The top 3 things you can do to save the world. Literally.

It’s true. I have a good deal of pride in not owning a car (wouldn’t want to try to afford the upkeep either).

Ride a bike! I happen to live in a very pleasant city, how can I not bike?

Quality living doesn’t need to involve sacrificing. It may simply require purging those habits and things that are less healthy and somewhat destructive., albeit convenient. Thanks for the reminder Rebecca!

@ Daniel – Thanks! I was just commenting on another blog that while some of these habits, such as not owning a car are difficult sometimes, it is actually less stress on me to not have to worry about the financial woes, and driving around/road rage, and finding a parking spot! As an FYI – I do drive occasionally through http://www.communitycar.com.

I own a car, and I doubt I’ll see the day I forgo the trip to Starbucks. Oh, and I live in the far east-side, hardly trendy. I’m scoring pretty badly.

It’s unlikely that we’ll all give up our cars. It raises an interesting point though. The point of discouragement. Al Gore talked about this in his movie “Inconvenient Truth.” The theory is that if we – the people who want to save the environment – ask too much of everybody else, there’s a tendency for them to simply give up on the idea and do nothing at all.

He suggests that we have to find more incremental suggestions because they have a greater chance of being adopted by society at large. Only large spread adoption will have any real impact.

The car is a perfect example. Some of us have to own cars. It’s a cold hard fact. I know that others might be in a position to give up their cars, which is great, but I’m not. And, to be honest, I don’t feel bad about that at all.

I believe it’s less simplistic then coming down to ownership of a car. It’s the types of cars and how often they’re driven. Do we all need to own two cars? Why do we all need to drive huge cars? No other country has such large cars. Only in America. Honestly how many times do you go off-road? Seriously, you’re not the great adventurous type, get a smaller car!

Walking should always be our first mode of transportation. For me it is. I have a small convenience store that is about a half a mile from where I live. That’s pretty much it, but I walk there when I can. I also walk when I’m downtown. I park my car once and walk everywhere afterwards.

Driving a fuel efficient car is a good option for everyone who has to own a car. Despite the implication, there really is no hassle with maintaining a car. I drive a Honda Civic and in the seven years I’ve owned it, I’ve taken it into the shop only once for unscheduled maintenance. That’s hardly inconvenient at all.

While in town, I try to drive my motorcycle as much as I can in place of a car. It gets better gas milage than even the best hybrid cars on the market today.

I also can’t say I agree with the buying local either. I know I’m not going to gain any popularity points here, but I do fall on somewhat a unique side of this discussion.

While I agree, we have to celebrate local, and I do avoid chain restaurants as well. I like to consume quality products, regardless of origin. If the food or coffee is better at a chain, I’ll go there. We’re not just local town consumers, we’re global consumers, and we cannot only celebrate local products, we have to celebrate and consume globally as well.

For example, I get my tortillas from this small town in Mexico. I’m not joking, I do. I mean I buy locally too, but they’re just better from this town. I have family in the area, and they ship them to me whenever they can. They are sooo good. Much better than the local versions of fresh tortillas found in Madison. They remind me of my time in Mexico, where everything is eaten with a tortilla.

And just to put me in an even less than favorable category, I have to defend Starbucks here. There really is only one Starbucks on State Street. I think you might be thinking of the one on Capitol Square. There are also non-Starbucks coffee shops on every block of State Street. It’s a popular place to drink coffee, being so close to campus and the shopping district.

I go to Starbucks because I like the coffee. Actually I like the Chi. Other coffee places seem to have too much cinnamon in their Chi. I am by no means a coffee expert, so perhaps I’m defending crappy coffee. To me, such things are subjective. I haven’t really heard a great argument for why I should stop going. So I go.

But let’s get off coffee and talk about the big missing item, paper consumption. More so than any other form of pollution, paper consumption impacts the environment. As an industry it is the fifth largest energy consumer. It takes some 98 tons of resources to produce just one ton of paper. It impacts it in several key ways:

1. Production Impact
The production of paper products. Pulp and paper mills in the US produce some 245,000 metric tons of toxic air pollutants every year (i.e. sulfur, chloroform, dioxin, and furan – all of which have known health risks.)

Over a million acres of forests are cleared every year in the US. With the removal of these trees we’re killing off species, destroying natural habitats, adversely effecting climate and erosion control.

2. Consumption Impact
Paper is the single largest component of municipal solid waste (about 40%). When the components of the paper products break down, they release methane, a known greenhouse gas. Most of the inks on printed paper are toxic and can eventually contaminate ground water as the paper products continue to decompose.

Paper products are everywhere and reducing them is easy.
1. Cancel your newspaper subscription. Take the time to go out an buy the paper – if and when you want to read it or share a subscription with a neighbor.
2. Cancel any magazine subscriptions you’re not using.
3. Get a reusable coffee cup (instead of using the paper one given to you by the Starbucks – *** or insert other coffee place name here *** – folks.
4. Don’t print your emails out!! They’re called emails for a reason.
5. Recycle, Recycle, Recycle.
6. Buy echo-friendly pens.
7. Give away your old books instead of tossing them in the trash.
8. Reuse paper – write on both sides before recycling it.

Lastly, and perhaps even more importantly, I’d suggest giving your time and money to a NGO (Non-Government Organization). NGOs can impact the world in ways we as individuals cannot. They have global influence on most of the issues we find important, such as global warming. Because they’re not politically based, their operating budgets are smaller and they can operate within politically torn environments to get things done.

Read Bill Clinton’s book, “Giving – How Each of Us Can Change the World.” He goes in to greater detail on exactly how these organizations can provide the leverage we all need to make a global impact.

Our lives differ, so naturally our top three lists will differ as well. I’ve been involved in this issue for the better part of my life and I’m always happy to see it at the forefront of discussion. Thanks Rebecca from bringing it up here.

@ Dan – Let’s re-frame some of the arguments that laid out in terms of design, and how the implementation of better design can alleviate some of the problems you talked about.

1. Urban Design – Imagine if cities were no longer designed around the car, but other forms of (less environmentally degrading) transportation. Rebecca mentioned her “walkability” score and that within her “walkshed” she has many opportunities for leisure and shopping. What if the city leveraged it resources to increase the walkability score of your neighborhood? We don’t all have to live downtown, but poor design outside the downtown core increases the probability of using your car to get from point A to point B.

2. Paper and the Importance of the Product Lifecycles.
Paper is one example of a product lifecycle that has a dirty backstory (pollution, energy, natural resource depletion..) and if we look closely at other products, they have similar faults. Recycling is good, reusing is better, but what if the product was returned to the producer to be remade into a new, better product? This cradle-to-cradle thinking pioneered by McDonough and Braungart could revolutionize the way we use and interact with consumer products in our daily lives.

Want more “do-gooder” book suggestions?
Worldchanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century – Steffen

Cradle to Cradle – McDonough and Braungart

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution – Hawken, Lovins and Lovins

You Can’t Eat GNP – Davidson

Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimist’s World – AtKisson

A lot more here:
http://uwsustainability.com/resources/booklife.html

Sustainably Yours-
~David

@Dan- One of the central points of McDonough’s argument is that “waste equals food.” The leftovers from one process (or material that is at the end of its useful life) should not go to the landfill, but should be reincorporated into other, better products. True, we as humans are never going to have an ecological footprint of zero, but we need to stop operating the Earth like a business in liquidation and start treating it like our home.

You are right that there is no silver bullet that is going to solve the energy crisis, waste problem or any of the other social and environmental ills we face. We do have a big gun filled with silver buckshot that is just waiting for someone to pull the trigger and release the the flow of ideas and technologies that can starting moving us in a more sustainable direction.

Congratulations on your friend giving up his SUV, the issues that we are talking about here are relevant in almost every sector in the economy. From SUVs and paper to coffee and web 2.0. What we need to keep in mind with all of these is the relative impact that is made with each change. Choosing an alternate mode of transportation is in fact a big step, while directing your buying power toward more eco-friendly pens might have a negligible impact. As Eric Davidson says, we have to steer clear of “False Complacency from Partial Success” (or “Not Beating the Wife As Much As Before”). Small changes are good, but we should be cautious to throw our hands up in victory until the systemic changes we need start to appear across the board.

If you have been following this thread and are in Madison, you might be interested in this event on Thursday:

Raising Our Game: Future of Sustainable Business
10/17/07, 4:30pm, Grainger Hall, 975 University Ave.
http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/events/event.php?id=716

Companies view themselves increasingly as “corporate citizens,” characterized by a growing focus on social and environmental issues as part of their business strategy. Linked to these changes in the business world, sustainability is also becoming a bigger part of business school curricula. What is the business case for organizations to re-define their bottom line and what is the competitive advantage of corporate citizenship in an increasingly global economy? What are some future scenarios that might play out across industries? How can the trends toward entrepreneurship and innovation serve as leapfrog solutions? How can the business school curriculum address corporate social responsibility and what are some career opportunities for business school students interested in this area?

And after the talk, everyone can go to the MAGNET happy hour….of course…

@David
I agree. And your insightful perspective is exactly why I contribute to these discussions. I believe these issues are resolved only through such exchanges.

Put simply, I don’t claim to have the answer. I invite the discussion that proves me wrong and further educates me on these issues.

In the meantime, I operate within the realm of my best intentions. To Rebecca’s point, perhaps that’s not enough anymore. Perhaps we’ve turned a corner as a society that only reverts itself with an extreme about face. I hope we’re not there, but again, I’d rather be wrong than live in the infallibly of a lost world.

As you can probably tell, I can’t seem to quiet myself regarding this topic (among others). I’m addicted to proactive discussions. Especially a discussion such as this that can translate to a meaningful outcome.

@David
I agree in the literal sense no one has “the answer” but, just to be clear, I was speaking from the general meaning of the phrase.

Regarding echo systems, your question is relevant, and I see an “ecosystem-like” series of solutions that will clearly lead us in the right direction.

And it’s obviously stated that no one party or organization is going to be the solver to the problems we face. In all these areas I find us in agreement.

In fact, I’m not concerned about the best intentions of people like you and me at all, I get the impression that you’re actually concerned about improving the world.

However, it’s the “all or nothing” extremist approach that I don’t find to be meaningful. Going back to the car issue. For me that’s like saying we can prevent rape by all refraining from sex. Yes, it will indeed solve that nasty issue of rape, but it also presents some other problems. For some, giving up sex wouldn’t be a big deal at all. After all people do it all the time. I think you know where I’m going with this, so I’ll digress.

I’m not after convincing you. I’m not after convincing Rebecca or anyone else who has the fortitude to bring this issue to the table. She raises three great suggestions. You raised several approaches I haven’t even thought of. The discussion has been a positive one for me.

I am, however, after convincing the nay-sayers. The people who – if you suggested that they give up their SUVs – would laugh or probably maim you and accuse you of talking funny. There are a lot of them out there, in fact I’m pretty sure they out number us. These are the people who don’t believe in global warming. Still others are creating an anti-effort. Not to mention the ignorant.

Recently, I was in a conversation with this girl the other day. She’s a UW graduate. I mentioned Al Gore and she said – I’m not lying here – “Al Gore, isn’t he that French guy?”

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Did I just hear that?

The message isn’t being received.

Your question of “What do you bring to the table?” is inconsequential to me personally. I trust you’re doing your part, I know I’m doing mine. I don’t see the relevance of convincing one another respectively.

As I said, I’m not after you. I’m after the people who don’t believe at all. Because without their efforts, what we’re doing is only half an effort. Adn for them, it’s going to have to be served up on a plate. A 1-2-3 prepackaged solution. With the car, it’s going to have to be zero emission and still be able to drive up the fictitious mountain all in one. They’re not giving up they’re way of life.

They don’t take well to peer pressure. They don’t want to adjust or inconvenience themselves in anyway to help out. They’re scientists, they’re government officials, business people, they’re integrated in all aspects of society and we have to provide the incremental options that speak to them, while simultaneously adopting the aforementioned ideas into popular culture. Redesigning an entire ecosystem takes time. And while it’s a great long term approach, we need something more immediate and universal.

How are you communicating to them?

How about saving trees but printing online magazines ; )

@Dan- Sorry to lump everything you said into one reply, but I have looming deadlines today… I think incentives play a big role in the decisions that people make. Most people act rationally, and make decisions based on the information and values that they hold. Approaching the problem from that angle, if the easiest and cheapest way to get from point A to point B is to hop in your car, then that is what most people are going to do. Let’s step back and look at the externalities that are a result of the car trip such as air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions etc., which are not included in the price of the trip. If the economic system were to incorporate those costs, then the easiest and cheapest mode of transportation might become the bus / bike walking. Unless people are well informed (and care) about the externalities of their actions, then no change is going to be made. This is where better public transportation, bike routes, city planning, and the internalizing of externalities of environmentally degrading activities comes into play.

We have entered what some people are calling the “environmental century.” We have quite a way to go (at least a generation) before the level of environmental literacy is where it needs to be so the memes we have been talking about are deeply rooted into society. 5 years ago did you ever think Al Gore would be putting on a global concert (Live Earth), or that most major magazines have a dedicated “Green Issue.”? We are at the very beginning of a cultural transformation, and the leaders are currently being put in place to get us to where we need to be as fast as possible.

The necessary systemic changes that we need aren’t going to happen overnight, but there are still plenty of individual actions that can be taken by people who are on the leading edge. For everyone else, they will catch up when they lift their head up and realize that everyone around them has become a lean mean green machine.

What a great conversation!

While I have not given a ton of attention and energy to taking better care of the environment, I’ve recently realized that there’s no excuse for that and that it’s an important part of who I want to be.

While the prospect of getting rid of my car sounds unworkable right now, I’m not going to rule it out. Furthermore, the simple things we can do are as good for us as they are for the environment because they help us move outside ourselves.

Rebecca, have you heard of the slow food movement?