What Will It Take?

Churches have been getting involved in the environmental movement. According to the New York Times, eighty-six evangelical Christian leaders decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming. Other articles characterize reducing carbon emissions as a moral, ethical or spiritual issue, emphasizing that intellect alone is failing to motivate people to change their behavior.

I’ve been participating with a local faith community—a Unitarian Universalist congregation. We adopted a covenant which includes these words: we join with one another . . seeking . . ecological sustainability. However, after several years, I’ve seen no actions resulting from those words. Every Sunday folks drive their cars to church, spewing about a ton of carbon. The uninsulated meeting house is heated with fossil fuel. After the service a fellowship hour takes place in an adjacent old house, heated with fossil fuels, uninsulated. I found the disjuncture between words and action too jarring and stopped attending services.


But last Sunday I got a phone call asking me to come and look at the church’s 4th of July Parade float. I designed the float three years ago. It’s powered by two bicycle riders.

Late Sunday morning found me in the Fellowship Hall talking with some UU friends and acquaintances. One man, who invested $207,000 in solar thermal panels and a ground source heat pump system for his home, told me he believes Americans will not take the actions necessary to avert climate catastrophe. A woman passing by overheard his comment, and, smiling, said, “They just don’t get it, do they?”


I had a hard time keeping my mouth shut. I believe we need to be at zero carbon emissions right now, and need to be removing carbon from the atmosphere until it’s below 350 ppm. This woman and her husband each drive fossil-fuel-burning cars, live in a large fossil-fuel-burning waterfront home in suburban sprawl, and as far as I know have done frick-all to reduce their carbon emissions. Yet somehow she has concluded “They don’t get it.”


Her remark haunted me the rest of the day. And the next. I began wondering, “What is she thinking? She’s an intelligent, well-informed, good-hearted person. How has she managed to overlook her part in exacerbating climate disruption and place all the blame on ‘them’?”


It’s not just climate disruption. There’s the Gulf oil spill, the cancer epidemic, poisons and carcinogens in our food, water, air, and soil; animals going extinct, fish populations sadly depleted or gone, oil wars the presidents say will never end. This list has no apparent end either. This information is frightening, it makes me feel helpless, it makes me feel sad and discouraged, it makes me feel complicit and guilty. How am I to respond?


One option is to block it out-- to not think about it. In response to my last post, one reader e-mailed me: “Try not to think about the Gulf.” A friend told me, “Why do you choose to think about depressing things? I choose to think about joyful things!” I understand this impulse. However, I liken it to the good people of Germany under Hitler’s rule who chose to not think about the holocaust.


A second option is to let it in. Let it in to my mind and heart. Then what will happen? I will feel frightened, helpless, sad, discouraged, complicit and guilty. How do we normally respond to overwhelming feelings like these? One typical response is fear—fear that we’ll fall into a deep depression and never emerge.

That fear leads to numbing out my emotional side. On the other hand, if I have the courage to let it all in, I’ll find myself going through the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief.


1. Denial: “Oh my God! It’s not really happening; it’s not true. It’s a liberal hoax!”


2. Anger: “Dammit, why don’t they do something about this!”


3. Bargaining: “If I recycle my plastic water bottles, and use a cloth shopping bag, then I won’t have to feel these feelings, will I?”


4. Depression: “No one seems to care or is doing anything about theses things. It’s hopeless.”


5. Acceptance: “Yes, I’m part of this whole problem. I don’t know what to do. But I’m going to start finding solutions.”


I’m going to put a reminder on the dashboard of my car: THIS CAR IS A DEATH MACHINE. I want to be reminded every time I drive it that I’m adding to climate disruption. I want my passengers to know I own the responsibility, the guilt, the complicity.


Cars are death machines.
Making cars kills ecosystems.
Collisions kill millions of humans.
Animals are crushed into the asphalt,
one million per day in the USA! One million!
Exhaust gases cause climate disruption.
Armies kill to take oil to fuel cars.
Don't try to tell me cars aren't death machines!


I’m not stuck in depression. Yes, every day I witness thoughtless behaviors, thoughtless destruction, people spraying toxic substances on so-called weeds in their asphalt driveway, substances now in the air, soil, water, food, causing cancer and brain tumors. Today on my bike ride I removed seven dead animals, my brother and sister animals, from the streets. What tragic deaths!


Yet I also felt the joy of seeing an osprey soaring high overhead, seeing and smelling flagrantly lush roses and peonies, feeling the sea air on my arms and chest, the warm sun on my back. I’m letting it all in. How about you?

In other words, I let it all flow through me. Some of it hurts me; some if it thrills me. I received help in arriving at this place: Joanna Macy’s The Work That Reconnects. I would never have been able to do this alone. I needed a wise elder to lead me in group exercises where the walls numbing my heart were able to crumble. Corporate America wants to keep us isolated; locked in fear, unable to open our hearts to Corporate Destruction. If you’d like to explore The Work That Reconnects, there are likely trained facilitators in your area. Find one. Sign up for a workshop. Come back to life.

As far as I can see, the statement issued by the evangelical churches has accomplished frick-all. I think/feel the energy of that initiative, and others like it, goes no deeper than the level of ego and intellect, failing to be empowered by soul. Soul? Yes, soul, the level of the gods. Or Higher Power. Or however you name that which is greater than you. If you do. It’s apparent to me that we humans, guided by ego and intellect, are still fouling our own nest. We’re certainly fouling the Gulf of Mexico, the seas it’s connected with, and the shores of those seas.


I spent several years in a twelve-step program-AlAnon. One of the many things I learned there is a person does not change addictive behaviors, regardless how self-and-other-destructive the behaviors are, until the person hits bottom. It took hitting bottom to get me into the program. Up to that point I did not believe I was like “those people”. Now I get that I am exactly like those people.


We in the USA are going to have to hit bottom before we kick our oil addiction and other addictions that are murdering uncountable forms of life on Earth. I think we’re gonna have to hit real hard. At the moment it’s still too easy to pull our big fat black SUVs up to the gas pump and fill ‘er up with $2.75 gas. I don’t know about your gas pump, but the one where I buy gas only reads in dollars, not lives lost in the Middle East, the Gulf of Mexico, Africa, South America. Nor the horrors likely to be visited upon future generations as a result of climate disruption and the myriad other crimes against Earth we’re nonchalantly committing each and every day.


I’m not qualified to predict when or how we in the USA are going to hit bottom. There are smarter folks than I who have given it a great deal of thought. Chris Martenson posted a new report this week, in which he states: “Our date with an oil supply shock now seems probable for the 2011 to 2012 timeframe.” And: “It would not be too strong to suggest that our federal commitment to energy efficiency is a farce.” I highly recommend his Crash Course as a basic primer in what’s likely coming your way in the next few years. The Crash Course is, IMHO, concise joyful learning at its best.


Another more-qualified-than-I is Johan Galtung, founder of the field of peace and conflict studies. He is a guest on Democracy Now this week, and his prediction is: “(The US is) an empire against a wall; an empire in despair; an empire, I would say, in its last phase. My prediction . . . is it cannot last longer than 'til about 2020. And that could lead to (fascism) or the blossoming of the US. . .”


So what am I doing in the midst of oil spills, oil shocks and collapsing empires? In July I’m moving to central Maine, where I’ll explore acquiring multi-family properties and renovating them into zero-emission true communities. I don’t know if the numbers will work, but I don’t know what else to do. Gotta try something! As my life coach Kerry says, ”Jim, throw some spaghetti on the wall! See if it sticks!” Wish me luck!

Dear Great-grandson

Dear Great-grandson,

Son of ______,
who is son of Shanti and Kasia,


This is Jim Shipsky, your Great-grandfather writing to you from the past. I hope this finds you well and joyful!


Today, May 7, 2010, oil is gushing from a ruptured well-head some 5000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. All kinds of sea life are suffering and dying as a result. Most of us humans have yet to realize we must stop using, that is, burning oil. Very few of us have managed to find ways to live without oil. We have very, very few leaders who model for us how to live without harming the many beings with whom we share this blue-green planet named Earth. I pray that I may be such a leader.


Maybe when you read this in the year 2040 or later, the Great Turning will be a fait accompli. I smile as I imagine you and your family and friends enjoying energy from the Sun, the Winds, the Tides. And maybe someone will have been shown new ways of channeling energy from Spirit, adding Soul to simple everyday acts. Maybe there will be no wars in your world. Maybe the idea will have spread over the Internet that we are all in this together and that only love can guide us in sustainable ways. No, more than that: only love can guide us to survival.


Great-grandson, I smile when I envision your world with no cars, no highways, no eighteen-wheeler trucks, no airliners, but only people walking, talking, greeting each other, maybe riding solar-powered trains, or biking along narrow lanes bordered with flowers, vegetables, and fruit trees.


Great-grandson, I hope you will have no cause to hate or curse me for not having done more, for not taking the necessary steps so that you could enjoy this beautiful Earth in ways similar to what I have.


Great-grandson, I hope and pray you will be able to tell your children and grandchildren that I played a part in the Great Turning from the Industrial Growth Society to the Life Sustaining society.


With much love,


Your Great-grandfather Jim Shipsky

Wanna Be An Architect?

I’m an architect. Always have been. It’s been my lifelong passion. I love making buildings, places, parts of buildings, oak doors, bold glass windows, tupelo tables, pine benches, steep roofs, douglas fir floors, concrete foundations, steel beams—all of it. Now my passion is to make, and help others make, zero emission community buildings. Buildings that contain dwellings, gathering places, workplaces, play places, Nature places, sun places, garden places, joy places.
Sometimes it seems to me about half the people I meet say to me, “You know, when I was in high school or college I thought about being an architect.” Maybe you’re one of them? Well, here’s your chance!

There are two major categories in the design of a zero emissions community:

1. The social arrangement: how many dwellings, how they’re arranged, how much gathering space located where, how much work space located where, and so on. Bear in mind our goal is to create a community that will powerfully attract people who would otherwise choose a single-family detached sprawl house in suburbia:

2. The requirements of good, durable, efficient construction. Foremost is avoiding water leaks, both visible and concealed. Anyone in the building trades can tell you how determined water is to get into buildings. Frank Lloyd Wright buildings are notorious for leaks. The Hancock tower in Boston leaked due to water driven upwards by wind pressure. Concealed leaks cause—usually rapid—deterioration of the structure. That’s not sustainable.

OK, let’s get started. To keep it simple at this stage, let’s omit the common spaces. Here is my essential list of requirements for the dwellings:

• Provide a minimum of about 30 dwellings. There are two reasons. First, the cohousing movement has determined through trial and error that at any given time some members of the community will not be on speaking terms with some other members, or some will be in the mood for a period of privacy, and so on. At such times having fewer than 30 households will lower the number of people who do want to hang out together to below the critical mass for a vibrant gathering.

Second, consider the physics of heat loss. A single-family detached house loses heat through its four walls (often walls having multiple angles, bays, projections, etc.), its roof, and its floor. If that house were the center unit of a triplex, it would have zero heat loss through its two common walls. If it also had connected dwellings above and below, it would have zero heat loss in those directions. Then its only heat loss would be its front and rear walls. If those walls are insulated to R75 and made airtight, suddenly heating the house with solar energy becomes easy and economical. The same is true of heat gain in summer conditions when cooling may be desired.

 • Let every dwelling face south, and place the majority of glazing to the south for passive solar gain. If you’re not familiar with the PassivHaus movement, Wikipedia has a good article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house.

 • Provide outdoor space at the main level of every dwelling. We need to spiritually reconnect with Earth. There needs to be just enough space for four people to sit in the sun, under the sky, or under an awning and enjoy the outdoors. And enough space to grow some tomatoes, other vegetables, herbs, and flowers. This space needs to feel as if it is a continuation of the adjacent indoor space. Frank Lloyd Wright used two deceptively simple devices to accomplish this: he made the floor level and material the same as the interior floor, and he extended the interior ceiling out over the exterior space in some manner. Such an arrangement gives a person on the interior the physical perception that the interior not only continues outward to the terrace, but also is continuous with the entire Universe. This terrace needs to face south. Of course there will be larger outdoor spaces beyond the building-yards, gardens, orchards and so on.

• Use a design process that results in each dwelling being unique, and gives the complex an organic identity. The design method I learned in a school of architecture is to design one dwelling, then replicate that design over and over. Or design three or four variations of a basic layout, and replicate those. This process produces very boring results. You’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of such buildings. Here’s a typical one in Hull, MA:

The architect tried to take off the boring curse by curving the building, introducing recesses and projections, but it fails. It’s boring.

Here’s an example in Cohasset, MA where the architect attempted to make each part of the building unique:

This architect tried way too hard. The result is tortured with so-called “features” like some kind of rampant architectural skin disease. This building, under construction in 2010, is attempting to look old fashioned. Old fashioned sells here in New England. But this building doesn’t feel old fashioned, it only feels fake. There are two difficulties. First, true architecture must reflect the time in which it is created. Reproducing historical genres always results in fakes. We can’t advance by staring into the rear view mirror. Given that old fashioned architecture possesses qualities lacking in most modern architecture, let’s realize we cannot reproduce that quality by mimicking old buildings. That quality did not result in the old buildings by their architects trying to do old-timey fakes. Second, this entire design was produced at once, probably by one person. It can’t avoid having a sense of uninspired sameness. Compare it with this example from Berne, Switzerland:

What a difference! No striving to “make a statement”, as so many contemporary architects do. As they learned in architecture schools they must do. Here in Berne a different design process was used, one my mentor Chris Alexander espouses. Each segment of this row of buildings was built at a different time, by a different person. Each succeeding segment responded to the one that came before, respecting the design vocabulary that had been established, yet introducing subtle differences in windows, masonry joints, dormers, street-level arches, storefronts, and cornices. Notice the wonderful gift to the community of a covered arcade protecting pedestrians from rain and snow, providing natural places for friends and acquaintances to stop and chat.

 How can this design process be adapted to designing a zero emissions community? The urgency of climate disruption will not allow years or decades of gradual growth. Models of truly sustainable buildings are urgently needed. A design process described by Chris Alexander’s A New Theory of Urban Design would have each unit designed by a different person. Given the Berne model of calm order and led by an experienced architect, I believe it is possible for such a group to design a beautiful zero emissions community.

One design problem I’m struggling with concerns the outdoor space. I believe a terrace must be immediately adjacent to every dwelling. Assuming a 3-story building, the terrace must not project out from the structure, for it would block solar gain from spaces below. Therefore in one of my initial designs I stepped each story back:

drawing by Jim Sandell

What worries me about this is the afore-mentioned water leaks. Each terrace is positioned above interior living space below. The current method of construction would use “rubber” roofing below the terrace. However, this material has a limited lifespan, and replacing it would be disruptive and expensive. Both the Hull and Berne buildings can last hundreds of years with no worry of terrace leakage.


But they have no terraces. I’d love to find a way to have terraces without depending on limited lifespan waterproofing materials. Here’s where I’m asking for your design creativity. Surely there are numerous ways of accomplishing this. Send me your ideas, in words or sketches. Design a community building that you’d like to live in! Use paper, CAD, SketchUp, clay, cardboard, photography, whatever inspires you.

The Chicken or the Egg?

Thierry posted this question in his comments on my February post:

Is there anyone out there modeling for us the goal in a manner which is compelling and attractive on a number of levels? Jim, can you introduce us to communities which already exist and are thriving?

Unfortunately Thierry, at this time, my answer is “No.” In the US there are plenty of cities and larger towns where one can live low-emissions. But my target audience—folks now living in suburbia—clearly are not attracted to either cities or larger towns. I’ve heard there are multi-family PassivHaus dwellings in Germany, but I don’t have any info on them yet. I just e-mailed Katrin Klingenberg at passivehouse.us asking for leads to research this.

Wendy posted a number of challenging comments recently:

Give up their cars? Are you kidding? It's not going to happen until people, again the vast majority, are forced by circumstances beyond their control. Who is going to have the money to buy the places you want to see built?


Wendy, I have no hopes of reaching the vast majority now. What I’d love is to reach a handful of folks who want to share a multi-family dwelling and live without adding to Earthocide. I’m talking about some very, very low-hanging fruit. Some early, very early adopters. Folks who know they don’t want a big car, a big house, and a lot of stuff. I’m envisioning compact, connected dwellings selling in the $90,000 USD range. I know quite a few singles in their 40s, 50s, 60s (me), and 70s who would adore to buy into a sweet little community like that. How about you?


I agree that suburbanites are not going to demand affordable, sustainable homes. US suburbanites are so intimidated by government backed fear-mongering that they won’t even demand good health care, an end to the oil wars, just consequences for Wall street bankers, the truth about 9/11, or good leadership. They’re too scared to demand anything. They’re afraid of losing their jobs, the repo man grabbing their cars, the banker foreclosing their ticky-tacky box. This is the chicken.


There’s yet another reason they remain so docile. They know intellectually that life on Earth is in grave danger and worsening every day. It’s all over the medias. Hard to avoid. They know too that their daily acts—driving their car, heating their home, using electricity, buying all those consumer items, is part of the problem. But they have no idea how to deal with the guilt and grief their actions engender. Andrée Zaleska, writing in Energy Bulletin , Mar 12 2010, nails it: “If we are clinging to trying not to feel bad, then there’s no possibility of real transformation.” The chickens are numb.


So, no, they’re not going to lead the way to sustainability. And no, they’re not going to budge until the dollar cost of gasoline, heating fuels, electricity, food and taxes puts them out in the street. Before that time comes, I want to build some examples of my vision. I want to build and sell sustainable dwellings to folks while they can still sell the sprawl house they now own, before it’s too late. I want their friends and acquaintances to notice the change: their energy security, their food security, their community circle, their entire not-harmful-to-Earth existence. This is the egg. Then there will be demand for more eggs.


Sure there are a lot of other obstacles. Most suburban zoning regulations prohibit healthy diversity; prohibit the sort of multi-family connected dwellings that can be easily powered by renewable energy. But there are a few exceptions. For example, Portland, Maine’s zoning ordinance includes:


R-7 Compact Urban Residential Overlay Zone


. . . to encourage and accommodate compact residential development. Sites suitable for in-city living should be within walking distance of downtown or other work places, shopping and community facilities and have access to public or private off-site parking or transit service. The intent of this zone is to foster increased opportunities for compact in-city living for owners and renters representing a variety of income levels and household types.


OK, it may be too urban to appeal to sprawl-dwellers. Maybe I’ll have to keep looking. But it’s a start. I’ll be visiting Portland soon researching available properties.


I have a hunch that big-time organizations like the National Association of Home Builders, while still focused on sprawl housing, know that for the dead end it is. You’ll find this on their current web page:


Foreclosures Weigh on Builder Confidence in March - 3/15/2010


Once there are successful examples of sustainable communities, NAHB will jump on the bandwagon. There’s plenty of money to be made in sustainability! I’ll end with Wendy’s ending:


May our culture awaken to the many ways in which we can ease our inevitable transition out of hyper-industrialism, hyper-consumerism, and into a sustainable, vibrant, healthy and prosperous in-the-true-sense-of-the-word, economy and society.
Wendy

Wendy's Comment

I liked Wendy’s comment on my first post so much I decided to respond here rather than in the comment area. (Wendy’s question was: I recently read--wish I could find the citation--that it takes 35 years for newly built "green," "sustainable"--and by that I think the writer did mean zero-carbon footprint--houses to "payback." Now of course without more detail, it's not worth arguing with such a claim. But it does suggest to me important questions about the feasibility--economically at the very least--and desirability (EROI?) of building these sustainable dwelling areas you describe.)

First a comment on EROI. Isn’t it peculiar that many folks demand to know the ROI on investments that are vital to survival on Earth, but utterly ignore the ROI on less crucial purchases? People almost always ask me about the ROI on solar systems. But they never think to ask about the ROI on their new couch, new shoes, or new granite countertops. None of those save them money and produce income after the payback period elapses. Not that there is any payback period.


I used to offer a workshop called “Greening Your Suburban Lifestyle”. After a PowerPoint that detailed the energy consumption of the case study suburban house, I divided the participants into two-person teams, giving each team a workbook. The goal of the exercise was for each team to select, from a menu of energy upgrade options, ones that would reach or approach zero emissions, at a cash cost they would be willing to pay in their own lives. Each upgrade option listed its cash cost to implement and its tonnage reduction in carbon output.


To give the exercise powerful impact, there was a third component in scoring this exercise: EROI. Well, sort of. I didn’t actually calculate the energy to produce each upgrade. What I did was look at energy costs of the case study house in 20 years. How many of us ever give a thought to how much we will have to pay for energy in 20 years? Obviously I had to plug in a rate of inflation. In the PowerPoint I showed the 2030 energy costs--for the case study house—inflated at 5, 10, 15, and 20%. To keep the scoring simple, I wanted to use only one rate of inflation. I would ask the participants if they agreed 15% was reasonable, if not actually conservative. I always got agreement.


The energy cost of the case study house was $26,132 in 2010. This includes space heat, hot water, electricity, food energy, 3 cars, trucking, and roads. Running that out 20 years at 15% inflation yields an energy cost of $371,904 in 2030. That was the “Do Nothing” default in the scoring. By the way, do you think you will be able to pay that kind of energy cost in 20 years? Do you see your income going up at 15% annually?


You might ask about my including food energy. I’ve heard the average food item in the supermarket has traveled 1500 miles. I don’t know if that includes those New Zealand organic apples I love or those toxic strawberries from Mexico that glow in the dark. Can this be sustainable? Enjoy ’em while you can folks, peak oil will soon move them to the luxury gourmet aisle.

Or you might question my including roads and trucking. Think about it. We can't live in suburbia without roads to drive our cars on. Building and maintaining pavement, bridges and so on of the 4 million miles of roads in the US has a high dollar and carbon output cost. And we can't live in suburbia without the national fleet of 2 million 18-wheelers rolling 24/7 delivering goods via those roads. So any analysis of greening your suburban house that excludes all that is required to live there is not the whole picture.


OK. The teams could choose upgrade options that would reduce that cost to almost zero in 2030. How? By selecting to move from that suburban sprawl house to a zero-emissions mixed-use congregate living community in a nearby walkable town. By growing a lot of their own food. By owning no cars, using instead a ZipCar for trips unreachable via public transit. And so on.


Back to EROI. By selling the sprawl house for $350,000 and buying the zero-emissions dwelling for $200,000, they saved $2.7 million over 20 years in energy costs alone, not to mention a lowered mortgage payment, and enjoyed the rewards of an extended family of choice. I don’t know how to calculate that ROI, but I know it’s gigantic!


Here’s a story of what happened at my workshop at a UU church in Duxbury, MA. One of the upgrade options was to grow some percentage of your own food: 25, 50, 75 or 100%. One team selected the 100% option twice. Now, it had never occurred to me that anyone would select an option twice, so there was no rule against it. In the closing discussion I asked them what was up with that? The woman replied, “Oh, we’re going to grow food for our neighbor too.”


In Duxbury, MA, that’s the deeper meaning of sustainability!

How Much Must We Reduce Carbon Emissions?

Among my greenish friends and acquaintances, this is a question none agree on. There are numerous opinions floating around:

• 5.2% below 1990 (Kyoto Protocol)
• 20% by 2050 (Step It Up 2050)
• 350 ppm (by unstated time and means) (350.0rg)

I think it’s fair to say that most, if not all of my friends and acquaintances, are undecided, and as a result, none are doing anything significant to reduce their carbon emissions. An unclear goal results in inaction, or avoidance actions.


If you are unclear and undecided about what your carbon emissions goal should be, I’d like to offer some information. The SEED website (http://www.seed.slb.com/subcontent.aspx?id=4120) offers a fun (water flowing into and out of a bathtub), interactive graphic simulator that enables you to try three different options for carbon emissions. There’s also an 8-minute video in which Drew Jones explains the simulator. Watch it first, then play with the simulator.


There are some drawbacks to the simulator. First, the upper limit is set at 450 ppm. That’s obsolete. James Hansen (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/) says the upper limit is somewhere between 300 and 350 ppm. Above that, sudden and catastrophic climate events are likely. We’re at 387 now. How would the simulator behave if revised to show we’re already above the safe level? For levels to drop to 300-350 in a reasonable length of time, say ten years, I believe the simulator would demand zero emissions immediately.


Second, the simulator offers no information on what would need to happen to reach that goal. The simulator combines carbon inputs from burning—burning gasoline, fuel oil, natural gas, coal, wood, bio-fuels, etc., with carbon reductions by plants and sea water. But currently plants (tropical rainforests, temperate forests, etc.) are being destroyed at an incomprehensible rate, and sea water is diminishing in its capacity to absorb carbon.


I’d love to see the simulator revised to enable it to predict what would happen if worldwide carbon emissions dropped to zero and destruction of the biosphere stopped. How many years would it take for Mother Earth to lower carbon to a safe, stable level?


The USA generates about 25% of worldwide carbon emissions. Presumably that can be controlled by the USA. But the USA cannot control the remaining 75% of worldwide emissions. The USA has set the lifestyle example much of the world is now trying to emulate: living in a McMansion in suburban sprawl, one car per driving-age person, a high rate of consumption of short-lived consumer products (http://www.storyofstuff.com/) , an unhealthy diet high in meat and HFCS, cut off from non-human nature, a bubble economy based on debt, and supporting military force to take “resources” from the rest of the world.


I think the USA must now set a new, sustainable example. We need to admit that our current lifestyle is destroying the ecosphere and bringing us little, if any joy. We need to get curious about what other ways to live might be in harmony with Mother Earth and might bring us joy. Might reconnect us with each other and non-human life. There are lots of options available.


I just watched a brilliant talk by Paul Hawken given in 2007 at the Long Now Foundation (http://fora.tv/2007/06/08/Paul_Hawken_New_Great_Transformation#fullprogram). It’s a 45 minute talk followed by 30 minutes of Q & A. Watch it! In this talk Paul shows a film that is simply a list of environmental/social justice groups—available options. The list rolls up the screen like movie credits. Then he says it would take a month to view the whole list at that speed! There are over 100,000 such groups!


He says folks ask him if he’s optimistic about what will happen on Earth vis-a-vis these groups. He replies:


“If you look at the data and you are optimistic, I don't think you are looking at the data. The data is terrible and you know it. I feel like if you look at these people, if you meet them, if you go to WiserEarth, you look at these organizations one by one by one as my staff has done and you are not optimistic about who we are, then you don't have a pulse, so it's both are true, right.”

What Happened To Me

This story happened to me in Massachusetts in the year 2000. I’d been practicing architecture for almost 30 years, always hoping for clients who wanted highly energy-efficient, solar powered buildings. Only a handful came to me over the years. In 2000 I made the decision to refuse projects that would cause an increase in carbon emissions, adding to global climate disruption and contributing to the death of the biosphere.

Suddenly I had a lot of time on my hands! I began reading books on deep ecology, ecopsychology, and some fun, sustainable-vision novels including Ernest Callenbach’s "Ecotopia" and Starhawk’s "The Fifth Sacred Thing". Then I read Joanna Macy’s "World As Lover, World As Self". I felt something move in my core being. Immediately thereafter, I 'just happened' to run across a notice that Joanna was offering a 5-day workshop at the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies in Barre, MA. I registered that day.

Joanna calls her workshops ‘The Work That Reconnects’. Here’s how she describes it on her website (joannamacy.net):

“The Work That Reconnects is a pioneering form of group work that began in the 1970s. It demonstrates our interconnectedness in the web of life and our authority to take action on its behalf. It has helped many thousands around the globe find insight, solidarity, and courage to act, despite rapidly worsening conditions. Based on systems theory, spiritual teachings, and deep ecology, its methods are described in Coming Back to Life, the book I wrote with Molly Young Brown.”


Before long I found myself in a beautiful dharma hall with about 25 others. Maybe it was the second day of the workshop, I’m not sure. What I do recall vividly is Joanna had divided us up into pairs. We sat yoga-style on the floor, facing our partner, knees almost touching. Joanna said, “Tap your partner’s knee. Whoever taps first is partner A, the other B. The exercise is called ‘Open Sentences’. The facilitator speaks the first part of a sentence, and A completes the sentence, speaking to B, making eye contact. A then continues to expand upon the thought for about two minutes, speaking extemporaneously. This continues for three more sentences, and then it’s B’s turn to complete the same four sentences.


I was sitting with a man named Ray. I was A. I had completed the first open sentence, speaking from my intellect, altho I didn’t realize I was doing that. The hall was relatively quiet, with a low murmur of voices all around me. I think the second sentence was: “The way I feel when I imagine what the world will be like for my grandchildren is . . . . . .”


I found myself unable to speak, choked up. I felt tears welling up in my eyes. Suddenly I began sobbing very loudly, over and over, uncontrollably, weeping profusely. I couldn’t stop. I think I scared Ray with my outburst. Then someone else in the room, in the midst of completing that sentence, hearing me, began sobbing along with me! Then another. The memory of what I felt then remains part of my heart, bringing tears to my eyes as I write this.


What happened to me? Joanna had broken my heart open is what happened. All the feelings I had been blocking for so many years, had been numbing myself to, had been afraid of and unwilling to let myself feel, came tumbling out of wherever they were stuffed and flooded into and through my heart. Later Joanna spoke about letting ourselves feel our grief over what we see happening all around us. She said we cannot numb our feelings selectively. If we numb ourself to grief, then we numb ourselves to joy, to love, to all feelings. She spoke about the many reasons we have for not letting ourselves feel our grief about species extinction, nuclear waste, toxins in our food, water, soil, and air. So much to grieve in our world now! Including suburb an sprawl.


At the end of the week I left the workshop with an open heart, willing to feel my part in destroying the biosphere. Whenever I drive my car, I admit to myself I’m part of the problem. Every time I burn fossil fuel to heat my home, I admit I’m part of the problem. Every time I turn on the lights, I think about carbon emissions and nuclear waste at the power plants. Well, not every time. I still numb out a lot. But I do think we need to let these feelings into our hearts to motivate ourselves to stop being part of the problem. If we’re totally numbed out to the consequences of our seemingly benign daily acts, then we won’t become part of the solution. We’ll go on believing that changing a few light bulbs, buying a Prius, recycling our plastic water bottles is all we need to do.


If only everyone in this country, in the whole world, could do a Joanna workshop! Even though Joanna has trained hundreds of facilitators in this work, it’s not enough. My own experience has been that without Joanna, my teacher, I’d still be numbed out and unwilling to step into sustainable territory. I don’t have any answers to how enough folks can have a deep enough change of heart to reach a tipping point, to stop the destruction of this beautiful blue-green biosphere. But answers are needed. Surbrban sprawl is destroying the biosphere one day at a time, relentlessly.


This is what is happening to me in Massachusetts in the year 2010.