Why Optimism Matters

A great article at Worldchanging about the politics of pessimism and the need for optimistic sustainability thinking. "The politics of impossibility" as Alex puts it is:

1) An explicit statement that we are incapable of actually solving the planet's most pressing problems, and that to consider doing so is "unrealistic."

2) A mostly unstated assumption that the reason embracing bold solutions is unrealistic is because those solutions involve unbearable costs.

3) A rarely voiced belief that "realism" ought best to be defined as "in the interests of those doing well today," and that "unbearable costs" ought best to be defined as "any meaningful change in circumstances whatsoever."

4) A widely practiced stance that, therefore, expressions of concern and extremely modest, almost symbolic, small steps and half measures are the appropriate course of action.

Vs.

The politics of optimism:

1) That realism ought best to be defined as "within our capacity" and "necessary."

2) That we have the capacity to create and deploy solutions to the world's biggest problems, and the magnitude of the consequences of failure (both for ourselves and generations to come) demands that we act immediately.

3) That it is possible to act in such a way that the prospects of most people on the planet are improved. While certain costs will be incurred, the returns on those investments will be quite attractive, not only in ecological stability, international security and human well-being, but in terms of plain old economic prosperity. These solutions will make the future better than the present for the almost everyone, and greatly improve the lots of our children and grandchildren.

4) Therefore, defining our win scenarios, imagining the kind of future we want to create, describing the solutions that will make building that future possible, and publicly committing ourselves to success are the appropriate course of action.

The article is well worth a read.

The Next Flight, Green or White?

A new article from Worldchanging about how demographic shifts are leading people back into urban cores, what will happen with all the suburbia that now exist, and the green implications of a US population concentrated in cities.

(Picture Credit:www.theatlantic.com)

On The Mind

Some stuff I’ve been checking out

The Happy City: Paris goes happy, and discovers interacting with people (even strangers, even just enough not to collide while walking down the street) makes people happy.

SAN FRANCISCO IN 2108? - The Hydro-Net Vision of the Future: A plan to transform San Fran (yeah I said it) into the Ecotopia we all knew it could be. Really pretty pictures.

Sk-interfaces (Part 1): Sounds like a really interesting exhibit in Liverpool. Immolation, which explores the US’ use of incendiary weapons (think fire bombs) on civilians, through both the macro (landscape) level and the micro (cells of skin) level.

Oysters To Be Used To New York Waterways

An interesting article from The New York Times about an experimental project to use oyster beds to help purify Hendrix Creek, in the Brooklyn.

Scientists in the last several decades have developed a better understanding of the ability of oysters to filter water. As an adult oyster feeds, it can filter 5 to 50 gallons of water a day, depending on its size and the temperature of the water.

During this process, it absorbs nitrogen, algae and bacteria, depositing them in the sediment at the water’s bottom. The oyster beds also serve as the foundation for an ecosystem that can support other marine species, like eelgrass, which in turn absorb other waste materials and provide habitats for fish.

Students Doing It For Themselves!

Worldchanging has a cool article on The University of Canterbury Students’ Association, which is hosting a green orientation week along with other sustainable initiatives. It’s really awesome to continue to see different student groups at different educational institutions encouraging their schools to go green. My favorite initiative is the “Eco-My-Flat”:

Incorporating community-based social marketing techniques, the team developed an 'Eco-My-Flat' competition. It is to be run over March to promote sustainable student lifestyles, with a workshop each week covering the themes of energy, waste, transport and consumption. Research by Canadian environmental psychologist Doug MacKenzie-Mohr shows that methods advocating change for sustainability need to address specific barriers to behaviour change using a variety of techniques. Therefore, the competition not only gives information, but also guidance from a professional facilitator and a chance to learn from discussion with their peers at the workshops, as well as incentives in the form of prizes.

What We Have Is All They'll Have

If sustainability is harvesting, designing, using, and end-of-life management in ways that will work for hundreds, if not thousands, of years than one important concept to understand is that future generations will only have access to the resources we have today. That is to say every generation does not get their own Amazon forest. The resources we use (or don’t use) today will be all the resources future generations have access to. What are the Sustainability Implications of Peak Population? By Alex Steffen (The broskie) deals with the implications of trying to build a sustainable now, while also realizing that it is going to have to work for or be recyclable by future generations. It’s a typically interesting thought exercise, and for those of you less familiar with The Broskie I recommend you take a look.

The First Green Homeless Shelter

The New York Times today reported on Crossroads, a homeless shelter in Oakland, CA, that is being reported as the first green homeless shelter in the US.

Interesting Though

An interesting bit of food for thought at Worldchanging.

I've been thinking about the fate of declining suburbs, bombed out shrinking old industrial cities and the drying up ghost towns of the high plains, when I came across a journal note mentioning something Bruce Sterling said to me this fall in San Francisco:
"The ruins of the unsustainable are the 21st century's frontier."

Numbers, Please

An interesting article at Worldchanging about corporate green accountability, product backtories, and the winnowing of sustainable companies from those simply greenwashing. The article challenges a piece by Chris Anderson, of Wired, about the sustainability of paper distribution. The basic argument of the Worldchanging piece is that Wired should know its own environmental backstory and, through this knowledge, should be able to produce hard numbers about how it is and is not sustainable. The article also makes the connection between this knowledge and good brand imagery. The comments had a particularly interesting discussion.

Green Jobs, Needed Jobs

I came across an interesting article in the New York Times about Van Jones’ “Green for All” campaign, which is trying to go get 30,000 youth trained in environmentally sustainable industries through a $125 million appropriation by Congress.
Mr. Jones’ whole point is that environmental sustainability is a non-starter without inclusion of all sectors in society, including low-income and people of color. He also thinks that green jobs can be the solution to social inequality and environmental degradation.
"(A) big chunk of the African-American community is economically stranded." (Said Mr. Jones) "The blue-collar, stepping-stone, manufacturing jobs are leaving. And they’re not being replaced by anything. So you have this whole generation of young blacks who are basically in economic free fall.” Green-collar retrofitting jobs are a great way to catch them.
(Photo credit greenforall.org)

Articles of Note

A couple of articles I thought were interesting.

From Ants to People, an Instinct to Swarm. It fascinates me, as an avid believer in the power of the individual, how if you take enough of use you can boil us down to some pretty simple rules of behavior. It reminds of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series.

Investment Firm Names Gore as a Partner is another sign of our ascendance into a sustainable society. It is good news that investment firms are taking an interest in sustainable business.

A Thought for Manifestoists.

I came across this article, A Manifesto for ustainability in Design, at Worldchanging the other day. The first thing that grab my attention was what the author, Allan Chochinov from Core77, said about manifestos.

I don't like the word manifesto. It reeks of dogma and rules—two things I instinctively reject. I do love the way it puts things on the line, but I don't like lines, or groups. So a manifesto probably isn't for me. The other thing about manifestos is that they appear (or are written so as to appear) self-evident. This kind of a priori writing is easy, since you simply lay out what seems obviously—even tautologically—true.

Of course, this is the danger of manifestos, but also what makes them fun to read. And fun to write. So I'll write this manifesto. I just might not sign it.

It makes me think about my own manifesto writing, which was definitely a lot of fun to write. However, it makes sense to say that manifestos draw lines, which are problematic, and that we should consider carefully which, if any, lines we want to draw.