HumanKindMedia

Concerned about our global footprint? Help educate a girl

In an unusual and inspiring conversation hosted by Swissnex last week in San Francisco, Mathis Wackernagel, founder of Global Footprint Network, was not talking about increasing food production, reducing carbon emissions, or lowering consumption. He spent most of the evening talking about co-presenter Ann Cotton's work at The Campaign for Female Education (Camfed) in Africa.

Cotton and Wackernagel came together as part of Swissnex's ongoing program for "connecting the dots" between science, higher education, art and innovation for exchange and collaboration between innovators in Switzerland, the US and other countries.

In this conversation, the two described their first meeting at the Skoll World Forum (both have received Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship). After a chance seating arrangement next to Ann, Wackernagel realized a connection between the outcomes Ann was describing and the goals he was looking at for sustainability. Since then they have been looking at ways to work together to educate leaders, countries, communities, and NGO's about this correlation.

Ann Cotton and Camfed have been HumanKind Media favorites since this interview Liz did with Ann and Camfed graduate Fiona Muchembere. Fiona, you may remember, is now a human rights lawyer, and serves as director of Camfed’s alumnae network of 8,000 African women as well as being a big supporter of those girls herself (she sponsors 22).

Wackernagel is a Swiss native and PhD in community and regional planning from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he created the Ecological Footprint, a science-based sustainability tool that measures how much of the Earth's resources we use, how much we have and who uses what.

In 2003, he and Susan Burns co-created Global Footprint Network with a mission to work with countries and cities, companies and individuals to monitor current ecological resource balances and to plan for the future, with the ultimate goal of reducing humanity's worldwide use back down to a "one planet" footprint. Check out the link to see when we passed the "one planet" mark (meaning we exceeded the Earth's bio-capacity.) You can assess your own footprint if you haven't already, here, or for eye-opening world footprint data click here.

Global Footprint Network aims to make the Ecological Footprint as prominent a metric as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to help countries begin to plan for sustainability. By 2015, through its flagship Ten-In-Ten Campaign, they hope to have ten countries managing their ecological wealth in the same way they manage their finances. To date, the list of countries, companies, NGO's and collaborators is growing and the case stories are impressive.

Last month on their 5th anniversary, GFN released their Africa report which examines the possibilities for managing African resources to advance African goals for ending poverty and disease within a sustainable development model. In spite of the fact that individual Africans' resource consumption is extremely small - in many cases not enough to adequately provide for
themselves and their families - rising population is bringing the region close to its ecological limits, according to Global Footprint Network's report.

Using scientific standards for the footprint to measure a country's bio-capacity combined with the UN's Human Development Index as an indicator of socio-economic development, Wackernagel is an evangelist for female education as a way to ensure Africa’s growth and development within the one-planet sustainability window. He says, "For $2 billion a year, just by investing in girls, you could transform all of Africa. This is one of the best investments we could make to achieve human development goals that can persist in the face of, and even help alleviate, resource constraints."

The pair make a compelling argument for the direct impact of female education on Humanity's Ecological Footprint: Girls who receive an education and can make decisions regarding their lives have a higher likelihood of marrying their peers at an appropriate age; they have fewer and more healthy children, are more likely to positively affect the health and education of their children, and contribute to their communities. They also earn significantly higher income than their peers--15 to 20% more per year of high school education.

As an illustration of this, last year Camfed and its alumae organization, Cama, supported more than 408,000 kids in school, had amassed 2,700 partner schools, and developed 380 community health care workers. The over 8,000 alumnae of the organization are sponsoring schooling of over 25,000 African children themselves.

Among the alums are filmmakers and program managers for Camfed in their countries; there are also assemblywomen, physical therapists, doctors, nurses, human rights lawyers, and business owners. In the UN Chronicle Ann says, "For the Millennium Development Goals to become a reality rather than just a broken promise, the rights—and dreams—of rural girls and women must remain at the forefront of policy planning and strategies. The education of girls and young women—with its dividends of poverty alleviation, gender equality, HIV/AIDS reduction—is the single most effective means by which so many of the problems blocking Africa’s development can be overcome."

In March, Goldman Sachs announced their 10,000 Women initiative which includes a partnership with Camfed to provide rural girls with post high school education in business, financial management, and entrepreneurship in a "summer school" program beginning in December.

Today, in my 29-Day Giving Challenge Day 3, Round 2, I added my support of a Camfed high school student, which I can now see not only as an investment in a girl's future, but in the future of a continent and a planet, too. Not bad.

You can help a woman heal the world by donating here. You can contribute to the important work Global Footprint Network is doing around the globe here.

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right, or scroll through the topics and archives on the left. If you're a regular, thanks for your support! Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. You can e-mail me at chris (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

Carpe Millennium: The Long Now Foundation putting things in perspective

At the Long Now Foundation museum in San Francisco there's a sign on a staff person's computer that says, "Carpe Millennium". For some of us on the planet, Carpe Diem is a tough one. Carpe Millennium, Seize the Millennium, puts every issue, every question, every intention into uncommon perspective.

The Long Now Foundation began as an e-mail from MIT PhD computer genius (paralell processing), Imagineer, inventor and thinker, Danny Hillis. He wrote to some friends,

"When I was a child, people used to talk about what would happen by the year 2000. For the next thirty years they kept talking about what would happen by the year 2000, and now no one mentions a future date at all. The future has been shrinking by one year per year for my entire life. I think it is time for us to start a long-term project that gets people thinking past the mental barrier of an ever-shortening future. I would like to propose a large (think Stonehenge) mechanical clock, powered by seasonal temperature changes. It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium."

In 01996 (the extra zero is to solve the deca-millennium bug which will come into effect in about 8,000 years) futurist Stuart Brand, musician Brian Eno, former Wired Magazine editor and author Kevin Kelly, and a long list of other amazing humans, joined Hillis to form the Long Now Foundation. In their words, the Foundation would provide "a counterpoint to today's 'faster/cheaper' mind set and promote 'slower/better' thinking...creatively fostering responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years." On New Year's Eve, 01999, this prototype (a much smaller version) heralded the second millennium by chiming twice.

I'd like to write an essay marveling at the Long Now, but Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon wrote this a few years ago, and I'll admit right now, there's no way to top it, unless maybe Michael Chabon does a follow-up piece when they install their 10,000 year clock in the Nevada desert.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Donna and I visited the Foundation's museum not far from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, wandering among the prototypes, browsing through the mind-expanding bookstore, and skirting around the researchers working on Long Now projects. It was a great outing, but not essential as there is almost more to savor on their site on-line.

There's more about the clock--for philosophers, engineers, and dreamers. The Foundation sponsors regular seminars by many interesting people and there's a treasure trove of blogs and essays pondering the possibilities of the future. On one of my recent re-visits I discovered this essay by Danny Hillis about working with Richard Feynman on thinking machines and learned why my space-ship can't go faster than the speed of light.

At LongBets you can read about long-term predictions and bets, or place your own Long Bet. Here, you'll get a sampling of bets and predictions spanning from 02003 until 02203. Though Ted Danson won the bet about whether the US would win the World Cup before the Red Sox won the series, the jury's still out on Warren Buffett's bet about the S&P or the bet that the US Constitution will be ammended to cede to a global government by 02025. Pilotless air travel by 02025? Will at least one human alive in 02000 be alive in 02150? It's a fascinating glimpse into possible futures by some of our brightest minds, and a reminder that everything changes.

I must say thinking about the Long Now and their projects has had an impact on me. I'm pondering small things like imagining some unknown being finding my plastic water bottle during an excavation in 10,000 years. I'm conscious of larger concerns about how my children will contribute to a developing evolution of humans, rather than how much money they can make after college. I'm reimagining my responsibility for electing stewards of a larger future during this election. I think of that clock ticking away back only a few hundred miles from where I grew up, and my imagination goes wild. I am at once excited about the possibilities, and remorseful that I won't be there. What a great job for a person of the future to be a caretaker of the clock! (Maybe I'll come back.)

Hillis had a conversation about the clock with Jonas Salk before he died. Salk asked him about the clock and what problem he was trying to solve, or what he was trying to preserve. I like his response because it mirrors what the whole Long Now Foundation mission evokes in me:

"OK, Jonas, OK, people of the future, here is a part of me that I want to preserve, and maybe the clock is my way of explaining it to you: I cannot imagine the future, but I care about it. I know I am a part of a story that starts long before I can remember and continues long beyond when anyone will remember me. I sense that I am alive at a time of important change, and I feel a responsibility to make sure that the change comes out well. I plant my acorns knowing that I will never live to harvest the oaks.

I have hope for the future."

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right, or scroll through the topics and archives on the left. If you're a regular, thanks for your support! Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. You can e-mail chris (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

Lamed Vovniks redux

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself. ---Thomas Carlisle

Some bloggers get a little obsessed with their blog stats--how many people visit, how many subscribers actually read the blog, percentages of newcomers, length of visit, and on and on. I'm hoping that over the next several years mine keep going up, but I'm happy with slow, solid growth and trying not to be too affected by the sky-high days and the low trough days. I do watch the stats to see which links people visit and I really enjoy the wild searches that lead to HumanKind Media. In fact, if you're a regular reader that found me from an accidental search, I'd love to hear about it (begging for comments, again.)

I am intrigued by a mystery, though, and the most mysterious and wondrous of all the stats for HumanKind Media are the "lamed vovnik" hits. Way back in the fall I wrote a rambling piece about the Jewish legend of the Lamed Vovniks, the 36 Just Men (just, meaning righteous or good). You can read the whole post here In it, I performed a complex set of steps toward reasoning that, if the Jewish scholars hundreds of years ago thought there were 36 wise men (translated to "humans" by me), we should be at millions or billions of wise humans by now (using math, genetics, and Jewish scholarship, none of which I'm proficient in).

It was my way of saying we all have the potential for goodness and contribution to changing the inequities in the world, and that the prognosis for doing so was getting better every day. "Unabashed optimism" could have been the tagline for the post.

Anyway, it's historically the most visited page on the site--several times a week. It's a complete mystery. Maybe there are more Jewish scholars out there than I could imagine. Maybe somewhere in the world every day, a few people just google "wise men" and up pop the vovniks, or maybe the word "vovnik" means something in every language in the world, and I'm just lucky I put that word in a title.

Since I have this regular Lamed Vovnik reminder in the stats, I've begun looking around for vovniks in my daily travels. We've written about some of the more famous, obvious candidates: Paul Farmer, Jeffrey Sachs, Mohammed Yunus. I think Randy Pausch, the Last Lecture professor, certainly has my vote, and I'd put my Sweet Husband Jeff on the list because he knows just what to do (which is normally nothing) when I'm off balance (or schizoid) and because he has the wisdom to enjoy life to its fullest while I'm over-thinking it sometimes. My friend and meditation teacher, Pam, is one of the wisest humans I've ever met, and, of course, I'd put the Dalai Lama and Jimmy Carter on the list--and all the older, wiser leaders working tirelessly and patiently for peace and understanding around the world.

But, if I knew you, I might put you on the list for saying something to someone who needed just what you said last week, or for being quiet when it was the right time to be quiet. Or, if you reached out and helped a stranger, or if you're thinking about voting this year for your love for the world rather than your fear of the future, I'd put you on the list for your courage--that's got to be a Lamed Vovnik trait. I might put someone on the list for tutoring children, or drilling water for villages that have none. I'd put anyone on the list who had learned to forgive, or let go of a bias. If you've felt that longing to make a difference, and haven't turned away at what seems like the impossibility of it all, you're on the list for sure.

I do think we're all Lamed Vovniks. Every Lamed Vovnik search hit I see in the stats makes me wonder--is it you? What's the wise and just-ness in you up to these days? Do you see yourself as a Lamed Vovnik, a just , good, wise person? I hope so. Imagine the possibilities.

Got any candidates you'd add to the list? Send me a comment! (2nd begging for comments in one post--new record!)

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Tomorrow, June 1, is the first day of the HumanKind Challenge #4, 29-Day Giving Challenge. Everyone is invited to participate. Invite your friends, too. What could be more fun than practicing generosity together for a month? Here's the post with the details, and here's our group page (where I'll post my daily updates and hope you will, too) on the 29-Day Giving Challenge community page. For those of you still absorbing your possible Lamed Vovnik status, it's a great place to start.

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right, or scroll through the topics and archives on the left. If you're a regular, thanks for your support! Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. You can e-mail chris (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

BigCarrot takes the prize...and does something cool with it

J. Kent Pepper's been enthralled with inducement prizes ever since the NY Times printed a story 10 years ago about Robert Zubrin's proposal for a $20 Billion Mars Prize. After that he watched as prizes for science and technology, the X prize, the military's DARPA Grand Challenge, and the Westinghouse prize, inspired scientists and middle schoolers alike to create amazing advances in many fields.

In J. Kent Pepper's opinion, prizes are the most efficient means to innovation, calling upon a large public to compete and create with freedom, under the inducement of a prize. (For a fabulous trip through a huge array of such space and technology prizes, look at SpacePrize) A cool history of prizes on the Big Carrot FAQ page attributes developments as far back as the 1700's from the food canning process and the parking meter (sigh) to NetFlix's $1M ongoing prize for a 10% improvement in their movie recommendation algorithm to prize-type challenges.

But until now, prizes have largely remained the domain of billionaires, deep-pocketed corporations, and the government.

In 2006, it dawned Pepper that, using the internet, communities of people could collaborate on their own prizes--creating together the desired solutions to challenges faced by the community, creating the design requirements, and collaborating and advocating for the funding--to inspire innovations that serve the community. He spent some time designing a process, getting a patent, and developing Big Carrot, a big-hearted open-source Inducement Prize Generator IPG (I made that up). He calls it the "democratization of innovation". I call it amazing and exciting--the prospect of pulling people together around your community or the globe to participate in solving the challenges we face. With a prize at the end!

His wildly successful beta-test of the Big Carrot concept, the not-Mac Challenge, awarded prize winner, Ben Spink, with $8600, money raised largely by 172 Mac users who were looking for an opensource integration program that normally costs users $99/year for upgrades.

Though the not-Mac challenge met a need of the Mac community, other challenges range from the small to national to global. BigCarrot now has prizes for everything from an Automotive X Prize, in the Environment category, for a super-efficient car that people will want to buy, to a prize in the Computers category to get Linus Torvald (father of Linux) a cameo on the Simpsons.

Pepper is a marketing professional by day who has participated in campaigns for Yahoo, Sun, Lexus and HP among others. He told me that he was influenced early in his marketing career by the work of Tibor Kalman, the famed designer who in the 90's pioneered the combining of marketing with a global awareness/multicultural emphasis in his founding of Beneton's "Colors" magazine.

When I asked him, "Why BigCarrot?", he gave me my very favorite answer: "To change the world." He talked about the possibilities of his current pet project, the Greywater Recycling Challenge which he hopes to see take off among on-line environmental communities. BigCarrot, he says, is a chance to facilitate "the evening out of the playing field for innovation" and gives individuals and communities the opportunity to proactively advocate for and create solutions that are most relevant to them. As he's talking, I'm imagining communities all over who might someday have simple greywater recycling programs, just because BigCarrot had a prize.(I like this idea more than parking meters.)

The possibilities for innovation are endless with this model. If anyone could be as excited about BigCarrot as J. Kent Pepper, it was me after that phone call.

And, the best news: Beginning today, BigCarrot is inviting bloggers and their communities to build their own challenges. Kent is encouraging all of us to rally our readers and communities to pick a topic, waiving the prize origination fee and offering to contribute the first $250 to the prize. The site hosts forums for discussions about potential or current prizes, too, another chance to interact with your readers--a win/win/win.

Would you be willing to contribute a little to see some geniuses tackle a problem that you or your community cares about? Please share this with your friends, your blogger friends, the geniuses in your life, and your communities. This is a Good Idea.

In fact, this gives me an idea for HumanKind Challenge #4. If you're a HumanKind reader, and have ideas for our own HumanKind Challenge #4 ala BigCarrot, email me and we can collaborate on a prize proposal. Stay tuned. This will be fun.

About that Stuff, 5 things you can do to help spread the ripples

A week or two before I met with Annie Leonard, creator of the Story of Stuff and global activist for GAIA, the Global Alliance of Incinerator Alternatives, I became excruciatingly aware of all the "stuff" in my house that is destined for the bin, sooner or later. To my chagrin, I suddenly became conscious of slightly stuffed closets, reproducing junk drawers, and my, oh, my, my shower. After reading her recent blogs about a particularly offensive packaging campaign for a new product, I counted several plastic bottles in my shower and was shocked and slightly ashamed that I had let it get so out-of-hand. I could remember back to a time where one bar of soap and some shampoo was it.

When I blurted out a confession about this, she was gracious. First she gave me a great tip about checking the toxicity of my products at Skin Deep, the cosmetics safety database. Then, she let me off the hook--slightly, by explaining, "It's not your fault, it's the system."

The system in question is the Story of Stuff (surely you've watched the whole thing by now). It's system that Anne's been studying for 20+ years (where stuff comes from and where it goes) put into a clever, entertaining, but serious examination of the materials economy.

Now, 5 months since its debut and 2.5+ million viewings on-line, the Story is rippling out, being translated into many languages, inspiring songs and parodies, and engaging people. For a while, there was even a YouTube video by a Russian in a swingset praising the Story and vowing to be an eco-warrior. (Sadly, it was gone when we looked for it.)

What inspires me most is that she's reaching schools and kids, and they're responding. In Woodside, California, when she visited, they asked for "tips" on what they could do. Her answer, "It's complicated." They responded with a parody video, and soon after that, students at Mendocino High school did their own amazing video, "What You Can Do.". Coming up soon is her follow-on podcast with the Woodside Priory students. About their request for "recommended actions", she provides a thoughtful explanation in her blog, "Why I'm Not Offering 10 Simple Steps to Get Involved."

When I asked Annie if she thought we could change the system, she said she had hope. "This is all propped up on cheap oil. The question is, are we going to resist, resist, resist for 50 years, or are we going to be proactive now?" She mentions Bill McKibben's book, Deep Economy. McKibben explores communities around the world who are creating sustainable living practices together. In his book, she tells me, he talks about decoupling "more" and "growth" from "better." Annie says wryly, "More is not better. We're not having fun, we're stressed, exhausted, debt-ridden, and filled with toxicity. We've got to separate our self esteem and self-worth from stuff."

I think the story of the Story of Stuff is just beginning. I'm hopeful that its simple message will permeate more and more arenas where the sustainability message has yet to inspire and move people. Here are some ideas I've got for creating your own ripples to help our big shift to sustainability:

1. Watch the Story, end to end. Share the Story of Stuff--show your families and friends to inspire those 10% changes for sustainability at home. Tell your friends, teachers you know, local groups and organizations. Spread the word, examine the possibilities, together.

2. Exchange your stuff, recycle your stuff, give your stuff to someone who could use it. (Annie says the most burnable consumer goods in incinerators are also the most recyclable items.) Check out Freecycle for an event near you, or hold a give-away garage sale.

3. I know it's a bumper-sticker, but seriously, think globally about our beautiful planet and and a balance of resources for all the remarkable beings on it; then, act locally--right there where you are around the people you're with. Take on a little 10% change in your consumption. Buy local food (instead of produce shipped by truck from 3,000 miles away.) Start a garden, or better yet, a community or school garden. Stop buying something you don't need. Visit your dump and recycling centers in person to see where your stuff goes. Make it a field trip.

4. Speak up, with your voice and your pocketbook. One of the most poignant moments for me when I met Annie was her genuine concern and disappointment at the response to that egregiously wasteful, stuff-laden packaging/marketing scheme of the new men's shaving gel, NXT. She even had a nightmare about it. There's a good ending to the story though. I hope you'll read it here and here, but the point is that we should never estimate the power of our voices and our purchases (or refusal to purchase) to change the possibilities in the Story of Stuff.

5. Annie's says in her blog "Why I'm Not Offering 10 Simple Steps to Get Involved," "Find any place in the system where you can intervene and follow your passion. " We can all find a way to help. Her most simple suggestions are buy less and buy less toxic stuff.

Story of Stuff: Annie's story

Annie Leonard told me she found her life's purpose standing in the middle of Fresh Kills landfill (one of two man-made structures visible from space--the second is the Great Wall of China) on Staten Island, amidst a sea in every direction of couches, refrigerators, books and banana peels.

In this blog when we began our series on sustainability, we first introduced Annie and her Story of Stuff, the clever and entertaining 20-minute film about our stuff, a short month after it premiered. For Earth Day, it seems natural to return to the sustainability message of the Story of Stuff.

Meeting Annie reminded me of why I wanted to tell stories about people who just start something and stay with it, somehow knowing it will make a difference. They inspire me to keep taking one step at a time toward what I care about. Though it's only four months and 2.5 million views ("Some of those are repeat visits by my mother," she says) since the December launch of Story of Stuff, the real story, the story of Annie the activist, researcher, educator, and mom, started when she was 6.

"MacDonald's came to our school to tell us about the new McDonald's opening in our town. They told us how much they cared about the environment, and I was so excited I did what all the other kids did. I went home and said, 'We've got to go to McDonald's.' I walked in, and in the middle of the store was a big planter with plastic flowers. I was sooo disappointed in them."

Child of "a mother with a strong moral compass" and product of an environmental education in the Northwest, Annie traces her curiosity about where stuff comes from and where it goes to the family's annual camping trip. "I looked out the window as we were driving (that was back before I-pods and DVD's in the backseat). Each year it took longer to get to the forest, and where there once was forest were strip malls."

Certain that she wanted to do something for those forests, Ann set off to New York where she studied city and regional planning. You can read more of what she's done here. What she told me was that, while she was doing graduate work in New York, she would walk from 110th to 116th every day. In the morning the curb would be piled with trash as high as she is tall, all the way down those six blocks. She started to dig around in it and found cardboard, paper, boxes--her trees! At night the piles would be gone. From Fresh Kills and beyond, she decided she would work to prevent waste, fight landfills and incineration. Her idea, and many others', were that if waste began to be harder for corporations to get rid of, "they'll stop."

But they didn't stop. What no one counted on was (the word, "sleazy" was used here) that, as the regulation increased on corporations' waste, they began shipping the waste to third-world countries. She joined Greenpeace and began to work on the UN campaign to stop shipping waste to foreign countries. "Everyone (at Greenpeace) had a piece of the work--lobbyists, researchers. Mine was sampling and documenting the waste sent to other countries--all over the world." Here's where she rattled off story after story of incinerator waste being sent to Haiti as fertilizer, PCB's shipped to a farmer's land in South Africa, of an Indian hospital with an incinerator where demonstrators posted a banner, "Cancer caused and cured here," and of a load of hazardous waste she mixed with fertilizer she tracked down to a Bangladeshi farmer. (The lowest moment she ever experienced was when the farmer asked for reassurance that her country would "fix this".)

She's got a million stories, and deep friendships around the globe--with those who explored with her "the factories where our stuff is made and the dumps where our stuff is dumped." When her daughter went through "her princess phase", she drew beautiful pictures of the prince and the princess, with the dump in the background. After 10+ years her daughter's school started asking for full attendance and she had to figure out how to keep "investigating garbage" but with less travel. It was then she began working for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).

For 10 years, Annie's been telling the story of our stuff, fighting incinerators around the globe, and working to create awareness internationally and at home. After years of requests for a filmed version of her talk, the Tides Foundation approached her to do the Story of Stuff. Enter the creative geniuses at Free Range Studios and the rest is...or will be history.

What I love about Annie and her story is that she's just a person (ok, a very smart, cool person) who followed her curiosity and her passion step by step, to a place that will bring about awareness and change that we'll all benefit from. I predict that in a few years we'll look back on Annie and sustainability the way we look at Jeffrey Sachs and poverty or Paul Farmer and healthcare. I can't wait to see what happens.

In the next post, you'll hear the unfolding story of the Story of Stuff (as told to me by Annie). Amazing things are happening. So, if you haven't watched it yet, here's your chance. It's pretty cool. Stay tuned.

If you're a new reader, welcome to HumanKind. You can get free updates here. Wonder what we're up to? Click on the links on the upper right, or scroll through the topics and archives on the left. If you're a regular, thanks for your support! Let us know what HumanKind can do to keep the media you'd like to see coming your way. You can e-mail us at chris or liz (at) humankindmedia dot com. And please do share HumanKind with your friends.

Deep time road trip

"People of today relate to time in a way that is surely unique in our history. The technologies and economic forces unleashed by the Industrial Growth Society radically alter our experience of time. It is like being trapped in an ever-shrinking box, in which we race on a treadmill. The economy and its technologies depend on decisions made at lightning speed for short-term goals, cutting us off from nature's rhythms and from the past and the future, as well. Marooned in the present, we are progressively blinded to the sheer ongoingness of time. Both the company of our ancestors and the claims of our descendants become less and less real to us.

To make the transition to a life-sustaining society, we must retrieve that ancestral capacity--in other words, act like ancestors. We need to attune to longer, ecological rhythms and nourish a strong, felt connection with past and future generations. For us as agents of change, this isn't easy, because to intervene in the political and legislative decisions of the Industrial Growth Society, we fall by necessity into its tempo. We race to find and pull the levers before it is too late to save this forest, or stop that weapons program. Nonetheless, we can learn again to drink at deeper wells." -- Joanna Macy

On my road trip last week I travelled across New Mexico and Arizona, through the lands of 10,000 years inhabitation by the Pueblo Indians, through the Petrified Forest where 220 million year old trees-turned-to-stone look like crystal rainbows in the sunlight (just like they said in grade school.)

I couldn't help but think of Joanna Macy, a teacher/writer/eco-philosopher, who inspires me at a level beneath my consciousness and encourages me to imagine the impossible. Calling upon the wisdom from deep ecology, systems theory and buddhism, Joanna's work centers around what she calls The Great Turning, "the essential adventure of our time: the shift from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization."

The Great Turning asks us to relate to time differently, to consider our ancestors, these people who lived in this land before us, the people who travelled here from all the continents to offer a life of abundance to our great-great-great grandmothers and grandfathers. It asks us also to consider our future ancestors whom we hope will find their way from our baby steps toward that life-sustaining civilization and the fulfillment of the best of what's possible for all beings on the planet.

As I travelled with speed across two states and several hundred miles of reminders of deep time, echoes of past and future ancestors, I remembered my 4 Ways to Keep Your Sustainability Mindset. Number 3 on the list was "Appreciate the world in ways you haven't lately." I decided to add "deep time" (this link is worth bookmarking--loaded with good reading) as a way to appreciate the world in a new way. Seeing a two-million year old tree in a piece of petrified wood, imagiing the songs of tribes from ten thousand years ago echoing off the canyon walls--imagining a future as old as this past--has added to my appreciation and commitment to the earth in a way no green advertising campaign has ever managed.

On Joanna's website she offers her own personal guidelines for the Great Turning. Among these great guidelines is one we've been known to mention a time or two: "Roll up your Sleeves: Many people don't get involved in the Great Turning because there are so many different issues, which seem to compete with each other. Shall I save the whales or help battered children? The truth is that all aspects of the current crisis reflect the same mistake, setting ourselves apart and using others for our gain. So to heal one aspect helps the others to heal as well. Just find what you love to work on and take joy in that. Never try to do it alone. Link up with others; you'll spark each others' ideas and sustain each others' energy."

My favorite of all of her teachings? Gratitude is where healing the earth begins.

"Then, ever again, we go forth into the action that calls us. With others whenever and wherever possible, we set a target, lay a plan, step out. We don’t wait for a blueprint or fail-proof scheme; for each step will be our teacher, bringing new perspectives and opportunities. Even when we don’t succeed in a given venture, we can be grateful for the chance we took and the lessons we learned. And the spiral begins again."

You can read more from Joanna Macy in her many fine writings and visit her website for a wealth of inspiration and resources for your own venture into our stewardship of the earth for the past and the future generations.

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Making every day Earth Day: good media

I've been on vacation and, well, Liz will tell you her story someday soon. Needless to say, we've been slow on the posts the last few weeks but we're coming back. Today as a wind-up for our last week (for now) on sustainability topics leading up to Earth Day, here's a revisit and addendum to recent mentions of cool media about

In this recent post, I was on my soapbox about thoughtful, reasonable activism as a more effective way to influence and encourage change in the media as an alternative to vitriol, invective and guilt- or fear-mongering :-0. If you made it all the way through you made it to some recommendations for cool media about possibilities for sustainability and environmental stewardship. But, as with most soapbox diatribes, it was pretty long and I thought these deserved another mention:

Eco-Worrier - I love EcoWorrier, a UK journalist. Many interesting posts and she loves a good video like we do.

My friend Leah told me about Sustainablog a great blog on all things sustainable, and the "green" aggregator GreenOptions.com, where you can find your favorite "voices" about sustainability. Careful, though, you can be lost for hours. Check out this cool article on what to do with jeans).

If you haven't seen YES Magazine, by positivefutures.org, I think you'll love it. Worth subscribing for its well-written articles and thought- provoking series on a sustainable future.

Lately my interests in sustainability are around the Slow Foods movements around the country and the freecycle.org or ReallyReallyFreeMarket (read their creed halfway down the page--I love it). I'm interested in ways to step out of the cycle described in The Story of Stuff. My personal hope is that ours and the next generation will rewrite that Story of Stuff into a fantastic chapter of building a global, sustainable community.

Along those lines, I recently found an out-of-the-box idea on boingboing about clothing libraries and it led me to Tree Hugger and this fascinating post about product service systems. TreeHugger also aggregates their most popular posts and cool environmental news at Hugg.com.

Finally, you've probably guessed by now that my family doesn't have television. On my trip, I got to see some amazing things on TV. Now that I'm looking for that 10% media about possibilities, it's everywhere, even on good ol' advertising-laden TV. My traveling companion was amazed that I could get so excited about the Weather Channel, but check it out if you haven't. On TV and on-line, they're gearing up for Earth Day by having viewers tell their own stories about cool things they're doing all over the world in Green Living. Telling stories about people doing good on TV, in the paper, on-line, everywhere. More, more, more!

That wasn't the only cool thing I saw on TV on my trip either. More about that and what's up with Liz after I get home this weekend.

Simple step: In which I tackle junk mail in 1,2,3 (or more) steps

Maybe you already did the tackling junk mail thing as a small, simple step you could take to putting your foot down about unnecessary waste. I'm a laggard, but trying to reform. Every day, I feel guilty as I stand at the recycling bin and put in most of my unopened mail before walking into the house with the one or two bills or letters that I receive any given week.

So, when I wrote recently about taking on just 10% more toward my ideal of zero-waste and more sustainable living, junk mail came up immediately. It sounded so simple that I naively imagined I could research a few ideas, do them myself and pump out a quick "how to" in the blog for those of you who haven't yet done the junk mail thing and could use a little encouragement. Well. It took a little more work than that, but check out my research and its (good!) results:

First, I read this link-filled list of everything-you-ever-needed-to-know-about dejunking on Junkbusters. After spending a few minutes scrolling and clicking, I was pumped up and ready to scythe my way through junk mail in a big way. I first thought of the most annoying mail I get: several forests' worth of employee benefit package information from the LARGE BEHEMOTH PHONE CORPORATION I worked for in the 1990's. Though I've tried before, today I thought, "How hard could it be to just call them up and ask them to stop that?" I was already feeling the weight of being negligently unsustainable slip from my shoulders just thinking about my imminent success. I rummaged through the recycle pile, found the latest missive and called the phone number, imagining the cheery voice on the other end who would direct me to human resources of LBPC where another cheery person would laugh and say, "Oh, let's get you off that list right now." And, poof! I'd be free.

Alas, many hours after that brilliant idea, let me warn you that the first simple step is probably not calling the LARGE BEHEMOTH ANYTHING COMPANY unless you can find a number on their web site that says, "Call here to get off our mailing list." I went through seven different numbers, two different voice-prompt, menu-laden systems, and finally ended up with someone who took pity on me and found the right place for me. Though I am not convinced it will work, I now have a phone number with a human at the end, if I need to try again.

In the meantime, the minutes were turning into hours, and now I was so committed, I couldn't bring myself to stop until I had moved onto the comprehensive junk-stop plan. I referred to this article I had been saving from eHow that offers some beginner steps in what may be many steps over time to stem the tide. For my first simple step, I registered at DMA's mail preference site and put in all the names we've ever been called and opted out of everything in spite of their warnings that I may lose out on $1,500 worth of wonderful incentives and deals if I don't get the junk mail. I didn't even do the halfway step of staying on the list for some of the catalogs (gasp) -- I made a rash decision, figuring that in the moment of shopping for a new whatever, I'll look up what I want in their web catalogs. I may go through catalog-page-turning withdrawal at first, but I will definitely enjoy less guilt at the recycle bin.

My second stop was at OptOutPrescreen, the site sponsored jointly by the four major credit bureaus, where consumers can opt out of lists provided by the credit bureaus to marketers. After checking around a little to make sure it wasn't just one more credit scam or phishing, (see FTC recommendation here), I went for the permanent opt-out, which required that I print and mail in my confirmation. And I put those papers in the mail.

That's enough of the simple step approach for me today. It's getting dark out. Hopefully this will be some incentive to start your own junk-mail project. The more I read, the more I realize it's a multi-pronged and repetitive approach -- and mindset, like turning the lights out but still looking for more ways to reduce my power consumption. But already, I'm pretty excited about going to the mailbox over the next few months to see what's NOT inside. How cool is that?

My Wish for Will Part II

If you're like many people I know, you can tell a story at the drop of a hat about an adult that influenced, inspired, or encouraged you as a teen -- that special English teacher, or the shop teacher, or a coach. Maybe it was a local business owner who gave you a job, or maybe it was your friend's mother. I always love those stories (in fact, I'd love it if you'd share yours in the comments -- they're just the best stories).

When I think of Alison's definition for sustainability, "not marring" but also "making it better," I have to think of today's kids, and the kids they'll have someday. My greatest worries when my country initiated a war five years ago were of the generations of affected children here and there who will not get their everyday needs met -- for food, shelter, education, and love -- and how that will affect the next generation after them. When I think of handing down something good, I think of handing something good to a child, something of value -- like trust, the value of relationships and learning, and love of beauty and our world.

That's why I was thrilled when Dave Eggers made his TED wish (you can view the whole rollicking, funny, heart-warming speech here at the end of this post). What a great thing to ask: "I wish that you -- you personally, and every creative person and organization you know -- will find a way to engage with a public school in your area, and that you'll then tell the story of how you got involved so that within one year we'll have 1,000 examples of transformative partnerships, profound leaps forward."

Here I go again, naively thinking that we have enough people with some longing and some time to help every kid, and every community that needs help helping kids. In the video, Eggers provides an entertaining and compelling story about how we can all change the world with just a few hours a month devoted to mentoring and tutoring pirates, superheros, and time-travelers (you'll see what I mean).

In My Wish for Will Part I, I introduced you to my own brand of superhero: Chicago teacher, photographer, and sometimes NY Times columnist, Will Okun. Pouring his heart, soul, precious time, and love into some kids who might not have such a superhero in their corner otherwise, Will is one of the millions of teachers Dave Eggers is talking about helping.

When I wrote Part I, I asked Will about what he would wish for, and he sent me this story of Nicholas Bounds, one of Will's students whose life has been dramatically affected by the kind of support Dave Eggers talked about in his TED Wish. Will's wish wasn't that much different from Dave's: that every kid could have what Nicholas Bounds had -- an adult who takes an interest.

As usual with Will's articles, his story about his student, Nicholas, is a different story than I'm used to about kids and school; it's shocking and heartbreaking, but hopeful and inspiring, too. Most of all, what comes through in his stories is his wish for more possibilities for the kids he works with. "Behind most great students are loving and supportive adults. Unfortunately, too many students do not benefit from positive support, and these are typically the children who have so much difficulty in our school. I agree with Nicholas that the long-term support of just one positive adult can make all the difference in the lives of children," Will says.

In his most recent article on what a difference One Class could make for teens in his school, he asks a good question: "Why should students on the West Side of Chicago not have access to the same resources, technology, and programming that is certainly offered at our nation’s 'Top 100 High Schools?' Engaging technology programs like Hoops High demonstrate that attendance and (thus) academic performance will greatly improve in urban schools that are able to offer a range of exciting extracurricular classes directed at both the needs and the interests of the students."

Already Once Upon A School has 20-30 of the 1,000 stories of these kinds of programs -- just what Dave Eggers asked for at TED 2008. My wish for Will is Dave's wish -- that anyone listening, reading, finding themselves longing to help, but not knowing what or how -- find a project or a school, a tutoring group or an after-school program, or start something of your own -- find a way to help a kid. We can buy all the green gizmos in the world, and cut our carbon emissions in half, but if the next generations are crippled by ignorance and a sense of impossibility, sustainability will be just another elite concept.

You can start your own 826-like organization with your company, service organization, or local community. Or, if you're near one of the Once Upon A School Projects that are being added every day, you can volunteer. But it doesn't even have to be that big a deal: you could just call a local school or local teacher tell them how many hours you've got to help some kids. Here are some ideas and here are some Frequently Asked Questions.

I don't have a clue as to how I, a mom/coach/blogger in California, can help make Will's wish for programs like this in his area, West Side Chicago, and his school, Westside Alternative High School, come true. But I have hope in possibilities. If you know someone in Chicago, please forward this to them. If you are affiliated with a corporation that has an office in Chicago, or any organization that might want a service project in Chicago, please let them know about Dave Eggers' wish, and about Will's school and neighborhood schools. If you have an idea how to help me take some steps towards my wish for Will, e-mail me at chris at humankindmedia (add the dot com).

And watch this video. Let's see what's possible.