benefits
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n  NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

to the social fabric of their communities, produce the
greatest number of jobs, renew economic vitality,
create the highest increase in land values, and provide
greater mobility, as they reduce many of the negative
consequences of car dependency.
Looking back, the evidence of our auto addiction has
been mounting for some time, but many effects were
still unrecognized by health officials, city planners,
transportation engineers, architects, landscape architects
and elected officials. Most were inspired by and wanted to
be part of the exciting modernist era. Everyone loved the
ease of moving by car, made possible by (what appeared
to be) an endless supply of cheap oil.
In the 1950’s, oil geologist and geophysicist Dr. M. King
Hubbert was trying to awaken us. He developed a bell
curve showing that US oil reserves were getting harder to
obtain and would become more difficult and expensive.
Not many appeared to be listening with gasoline costs still
under one dollar per gallon. This black goo that gave us so
much, he said, would run out.
Dr. Hubbert did not predict the fast growing demands
that would come from China and India for the world
reserves. No one predicted that. He did observe, “There is
a different and more fundamental cost (of dependency
on oil) that is independent of the monetary price. That is
the energy cost of exploration and production. So long
as oil is used as a source of energy, when the energy cost
of recovering a barrel of oil becomes greater than the
energy content of the oil, production will cease no matter
what the monetary price may be.”
Prophetic warnings also came from Jane Jacobs in her
1961 book titled, The Death and Life of Great American
Cities. In it, she warned in a most compelling way that we
were losing the health and humanity of our cities. She did
not see this loss as a car-induced problem, but instead
coming from our inability to see the complexity of cities
and the importance of place-making.
So why am I still an optimist? We have made many
mistakes that are compounding, but they are no longer
debate worthy to an increasing number of people. Today,
many are beginning to realize that auto dependency
will not build the needed recovery, resilience, flexibility
and abundance that we seek. As Jane Jacobs told us,
city-making is a complex process. We can produce short-
term fixes, but the box of bandaids is almost empty. And
once that box is empty, we will once again build strong,
resourceful, vital local communities, cities and regions
with healthy, diverse economies.
Dan Burden wrote this piece for NWEI in 2012. The Walkable and
Livable Communities Institute (WALC) is based in Port Townsend,
Washington. Founded by Dan Burden, the organization is involved
in making cities better places for people, with a concentration on
placemaking, walking, and bicycling.
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LITTLE TOWN MAKES BIG LEAP
TOWARD SMART TRAVEL
COUPEVILLE — If you find yourself passing through
the small town of Coupeville on Whidbey Island, try not to
stare when you see someone picking flowers or counting
mountain peaks on their way to work. And don’t be startled
if a lady riding an odd, yellow bicycle stops and says, “...What
a wonderful morning.”
Funny thing about the people of Coupeville — they seem
to actually enjoy their daily commutes, even on Mondays.
And ever since the town launched a unique community-
based trip reduction program to help curb greenhouse gas
emissions a year ago, witnesses have reported spotting
folks in Coupeville smiling on their way work.
“Mostly I use my leg power, but when I need a boost on
the big hills I can use the electric power,” Coupeville Dentist
Julie Grove is happy to tell just about anybody who asks
about her electric bicycle, which she rides to work four days
a week.
“I’m a busy guy with a growing family, and time to get a bit
of exercise is hard to fit in,” says Mike Etzell, who combines
a half-mile walk with a bus ride for his daily commute to
Island County Human Services. “I call it the best commute
around. I can see the Olympic and Cascade Mountains,
Rainier on a good day.”
Smiling Coupevillians are catching the bus, sharing a ride,
working at home instead of the office, walking and biking,
perhaps more than ever before. They’re raising the bar for
trip reduction in Island County.
A year after this town with a population of 1,800
launched its “community trip reduction” program, more
than 160 people — 9 percent of the town — have signed
up on RideshareOnline.com, and they are finding it’s easier
than they thought to leave their cars at home and save a
whopping 39,493 gallons of gas and more than $281,600 in
commute costs.
“The savings in gasoline alone can be pretty significant,”
said Cathy d’Almeida, the town’s Sustainable Community
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n
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Coordinator.
Back in July of 2008 the town hired d’Almeida to find
new ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect
Coupeville’s gorgeous natural setting. D’Almeida rolled up
her sleeves and joined forces with Sustainable Whidbey
Coalition ; Island Transit; local employers, such as Island
County and Whidbey General Hospital; the Washington
State Department of Transportation (WSDOT); and
RideshareOnline to develop a plan that would target the
biggest source of greenhouse gas — transportation.
“Coupeville has definitely been a leader in the island’s
sustainability movement,” said Donna Keeler, an Island
County transportation planner. “Other jurisdictions were
relying on volunteers to make a difference.” Following
Coupeville’s lead, the county obtained a health grant to
implement a similar incentive program countywide. Every
month four RideshareOnline users are selected to win a
$50 gift certificate from a local business. D’Almeida said
her town’s determination to make a difference put trip
reduction in reach. She said she had great support from the
mayor and town council along the way.
Mayor Nancy Conard agrees it takes a village or a
town in this case. And having a town sustainability guru
on staff doesn’t hurt either. Trip reduction is just one
part of d’Almeida’s work, the mayor said. She’s also been
busy making the town government, small businesses
and residents more energy efficient. “Every vehicle trip
we eliminate brings us closer to our goal of reducing
greenhouse gas,” Conard said. “It’s been wonderful to see
people really getting into this idea of trip reduction.”
Trip reduction programs have been targeting emissions,
fuel consumption and congestion in urban areas across the
state for nearly two decades with the statewide Commute
Trip Reduction (CTR) program. It focuses on large employers
in urban centers to encourage workers to drive alone less
often. While Washington State is considered a national
leader in trip reduction, the state’s existing programs didn’t
COUPEVILLE’S YEAR 1 RESULTS
Population: 1,800
New RSO users in Coupeville: 161
Recorded commute trips: By bus: 8,034
By carpool: 2,090
By vanpool: 322
Walking: 1,156
Bicycling: 1,100
Gasoline saved: 39,493 gallons
C02 emissions reduced: 379 tons
Total monetary savings: $281,644
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n 
extend to small towns like Coupeville.
Unlike the urban parts of the state where hours of
traffic congestion every day is motivation enough for many
people to join a vanpool or take the bus, Coupeville’s small-
town rush hour lasts only about 15 minutes, d’Almeida said,
so she had to get creative. For many, cleaner air, energy
conservation and cost savings made an effective call to
action. For others incentives of a different kind — the
chance to win a $50 gift certificate to a local business —
did the trick.
“Island Transit’s fare-free policy and strong support has
been a huge factor in our success,” she said. “The overall
culture they create makes it fun for employees and riders to
be on the bus.”
When Coupeville’s rideshare program celebrated its
first anniversary in August, the numbers indicated those
incentives — personal, environmental or foldable — are
paying off. In just one year it prevented more than 347
metric tons of C02, a greenhouse gas, from entering the
atmosphere. For WSDOT this small town’s big success
means investing in programs that ease the demand on our
transportation systems and protect the air we breathe
make sense not just for the state’s congested and urbanized
cities but in every community where people travel.
“Coupeville demonstrates that transportation demand
management (TDM) isn’t just for large congested urban
areas anymore, trip reduction programs can help smaller
rural areas achieve local goals, in this case greenhouse
gas emissions reduction, while contributing to regional
and state transportation system efficiency,” said WSDOT
planner Christopher Aiken, who supports the state’s
CTR program. “Trip reduction can work for Washington’s
citizens and help support a healthier environment in every
community from our largest cities to our smallest towns.”
This article reprinted with permission of the Washington State
Department of Transportation. www.wsdot.wa.gov
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO: SAFE ROUTES TO SCHOOL TRAILBLAZERS
National Center For Safe Routes To School
Hillrise Elementary, a school serving grades
kindergarten through fifth, is a neighborhood school in
Las Cruces, New Mexico. The sidewalk infrastructure
necessary for students to walk to school already
exists, and the majority of students live within walking
distance of the school. Despite these advantages, a
survey distributed by the school revealed that only
seven percent of students walked or bicycled to school,
while almost 85 percent of the students were driven.
The survey results also indicated that many parents
did not want their children walking or bicycling to
school because of perceived stranger danger, traffic
around the neighborhood and school, and motor
vehicle speeding.
In response to these survey results, in October
2006, the local Safe Routes to School steering
committee organized a three-day celebration of Hillrise
Elementary’s first Walk to School Day. The Las Cruces
Codes Enforcement officers organized a bicycle
rodeo for each morning of the three day celebration.
The student body was divided by grade and skill level
and received age-appropriate bicycle safety lessons.
They also bicycled through practice
courses. Students also designed
posters about walking and bicycling
for a poster contest, and the school
principal announced three winners
from each grade on Walk to School Day.
All of the 500 students who attend the
school completed the program.
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Of the 500 students who attend the school, almost
300 students walked or bicycled on Walk to School
Day. As a result, Hillside’s Walk to School Day has
transformed into weekly Walk to School Wednesdays.
On these days, a teacher waits for students at an
alternate drop-off location at a local church and walks
with the students to school. Andy Hume, Associate
Planner for the Las Cruces Metropolitan Planning
Organization, said the school employee supervision
helps the parents feel more comfortable in allowing
their children to walk to school.
To sustain the encouragement and education
activities, the MPO needed to reduce traffic speed and
volume, as well as parents’ concerns about stranger
danger. As a result, the MPO launched a traffic calming
project, placed a crossing guard at a key location,
cleared sidewalks of obstructions and increased law
enforcement of speeding and parking violations.
Post-program data was collected in May 2007.
Although there was a lower response rate to the
surveys than the 60 percent achieved with the pre-
program surveys, the results still revealed an increase
in children walking and bicycling and a decrease in
traveling by motor vehicle. The surveys also showed
that while parents still ranked stranger danger and high
traffic volumes and speeds as concerns,
the overall level of these concerns
had declined.
http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/
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COMPARING
EMISSION REDUCTION STRATEGIES
by Todd Litman
There are many possible transportation energy
conservation and emission reduction strategies, but some
provide much greater total benefits than others. Some
strategies, called mobility management or transportation
demand management, reduce total vehicle travel. These
include strategies such as improved walking, cycling,
ridesharing and public transport; more efficient road,
FIGURE 1. AVERAGE AUTOMOBILE COSTS
This figure shows various costs for an average automobile ranked by magnitude.
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n 
parking, fuel and insurance pricing; and smart growth land
use policies. As a result of reduced vehicle travel, these
strategies tend to provide significant co-benefits, including
reduced traffic congestion, reduced road and parking
facility costs, reduced consumer costs, fewer accidents,
less sprawl, improved mobility for non-drivers, and
improved public fitness and health. Other strategies, such
as policies that encourage motorists to purchase more fuel
efficient vehicles, and subsidies for alternative fuels such as
ethanol and electric cars, reduce emission rates per vehicle-
mile, but because they reduce the per-mile cost of driving
they stimulate additional vehicle travel, a rebound effect.
As a result, these strategies tend to increase some external
costs, such as traffic congestion, parking costs, accidents
and sprawl.
These travel impacts can have a major effect on the
overall benefits of an emission reduction strategy. In fact,
the automobile costs associated with vehicle travel are
larger in total value than the costs that are only associated
with fuel consumption, as illustrated in Figure 1. For
example, on average, fuel consumption imposes external
costs (costs not borne directly by consumers of that fuel)
that average about 5¢ per vehicle-kilometer, which is
significant, but smaller than crash costs, parking subsidies,
and roadway costs.
As a result, a fuel conservation strategy is probably
not cost effective if it causes even modest increases in
vehicle-travel costs, but is far more cost effective if it also
reduces those costs. For example, a policy that doubles
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 97

FIGURE 2. COMPARING BENEFITS (LITMAN 2009; MAIBACH, ET AL. 2008)

Assumes that clean vehicle strategies reduce vehicle operating costs by 50%, and mobility management reduces vehicle
ownership cost 10 percent by allowing some households to own fewer vehicles.

A liter of fuel conserved by clean vehicle strategies provides about $1.00 of reduced costs. A liter conserved by reducing
vehicle travel provides nearly $5.00 worth of reduced costs.

fuel economy provides about 8.4¢ per vehicle-km in total
benefits, of which 4.4¢ are external benefits. That is
probably not cost effective if it requires most households
to purchase additional vehicles (for example, an extra small
car for local trips) due to increased vehicle ownership and
residential parking costs, or if it increases vehicle travel and
associated congestion, roadway and accident costs by 10%.
However an energy conservation strategy provides much
more total benefits if, by improving alternative modes, it
allows 10 percent of households to reduce their vehicle
ownership.
Described differently, a liter of fuel conserved through
vehicle travel reductions provides about four times
the total benefits as the same fuel savings provided by
cleaner vehicle strategies, due to additional benefits such
as congestion reductions, road and parking facility cost
savings, consumer savings, and traffic safety, as illustrated
in Figure 2.
Todd Litman is Executive Director of The Victoria Transport Policy
Institute, an independent research organization dedicated to
developing innovative and practical solutions to transportation
problems. This article is abstracted from: Todd Litman (2012),
“Comprehensive Evaluation of Transport Energy Conservation
and Emission Reduction Policies,” forthcoming in Transportation
Research A. Todd Litman (2005), “Efficient Vehicles Versus
Efficient Transportation: Comparing Transportation Energy
Conservation Strategies,” Transport Policy, Vo. 12/2, March, pp. 121-
129; at www.vtpi.org/cafe.pdf.

“So we in Congress have a very clear choice.

We can take largely symbolic action and sit back and fiddle
while Americans burn more gasoline.
Or we can pass concrete, effective legislation
that will save consumers money while significantly
reducing U.S. oil consumption.”
— Sherwood Boehlert

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HOW TO MAKE BIKING MAINSTREAM:
LESSONS FROM THE DUTCH
by Jay Walljasper
Last spring, public officials from Madison, Wisconsin,
returned home from a tour of the Netherlands, and within
three weeks were implementing what they learned there
about promoting bicycling on the streets of their own city.
This month, I joined a similar group of latter-day
explorers on a quest to discover what American
communities can learn from the Dutch about transforming
bicycling in the U.S. from a largely recreational pastime to
an integral part of our transportation system.
My fellow explorers on this journey included elected
officials, traffic engineers, and business leaders from the
San Francisco Bay Area, all in search of what Patrick Seidler,
vice chairman of the Bikes Belong Foundation, sponsor
of this fact-finding mission, called our own “27 percent
solution” (in the Netherlands, 27 percent of all daily trips
are made by bicycle, with enormous health, environmental,
economic, and community benefits).
The Netherlands resembles the United States in many
ways: It is a prosperous, technologically advanced nation
where a huge share of the population owns automobiles.
The difference is that the Dutch don’t drive every time
they leave home. Their 27 percent rate dwarfs not only
the measly 1 percent of trips taken by bicycle in the U.S.,
but also the rates of many, much bike-friendlier nations
“You can’t understand a city without using its public transportation system.”
— Erol Ozan
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n 
(12 percent of trips in Germany are by bike; in Denmark, it’s
18 percent).
But a commitment to biking is not uniquely imprinted
in the Dutch DNA. It is the result of a conscious push to
promote biking, which has resulted in a surge of cycle use
since the 1970s.
SO WHAT DID WE LEARN FROM THEIR EXAMPLE?
START BIKE EDUCATION EARLY.
Our trip started in Utrecht, where our group marveled at
the parade of bicyclists whizzing past us all over town. But
what really shocked us was a visit to a suburban primary
school, where principal Peter Kooy told us that 95 percent
of older students — kids in the 10 to 12 age range — bike to
school at least some of the time.
In the U.S., roughly half that percentage (50 percent
of kids) walked or biked to school… back in 1970. Since
then, the rate has dropped to 15 percent, according to the
National Center for Safe Routes to School program.
“I came to the Netherlands to have my mind blown about
biking,” declared Damon Connolly, vice mayor of San Rafael,
Calif. “And that sure happened when I heard that 95 percent
of kids bike to school.”
A large part of that success can be attributed to what
happens in school. Kids learn how to bike safely as part of
their education, said Ronald Tamse, a Utrecht city planner
who led our group on a two-wheel tour of the city and
its suburbs.
A municipal program sends special teachers into schools
to conduct bike classes, and students go to Trafficgarden,
a miniature city complete with roads, sidewalks, and
busy intersections where students hone their pedestrian,
biking, and driving skills (in non-motorized pedal cars).
At age 11, most kids in town are tested on their cycling
skills on a course through the city, winning a certificate
of accomplishment that ends up framed on many
bedroom walls.
“To make safer roads, we focus on the children,” Tamse
explained. “It not only helps them bike and walk more safely,
but it helps them to become safer drivers who will look out
for pedestrians and bicyclists in the future.”
These kinds of programs would make a huge difference
in the United States, where intimidating street conditions
mean that, while 60 percent of people report that they
would bike regularly if they felt safer, only 8 percent are
regular cyclists.
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

BIKERS — AND BIKES — NEED TO FEEL SAFE.
Next stop was the Hague, where bikes account for 27
percent of all trips around the city of 500,000 people —
exactly the average for the Netherlands as a whole. But not
content with being merely average, the Hague is spending
10 million euros a year (roughly $14 million) to improve those
statistics.
Hidde van der Bijl, a policy officer for cycling in the
Hague’s city government, outlined the strategy for
improving bicycle speed and safety: The city is working to
separate bike paths as much as possible from streets used
by cars and trucks, which in some cases means designating
certain streets as bike boulevards where two wheelers
gain priority over automobiles. Bike boulevards are gaining
popularity in the U.S., and are now in use in Portland, Ore.,
Berkeley, Calif., Minneapolis, and other cities.
These are practical innovations that could make a
dramatic difference in nearly every American town:
Research on this side of the Atlantic shows that physical
separation from motorized traffic on busy streets is the
single most effective policy for getting more people to bike.
But it’s not only the safety of the rider that’s important,
which is why officials in the Hague are also tackling the
problem of bike parking, a significant issue in any large city.
Access to safe, convenient bike storage has a big impact
on whether people bike, van der Bijl explained. Without
it, “the car is parked right out in front of the house on the
street, while the bike is stuffed away out back in a shed or
has to be carried up and down the stairs in their buildings.
So people choose the car because it is easier.”
“It’s an issue for me personally,” agreed Ed Reiskin, San
Francisco’s director of Public Works, “because I always have
to carry my bicycle down to the street.”
People also worry about their bike being stolen off the
street at their home or job. That’s why creating more secure
bike parking in residential neighborhoods, commercial
districts, and workplaces is a priority for Hague’s
transportation planners.
The city is busy building parking facilities in the
basements of new office developments and at strategic
outdoor locations throughout the center city, many of them
staffed by attendants, much like at a parking garage. You
can park your bike for a nominal fee, confident that it will
still be there when you return. (Groningen, the Netherlands
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
99
biking capital — where 59 percent of urban trips are made
on two wheels — debuted the first guarded parking facility
in 1982 and now sports more than 30 in a town of 180,000.)
Meanwhile in high density residential neighborhoods, the
city is installing bike racks or special bike sheds to make life
easier for two-wheel commuters, sometimes taking over
auto parking spaces to do it. One car parking space can be
converted to 10 bike spaces, says van der Bijl.
WE CAN PLAN NOW FOR A CAR-SPARSE FUTURE.
The experience of biking through four Dutch cities
provided our team of Bay Area transportation leaders
with plenty of ideas for making cycling more safe, popular,
and pleasurable back home. For instance, Bridget Smith,
director of San Francisco’s Livable Streets Program, is
excited about using more color on the roadways as an
inexpensive but dramatic way of making sure everyone can
tell bike lanes from car lanes.
BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME.
After five days of biking around Dutch cities, the
Bay Area delegation was fired up about the potential of
bicycling to improve life in U.S. cities. On our last day, after
a lengthy jaunt through Amsterdam — covering medieval
and modern neighborhoods, rich and poor ones, all of them
full of bikers — we dismounted for one last discussion at an
outdoor café overlooking the waterfront. The next day, most
of us would be headed back to our homes and jobs and cars
in the U.S., where most people would dismiss the idea of
bikes making up a quarter of urban traffic as science fiction.
One question the whole group struggled with was
how to reconcile our amazing experience of biking in the
Netherlands with the auto-choked streets of San Francisco,
San Jose, and Marin County. But as Hillie Talens of C.R.O.W.
(a transportation organization focusing on infrastructure
and public space) reminded us, it took the Dutch 35 years to
construct the ambitious bicycle system we were enjoying. In
the mid-1970s, biking was at a low point in the country and
declining fast. In fact, Amsterdam turned to an American
for a plan to rip an expressway through its beautiful central
city. But the oil crises of that time convinced the country to
instead work to lessen dependence on imported oil.
The Dutch gradually turned things around by embracing
a different vision for their cities. While the country’s
wealth, population, and levels of car ownership have
continued to grow through the decades, the share of trips
made by cars has not. We could accomplish something
similar in the United States by enacting new plans to make
urban cycling safer, easier, and more convenient… and
ultimately, mainstream.
Jay Walljasper is a Senior Fellow at Project for Public Spaces.
This article originally appeared in YES! Magazine on September
29, 2010.
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COMPLETE STREETS FUNDAMENTALS
by National Complete Streets Coalition
The streets of our cities and towns are an important part
of the livability of our communities. They ought to be for
everyone, whether young or old, motorist or bicyclist, walker
or wheelchair user, bus rider or shopkeeper. But too many of
our streets are designed only for speeding cars, or worse,
creeping traffic jams.
Now, in communities across the country, a movement
is growing to complete the streets. States, cities and
towns are asking their planners and engineers to build
road networks that are safer, more livable, and welcoming
to everyone.
Instituting a complete streets policy ensures that
transportation planners and engineers consistently design
and operate the entire roadway with all users in mind —
including bicyclists, public transportation vehicles and
riders, and pedestrians of all ages and abilities.
“I’m not sure he’s wrong about automobiles,” he said. “With all their speed forward
they may be a step backward in civilization — that is, in spiritual civilization.
It may be that they will not add to the beauty of the world,
nor to the life of men’s souls.”
— Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons
S e s s i o n 5 / Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n 
Complete streets provide opportunities for increased
physical activity by incorporating features that promote
regular walking, cycling and transit use into just about
every street. A report prepared by the National Conference
of State Legislators found that the most effective
policy avenue for encouraging bicycling and walking is
incorporating sidewalks and bike lanes into community
design — essentially, creating complete streets. The
continuous network of safe sidewalks and bikeways
provided by a complete streets policy is important for
encouraging active travel.
A recent comprehensive assessment by public health
researchers of actions to encourage more physical activity
recommended building more sidewalks, improving transit
service, and shifting highway funds to create bike lanes.
One study found that 43 percent of people with safe
places to walk within 10 minutes of home met recommended
activity levels; among those without safe places to walk
just 27 percent met the recommendation. Residents are
65 percent more likely to walk in a neighborhood with
sidewalks.
Walkability has a direct and specific relation to the
health of residents. A comprehensive study of walkability
has found that people in walkable neighborhoods did
about 35-45 more minutes of moderate intensity physical
activity per week and were substantially less likely to
be overweight or obese than similar people living in low-
walkable neighborhoods.
Easy access to transit can also contribute to healthy
physical activity. Nearly one third of transit users meet the
Surgeon General’s recommendations for minimum daily
exercise through their daily travels.
This article is used with permission of the National Complete
Streets Coalition: www.completestreets.org. The National
Complete Streets Coalition seeks to fundamentally transform
the look, feel, and function of the roads and streets in our
community, by changing the way most roads are planned, designed,
and constructed.
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S E S S I O N 6

CONSUMP TION AND

ECONOMY
“Only population growth rivals consumption as a cause of ecological decline, and at least population growth is
now viewed as a problem by many governments and citizens of the world. Consumption, in contrast, is almost
universally seen as a good — indeed, increasingly it is the primary goal of national economic policy.”
— Alan Thein Durning

“Economic development isn’t a matter of imitating nature. Rather, economic development is a matter of
using the same universal principles the rest of nature uses.”
— Jane Jacobs, The Nature of Economies, 2001

SESSION GOALS SESSION BACKGROUND

• To explore the link between our consumption patterns
and environmental degradation.
• To examine our own habits and choices around buying.
• To examine some basic assumptions and principles of our
current economic system, such as economic growth.
• To introduce the idea of sustainable economies and
alternative methods of measuring success.
• To encourage participants to see themselves as citizens
instead of merely as consumers.
Of the three factors that determine the scope of human
impact on Earth — population, technology, and affluence
— the latter is where daily choices can make the greatest
difference. For decades, increasing material consumption
has been heralded by government and business as the key
to economic progress and an indication of “the good life.”
Economic assumptions like this — and the public policies
based on them — have far-reaching consequences. In this
session, authors challenge the ethos of consumer culture and
offer suggestions for living more simply on Earth.

SUGGESTED GROUP ACTIVITY

What lifestyle changes are you willing to make to have a smaller footprint? Share with each other your ways of
being an “eco-cheapskate.” With your group, brainstorm a list of changes you could make or actions you could
take to reduce your ecological footprints that don’t involve new purchases.

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Circle Question

What would a sustainable economy look like for you?

Reminder to the facilitator: The circle question should move quickly. Elicit an answer from
each participant without questions or comments from others. The facilitator’s guidelines are on page 8.

SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Do you agree with Michael Sandel, that market
reasoning empties public life of moral argument? Give
examples.
2. What sorts of jobs do you envision in a sustainable
economy, and what would you like to do?
3. What was your reaction to Robert F. Kennedy’s “Detroit
Speech”? Do his words still hold true today?
4. What do you see as the difference between a market
economy and a market society?
5. Do you agree with James Shelley that ‘loving your
stuff’ can actually fight consumerism? Why or why
not?
6. Do you remember a time when you succumbed to
advertising and bought an item you truly didn’t need?
What drove you to do so?
7. Who, in your opinion, is responsible for the
mistreatment of workers and the environment caused
by overconsumption?
8. Do you agree with Speth’s assertion that today’s
“growth in the affluent U.S. is now doing more harm
than good”? Why or why not?
9. In “The Problem with No Growth,” Lappe discusses
externalities. If we don’t pay for these externalities
at the time of purchase, when do we pay for them?
Who pays for them?
10. Does the availability of “green products” keep you
from making deeper lifestyle changes? What changes
can you make that don’t involve purchases?
11. Upon what mental models and cultural assumptions is
consumerism built? What can you do to examine and
transform these assumptions in your own life?
PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
Choose one action to commit to this week, then
share your successes and struggles with your
group at your next group meeting. Here are some ideas to
get you started:
• Wait before purchasing something new — you may
discover you really don’t need it. Use the “True Price”
activity on page 111 to help you think about making new
purchases.
• Consider spending time in activities that do not require
making purchases. For example, hike with a friend.
• Give a gift that isn’t an object (membership in a nonprofit
organization, tickets to an event or a promise to baby-sit or
wash the car).
• Shop at locally owned stores or those known for good
environmental practices.
• Put a portion of any investment income into a socially and
environmentally responsible mutual fund. Check out ussif.
org for tips and ideas.
• Join a cooperative store or bank in your community.
• Contact your congressional representatives to voice your
concerns about the impacts of globalization.
• What local resources exist that could support your efforts
to be a more sustainable citizen? Share your list with
interested family and friends.
NWEI hosts an annual EcoChallenge every October. To
find out more about this event, visit www.ecochallenge.org.

FURTHER RESOURCES
Interested in finding out more on the topics presented in this session? Visit our website for
further readings and resources: www.nwei.org/choices-for-sustainable-living-resources.

Session 6/Consumption and Economy NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


DETROIT SPEECH
by Robert F. Kennedy
Let us be clear at the
outset that we will find
neither national purpose
nor personal satisfaction
in a mere continuation of
economic progress, in an
endless amassing of worldly
goods. We cannot measure
national spirit by the Dow-
Jones Average, nor national
achievement by the gross
national product.
For the gross national
product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes,
and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It
counts special locks for our doors, and jails for the people
who break them. The gross national product includes
the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake
Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and
missiles and nuclear warheads and it even includes research
DEFINITIONS OF TERMS
Consumerism: Emphasis on or preoccupation with
the acquisition and accumulation of consumer goods.
Externalities: An externality is an impact created by
the use or development of a product or material that is
not directly reflected in its price. Externalities can be
both positive and negative. Examples include:
• A person buying a bicycle to use as transportation
solely for the purpose of exercise is also
unintentionally reducing their CO2 emissions
(positive).
• Someone who buys a Hummer is contributing to
foreign fossil fuel dependence, pollution, and global
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
103
on the improved dissemination of bubonic plague. The gross
national product swells with equipment for the police to
put down riots in our cities; and though it is not diminished
by the damage these riots do, still it goes up as slums
are rebuilt on their ashes. It includes Whitman’s rifle and
Speck’s knife, and the broadcasting of television programs
which glorify violence to sell goods to our children.
And if the gross national product includes all these, there
is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for
the health of our families, the quality of their education
or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of
our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does
not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of
our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the
integrity of our public officials. It allows neither for the
justice in our courts, nor for the justness of our dealings
with each other. The gross national product measures
neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor
our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to
country. It measures everything, in short, except that which
makes life worthwhile; and it can tell us everything about
America, except whether we are proud to be Americans.
This speech was delivered by Robert F. Kennedy, May 5, 1967.
climate change while only paying for the parts it took
to create the car (negative).
GDP: GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product and
is the measurement of market value of all officially
recognized goods and services produced within a
country in a given period. GDP per capita is often
considered an indicator of a country’s standard of living.
Life cycle assessment: A tool or technique used
to assess the environmental impacts of all the stages
of a product’s life, from raw material extraction, to
production, to transportation, to use, to disposal
or recycling.
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WHAT ISN’T FOR SALE?
By Michael J. Sandel
There are some things money can’t buy — but
these days, not many. Almost everything is up for sale.
For example:
• A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. In Santa Ana, California,
and some other cities, nonviolent offenders can pay for a
clean, quiet jail cell, without any non-paying prisoners to
disturb them.
BEYOND THE GDP
The most common measure of economic progress
is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It measures
a nation’s economic activity. It can go up in times of
wealth, as well as in times of crisis: when a country is
hit by a natural disaster the GDP goes up because of
spending on reconstruction and medical treatment
for the victims. For the past 60 years, GDP has been
the main method for the measurement of people’s
well-being. But it has no way to measure how money is
distributed within a country or how economic activity
contributes to production and services that contribute
to the health of a society and the environment.
Rather than a simple mathematical equation
of GDP, many people have been calling for a set of
measures that not only includes financial cost but
other costs as well, such as costs to the environment
and to the society. There is growing awareness among
governments and economists for a need to measure
the subjective well-being of a country’s inhabitants
and resources in addition to economic progress. As
this awareness of the need for alternative economic
indicators grows, so does the discussion of what those
indicators should be.
The folks at Demos — a research and advocacy
organization focused on a more equitable economy, a
robust democracy and a strong public sector — outline
Session 6/Consumption and Economy
• Access to the carpool lane while driving solo:
$8. Minneapolis, San Diego, Houston, Seattle, and other
cities have sought to ease traffic congestion by letting
solo drivers pay to drive in carpool lanes, at rates that vary
according to traffic.
• The services of an Indian surrogate mother:
$8,000. Western couples seeking surrogates increasingly
outsource the job to India, and the price is less than one-
third the going rate in the United States.
• The right to shoot an endangered black rhino:
$250,000. South Africa has begun letting some ranchers
sell hunters the right to kill a limited number of rhinos,
to give the ranchers an incentive to raise and protect the
endangered species.
• Your doctor’s cellphone number: $1,500 and up per year. A
growing number of “concierge” doctors offer cellphone
access and same-day appointments for patients willing to
pay annual fees ranging from $1,500 to $25,000.
• The right to emit a metric ton of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere: $10.50. The European Union runs a carbon-
dioxide-emissions market that enables companies to buy
some of the main problems with GDP measurements
(www.demos.org):
• GDP does not distinguish between spending on
bad things and spending on good things. Events
like hurricanes and wars increase GDP because of
increased spending for clean up, supplies, government
contracts, etc.
• GDP doesn’t account for the distribution of
growth. While our total national income has doubled
in the past thirty years, average households have seen
little or no income gains. Nearly all of U.S. national
growth since 1980 went to the top 20 percent, and in
the six years preceding the 2008 recession, nearly
two-thirds went to the top 1 percent alone.
• GDP doesn’t account for depletion of natural capital
and ecosystem services. With GDP measurements,
the value of ecosystem services like carbon
absorption and erosion control is ignored. When these
things are destroyed, the losses are not counted. 
• GDP doesn’t reflect things that have no market
price but are good for our society, like volunteer
work, parenting in the home, and public investments in
education and research.  
Information compiled by Betty Shelley and Lacy Cagle.
Visit www.demos.org for more information.
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

and sell the right to pollute.
• The right to immigrate to the United States:
$500,000. Foreigners who invest $500,000 and create at
least 10 full-time jobs in an area of high unemployment are
eligible for a green card that entitles them to permanent
residency.
Not everyone can afford to buy these things. But today
there are lots of new ways to make money. If you need to
earn some extra cash, here are some novel possibilities:
• Sell space on your forehead to display commercial
advertising: $10,000. A single mother in Utah who needed
money for her son’s education was paid $10,000 by an
online casino to install a permanent tattoo of the casino’s
Web address on her forehead. Temporary tattoo ads
earn less.
• Serve as a human guinea pig in a drug-safety trial for a
pharmaceutical company: $7,500. The pay can be higher
or lower, depending on the invasiveness of the procedure
used to test the drug’s effect and the discomfort involved.
• Fight in Somalia or Afghanistan for a private military
contractor: up to $1,000 a day. The pay varies according to
qualifications, experience, and nationality.
• Stand in line overnight on Capitol Hill to hold a place for
a lobbyist who wants to attend a congressional hearing:
$15–$20 an hour. Lobbyists pay line-standing companies,
who hire homeless people and others to queue up.
• If you are a second-grader in an underachieving Dallas
school, read a book: $2. To encourage reading, schools pay
kids for each book they read.
We live in a time when almost everything can be bought
and sold. Over the past three decades, markets — and
market values — have come to govern our lives as never
before. We did not arrive at this condition through any
deliberate choice. It is almost as if it came upon us.
As the Cold War ended, markets and market thinking
enjoyed unrivaled prestige, and understandably so. No other
mechanism for organizing the production and distribution
of goods had proved as successful at generating affluence
and prosperity. And yet even as growing numbers of
countries around the world embraced market mechanisms
in the operation of their economies, something else was
happening. Market values were coming to play a greater
and greater role in social life. Economics was becoming
an imperial domain. Today, the logic of buying and selling
no longer applies to material goods alone. It increasingly
governs the whole of life.
The years leading up to the financial crisis of 2008 were
a heady time of market faith and deregulation — an era
of market triumphalism. The era began in the early 1980s,
when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher proclaimed
their conviction that markets, not government, held the
key to prosperity and freedom. And it continued into the
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1990s with the market-friendly liberalism of Bill Clinton
and Tony Blair, who moderated but consolidated the faith
that markets are the primary means for achieving the
public good.
Today, that faith is in question. The financial crisis did
more than cast doubt on the ability of markets to allocate
risk efficiently. It also prompted a widespread sense that
markets have become detached from morals, and that we
need to somehow reconnect the two. But it’s not obvious
what this would mean, or how we should go about it.
While it is certainly true that greed played a role in the
financial crisis, something bigger was and is at stake. The
most fateful change that unfolded during the past three
decades was not an increase in greed. It was the reach
of markets, and of market values, into spheres of life
traditionally governed by nonmarket norms. To contend
with this condition, we need to do more than inveigh
against greed; we need to have a public debate about where
markets belong — and where they don’t.
Consider, for example, the proliferation of for-profit
schools, hospitals, and prisons, and the outsourcing of war
to private military contractors. (In Iraq and Afghanistan,
private contractors have actually outnumbered U.S. military
troops.) Consider the eclipse of public police forces by
private security firms — especially in the U.S. and the U.K.,
where the number of private guards is almost twice the
number of public police officers.
Or consider the pharmaceutical companies’ aggressive
marketing of prescription drugs directly to consumers, a
practice now prevalent in the U.S. but prohibited in most
other countries.
Consider too the reach of commercial advertising into
public schools, from buses to corridors to cafeterias;
the sale of “naming rights” to parks and civic spaces; the
blurred boundaries, within journalism, between news
and advertising, likely to blur further as newspapers and
magazines struggle to survive; the marketing of “designer”
eggs and sperm for assisted reproduction; the buying and
selling, by companies and countries, of the right to pollute; a
system of campaign finance in the U.S. that comes close to
permitting the buying and selling of elections.
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These uses of markets to allocate health, education,
public safety, national security, criminal justice,
environmental protection, recreation, procreation, and
other social goods were for the most part unheard-of 30
years ago. Today, we take them largely for granted.
Why worry that we are moving toward a society in which
everything is up for sale?
For two reasons. One is about inequality, the other about
corruption. First, consider inequality. In a
society where everything is for sale, life
is harder for those of modest means. The
more money can buy, the more affluence
— or the lack of it — matters. If the only
advantage of affluence were the ability
to afford yachts, sports cars, and fancy
vacations, inequalities of income and wealth
would matter less than they do today. But
as money comes to buy more and more, the
distribution of income and wealth looms larger.
The second reason we should hesitate to put
everything up for sale is more difficult to describe. It is
not about inequality and fairness but about the corrosive
tendency of markets. Putting a price on the good things
in life can corrupt them. That’s because markets don’t
only allocate goods; they express and promote certain
attitudes toward the goods being exchanged. Paying kids
to read books might get them to read more, but might
also teach them to regard reading as a chore rather than a
source of intrinsic satisfaction. Hiring foreign mercenaries
to fight our wars might spare the lives of our citizens, but
might also corrupt the meaning of citizenship.
When we decide that certain goods may be bought and
sold, we decide, at least implicitly, that it is appropriate
to treat them as commodities, as instruments of profit
and use. But not all goods are properly valued in this way.
The most obvious example is human beings. Slavery was
appalling because it treated human beings as a commodity,
to be bought and sold at auction. Such treatment fails
to value human beings as persons, worthy of dignity and
respect; it sees them as instruments of gain and objects
of use.
Something similar can be said of other cherished goods
and practices. We don’t allow children to be bought and
sold, no matter how difficult the process of adoption can
“We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the
planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood.
I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer,
who puts back into the soil what he takes out.”
— Paul Newman
Session 6/Consumption and Economy
be or how willing impatient prospective parents might
be. Even if the prospective buyers would treat the child
responsibly, we worry that a market in children would
express and promote the wrong way of valuing them.
Children are properly regarded not as consumer goods but
as beings worthy of love and care. Or consider the rights and
obligations of citizenship. If you are called to jury duty, you
can’t hire a substitute to take your place. Nor do we allow
citizens to sell their votes, even though others might be
eager to buy them. Why not? Because we believe that
civic duties are not private property but public
responsibilities. To outsource them is
to demean them, to value them in
the wrong way.
These examples illustrate a
broader point: some of the good
things in life are degraded if turned
into commodities. So to decide where
the market belongs, and where it
should be kept at a distance, we have
to decide how to value the goods in
question — health, education, family life,
nature, art, civic duties, and so on. These are moral and
political questions, not merely economic ones. To resolve
them, we have to debate, case by case, the moral meaning
of these goods, and the proper way of valuing them.
This is a debate we didn’t have during the era of market
triumphalism. As a result, without quite realizing it —
without ever deciding to do so — we drifted from having a
market economy to being a market society.
The difference is this: A market economy is a tool — a
valuable and effective tool — for organizing productive
activity. A market society is a way of life in which market
values seep into every aspect of human endeavor. It’s a
place where social relations are made over in the image of
the market.
The great missing debate in contemporary politics is
about the role and reach of markets. Do we want a market
economy, or a market society? What role should markets
play in public life and personal relations? How can we decide
which goods should be bought and sold, and which should be
governed by nonmarket values? Where should money’s writ
not run?
Even if you agree that we need to grapple with big
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

questions about the morality of markets, you might doubt
that our public discourse is up to the task. It’s a legitimate
worry. At a time when political argument consists mainly of
shouting matches on cable television, partisan vitriol on talk
radio, and ideological food fights on the floor of Congress,
it’s hard to imagine a reasoned public debate about such
controversial moral questions as the right way to value
procreation, children, education, health, the environment,
citizenship, and other goods. I believe such a debate is
possible, but only if we are willing to broaden the terms
of our public discourse and grapple more explicitly with
competing notions of the good life.
In hopes of avoiding sectarian strife, we often insist that
citizens leave their moral and spiritual convictions behind
when they enter the public square. But the reluctance to
admit arguments about the good life into politics has had
an unanticipated consequence. It has helped prepare the
way for market triumphalism, and for the continuing hold of
market reasoning.
In its own way, market reasoning also empties public life
of moral argument. Part of the appeal of markets is that
they don’t pass judgment on the preferences they satisfy.
They don’t ask whether some ways of valuing goods are
higher, or worthier, than others. If someone is willing to
pay for sex, or a kidney, and a consenting adult is willing to
sell, the only question the economist asks is “How much?”
Markets don’t wag fingers. They don’t discriminate between
worthy preferences and unworthy ones. Each party to a deal
decides for him- or herself what value to place on the things
being exchanged.
This nonjudgmental stance toward values lies at the
heart of market reasoning, and explains much of its
appeal. But our reluctance to engage in moral and spiritual
argument, together with our embrace of markets, has
exacted a heavy price: it has drained public discourse of
moral and civic energy, and contributed to the technocratic,
managerial politics afflicting many societies today.
A debate about the moral limits of markets would enable
us to decide, as a society, where markets serve the public
good and where they do not belong. Thinking through the
appropriate place of markets requires that we reason
together, in public, about the right way to value the social
goods we prize. It would be folly to expect that a more
morally robust public discourse, even at its best, would lead
to agreement on every contested question. But it would
make for a healthier public life. And it would make us more
aware of the price we pay for living in a society where
everything is up for sale.
Michael J. Sandel, a political philosopher at Harvard, is the author
of What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, from
which this article is adapted. This article originally appeared in the
April 2012 edition of The Atlantic.
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FIGHT CONSUMERISM:
LOVE YOUR STUFF!
by James Shelley
We tend to think that consumerism is about
doggedly clinging to our wealth, trinkets and
toys. In actuality, however, the opposite is true:
consumerism occurs as the result of not loving
our stuff at all. We have so little attachment to
our material goods that we dispose and replace
them with ever increasing regularity. Consumerism,
in this light, is the rampant disrespect of one’s
physical property.
I first came across this paradigm through
the work of theologian William Cavanaugh, who
articulates this concept with cunning poignancy:
The detachment of consumer is also a
detachment from the things we buy. Our
relationships with products tend to be short-lived:
rather than hoarding treasured objects, consumers
are characterized by a constant dissatisfaction
with material goods. This dissatisfaction is what
produces the restless pursuit of satisfaction
in the form of something new. Consumerism
is not so much about having more as it about
having something else; that’s why it is not
simply buying but shopping that is at the heart of
consumerism. Buying brings a temporary halt to
the restlessness that typifies consumerism.
Want to be less consumeristic? Try
becoming more materialistic. The first step to
shutting off this chaotic rampage of resource
throughput is to love and appreciate what you
already have.
Quote from William T. Cavanaugh, Being Consumed:
Economics and Christian Desire (Grand Rapids,
Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans, 2008)
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TRUE PRICE QUESTIONS
Examine a product you are thinking of purchasing, such
as a bottle of water, a fast food cheeseburger, or a T-shirt,
and ask the following questions.
1. Is the item a want or a need? The point of this
question isn’t to make us feel judged about what we
consider a want or need, but to help us unpack what is truly
vital to our well-being and happiness. We might also have
different criteria for whether certain kinds of objects are a
WHERE OUR PAYCHECKS GO
In these two pie charts, we look at the change in U.S.
household spending between 1949 and 2011. Overall,
we’re spending less on items that can be produced
globally, and more on items and services that can’t be
outsourced (housing, health care, etc.). For example,
in 1900, food and clothes made up half of a family’s
DECEMBER 1949
Medical care 3%
Other 7%
Recreation 5%
Transportation Food 40%
7%
Apparel 12%
Housing 26%
Session 6/Consumption and Economy
need. For example, some people may consider products like
a car, a computer, and a cell phone indispensable. And the
way we’d categorize those items might be different from
the way we’d categorize an item of clothing.
2. What are the effects, both positive and negative,
on you, other people, animals, and the environment?
This question helps us think deeply, broadly, and critically
about all the various impacts of a product throughout its
entire lifecycle.
3. What systems support, promote and perpetuate
this item? This is a complicated question because our
systems are very complex and there are so many underlying
systems involved in the production, distribution, use,
and disposal of the products we use. We can change
our personal choices, but we also need to address the
underlying systems involved. 
4. What would be an alternative, or a change to a
system, that would do more good and less harm? When we
can make choices that do more good and less harm (MOGO
choices), that’s great. But, many times there is no such
choice available. There may be no MOGO cell phone, car, or
health care plan, for example. So, it’s important that we look
at what changes in systems would help do more good and
less harm and would also lead to humane and sustainable
items becoming ubiquitous.
budget. In 2000, they comprised a fifth of that budget
— mostly because they have been industrialized or can
be produced more cheaply elsewhere.
Information from NPR’s Planet Money, Sightline Daily, and the
Bureau of Labor.
DECEMBER 2011
Other 10%
Medical care 7%
Food 15%
Recreation 6%
Transportation Housing 41%
17%
Apparel 4%
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE

A TRUE PRICE EXAMPLE
Institute for Humane Education faculty led this activity
at our recent residency for our graduate students. Here
are the responses from one group of students, who briefly
explored the impacts of soda in a plastic bottle.
1. Is it a want or a need? It’s a want.
2a. What are the positive effects? Caffeine kick;
pleasure; jobs; the company does philanthropy; you could
repurpose the plastic bottle for building material (e.g.,
creating a light source).
2b. What are some of the negative effects? Obesity
and other negative health effects; plastic is a carcinogen;
plastic waste; pollution; the amount of oil used; oil spills that
kill animals and destroy habitat; animals consume plastic;
habitat destruction, etc.
3. What systems support, promote and perpetuate
this item? Economy, cultural, peer pressure, marketing/ads,
multinational corporations, globalization.
4. What would be an alternative or a change
to a system, that would do more good and less
harm? Personally: tap water from a reusable glass.
Systemically: create a healthier recipe? bring more
work back to the U.S.? more corporate responsibility?
incentives to phase out unhealthy drinks and the use of
disposable plastics?
QUESTIONS AFTER THE ACTIVITY:
After doing the True Price activity at residency, students
explored the seemingly contradictory facts that there’s so
much we don’t know about the products and services we
use; and, we also have a belief that we “know” a lot of facts
and information, but that “knowledge” hasn’t actually come
from a deep investigation of, say, research in peer-reviewed
journals. We’ve claimed these beliefs and this knowledge
based on what we’ve heard or read about what others have
heard or read.
True Price, then, forces us to look deeper and more
critically at not just the impacts of these products on
people, animals, and the planet, but also at our own beliefs
and assumptions about what we think we know.
Activity used with permission of Institute for Humane Education
(IHE) www.humaneeducation.org. IHE believes that education is
the key to creating a just, humane, and sustainable world for all
people, animals and the environment, and offer programs and
resources designed to train, educate and inspire people to become
humane educators and changemakers who live with compassion
and integrity and work to solve the most pressing challenges of
our time.
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
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OFF THE PEDESTAL: CREATING A NEW
VISION OF ECONOMIC GROWTH
by James Gustave Speth
The idea of economic growth as an unquestioned
force for good is ingrained in the American psyche. But a
longtime environmental leader argues it’s time for the U.S.
to reinvent its economy into one that focuses on sustaining
communities, family life, and the natural world.
Is anything in America more faithfully followed than
economic growth? Its movements are constantly watched,
measured to the decimal place, deplored or praised,
diagnosed as weak or judged healthy and vigorous.
Newspapers, magazines, and cable channels report
endlessly on it. Promoting growth may be the most widely
shared and robust cause in the United States today.
If the growth imperative dominates U.S. political and
economic life, what happens when growth hits some serious
stumbling blocks?
There are limits to growth, and there are limits of growth.
Let’s first take up the limits of growth. Despite the
constant claims that we need more growth, there are
limits on what growth can do for us. The ecological
economist Herman Daly has reminded us that if neo-
classical economists were true to their trade, they would
recognize that there are diminishing returns to growth.
Most obviously, the value of income growth declines as one
gets richer and richer. Similarly, growth at some point has
increasing marginal costs. For example, workers have to put
in too many hours, or the climate goes haywire. It follows
that for the economy as a whole, we can reach a point where
the extra costs of more growth exceed the extra benefits.
One should stop growing at that point. Otherwise the
country enters the realm of “uneconomic growth,” to use
Daly’s delightful phrase, where the costs of growth exceed
the benefits it produces.
There are some, myself included, who believe that
the U.S. is now experiencing uneconomic growth. If one
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could measure and add up all the environmental, security,
social and psychological costs that U.S. economic growth
generates at this point in our history, they would exceed the
benefits of further ramping up what is already the highest
GDP per capita of any major economy.
Though not widely accepted, the case is strong that
growth in the affluent U.S. is now doing more harm than
good. Today, the reigning policy orientation holds that
the path to greater well-being is to grow and expand the
economy. GDP, productivity, profits, the stock market, and
consumption must all go up. This growth imperative trumps
all else. It can undermine families, jobs, communities,
the climate and environment, and a sense of place and
continuity because it is confidently asserted and widely
believed that growth is worth the price that must be paid
for it.
But an expanding body of evidence is now telling us
to think again. The never-ending drive to grow the overall
U.S. economy is ruining the environment; it fuels a ruthless
international search for energy and other resources; it fails
at generating the needed jobs; it hollows out communities;
and it rests on a manufactured consumerism that is
not meeting the deepest human needs. Americans are
substituting growth and consumption for dealing with the
real issues — for doing things that would truly make us and
the country better off.
It is time for America to move to post-growth
society where the natural environment, working life, our
communities and families, and the public sector are no
longer sacrificed for the sake of mere GDP growth; where
the illusory promises of ever-more growth no longer
provide an excuse for neglecting to deal generously
with our country’s compelling social needs; and where
true citizen democracy is no longer held hostage to the
growth imperative.
Another way of pointing out the limits of growth is to
consider the long list of public policies that would slow GDP
growth, thus sparing the environment, while simultaneously
improving social and individual well-being. Such policies
include: shorter workweeks and longer vacations, with more
time for children and families; greater labor protections,
job security and benefits, including generous parental
leaves; guarantees to part-time workers and combining
unemployment insurance with part-time work during
recessions; restrictions on advertising; a new design for
the twenty-first-century corporation, one that embraces
re-chartering, new ownership patterns, and stakeholder
primacy rather than shareholder primacy; incentives for
local and locally-owned production and consumption; strong
social and environmental provisions in trade agreements;
rigorous environmental, health and consumer protection,
including full incorporation of environmental and social
costs in prices; greater economic and social equality, with
genuinely progressive taxation of the rich (including a
progressive consumption tax) and greater income support
for the poor; heavy spending on neglected public services;
and initiatives to address population growth at home and
abroad. Taken together, these policies would undoubtedly
slow GDP growth, but well-being and quality of life would
improve, and that’s what matters.
Of course, it is clear that even in a post-growth America,
many things do indeed need to grow: growth in good jobs
and in the incomes of the poor and working Americans;
growth in availability of health care and the efficiency of
its delivery; growth in education, research and training;
growth in security against the risks of illness, job loss,
old age and disability; growth in investment in public
infrastructure and in environmental protection and amenity;
growth in the deployment of climate-friendly and other
green technologies; growth in the restoration of both
ecosystems and local communities; growth in non-military
government spending at the expense of military; and growth
in international assistance for sustainable, people-centered
development for the half of humanity that live in poverty.
These are all areas where public policy needs to ensure that
growth occurs.
That’s one case against growth — the argument that
we should no longer prioritize growth, much less fetishize
it as we do now. I believe this case will be pressed with
increasing urgency in the years ahead, and I doubt we’ll miss
our growth fetish after we say good-bye to it. We’ve had
tons of growth — growth while wages stagnated, jobs fled
our borders, life satisfaction flatlined, social capital eroded,
poverty mounted, and the environment declined.
The case that there are limits to growth — not that we
shouldn’t grow but that we can’t grow — is based on the

In Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough and Michael Braungart
call for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design. Through
historical sketches on the roots of the industrial revolution; commentary on science, nature and
society; descriptions of key design principles; and compelling examples of innovative products
and business strategies already reshaping the marketplace, they make the case that an industrial
system that “takes, makes and wastes” can become a creator of goods and services that generate
ecological, social and economic value. Find out more at www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm.

Session 6/Consumption and Economy NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


reality that we are entering a new age of scarcity and rising
prices that will constrain growth. The world economy, having
doubled in size three times since 1950, is now phenomenally
large — large even in comparison with the planetary base
that is the setting for economic activity. Today’s huge world
economy is consuming the planet’s available resources on a
scale that rivals their supply, and it is releasing almost all of
those resources, often transformed and toxic, back to the
environment on a scale that is beyond the environment’s
assimilation capacities, thus greatly affecting the major
biogeophysical cycles of the planet. Natural resources are
becoming increasingly scarce, and the planet’s sinks for
absorbing waste products are already exhausted in many
contexts. According to the Ecological Footprint analysis,
Earth would have to be 50 percent larger than it is for
today’s economy to be environmentally sustainable.
If we now live in a world where the natural resources
and environmental sinks needed for economic activity are
becoming more scarce across a wide front, we should see
prices rising. And indeed we do. Prices of many things are
rising rather rapidly: oil, coal, food, and numerous non-
fuel minerals. Lithium and rare earths are probably not
far behind.
If these patterns hold, as seems likely, and one factors
in the economic losses due to climate disruption and the
higher energy prices due to climate protection policies,
it’s hard to imagine that economic growth won’t be slowed.
Moreover, as noted earlier, the increasing scarcity of the
atmospheric sink for greenhouse gas emissions is going to
challenge growth among the affluent countries. Reducing
carbon emissions at required rates may not be possible in
national economies that are stressing growth maximization.
Author Richard Heinberg and many others have been
calling attention to the looming challenge of peak oil. After
much controversy, the reality of peak oil is now widely
accepted. Oil production did actually reach its all-time
high in 2005 and has plateaued since. Peak oil, the point
of maximum production after which production begins
to decline, may thus have already happened, but, if not, a
widely held view today is that oil will have peaked and begun
to decline before 2030, perhaps a decade or so hence.
In 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy released
the now-famous “Hirsch Report,” Peaking of World Oil
Production, which warned that “the problems associated
with world oil production peaking will not be temporary,
and past ‘energy crisis’ experience will provide relatively
little guidance.” But the report recommended accelerating
development of oil sands and coal liquefaction and other
steps that would send the world rushing down a path that
would exacerbate the already grave challenges of global
warming. Clearly, it makes no sense to separate the two
challenges: energy supply and climate change must be
dealt with together — and soon. Clearly, today we are not
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prepared or preparing for either.
Many who have looked at the combined challenge
of energy and climate change have concluded that our
civilization, having completed its exuberant, flamboyant
phase, is headed toward a dramatic simplification and
re-localization of life and the end of economic growth as
we have known it. Some even see the collapse of modern
civilization as just a matter of time.
In The Transition Handbook, Rob Hopkins identifies
three scenarios: adaptation, which assumes “we can
somehow invent our way out of trouble”; evolution, which
requires a collective change of mindset, but assumes that
“society, albeit in a low-energy, more localized form, will
retain its coherence”; or collapse, which assumes that “the
inevitable outcome of peak oil and climate change will be
the fracturing and disintegration, either sudden or gradual,
of society as we know it.”
The eventual outcome will likely involve elements of
all three of these scenarios, occurring at different times
and different places. Hopefully, the “evolution” scenario
will predominate.
“Within this century, environmental and resource
constraints will likely bring global economic growth to a
halt…,” Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon
wrote in Foreign Policy earlier this year. “We can’t live with
growth, and we can’t live without it. This contradiction is
humankind’s biggest challenge this century, but as long
as conventional wisdom holds that growth can continue
forever, it’s a challenge we can’t possibly address.”
So there we have it: the traditional solution that America
has invoked for nearly every problem — more growth — is
in big trouble. If we are going to move beyond growth, we
will need to build a different kind of economy. We Americans
need to reinvent our economy, not merely restore it. We will
have to shift to a new economy, a sustaining economy based
on new economic thinking and driven forward by a new
politics. Sustaining people, communities and nature must
henceforth be seen as the core goals of economic activity,
not hoped for by-products of market success, growth for its
own sake, and modest regulation. That is the paradigm shift
we must now begin to pursue and promote.
James Gustave Speth is a professor at Vermont Law School and a
Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos, a nonpartisan public policy
research and advocacy organization. A former dean of the Yale
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, he also co-founded
the Natural Resources Defense Council, was founder and president
of the World Resources Institute, and served as administrator of
the United Nations Development Programme. He is the author of
six books, including the award-winning The Bridge at the Edge of
the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis
to Sustainability and Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis
of the Global Environment. 
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THE PROBLEM WITH NO GROWTH
By Frances Moore Lappé
Ever since the phenomenal buzz surrounding the
publication of the book Limits to Growth written by a
team of young MIT scientists almost four decades ago,
this message has seemed like a no-brainer to many. Today,
the dean of no-growth is indisputably former World Bank
economist Professor Herman Daly — a true pioneer in
green economics.
To create sustainable societies, Daly declares, we must
leave behind the “growth economy” in which success is
defined as ever-increasing production. Striking the same
note, Worldwatch Institute’s Erik Assadourian warns that a
no-growth economy is “essential” if “the wealthy countries
... are to rein in carbon emissions.” The economies these
luminaries envision, no longer disrupting nature’s cycles, are
where we must quickly head.
But stopping “growth”? Hmm.
Growth sounds pretty good to my ears, especially when
I consider the alternatives: shrink, shrivel, decline, decrease,
die. All these sound, well, downright unappealing. And for
the majority of the world’s people, those struggling without
paid work or fearing layoffs, I can see why the approach
could feel threatening — signaling to me that “no-growth”
might not be environmentalists’ most stirring rallying cry.
“The nation behaves well if it treats its natural resources
as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased,
and not impaired, in value.”
— Theodore Roosevelt
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So, while fervently embracing the goal of ecologically
benign economics, I can’t quite visualize excited crowds
waving their placards in the air­“No-growth NOW!”
The problem with this way of framing our reality cuts
much deeper than whether it’s sexy. Its first big downside
is that the frame leaves unchallenged the prevailing
assumption that what defines today’s economy is in fact
“growth” — ever-expanding abundance. It lets stand the
notion that our economy has for the most part brought
us great stuff; it’s just too bad we can’t keep going on this
happy path.
This framing is a huge obstacle. It blinds us to the reality
that what we’ve been doing actually generates much more
waste and scarcity than abundance — for many now and for
many more in the future.
This realization was the aha moment I mentioned earlier
that set me on fire at age twenty-six. Squirreled away in the
University of California, Berkeley, “ag” library, I was trying to
piece together an understanding of why hunger still exists
in our world. And in the process, I soon discovered that our
“efficient, modern, productive” US food system was not
creating the plenty I’d imagined. In fact, I learned, it funnels
sixteen pounds of grain and soy into cattle production to
get back one single pound of beef. At first, I assumed that
such a wasteful ratio had to be an exception, but gradually
I came to realize that gross inefficiency is the rule. Here is
what we’re really producing:
Resource waste: Ten tons of “active mass raw materials”
such as coal and wood are extracted for each person
in the US each year, reported a widely used 1989 study
by economists Robert Ayres and A. V. Kneese. Yet, only
6 percent ends up in “durable products” we use. The rest
becomes waste as fast as it is extracted. Plus, compared
to fifty years ago in the US, we generate almost two-thirds
more municipal solid waste per person-now over four
pounds each day.
Energy waste: Fifty-five percent of all energy in the US
economy is wasted, reports Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. Other experts say it’s even worse-with 87
percent wasted. These findings are less surprising if one
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considers that about two-thirds of energy entering most
of the world’s power plants — as coal or oil, for example
— is released as waste heat. Some waste of energy
is unavoidable, true; but we lag far behind efficiencies
achieved in many other industrial economies.
Water waste: To produce just one pound of beef in the
US uses as much as 12,000 gallons of water. So, by one
estimate, it takes one hundred times more water to produce
a unit of beef protein than the same amount of protein
from grain. And much of that water is mined for irrigation
from America’s largest aquifer (underground, water-bearing
earth), the Ogallala, which lies beneath our farm belt. If we
keep using the water at this rate, portions of the Ogallala
could be empty in just twenty-five years.
Ocean waste: In recent decades we’ve fully exploited, or
overexploited, three-fourths of the world’s fish stocks. But
for what? One-third of the catch gets turned into feed for
animals, wasting much of its potential as food for people.
Food waste: Nearly half of the food ready for harvest
in the US never makes it into our bodies. Fresh fruit, for
example, can deteriorate in our long supply chains, but
even 14 percent of what Americans purchase is thrown out.
So think of it like this: Every day, besides feeding us, our
food system wastes enough to meet the caloric needs of a
second country about two-thirds our size; and it’s getting
worse — with wasted calories increasing by half since
the mid-1970s. To boot, most of our wasted food ends up
in landfills, generating the powerful climate-disrupting
gas methane.
Plus, we shrink our food supply in another way. World­
wide, over a third of grain and 90 percent of soy production
now go to livestock, returning to humans only a fraction of
the nutrients fed.
Clearly, staggering waste and loss are the rule, not the
exception. Yet, because we can’t see most of this built-in
waste and destruction, some environmentalists critical
of the current order continue to describe our economy
as being “designed expressly to create wealth” — which
sounds wonderful. And in their textbook Ecological
Economics, Professors Herman Daly and Joshua Farley
describe our earth as a “ship” whose cargo hold has been
overloaded with our “gross material production” or is
“nearing capacity.” The primary problem of our growth
economy, Daly suggests, is that it may well already be
generating more “physical wealth” than “the biosphere can
sustain.” Ours is a “full-world economy,” he says.
Because I share these trailblazing economists’ goals,
I worry that such metaphors can’t work: to most people,
“full” isn’t something to be upset about; it sounds really
good — full heart, full life, full tank! More worrisome, such
quantitative images don’t help develop our eco-minds so
that we can see patterns of destruction.
One might more aptly argue that our planet was once
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“full” — full of a vast complexity of life forms, a fullness that
our economies have been emptying faster and faster. Every
day we lose over 100 species. And rather than creating
wealth, more fundamentally our economy is designed to
concentrate wealth, a form of concentration involving the
vast destruction of real wealth, the health of the natural
world, including human life. Today, 60 percent of ecosystem
functions that sustain life worldwide are “being degraded”
or used in ways that can’t last.
Since what we’ve been calling “growth” is largely waste
and destruction, let’s call it what it is: a system that in fact
stymies growth and even quickens diminution and death —
of genetic and social diversity, health, relationships, beauty,
happiness, art forms, languages, and ancient knowledge.
So the first big problem with the “growth-is-our-problem”
frame is that it blinds us to the massive waste-making
machine our economy has become.
BUT WHY THE BUILT IN WASTE AND DESTRUCTION?
To cure that blindness we have to get our heads around
our economic system — this religion we’ve been spreading
around much of the world — and understand why it’s
become the waste-generating aberration that it is.
In the blame-growth view, the answer to the question
“Why?” seems simple: Our problem is the quantitative
overtaxing of resources — just too much. Hence, the
frame’s second big downside: It inhibits us from digging,
from following our curiosity.
Here’s where my curiosity leads me:
Evidence suggests a basic design flaw in our peculiar
version of a market. Markets have served humankind for
millennia, but we’ve turned this useful tool into a formula
for disaster — a market that ends up producing waste and
destruction because it is largely driven by one-rule: Pursue
what brings the most immediate and highest return to
existing wealth holders.
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With single-minded fixation on this end, our economy
creates scarcity from plenty in four ways:
First, one-rule economics violates nature’s laws,
disrupting its regen­erative power. Focused only on financial
return to a minority, our market isn’t designed to respond
to other signals — nature’s signals that could avert, for
example, the steady loss of soil fertility, the ongoing
depletion of groundwater, the 70,000 annual deaths from
polluted air in the US alone, the 20,000 deaths each year
worldwide from pesticide poisoning, or the multifarious
consequences of climate-altering greenhouse gases.
No. Our market can’t even register these signals.
Economists call them “externalities” because they’re
external to the financial balance sheet of the corporation
producing them. But a corporation’s “externality” is
our reality.
Coal, for example, emitting 50 percent more carbon per
unit of energy than oil, remains a highly lucrative industry
for companies like Massey and Peabody. But that’s only
because this industry’s “externalities” — its real costs in
public health impacts and in environmental damage —
are paid not by coal companies but by the rest of us. And
they are vast: about a third of a trillion dollars each year,
according to a 2011 study led by Paul Epstein of Harvard
Medical School.
More broadly, the externalized impact of just 3,000 of
the world’s biggest corporations, report two UN-affiliated
One-rule economies create waste and destruction
because they ...
1. disrupt nature, since they can’t register the
damage they cause;
2. concentrate wealth and power;
3· deprive us of fair and open public conversation;
4. allow private power to distort public choices to
serve its interests.
Session 6/Consumption and Economy
bodies, totaled over $2 trillion in damage to the global
environment in 2008 — that’s equal to most of the 2009 US
federal revenue.
Second, as we should have learned as kids playing
Monopoly (also governed by simple rules aggregating
wealth till the winner takes all), our market concentrates
financial returns so tightly that most of the earth’s people
experience scarcity, no matter how much we produce.
Worldwide half of all people survive on less than $2.50
a day, while the richest four hundred Americans now
control more wealth than the poorest half of all the world’s
adults. One family — the Waltons of Walmart — has come
to control roughly as much as the bottom 40 percent of
Americans put together. Yet the bottom 90 percent of
Americans now make less in real dollars than in 1973 —
down on average $2,000.
The third pitfall of a one-rule economy is that it ends
up depriving us of the open, transparent, and fair public
conversation that is the heartbeat of democracy. As wealth
concentrates and the idea of a public good loses favor,
our communications media over the last thirty years have
become themselves highly concentrated private-profit
centers, no longer serving the essential, independent
function of a free press envisioned by our founders.
One result is that, for example, those with wealth and
vested interest in denying climate science can use the
media to shape public perception. The oil and chemical
industry multi­billionaires Charles and David Koch — whose
company Koch Industries ranks among America’s top ten air
polluters, according to a university study — have backed
media campaigns scorning the scientific consensus on
climate change. Surely their investment in swaying us is
one reason that in just four years the share of Americans
who accept that human activity is causing the climate crisis
dipped from half to just one-third.
This article is an excerpt from Frances Moore Lappé’s 2011 book,
Ecomind: Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World
We Want. Frances Moore Lappé is the author of 17 books and
cofounder of Food First: The Institute for Food and Development
Policy, the Small Planet Institute, and the Small Planet Fund.
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acquire a different standard of living — not necessarily

a worse standard of living, but a different one. Consider
your laundry. A high-tech, Energy Star washing machine
uses less water (sensors weigh the load and adjust the level
accordingly), and its vigorous spin cycle means that your
clothes require less time in the dryer. Energy Star estimates
that such a machine will save you $550 over its lifetime.
The up-front cost, however, is $500 to $1,700. Since 90
percent of the energy used by any washer goes to heating
water, eco-cheapskates can save without the expensive
upgrade by washing only full loads in cold water and using a
clothesline: money in your clean pockets.
And those $1,000 krypton windows? Instead, you can
stop drafts with weather stripping and a caulk gun. To
prevent heat loss, plunk down $15 at the hardware store for
SAVING THE EARTH ON THE CHEAP some clear plastic film and double-sided tape for instant
insulation. If plastic film around your windows offends your
by Paul Rauber aesthetic sensibilities, you can get some heavy drapes —
it worked for centuries for European royalty, so why not
Times are tough. Your house is worth less, your
for you? Downside: The lack of krypton gas may leave you
healthcare costs more, and your boss just mentioned that
vulnerable to Superman crashing into your living room.
someone in Bangalore, India, will do your job for 15 cents
Be careful, though, not to let your frugality slop over into
on the dollar and no coffee breaks. Sure, you’d love a low-
miserliness. While you can save money by defrosting your
emission, high-fiber eco-home — it’s just that shelling out
refrigerator regularly and not keeping it too cold, hanging
$1,000 for a triple-paned, low-e, krypton-gas-filled window
on to an ancient model is a false economy. (The rule of
seems a bit much.
thumb is that if the refrigerator is avocado green — i.e.,
You are in good company. Since income correlates rather
from the 1970s or earlier — it’s overdue for a replacement.)
directly with environmental damage, those of us with
Similarly, as our own Mr. Green demonstrates (“Enjoy,”
budgetary constraints are already a step ahead. A recent
November/December 2008), the energy savings of compact
study found that wealthy Canadians use two-thirds more
fluorescent lightbulbs are so great that you should replace
resources than the middle class and two and a half times
incandescent bulbs before they burn out. Even if you
more than the poorest. Verily, it is easier for a camel to go
only use a light for two hours a day, replacing a 100-watt
through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter
incandescent with a CFL will pay for itself within a year, and
the sustainable kingdom.
save $7.75 a year thereafter. Of course, you can save even
Not that there’s anything wrong with money! On the
more by simply turning lights off when you don’t need them.
contrary, being an eco-cheapskate puts cash in your
Lights consume about 10 percent of an average house’s
pocket by saving you what you’re presently wasting on
electricity, largely because we have so many of them and
pollution. Here’s how it works.
tend to leave them on more than necessary.
First step is to identify that waste. Many utilities have
In many cases, public entities are willing to step in and
online widgets that break down the cost of your home
help ease the pain of long payback periods. I recently
energy use. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s
replaced an old toilet with a new, low-flush model. Other
exhaustive Home Energy Saver (hes.lbl.gov) requires lots
things being equal, the payback time in my area is 12.5
of data but pinpoints what’s costing you money and which
years — long enough to convince many folks to suffice with
upgrades will save you the most. For a quicker assessment,
a couple of bricks in the tank. To make the upgrade worth
try one of the better online carbon calculators. (See session
my while, my utility kicked in a $150 rebate, reducing the
two for a couple of examples.)
payback period to a very reasonable six years. After that
The traditional approach to eco-improvement — pulling
I’m making money, not to mention cutting my water use
out the credit card and buying the latest appliances and
by about 15 percent. The water savings, of course, start
fixtures — promises a standard of living equal to what you
immediately, which is why my utility in drought-stricken
have now, only more efficient and with lots of instruction
California is willing to write me a check for a change. Some
manuals in German. It can ultimately save you money on
utilities ante up for everything from dishwashers to solar
energy and other resources, although the payoff time may
power systems.
be in decades rather than years.
Another rule of thumb, when an appliance’s time is up, is
Instead of acquiring new stuff, however, you can

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to replace it with the most energy-efficient model you can
afford. But beware appliance creep: While electrical gadgets
are getting more efficient, people today are buying more
of them, often canceling out any savings from their energy-
efficient waffle irons. One new gadget you might consider,
however, is a wattmeter or power monitor ($25
and $50, respectively). The meter measures
how much juice individual appliances are
using, while the monitor shows your whole-
house power consumption. They make
it easy to find out how much it costs, for
example, to listen to the radio for an hour
(0.5 cents) or iron a shirt (0.7 cents). (You can
find this out for free by learning how to read
your electrical meter, although you have to
run in and out of the house between shirts.)
But their real value is in revealing the
cost of all your “vampire” appliances, the
ones drawing power even when not in use
— basically anything with a remote, a digital
clock, or a little electronic eye that never goes
off. According to Larry Harmon of Home Energy magazine,
“Up to 75 percent of the power consumed by home
electronics is used while the devices are turned off.” Like
lightbulbs, vampire appliances are individually insignificant
but collectively huge — by some estimates, as much as 10
Session 6/Consumption and Economy
percent of U.S. residential electrical consumption.
Until new energy standards kick in that will radically
reduce the amount of power these gizmos draw, you have
to just turn the darn things off with a power strip (or any
of a wide variety of other clever devices), or pull the plug.
True, the digital clock may no longer work, but
what profiteth it a thrifty consumer that the
coffeemaker tells time but it costs 10 percent
more each month?
Eco-stinginess needn’t end with water and
energy. In the 1980s there was the saying “Cash
is trash,” but now the opposite is true. Many
communities have tiered refuse-collection
systems, whereby the less garbage you produce,
the less you pay. In my own San Francisco Bay
Area burg, for example, recycling and composting
allowed me to bump my weekly can size down
from 32 gallons to 20, saving me more than $100 a
year. If I cashed in my recyclables, I’d easily make as
much again. You don’t have to spend a lot of green to
be green. Frugal environmentalism: It’s better for the
planet too, even if you’re only in it for the money.
This article originally appeared in the January/February 2009
edition of Sierra Magazine. Paul Rauber is a senior editor at Sierra.
The article appears with the permission of Sierra, the national
magazine of the Sierra Club (http://www.sierraclub.org/Sierra/).
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S E S S I O N 7

VISIONS OF
SUSTAINABILITY
“As we deeply align with our own sense of fairness toward all life, everyone benefits. We live in an interconnected
world. The cooperative mind, being concerned for the health of the whole, is what will lead us to a world of our
dreams: a sustainable, peaceful life on planet Earth.”
— Jim Merkel, Radical Simplicity

SESSION GOALS SESSION BACKGROUND

• To reconsider our definition and vision of sustainability.
• To consider how system-level impacts such as belief
patterns and mental models affect us.
• To inspire a connection and commitment to each other
and the Earth.
• To commit to personal and community change
around sustainability.
In the last session of this discussion course, we examine
the underlying assumptions and belief patterns that have
created our current systems and consider which mental
models can underlie a sustainable and resilient world.
As we examine our own assumptions and mental models,
we can figure out how to make change in our own lives
and communities.

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Circle Question

How has your worldview shifted as a result of this course?

Reminder to the facilitator: The circle question should move quickly. Elicit an answer from
each participant without questions or comments from others. The facilitator’s guidelines are on page 8.

SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. If you were designing the last session of this
coursebook, what would you put in to inspire others?
2. In “To Live or Not to Live”, the Dakota activist
Waziyawatawin says “The only sense of empowerment
I feel is by taking some kind of action....” What helps
you feel empowered?
3. Where in your life do you notice gratitude — or “ayni”
— flowing naturally? Where is it difficult to experience
gratitude?
4. Remember a time when you accomplished something
challenging. What was it? How did it make you feel?
5. In your own community, what opportunities exist for
change such as took place in Boulder? How do you
imagine being involved?
6. Paul Gilding states that it is hard to hold the paradox
of our times in our heads. How do you deal with the
hard issues of our times?
7. Paul Gilding also says, “We have a system problem,
so we need a system solution.” Referring back to the
Iceberg illustration in the first session, how can we
come to systems solutions for the big problems we’re
currently facing?
8. Stephen Ritz calls himself the “world’s oldest sixth
grader” because of his enthusiasm. What do you
have enthusiasm for? How might you leverage this
enthusiasm toward a solution for an issue that
troubles you?
9. Donella Meadows says “I’m one of those folks who,
when they see a change is needed, move forward into
the change. I can’t help it. Duty comes easier to me
than denial.” How do you feel about duty and denial?
Which do you choose? What kinds of choices/changes
can you make?
10. Donella Meadows writes, “Once I forgave myself,
I could forgive the rest of the human race. I could
redefine my mission from holy war to honest
experiment, with room for mistakes and half-measures
and learning.” Where in your life could forgiveness
make room for learning?
PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE
Choose one action or habit to commit to for a
particular amount of time — this week, next
month, a year — then share your commitment and ideas
for implementing it with your group at your celebration
meeting. Here are some ideas to get you started:
• Develop the habit of awareness as you make decisions
for purchases, transportation, and leisure-time pursuits.
Ask yourself whether these decisions will bring our world
closer to sustainability.
• Become an informed and active citizen.
• Invite your friends and families to take an NWEI course.
• Limit air travel.
• Find a place to hang a clothesline; take advantage of solar
and air drying whenever possible.
• Commit to reducing your household carbon footprint by a
certain amount.
• Write a letter once a week to leaders and representatives
advocating for sustainable and just policies.
NWEI hosts an annual EcoChallenge every October. To
find out more about this event, visit www.ecochallenge.org.

FURTHER RESOURCES
Interested in finding out more on the topics presented in this session? Visit our website for
further readings and resources: www.nwei.org/choices-for-sustainable-living-resources.

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FREE YOUR (ECO)MIND
by Frances Moore Lappé
Gradually it’s dawned on me: We humans are creatures
of the mind. We perceive the world according to our core,
often unacknowledged, assumptions. They determine,
literally, what we can see and what we cannot. Nothing
so wrong with that, perhaps — except that, in this crucial
do-or-die moment, we’re stuck with a mental map that is
life-destroying.
And the premise of this map is lack — not enough of
anything, from energy to food to parking spots; not enough
goods and not enough goodness. In such a world, we come
to believe, it’s compete or die. The popular British writer
Philip Pullman says, “we evolved to suit a way of life which
is acquisitive, territorial, and combative” and that “we have
to overcome millions of years of evolution” to make the
changes we need to avoid global catastrophe.
If I believed that, I’d feel utterly hopeless. How can we
align with the needs of the natural world if we first have to
change basic human nature?
Fortunately, we don’t have to. A new way of seeing that is
opening up to us can form a more life-serving mental map.
I call it “eco-mind” — looking at the world through the lens
of ecology. This worldview recognizes that we, no less than
AN ECO-MIND THINKS ...
• Less about quantities and more about qualities.
• Less about fixed things and more about the ever-
changing relationships that form them.
• Less about limits and more about alignment.
• Less about what and more about why.
• Less about loss and more about possibility.
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any other organism, live in relation to everything else. As the
visionary German physicist Hans-Peter Dürr puts it, “There
are no parts, only participants.”
As part of this shift, breakthroughs in a range of
disciplines are confirming what we already know about
ourselves, if we stop and think about it: That humans are
complex creatures and what we do — from raising children
to caring for elders to sharing with our neighbors —
exhibits at least as much natural tendency to cooperate as
to compete.
The view that our species is basically brutal defies the
evidence: “There is a very tiny handful of incidences of
conflict and possible warfare before 10,000 years ago,”
says archaeologist Jonathan Haas of the Field Museum
in Chicago, “and those are very much the exception.” Our
species has a vastly longer experience evolving in close-knit
communities, knowing our lives depended on one another.
The result is at least six inherent traits we can foster, once
we learn to navigate the world with the map of eco-mind.
1. COOPERATION
It turns out that cooperating and co-creating explain our
evolutionary success just as much as competition does. No
wonder neuroscientists using fMRI scans discovered that
when human beings cooperate, our brains’ pleasure centers
are as stimulated as when we eat chocolate!
And what were the evolutionary pressures that turned us
into cooperators?
In her 2009 book Mothers and Others, University
of California, Davis, anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
challenged the accepted belief that our penchant for
cooperation emerged through bonding to fight our
neighbors. No, she says. Over most of the 200,000 years
we’ve been around, there were simply too few of us to
warrant fighting over territory. Instead, our capacity
for cooperation evolved in response to our unique
breeding culture.
While other primates generally don’t trust others to
care for their infants, humans have long turned to aunties,
grandmas, and friends to help care for their babies from
birth. With these “helpers,” children have the “luxury of
growing up slowly, building stronger bodies, better immune
systems, and in some cases bigger brains,” Hrdy surmises.
It is this capacity for cooperation, honed through shared
child rearing, that most distinguishes Homo sapiens,
claims Hrdy.
2. EMPATHY
Cooperation is made possible by empathy, and it, too,
seems to be a capacity deeply carved into us. We see a hint
of early empathy in the finding that babies cry at the sound
of other babies crying but rarely at a recording of their
own cries.
In the 1990s, Italian scientists first discovered what
many now see as a cellular foundation of empathy: “mirror
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neurons” in our brains. When we are only observing

another’s actions, it turns out, these neurons fire as if we
were actually performing the observed actions ourselves.
Evidence grows that mirror neurons respond to emotional
states as well as actions.
A study in Science in 2008 reported that we actually get
greater pleasure from giving than receiving. Given what we
are learning about our cooperative, empathetic capacities,
it should be no surprise that psychologists estimate that,
on average, more than 80 percent of happiness comes
from relationships, health, spiritual life, friends, and work
fulfillment. Only 7 percent is about money.
3. FAIRNESS divided nursing home residents into two groups. In one,
residents had choices as to where to receive visitors and
Fairness lives within most of us, for we learned long ago
when to watch movies; they were also given houseplants
that injustice destroys community — the bonds of trust on
to care for. Residents in the second group did not have
which our individual survival depends.
these choices.
Plus, fairness seems to make us feel good, even when
After a year and a half, the Harvard investigators found
at our own expense, Nature reported in 2010. In a simple
that fewer than half as many residents in the more engaged
experiment, pairs of young men were given $30 apiece,
group had died. Langer attributes the stunning difference to
while one in each pair got a $50 bonus. The brain’s reward
the enhanced “mindfulness” of those making more choices.
center responded in those who got the bonus. No surprise.
I see the outcome differently. For me, the longer lives of
The surprise came when those lucky men were asked to
those responsible for themselves and their plants affirm
imagine how they would feel if they got another bonus, or if
that we thrive when we feel we have power.
the next bonus went to their partners. The second scenario,
the one reducing inequality, was the one that lit up the 5. MEANING
brain’s pleasure center. Human beings are creatures of meaning, seeking ways
4. EFFICACY to give our days value beyond ensuring our own survival.
The prominence of religion certainly attests to this need.
Could our species have made it this far if we were
But even the private act of voting may express this need,
essentially couch potatoes, shoppers, and whiners? I don’t
it dawned on me recently. Rationally, I can easily see that
think so. We are doers. Our need to “make a dent” in the
my single vote isn’t likely to decide anything. But entering
wider world is so great, argued social philosopher Erich
the voting booth, I feel a quiet sense of pride welling up
Fromm, that we should toss out René Descartes’ theorem,
because I know I’m playing my part in a larger human drama
“I think, therefore I am,” and replace it with: “I am, because
— protecting a democratic ideal by my act.
I effect.”
The trait seems to show up even in tiny babies. Three- 6. IMAGINATION, CREATIVITY, AND ATTRACTION
month-olds respond with pleasure to a moving mobile. But TO CHANGE
a study shows that they “prefer to look at [a] … mobile they In The Philosophical Baby, Gopnik writes: “More than
can influence themselves,” writes Professor Alison Gopnik any other creature, human beings are able to change. …
in The Philosophical Baby. Plus, “they smile and coo at it What neuroscientists call plasticity — the ability to change
more too.” For Gopnik, the finding suggests that even the in light of experience — is the key to human nature at
youngest among us enjoy making things happen and seeing every level from brains to minds to societies.” The great
the consequences. evolutionary advantage of human beings is our ability to
In a widely known experiment carried out in the 1970s, escape the constraints of instinct, Gopnik reminds us.
Harvard psychologists Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin Both “using tools and making plans … depend on

“Passive hope is about waiting for external agencies to bring about what we
desire. Active Hope is about becoming active participants in bringing about what
we hope for. Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening, it is something
we do rather than have.”
— Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy
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anticipating future possibilities,” and we can see these
“abilities emerging even in babies who can’t talk yet.”
Human beings’ unique capacity for imagination ends
this list because — coupled with our plasticity — it is what
enables us to envision and make the changes we must in
order to draw forth the other five essential qualities. And it
is this imaginative self that takes pleasure in the challenge.
BUT IF WE’RE SO GREAT . . .
If humans are all the above, then why in the world do we
mindlessly participate every day in a social ecology that
generates so much destruction and misery for so many?
For me, answering that question starts with
acknowledging that the six magnificent traits above are
only part of being human. But history, as well as laboratory
experiments in which we are the guinea pigs, reveals that
most of us have every bit as much ability to be competitive,
selfish, and even horribly cruel.
So, given those potentials, why are we choosing the traits
that are getting us, and the rest of life on the planet, in such
trouble? And what will it take to bring out those six strong
traits and use them to change where we’re headed?
Here’s where the eco-mind comes to the rescue.
Seeing with an eco-mind means fully appreciating the
power of context — including conditions we ourselves
create — to determine the qualities we express. So the
question for humanity seems relatively straightforward:
Which social rules and norms have proven to bring out
the worst in humans, and which bring forth the best while
protecting us from the worst?
Here’s my take. At least three conditions have been
shown over our long history to elicit the worst in us:
1. Extreme power inequalities. From historical
oppression to today’s unprecedented economic disparity.
2. Secrecy, which allows us to evade accountability —
as occurred when the financial industry, operating without
transparency and public oversight, brought the global
economy to its knees.
3. Scapegoating, where we create “the other” to
blame, whether it’s kids crying “he did it” on a playground or
citizens at a town meeting shouting down a congressperson.
All three negatives seem to arise with ferocity in cultures
premised on lack, where continuous rivalry is presumed.
Sadly, each has been on the rise in the United States for
at least three decades. And within our culture’s mental
map, it all feels inevitable. Our empathy and enjoyment in
cooperation, our deep sensitivity to fairness, and our need
for meaning, efficacy, and creativity — all are stifled in
societies where power is tightly held and opportunities shut
off for so many.
For me, it’s no surprise, then, that scholars uncover a
“strong relationship” between the extent of economic
inequality and mental illness across countries. This
mismatch between the things we know bring out the best
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121
in us and the cultures we live in helps me understand why
depression has become a global pandemic.
With an eco-mind we stay focused on the social ecology
we ourselves are creating that denies us the best in our
species’ own nature. Knowing all this about ourselves, our
challenge seems clear: We need to reverse those three
dangerous trends and, instead, disperse power, enhance
transparency, and foster mutual accountability. In the
process, we will create a culture of alignment with nature
in which human needs are met in ways that dissolve the
presumption of lack.
The key is what I call “Living Democracy,” which consists
not only of accountable forms of governance but also of
a daily practice: a set of values — among them inclusion,
fairness, and mutual accountability — that infuse
everything we do in daily life. It is living what Oxford
physiologist Denis Noble observes about biological systems
in his book The Music of Life: “There are not privileged
components telling the rest what to do. There is rather a
form of democracy [involving] every element at all levels.”
The interaction of those components, Noble says, creates
the shape of life.
With this understanding, opportunities to be effective
appear everywhere: We can build citizen movements,
replacing “privately held government” with elections and
governance accountable to citizens. And we can rebuild
our own mental maps by doing the hard work of actively
nurturing our own positive proclivities rather than taking
them for granted. Just one specific example: When students
at the University of California, Santa Cruz, decided to launch
a student-organized sustainability course, collaborating
with the administration in order to green their campus, they
realized their success would depend in large measure on
how well they practiced what I call the “arts of democracy”
— such people skills as active listening, mediation,
negotiation, and creative conflict. They got training, stuck
with it, and their course has spread to other University of
California campuses, touching the lives of thousands.
With an eco-mind, we know that if we’re all connected,
we’re all implicated. We look bravely at our nature and
realize we don’t have to cajole others to be “better.” Whew.
Instead, we can get on with creating social rules and
norms proven to elicit the best in us — which is plenty.
We then have a chance of making this century’s planetary
turnaround an epic struggle for life so vivid and compelling
that it satisfies our deep needs for connection, fairness,
and meaning.
Frances Moore Lappé wrote this article for 9 Strategies to End
Corporate Rule, the Spring 2012 issue of YES! Magazine. Frances
is author of the legendary best seller Diet for a Small Planet, and
many other books. She is co-founder of the Small Planet Institute
and is a contributing editor for YES! Magazine. This article draws
on material from her latest book, Eco-Mind, Nation Books, 2011.
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ON GRATITUDE
By Alex Stark
I was born in Peru, of a middle class family, but even
though we had enough of everything and more to spare,
I still remember my mother admonishing us when we wasted
food or left our meals uneaten. “Every seed,” she used to
say, “can grow into a full plant and feed a family for many
generations.” She had learnt this wisdom herself as a young
child living in a rural village in the central Andes. She had
seen hunger first hand and still remembered the faces of
the needy who came to plead for grain from her father, a
successful farmer. No caller, she used to say, ever left empty
handed, even though that meant that her family would have
to do without. Like agricultural communities around the
world, sharing was at the heart of living.  obvious if we consider all of the people and resources which
Later, when I started studying pre-Columbian cosmology
I discovered that the ancient Peruvians believed that all
of reality is held together by one simple principle which
is called ayni in Quechua, the native language of the
Andes. This word translates into English as reciprocity,
the principle of equal exchange of energy. Ayni affects
everything, because the ancient Peruvians, like their modern
counterparts, understood that energy cannot be created
or destroyed, only exchanged. For every thing that is spent,
a corresponding force must be created. For every gift we
receive, a corresponding gesture must be made in return.
“Today for you, tomorrow for me,” was my mother’s simple
way of interpreting this wisdom.  gesture of your life a labor of love and retribution for the
But this was fine for those things which, like the
newspaper at my door, can be exchanged for hard cash.
Understanding ayni was much more difficult when it came
to things like the earth, or the wind, or life itself. Yet ayni
was necessary in order for the Cosmos to continue to exist.
So where was this ayni to come from? The answer of the
ancient Peruvians was that it came from human gratitude;
that it was human emotion, in a sense, which kept reality in
place. Although I understood this intellectually at first, it
took a few years for this particular piece of information to
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truly come alive in my consciousness, and ironically it was
the death of my mother which brought it to full force. Losing
her made me understand just how precious her life had been
to me and how much of me was a product of what she had
given to me. Sadly, I also realized just how little ayni I had
shown to her while she was alive.
For the ancient Peruvians gratitude was not only
something which we needed to feel in a sentimental way, it
was the foundation for action and was related to another
principle which categorized all of human activity into three
areas: knowledge, labor, and love. In order for ayni to be
manifest, I was taught, knowledge must be first cultivated
in the self and then shared in order to be useful to the
community. Labor, on the other hand, has no meaning if
it is centered on the self. It must render a service to the
community at all times. And love is at the center, binding our
efforts to our selves and our loved ones. To be worthwhile,
gratitude must take form, it must be part of the labor, love
and wisdom of a society. It is not enough to feel gratitude, it
must be made concrete, of value.
The ancient Peruvians also recognized one additional
characteristic of ayni, and that had to do with the fact that
energy is everywhere, and that for ayni to be effective,
our gift had to be shared not with one or two people,
but showered on all of creation. To miss this point, I was
warned, was to miss the essence of life. To begin with,
every action must recognize that all of reality is alive,
interconnected, and responsive. There is no area of life
that is not in one way or another part of who we are. This is
have come together to produce that same newspaper that
appears miraculously at my doorstep every day. Not only
did it require reporters, editors, and photographers, but
its contributors include messengers, janitors, electricians,
plumbers, cooks, postmen, wives, and husbands, not
to mention trees, metals, minerals, rain, sunshine and
all the other energetic components that go into simple
paper. Ayni must be demonstrated to all of these, and this is
but the morning newspaper! 
The method my ancestors proposed to get around this
seemingly insurmountable problem was simple: live all of
your life in ayni, show gratitude at all times, and make every
gifts you receive, the gifts you are to receive, and for the
miracle of life itself. Ayni is not about record keeping, it is
about living constantly in reciprocity, giving and getting
as part of a dance of life, a dance of energy. A life lived in
gratitude is perforce a happy life because it recognizes the
immeasurable bounty that surrounds us. It is a life that is
never in want, no matter how little we may or may not have.
It is a life lived fully.
I find it sad how little this principle is applied today.
Our culture is the richest the planet has ever seen, yet we
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continuously act with greed and self-importance. The fact

is that no matter how hard we try, we will be unable to pay
back in ayni for everything we have received unless our
society as a whole takes on the challenge of demonstrating
gratitude for our gifts. We have been placed in a privileged
position in relation to the whole planet, and by the principle
of ayni, we are beholden to it. We are therefore beholden to
construct, to improve what is, and to protect the web of life.
Yet we continue to destroy, to take for ourselves, mindless
not only of the suffering we inflict on others and on nature,
but of the transgression we are committing to natural law.
I now understand that gratitude is not only desirable, it
is imperative. Gratitude is not only a polite manner which
adorns our upbringing; it is the very fabric of life itself.
We are being showered continuously by life with gifts of
immeasurable value: our breath alone is a creation which
defies all of our understanding. By the laws of nature, we
must give something of equal value in exchange. Yet we
as humans are incapable of that order of creation. I, for TO LIVE OR NOT TO LIVE:
example, am incapable, as a male, of matching the gift of life THE DANGER OF THE
my mother has given me. Yet I am bound by those same laws TRAGIC HERO MINDSET
to do so. And here is where I discovered the great beauty of
ayni, which had been handed down the generations through by Derrick Jensen
my ancestry. Again, it was through my mother that this
Have you ever noticed how many excuses we all find to
wisdom had been transmitted, and it had to do with my own
not act in defense of the planet? Sure, we all have errands
power. Never once did she ask for herself. Instead she used
to run and e-mails to answer and we all need down time and
to say, “Be the best you can be and remember to help those
the problems are so big and [INSERT YOUR BEST EXCUSE
around you.” It is only in each person that ayni can be made
HERE]. But lately I’ve been encountering a particularly
manifest; it is in our own creative genius that we can return
frustrating excuse that a lot of people seem to be giving for
the gift, through our labor, our knowledge and our love.
not acting: they say it’s too late, that various tipping points
Today, I try to make every action, word, and thought an
have been reached in terms of runaway global warming,
act of ayni, of gratitude and reciprocity. I cannot claim to
and that especially because of the lag time between carbon
succeed all of the time, but little by little I am whittling down
emissions and increased temperature, we’re already
the great debt I owe to life, and to that important person in
doomed, so what’s the point of fighting back?
my life, my mom. After all, it was she who taught me not to
This faux-tragedian posturing infuriates me. What
waste even a seed.
infuriates me even more is that this reasoning has become
This article was first published in LifeSherpa, July 2003 so familiar. I encounter it all the time. Literally the moment

“The sustainability revolution will be organic.

It will arise from the visions, insights, experiments and actions
of billions of people. The burden of making it happen is not on the
shoulders of any one person or group. No one will get the credit,
but everyone can contribute.”
— Donella L. Meadows

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I finished typing the above — and I’m not making this up —
I received an e-mail that said, “Solutions are inadequate,
futile, and too late. I wish people would admit this, rather
than scramble for last ditch efforts. . . . Just as people speak
of peak oil and peak civilization, we’re peak life. Three billion
years of cyanobacteria, 500 million years of increasingly
complex life forms, and a cherry topping of too-intelligent
human beings. Humans are demonstrating that intelligent
life is unsustainable, perhaps triggering the downward slope
of life complexity and returning the planet to its microbial
past.” And as I finished pasting that quote into this column
I received yet another such e-mail.  can be destroyed. There’s nothing inevitable about it.
The notion that humans are the peak form of life (and
everyone else is just background) leads to a sense of
entitlement, which leads to atrocities against those who
(or, in this formulation, that) are seen as less-than-peak
forms of life. And anyway, what kind of peak life form would
knowingly degrade its landbase and then throw up its hands
when action is most needed to counteract the destruction?
I’m not convinced that humans are particularly more
intelligent than parrots, octopi, salmon, trees, rivers, stones,
and so on, but even if you did believe that humans were
more intelligent, it wouldn’t alter the fact that the Tolowa
Indians lived where I live for 12,500 years and did so without
destroying the place. I’d hate to try to make the argument
that the Tolowa didn’t destroy the land because they weren’t
intelligent enough to do so.
But there’s another point I want to make here, which
has to do with the tragic posturing. In his book The
Comedy of Survival, Joseph Meeker points out that human
cultures through the ages have created comedies, but only
civilization has created the genre of the tragedy. In fact,
you could easily say that tragedy is this culture’s tragic
flaw. A tragic flaw, you probably recall, is a flaw in the
protagonist’s character that brings him or her to ruin. The
flaw could be indecision, hubris, jealousy, etc. The point is
that the character is unable or unwilling to examine and
overcome this flaw, and, in my perspective at least, it is this,
and not the flaw itself, that leads to the downfall. Tragedies
presume inevitability, which presumes an inability to
choose. As one definition puts it, “Tragic behavior assumes
change is not possible and will defend this assumption to
the death.”
I’ve always found classic tragedies such as Hamlet or
Othello to be more frustrating than cathartic. I mean, if your
behavior is leading you and those around you to ruin, why
not just change your behavior? Why hold tight to a character
flaw that’s killing you and those you love? The tragic “hero”
only becomes aware of his or her fatal flaw once it is too
late. I’m far more interested in stopping the tragedy before
it’s too late than I am in feeling sorrow or empathy for those
who cannot or will not change their destructive behavior.
What’s worse is that in this human-culture-as-tragic-hero
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narrative, the flaw is nothing so ignoble as greed, lust,
jealousy, or even indecision. Rather, the tragic flaw this
culture ascribes to itself is intelligence. We’re simply too
smart to allow life on the planet to continue. And of course
we are unable to change, so there is nothing to be done. Cue
the tears, drop the curtain.
I’m not interested.
First, the premise that intelligence is behind the murder
of the planet is both inaccurate and absurd. Second,
the murder of the planet is the result of behaviors —
which can be changed — and infrastructures — which
Nor do I believe that global warming has reached a final
tipping point. There are plenty of options to try first, like
deindustrializing. People like James Lovelock (who predicts
that by the end of the twenty-first century, “billions of us
will die and the few breeding pairs of people that [who]
survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains
tolerable”) are already acknowledging that this culture, if
left unchecked, will essentially kill the planet. Well, if this
culture will kill the planet, then it looks like it’s time to roll
up our sleeves and do what’s necessary — not stick our
heads in the sand. The best way to guarantee that it is too
late is by saying it is too late and not acting to help the
world as we know it survive, a world with goblin sharks and
pencil fish, where bats flutter by at night and butterflies and
bumblebees light up the days.
My friend the great Dakota activist Waziyatawin once
said, “That defeatist attitude makes me want to scream.
The battles we’re fighting are overwhelming, but we know
things won’t get better if we do nothing. Our only hope
is enough people intervening and taking action, people
willing to risk something now so we all don’t lose everything
later. The only sense of empowerment I feel is by taking
some kind of action, whether it’s writing, working to
undermine the existing structures, or sitting on the open
prairie in December with a Dakota man trying to save our
landbase.” She went on: “If our actions will do nothing, why
would anyone even want to live anymore? That kind of
hopelessness, in the defeatist sense, means an embracing
of victimage and complete powerlessness. Here the salmon
have much to teach: either they make it upriver to spawn, or
they die trying.”
If our actions make it so there is even a one-thousandth
of 1 percent chance that things will work out better for
ourselves and the planet, then it is our moral duty to act and
act and act. Before it’s too late.
Am I optimistic? Not in the slightest. Am I going to quit?
Not on your life.
Published in the May/June 2011 issue of Orion magazine. Derrick
Jensen is an American author and environmental activist. His
books include A Language Older Than Words and Truths Among
Us: Conversations on Building a New Culture.
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BOULDER VOTES TO FREE ITS generated than needed to meet consumer demand, Xcel
ELECTRIC COMPANY would curtail its wind power purchases in favor of selling
power from its own coal plants.
by Valerie Schloredt As Xcel’s 20-year franchise with Boulder came due for
renewal, city officials were increasingly skeptical about
The city of Boulder, Colorado, has won the right to
the corporation’s willingness to meet their clean energy
take its power supply — and carbon emissions — away
goals. Analysis showed a municipal utility could work,
from corporate control. The change for Boulder came in
while prioritizing climate change action over profits to
November [2011] when voters passed two ballot measures
shareholders. In 2011, the city drafted two ballots for
that allow the city to begin the process of forming its own
voter approval: Ballot Issue 2B would increase the utility
municipal power utility.
occupation tax to fund the planning process. Ballot Issue 2C
The city’s current electricity supplier, Xcel Energy, is
would authorize the city to form the utility and issue bonds
a large corporation that sources more than 60 percent
to buy the distribution system — providing that the new
of its power from coal. Colorado climate activists tried
municipal utility’s rates would be equal to or less than Xcel’s.
for years to persuade Xcel to transition from coal to
Thus began a closely fought battle between corporate
renewables, arguing that the state’s plains, mountains, and
money and grassroots activism. Xcel financed a “vote no”
300 days of annual sunshine give it abundant potential for
campaign to the tune of nearly $1 million, buying extensive
the development of wind and solar power. But they found
(and some said, misleading) advertising and hiring door-to-
Xcel’s take-up of renewables was frustratingly slow. Xcel
door canvassers.
is investing $400 million in its coal-powered plants, and its
One development that climate activists found
plans for renewables stops at just 30 percent in 2020, with
no further increase until 2028. 
Boulder has long cherished the goal of becoming a
leader in tackling climate change. In 2002, the city council
passed the Kyoto Resolution on reducing greenhouse gas
emissions. In 2006, residents voted for the nation’s first city
carbon tax to achieve those targets.
“Municipalization” — the legal process whereby the
city would form its own utility company — has been on the
table since 2004. When Xcel countered with the offer of an
ambitious city-wide smart grid in 2008, Boulder accepted.
But Xcel and its partners didn’t do a cost-benefit analysis
prior to starting the project, and the portion of the costs
consumers would pay rose from a projected $15.3 million to
(at last count) $44.8 million.
Meanwhile, the corporation’s reliance on coal affected The Boulder-Denver “Power Past Fossil Fuels” bike ride in
its use of wind power. Coal plants can’t be switched on and September 2011 served also as a rally for the local utility
off as the wind blows. So when there was more electricity initiative. Photo by Zane Selvans.
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Session 7/Visions of Sustainability
126

particularly galling was when Leslie Glustrom, research

director for climate group Clean Energy Action, was banned
from carrying out her watchdog role at the Public Utility
Commission — which regulates Xcel.
But the “yes” campaign for 2B and 2C drew on Boulder’s
strengths — it’s a college town populated with progressives
and technical experts, a hub for clean energy start-ups
and atmospheric research. The campaign support group,
RenewablesYes, was able to assemble an impressive and
all-volunteer “Citizen Technical Team” who worked out a
model that used solar, wind, and electricity use data to
analyze Boulder’s electricity mix. Then they publicized
their analysis — that a local energy utility could reduce the
city’s carbon emissions by 66 percent, increase its use of
renewables to 40 percent, and keep rates the same as, or
lower than, those charged by Xcel.
The list of endorsements for 2B and 2C grew, and
eventually included dozens of elected officials, a roster
of businesses, three local newspapers, and over 1,000
residents. Political action organization New Era Colorado EXCERPT FROM THE GREAT DISRUPTION
put additional vitality into the effort by mobilizing young
people, who worked phone banks and pounded the By Paul Gilding
pavement to counter Xcel’s advertising.
It’s hard, isn’t it, to hear stories of impending dangers
The ballot measures passed by a whisker — a major
and to know how to respond. It’s hard to separate fear
victory given that the corporation outspent the grassroots
from reality, probably from possibly, and the truth among
campaign 10-to-1. Ken Regelson, a leader in the campaign,
conflicting arguments. While we always complain about
thinks that community organizing tipped the balance.
the quality of our leaders in politics and in business, we
Personal contacts with voters, he says, “are worth more
mostly assume they know what they are doing and what’s
than a utility can spend.”
really going on. We assume they will take firm charge if they
Municipal utilities aren’t the untested experiments Xcel’s
need to.
“vote no” campaign made them out to be — there are more
To hold the paradox in our heads — that things are
than 2,000 public utilities serving 46 million customers
desperately dangerous and urgent but we must act
in the United States. While some of these utilities are in
positively and full of hope — is an enormous test for the
small or rural markets, Boulder is a big, growing market
mind and the soul to act together. The challenge was well
— it generates at least $100 million in annual revenue for
expressed by the great American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald:
Xcel. The revolutionary potential of Boulder’s ballots is
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two
that producing renewable energy for a municipal utility
opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain
could keep millions of dollars in the local economy instead
the ability to function.”
of exporting them to the headquarters of an investor-
So it’s hard, but what do you do? Do you run away and
held company.
grow your food in some far-flung corner of the world, in case
Boulder officials estimate it will take three to five
we fail, in case humanity can’t rise to the occasion? This is,
years to create the power and light utility. Climate change
after all, the outcome predicted by some serious experts.
activists working on the plan hope it will be a successful
What would motivate us to do that? Would it be to save our
model for other cities. “Everything we are doing,” says Ken
children and our genes in the belief that if society fails in
Regelson, “we plan on sharing as widely as possible … there
this historic task, we can rebuild a new world from the ashes
are lots of lessons to learn and share.” As Boulder works
of the old?
out the details, other cities are watching. They may already
This is sometimes an appealing thought, even for me.
be planning to “go Boulder,” ditch the corporation, and take
After all, no one can argue I haven’t had a go at preventing
control of their own local power.
the situation we now face from emerging. So even I have had
Valerie Schloredt wrote this article for 9 Strategies to End days when simply withdrawing has its attractions.
Corporate Rule, the Spring 2012 issue of YES! Magazine. Valerie But then I consider the counterargument. That running
is associate editor at YES! John Farrell, Institute for Local Self- away could just be fear of failure and the opportunity for
Reliance, contributed to this story.
a blameless escape, as argued by the writer Paul Williams,

Session 7/Visions of Sustainability NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


who in 1982 wrote the following in his extraordinary poem
“Common Sense”:
On the edge of the dream
we face our deepest doubts.
Now that it all is almost real
a terrible fear of success takes hold
and we grab desperately, uncontrollably, for failure.
One last chance to get off easy.
Who among us really wants to save the world,
to be born again into two thousand more years
of struggle?
How much sweeter to be the doomed generation,
floating gently on the errors and villainy of others,
towards some glorious apocalypse now ...
Hallelujah! It’s not my fault —
Bring on the end times!
And so we’re back at Scott Fitzgerald’s paradox, the one
we now have to live with, without our heads exploding or
our souls aching, at least not too much. We need to fully
acknowledge the challenging times and inevitable suffering
ahead but stay focused and determined to move forward
and past this. Easy to say, harder to do.
So yes, it is challenging to know how to respond to all this
and what to do personally. It is easy to see what the world
should do, but what should you do? After all, the kids are
doing well in school, things are calm on the streets, we’ve
got busy lives. Maybe we should just wait until those in
charge work out what to do. After all, with all those advisers,
resources, and global experts, surely those in charge would
make sure we acted dramatically if we really needed to.
Do you really think so?
For decades, those of us trying to change the world have
sought to convince those we perceived to be in charge to
act. We’ve argued for stronger regulation, for corporations
to behave responsibly, for our political leaders to focus on
the long-term interest of our society.
What can I say looking back? The best I can conclude is
that it seemed like a good idea at the time, but alas, it didn’t
work. Why not?
When I left Greenpeace in 1995, I moved into the rarefied
world occupied by global corporation CEOs. I engaged
them through private conversations as a corporate adviser
and personal provocateur and spent time with them in
places like the World Economic Forum at Davos and other
gatherings like the annual meeting of the Business Council
in the United States and the World Business Council for
Sustainable Development in Switzerland. I flew in their
private jets and had dinner with them in their executive
dining rooms.
I was delighted when this began. I thought, “At last, I’m
working with the people in charge, the ones who really run
the world! Now I can get into their minds, work out how they
think, and convince them of the peril facing humanity (and
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
127
their companies). They will then change the world, and my
work will be done.”
I spent a good fifteen years of my life working at this.
It taught me a lot about how the world works. Convincing
them of the peril we all faced was relatively easy. These are,
with some notable but rare exceptions, generally decent
and very smart people. They respond to logic and science,
they have kids, they care about the future, and they want to
do the right thing. So convincing them we were in serious
danger wasn’t the problem.
The problem was they weren’t in charge.
If the world were really run by powerful men making
decisions in smoke-filled rooms, we could go and knock on
the door and explain the problem. We could tell them that
things had become so bad that now even they were under
threat. That would be great. But unfortunately, it’s not the
way it works.
Our system, the global economy, is a complicated
array of interconnected components. Each component is
individually managed but works within a system, and while
some very smart people try to guide it, no one is, or ever can
be, in charge.
Yes, there are places that resemble the apocryphal
smoke-filled rooms full of powerful men, where men and
women with great influence meet, but they are not in
charge. I’m not naive about their power, influence, and self-
interest — I’ve seen them at work using it, for good and for
bad. But they are not going to fix this.
The good ones, of whom there are many, will do
important things that contribute, pass better laws to
incentivize action, make huge investments that take new
technologies to scale, encourage consumers to do things
differently. But they will do these things as a reaction to the
system changing around them, not as those in charge of it.
We have a system problem, so we need a system
solution. How do we do that?
The only force on earth powerful enough to fix this now is
us. The woman entrepreneur bringing energy to her village
in India, the organic farmer in Australia locking up carbon
in the soil, the CEO in Davos cleverly using his power to
shift market attitudes, the scientists taking ice cores in
Antarctica, and the mother in China teaching her children
how to shop less and live more. All of us, acting collectively.
The world is now connected as never before. Remember
how if a friend of a friend is happy, you’re more likely to be
happy? Well, the same applies to them shopping less, to
them being friendly to their neighbors, to them doing work
with meaning.
We must remember, the solutions are ready to go; they
are the examples I have discussed throughout this book.
Solutions working today that deliver energy with zero CO2,
pollution, that build great companies, that deliver water
to the urban poor, that create jobs in villages in India, that
Session 7/Visions of Sustainability
128
make communities in America stronger. These solutions are
being driven by individuals with passion, people making a
difference and making things happen. All we need to do is
replicate and accelerate them.
As this unfolds, there will be many different types of
action from many different types of people. There is even
a clear role for well-directed anger. As well articulated
by one of the world’s great environmental campaigners,
Bill McKibben:
We definitely need art, and music, and disciplined,
nonviolent, but very real anger. Mostly, we need to
tell the truth, resolutely and constantly. Fossil fuel is
wrecking the one earth we’ve got. It’s not going to go
away because we ask politely. If we want a world that
works, we’re going to have to raise our voices.
McKibben is right. This is a time we need to be clear,
loud, and focused in our message. What big oil and coal
companies are doing is just plain wrong, and it must be
stopped, urgently. The right strategy model for this is
Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid. He was a leader
who never once backed away from the rightness of his
Video for Discussion:
GROWING OUR WAY INTO A NEW ECONOMY by Stephen Ritz
Before you meet with your group to discuss session seven,
watch this video of Stephen Ritz together or individually:
http://tinyurl.com/StephenRitzTED
In this fourteen-minute TEDxManhattan video, South Bronx
teacher Stephen Ritz enthusiastically discusses how his
extended student and community family has grown over
25,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx while generating
extraordinary academic performance and creating and funding
2,200 youth jobs – all through edible food walls.
Session 7/Visions of Sustainability
cause or compromised his goal, but still approached those
who opposed him with humanity. This was all the more
remarkable remembering that his enemies kept him in
jail for twenty-seven years and murdered his friends and
colleagues. Yet he still worked hard to reach them as human
beings. We must advance our cause with determination and
strength, but also with the highest integrity.
Most important, we must get on with the job. With all
of us in charge, we live in the ultimate global democracy
and we vote every minute of every day. We all know what
we need to do. Shop less, live more. Raise chickens, and
children who think. Build more community, make our lives
more connected. Make good companies grow stronger,
make bad companies go broke. Elect good political leaders,
throw out bad ones. Roll out technologies that work and
phase out those that don’t.
Most of all, we need to stop waiting for someone else
to fix it. There is no one else. We are the system; we have
to change. Companies will respond when consumers and
investors change their demands. Politicians will drive
change when we make them do so.
It won’t happen by itself; it will happen because people
like us become part of a global movement where we all
come together, in a distributed way, in small ways and big
ways, to drive a change in thinking, a change in behavior, and
a change in our world. Now that we’re all connected, if we all
act together, we’ll change the system.
Will we succeed? Yes, if we decide to.
We must remember to do so, recognizing the threat but
living with a lightness of heart and in the opportunity — the
exciting, uplifting, civilization-shaping opportunity to make
a difference greater than anyone since that ape worked out
she could crack open the nut if she used the rock as a tool.
So let’s do it. It is time.
This article is an excerpt from Paul Gilding’s 2011 book, The Great
Disruption. The former CEO of Greenpeace, Paul is an independent
writer and advisor on sustainability.
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE
 129

LIVING GREEN ISN’T A SACRIFICE,
IT’S AN ADVENTURE
by Donella Meadows
I’m one of those tedious people who try to “live green.”
I’m no beginner. I’ve been at it 30 years, since I lived in
the toxic air of northeast New Jersey, watched suburbs
munch up farmland, traveled to India where eroded soil blew
against my skin and hunger looked me in the face.
When I see change is needed, I move forward into the
change. I can’t help it. Duty comes easier to me than denial.
Right, tedious.
I’m not as bad as I used to be. For awhile I was a
self-righteous eco-snob, the kind that gives rise to the
stereotype. I banished synthetics and went around in
wrinkled cotton clothes. I pointedly passed up the meat
at dinner parties. I wasn’t kind to people with more than
two children.
If you know folks like that, have patience with them. They
won’t be able to keep it up very long.
Their problem — my problem — our problem —
is, there’s no way to live an ecologically pure life in an
industrial society. Compromises are inevitable. My own
contradictions were blatant. I bought a farm to grow organic
food and an old farmhouse that was a bottomless energy
sink. I drove an efficient car and jetted off to environmental
meetings. I had no children but four cats and two dogs, all of
which declined to be vegetarian.
First I tried to cover over these inconsistencies. Finally
I admitted them. Then I found them hilarious. Once I forgave
myself, I could forgive the rest of the human race. I could
redefine my mission from holy war to honest experiment,
with room for mistakes and half-measures and learning.
I could expand my focus from the details of my little life to
the driving forces that keep all of us from living according to
our heartfelt values.
I find those driving forces in two places. One is inside
us, our human lacks and longings, our restlessness, our
insecurity, our need to be admired and to belong. The other
is the consumer culture around us, so skilled at hooking into
those lacks and longings. It offers us material pacifiers for
real and deep nonmaterial needs. It sells gas and oil cheap
but makes solar power expensive. It snags us with ways
to use money to save time, thereby keeping us permanent
slaves to money.
Well, to make a 30-year-long story short, my life is still
full of contradictions. I’m far from living in a way that would,
if everyone lived that way, stop the degradation of our

“Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up... But I don’t think either optimism nor
pessimism is a very useful position. Optimism because it simply misleads—the
odds are not in our favor. And pessimism because it’s paralyzing. But hope is
something different. Hope is a sober quality. It says, ‘whatever the odds, I am
going to do my best to change it, to see a way through it.’”
— David Orr
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Session 7/Visions of Sustainability
130

have to jet to beautiful places, because I’ve made the place

planetary life-support systems. But you know what? I keep
moving in green directions, and as I do, life becomes richer.
Conspicuous sainthood is no longer my motivator. Good
living is.
Take food, for example. Without taking vows or twisting
into costly contortions, my household has gone almost
entirely organic. What we don’t grow, we buy from a
local coop or farmers market. I haven’t had to enter a
supermarket for years. Our food is garden-fresh, pesticide-
free, spectacularly, crunchingly tasteful.
Our vegetarianism has softened, because animals fit
into the cycles of an organic farm. The chickens eat the
kitchen scraps, the sheep and cows digest and fertilize the
clovers and grasses. We love our animals and take good
care of them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t eat them. If we
didn’t, we would be overrun with their progeny. We eat them
rarely, on special occasions, with gratitude. Once you know
what “real” chicken tastes like, you will never eat “factory”
chicken again.
We’ve sealed the cracks, insulated the house, installed a
wood-gasifying furnace with an oil backup. Our fuel comes
mostly from nearby forests. But if we go away for the
weekend, the oil clicks on and the pipes don’t freeze.
I’ve cut way back on jetting, but I still do it when I feel it
can make a difference or take me to someone I love. I don’t
I live beautiful. There’s no place I’d rather be.
I still drive too much. I’m waiting eagerly either for a bus
system that connects to my rural town or for a hypercar,
which, I’m told, will get 120 miles to the gallon and be as
crashworthy as a Volvo and as capacious and peppy as
I want. Transport is one of many aspects of green living
an individual can’t pull off alone. We need industry and
government to help. So I spend time putting pressure on
industry and government.
Now I’m working with friends to build 22 small, clustered,
passive-solar homes, where we can share washing machines,
rototillers, baby-sitting. Together we bought a larger farm
than any of us could afford alone, enough land to provide
our food and fuel, plus a living for a full-time farming family
or two. We’re discovering green architecture and green
engineering. We’re going to “consensus school” to learn how
to make decisions together.
Most of us were raised in the belief that people can’t
make decisions together constructively. We certainly
weren’t taught how. But it’s something we can learn. We’re
discovering that skilled consensus-seeking is faster,
sweeter, more fun, and more creative than taking cheap
shots, not listening, getting entrenched in our positions,
considering only our own short-term good, and all the other
counterproductive behaviors our leaders demonstrate
every day.
Living green is not a matter of doctrine, it’s a matter of
learning. It’s sweeter, more fun, more creative, way more
satisfying than living in a way that impoverishes people and
nature. We’ll make mistakes. We’ll live with contradictions
along the way. But it’s a way of adventure, not a way
of sacrifice.
Copyright Sustainability Institute 1999. Donella Meadows was a
pioneering American environmental scientist, teacher and writer.
She is best remembered as lead author of the influential book
The Limits to Growth, which made headlines around the world
in 1972 and after. She passed away in 2001 after a brief struggle
with cerebral meningitis. This article used with permission of the
Donella Meadows Institute.

“On a grander scale, when a society segregates itself, the consequences

affect the economy, the emotions, and the ecology.
That’s one reason why it’s easy for pro-lifers to eat factory-raised animals
that disrespect everything sacred about creation.
And that is why it’s easy for rabid environmentalists to hate chainsaws even
though they snuggle into a mattress supported by a black walnut bedstead.”
—Joel Salatin, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front

Session 7/Visions of Sustainability NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


CALL TO ACTION
The character of a whole society is the cumulative result of countless small actions,
day in and day out, of millions of persons.
— Duane Elgin
CELEBRATION AND CALL TO ACTION
This final session of the discussion course is an optional
celebration—an opportunity for both reflection on your
experience and a discussion of possible next steps. After
spending several weeks together exploring new ideas,
sharing information and observations, this session provides
an opportunity to share what you each will take away from
this experience.
Northwest Earth Institute groups have closed their
discussion courses in a variety of different ways. You
may choose to have a potluck meal together or attend a
sustainability event.
This meeting is also the perfect opportunity for groups
to plan to work together on a collective action project. The
following list provides examples of inspiring actions taken
by discussion groups that have completed this NWEI course:
• Commit to conducting an energy or a waste audit for your
homes, workplaces, or places of worship.
• Schedule a monthly hike or other group gathering.
• Look up volunteer opportunities for your group.
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
131
• Organize a local restoration project such as tree planting,
planting native species, removing non-native species from
local Green Spaces, or organizing a river or wild habitat
clean-up.
• Attend a local or regional planning meeting to weigh in on
sustainability concerns.
• Write letters to leaders advocating for the changes you
wish to see.
• Tour local recycling or waste facilities to find out where
your “garbage” goes.  Next, find out where to recycle those
recyclables that cannot be placed into curbside containers
and organize a weekly or monthly neighborhood or
workplace pick-up or drop-off.
• Organize a neighborhood yard sale.
• Support a local farmers’ market, community garden, or
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group and take a
tour. If a CSA exists in your community, sign up individually
or as a group and share the produce.
continued
Call to Action
132
• Organize a speaker or film highlighting simplicity and
sustainability in your neighborhood or organization.
Examples are:
• Radically Simple, with Jim Merkel (www.jancannonfilms.
com/RADICALLYsimple.htm)
• The Most Good, Least Harm (MOGO) Questionnaire
and Action Plan, which you can download at
humaneeducation.org/sections/view/mogo
• Check out the suggested resources for this course at
www.nwei.org/choices-for-sustainable-living-resources.
Once your group reaches a consensus about what
project you’ll undertake, create a specific follow-up plan and
delegate responsibilities.
If an NWEI volunteer attended your first session, you
may elect to invite this volunteer to your final meeting. At
this time, please give your completed evaluation forms to
the course coordinator to be mailed to NWEI, or complete
Action is eloquence.
— William Shakespeare
Call to Action
the online form at www.nwei.org/choices-for-sustainable-
living-resources.
If you are interested in offering or participating in
other NWEI discussion course programs, please visit
www.nwei.org for a complete list of current program
offerings. Through the website you can join NWEI’s mailing
list and receive updates. You may also call NWEI at (503)
227-2807 or contact your local community coordinator.
We hope you were enriched by your experience
of this discussion course. A nationwide network of
volunteers supports the discussion courses; see
www.nwei.org/n_american_network to find some regional
contacts closely affiliated with us. Please contact us if you
are interested in finding out what you can do to help bring
these courses to others in your community.
If you enjoyed this experience and would like to support
the Northwest Earth Institute’s work, please see our
membership form on page 135.
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE
 133

N O R T H W E S T E A R T H I N S T I T U T E

Become a Member of NWEI

Inspiring people to take responsibility for Earth.

Thank you for participating in this Northwest Earth Institute discussion course!
If you would like to help others discover their role in fostering sustainability, please consider joining NWEI as a member.
Thanks to our members, we are able to reach communities across North America in an effort to create a sustainable future
for us all.
Member benefits include a subscription to our EarthMatters newsletter, and special members only discounts and
promotions on coursebooks and NWEI conferences.
To join, fax this form to (503) 227-2917, or mail to Northwest Earth Institute; 107 SE Washington St., Suite 235,
Portland, OR 97214. You can also join online at www.nwei.org/join.

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n I would like information on NWEI’s other programs. Please send me information about:
n A World of Health: Connecting People, Place and Planet n Menu for the Future
n Discovering a Sense of Place n Powering a Bright Future

n Global Warming: Changing CO­2­urse n Reconnecting with Earth
n Healthy Children — Healthy Planet n Sustainable Systems at Work
n Hungry for Change: Food, Ethics and Sustainability n Voluntary Simplicity
n Just Below the Surface: Perspectives on the
Gulf Coast Oil Spill
Thank you for your support!
Become a member or renew your membership online at www.nwei.org/join.
Northwest Earth Institute, 107 SE Washington Street, Suite 235, Portland, OR 97214

C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G  Membership
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 NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE


SESSION 1
PERMISSIONS
“You are Brilliant and the Earth is Hiring” by Paul Hawken, YES!
Magazine, May 27, 2009.Used with permission of YES! Magazine,
www.yesmagazine.org
“Why Bother?” by Michael Pollan, New York Times, April 20, 2008.
Copyright 2008. Reprinted with permission by the New York Times.
“Advice from an Accidental Activist” by Colin Beavan, YES!
Magazine, February 15, 2011. Used with permission of YES!
Magazine, www.yesmagazine.org
Excerpts from “Easter’s End” by Jared Diamond from Discover
magazine, Aug. 1995. Copyright 1995. Reprinted with permission of
Discover magazine.
“The Reading of the Will” by Tom Toles. TOLES © 1987 The
Washington Post. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL
UCLICK. All rights reserved. www.universaluclick.com
SESSION 2
“Ecological Principles” by Michael K. Stone was originally published
by the Center for Ecoliteracy. © Copyright 2004-2011 Center for
Ecoliteracy. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. For
more information, visit www.ecoliteracy.org.
“What Would It Take? Protecting Earth from Catastrophe”
interview by Mary Hoff, Momentum, March 9, 2012. Used with
permission of Momentum, a print and online magazine of the
Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota,
www.environemnt.umn.edu/momentum
“Precautionary Principle” cartoon by Barry Deutsch,
Leftycartoons.com. Used with permission of Mr. Barry Deutsch,
www.leftycartoons.com
Current Emphasis/Sustainability Emphasis Chart from Living in
the Environment (16th ed.) by G. Tyler Miller and Scott Spoolman.
Copyright 2008 Cengage Learning.
“Water Is Life,” excerpted from Uprisings for the Earth:
Reconnecting Culture with Nature by Osprey Orielle Lake. Used
with permission by White Cloud Press.
“The Rich Get Richer, the Poor Go Hungry” by Sharon Astyk and
Aaron Newton, from the book A Nation of Farmers, UTNE Reader,
September-October 2010. Used with permission of New Society,
www.newsociety.com
“Sequoia National Park Is Stuck in Pollution Hell” by John Metcalfe,
The Atlantic Cities, May 30, 2012. Used with permission of Tribune
Media Services, http://www.tribunemediaservices.com/
The Ecology of Disease. “News Analysis: Man-Made Epidemics”
by Jim Robbins, The New York Times, June 15, 2012. Used with
permission of PARS International, www.magreprints.com
“The Earth Is Full” TED Talk by Paul Gilding. Used with permission
of Mr. Paul Gilding, www.paulgilding.com
C H O I C E S F O R S U STA I N A B L E L I V I N G 
135
SESSION 3
“What’s Eating America” by Michael Pollan, appeared in
Smithsonian, June 15, 2006. Reprinted with permission by the
author.
“Beyond “Free” or “Fair” Trade: Mexican Farmers Go Local” by Mike
Wold, YES! Magazine, January 23, 2012. Used with permission of
YES! Magazine, www.yesmagazine.org
“The Dirty Dozen” produced by the Environmental Working Group,
2012. Copyright © Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org.
Reprinted with permission.
Excerpts from “A Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change,”
produced by the Environmental Working Group, 2012. Copyright
© Environmental Working Group, www.ewg.org. Reprinted with
permission.
“Stalking the Vegetannual,” from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
by Barbara Kingsolver and Steven Hopp & Camille Kingsolver.
Copyright © 2007 by Barbara Kingsolver, Stephen L. Hopp, and
Camille Kinsolver. Reprinted with permission of HarperCollins
Publishers.
“The Pringles Problem” by Anne Lappe, from Diet for a Hot Planet,
March 30, 2010. Used with permission by Bloomsbury USA,
www.bloomsburyusa.com
“A look at the $175 in your compost” by Dana Gunders, Switchboard,
from NRDC. Used with permission of the Natural Resources
Defense Council, www.nrdc.org
Bizarro Comic by Dan Piraro, April 22, 2012. Used with permission
of Dan Piraro, www.bizarro.com
Excerpts from Radical Homemaker, p. 12-13, and p. 79-82. By
Shannon Hayes, 2012. Used with permission by Shannon Hayes.
Excerpt from “A Seat at the Table” by Carolyn Steel, OdeWire,
May/June 2012. Used with permission by Ode Magazine,
www.odewire.com
SESSION 4
“12 Features of Sustainable Community Development: Social,
Economic and Environmental Benefits and Two Case Studies” by
Steven W. Peck, Founder and President, Green Roofs for Healthy
Cities, and Dr. Ray Tomalty, Smart Cities. Used with permission of
Steven Peck, www.greenroofs.org
The transcript for “The Shareable Future of Cities” TED Talk by Alex
Steffen, July 2011. Used with permission by the author.
“Inside Ithaca’s EcoVillage” by Katerina Athanasiou, The Cornell
Daily Sun, October 21, 2009. Used with permission.
“Stapleton: Repurposing A Site,” a compilation by Chris Mullins of
information from www.stapletondenver.com/community/better-
plan. Used with permission.
Permissions
136
“To Build Community, an Economy of Gifts” by Charles Eisenstein,
Yes! Magazine, December 27, 2011. Used with permission by Yes!
Magazine, www.yesmagazine.org
“Proposed Nature Park” by Tom Toles. TOLES © 1990. Reprinted
with permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved. www.
universaluclick.com
“How to Build Community.” Artist/Copyright: Karen Kerney, SCW ©
1997. Used with permission. www.syracuseculturalworkers.com/
Syracuse Cultural Workers “Tools for Change” catalog is 40 color
pages of feminist, progressive, multicultural resources to help
change the world and sustain activism. The Peace Calendar, Women
Artists Datebook, over 100 posters on social, cultural and political
themes, holiday cards for Solstice, Christmas, Chanukah, plus
buttons, stickers, T-shirts, notecards, postcards, and books. Great
fundraising products. Box 6367, Syracuse, NY 13217 800.949.5139;
Fax 800.396.1449. 24-hour ordering – Visa/MC email: scw@
syracuseculturalworkers.com
SESSION 5
“Reinventing Fire Transportation Executive Summary” by Amory
Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute. Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)
is an independent, entrepreneurial non-profit thin-and-do tank
that drives the efficient and restorative use of resources. RMI
envisions a world thriving, verdant and secure, for all, forever.
Used with permission, © Rocky Mountain Institute 2011. For more
information, see www.RMI.org
“Visualize Gasoline” by Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute
Blog. Used with permission of the Post Carbon Institute,
www.postcarbon.org
“Chain of Fuels,” from Power Trip by Amanda Little. Copyright ©
2010 by Amanda Little. Reprinted with permission of HarperCollins
Publishers.
“We Love Our Cars, But Can They Be Bad for Us?” by Dan Burden.
Copyright 2012. Used courtesy of Dan Burden and The Walkable
and Livable Communities Institute (WALC) of Port Townsend, WA.
“Little Town Makes Big Leap toward Smart Travel” Author
Unknown, from Public Transportation Features, September 20,
2011. Used with permission of Washington State Department of
Transportation, www.wsdot.wa.gov
“Las Cruces, New Mexico: Safe Routes to School Trailblazers” by
National Center for Safe Routes to School. Used with permission.
www.saferoutesinfo.org/
“Comparing Emission Reduction Strategies” by Todd Litman.
Abstracted from: Todd Litman (2012), “Comprehensive Evaluation
of Transport Energy Conservationand Emission Reduction Policies,”
forthcoming in Transportation Research A. Todd Litman (2005),
and “Efficient Vehicles Versus Efficient Transportation: Comparing
Transportation Energy Conservation Strategies,” Transport Policy,
Vo. 12/2, March, pp. 121-129; at www.vtpi.org/cafe.pdf. Used with
permission of Todd Litman.
“How to Make Biking Mainstream: Lessons From the Dutch” by
Jaw Walljapser, YES! Magazine, September 29, 2010. Used with
permission of YES! Magazine, www.yesmagazine.org
“Complete Streets Fundamentals” by the National Complete
Streets Coalition, used with permission by the National Compete
Streets Coalition, www.completestreets.org
“Traffic Infusing Traffic” cartoon by Ian Lockwood, ITE
Journal, March 2012. Used with permission of the Institute of
Transportation Engineers, www.ite.org
Permissions
SESSION 6
“Detroit Speech” by Robert F Kennedy, used with permission by the
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Justice and Human Rights,
www.rfkcenter.org
“What Isn’t For Sale?” by Michael J Sandel, The Atlantic,
April 2012. Used with permission by Tribune Media Services,
www.tribunemediaservices.com
“Fight Consumerism: Love Your Stuff!” by James Shelley,
May 3, 2011. Used with permission of Mr. James Shelley,
www.jamesshelley.net
“Where Our Paychecks Go” adapted from graph by Jennifer
Langston, Sightline Daily, April 13, 2012. Used with permission of
Sightline Daily, www.sightline.org
True Price Activity used with permission of Institute for Humane
Education (IHE)  www.humaneeducation.org. IHE believes that
education is the key to creating a just, humane, and sustainable
world for all people, animals and the environment, and offer
programs and resources designed to train, educate and inspire
people to become humane educators and changemakers who live
with compassion and integrity and work to solve the most pressing
challenges of our time.
“Off the Pedestal: Creating a New Vision of Economic Growth” by
James Gustave Speth, Yale360, May 31, 2011. Used with permission
of Mr. James Speth and Yale360, www.e360.yale.edu
Excerpts from EcoMind by Frances Moore Lappe. Copyright © 2011
Frances Moore Lappe. Reprinted by permission of Nation Books, a
member of Perseus Books Group.
“Saving the Earth on the Cheap” by Paul Rauber, Sierra Magazine,
January/February 2009. Reprinted with permission of Sierra
International, Sierra Magazine.
SESSION 7
“Free Your (Eco)Mind” by Frances Moore Lappe, YES! Magazine,
April 20, 2012. Used with permission of YES! Magazine,
www.yesmagazine.org
“On Gratitude” by Alex Stark, LifeSherpa Magazine, July 2003.
Used with permission of Alex Stark and LifeSherpa Magazine,
http://magazine.lifesherpa.com
“To Live or Not to Live” by Derrick Jensen, Orion Magazine, May/
June 2011. Used with permission of Orion Magazine and Derrick
Jensen, www.orionmagazine.org
“Boulder Votes to Free Its Electric Company” by Valerie Schloredt,
YES! Magazine, March 26, 2012. Used with permission of YES!
Magazine, www.yesmagazine.org
Excerpt from The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding, Copyright 2011.
Tontor Media. Used with permission of the author.
“Living Green Isn’t A Sacrifice” by Donella Meadows. Used with
Permission by the Donella Meadows Institute.
NORTHWEST EARTH INSTITUTE
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