[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fkc1d0ATA1s]
Here’s a short video (under one minute) in which I suggest that the end of cheap energy and easy credit will force us to change our habits as super-consumers. Though this sounds painful, it doesn’t have to be, as it will ultimately cause us to see our lives in grander terms and look beyond the thin veil of materialistic pleasures.
“Why would anyone be interested in that?” some (super-candid) person asked me recently during a conversation about renewable energy and how it costs more than burning coal. I could see what was implied: that our rights and obligations begin and end with making money any legal way, and pursuing happiness and prosperity as vigorously as possible, here and now.
Yet the question was a bit awkward. “Why would anyone be interested in that?” I paused, wishing to avoid a difficult conversation. Either the answer is obvious, or it’s unsatisfactory. Have you ever noticed how seldom you change another’s mind on matters of politics or personal philosophy? I just smiled. “That’s a tough question,” I responded, and moved on to another subject.
Here’s a quick conversation I had at the Opportunity Green with the folks from Steaz, who offer a truly healthy and good-tasting carbonated beverage. I happened to be sipping the blueberry pomegranate flavor, when I began:
Craig: Wow, this is good. Please tell me about it.
Steaz rep: Well, it’s all natural.
Craig: So there’s fruit, water, and essentially nothing else?
Steaz rep: Well, there’s actually no fruit.
Craig: You mean there is not a molecule of blueberry or pomegranate in what I’m drinking?
Steaz rep: That’s right.
Craig: Well, not to be combative, but exactly in what sense is this “all natural?”
Steaz rep: (silence) Um, that’s a good question.
Craig: Hey, don’t feel bad. In my estimation, the word “natural” lost all meaning in our language a long time ago. Regardless of how you define the term, this is a hell of a lot closer to “natural” than the chemicals that are in most of what we eat and drink.
At the heart of the adoption curve for clean energy, electric transportation, and sustainability more generally is consumer behavior. If consumers don’t vote in favor of green products with their wallets, the world will remain mired in dirty and abusive practices until the pain associated with that reaches a point that we literally cannot maintain the status quo. By that point, of course, inestimable damage will have been done to our ecosystem, not to mention our very humanity. (more…)
On Friday, I had lunch with Professor Shireen Musa of State University of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. Her job is to make sure as many people as possible who are entering the fashion industry understand the basic components of sustainability. As one might expect, there are several ingredients to sustainable fashion, but at the top of the pyramid is this: everyone shares a responsibility to minimize abusive work practices around the world. We need to refuse to buy products or components from organizations that deal in slave or child labor, or that systematically abuse their employees. (more…)
A note from a reader:
I wonder if I might ask your advice quickly on a matter. I am a young man who has recently developed an interest in the renewable energy sector, and sustainability generally. Could you recommend some reading material that gives a good introduction to the industry and how it all fits together financially from a potential employee’s point of view? I have gathered some good material on the major issues, points of debate and themes in RE but have not been able to find so much on the different companies operating within the sector, what kind of jobs are available and how these companies go about making money.
My response:
I’d really love to help you, but I don’t think I have anything specific to offer. I’m sure you know that there are websites that specialize in this type of thing, e.g., SustainableBusiness.com, run by Rona Fried, a personal friend, and a terrific person.
But to put it in a few words, right now, the fossil fuel industries have a significant cost advantage over clean energy, due in part to 80 years of subsidies and their own internal efforts to secure their monopolies. Together, these actions have built them into superpowers that sport the most forceful lobby in the known universe. (more…)
I was delighted to meet Nancy Pearlman yesterday, award-winning broadcaster, environmentalist, college instructor, anthropologist, editor, producer, on-air personality, and outdoorswoman. Nancy safeguards the earth’s ecosystems, both as a vocation and an avocation, having worked with hundreds of conservation organizations, serving as administrator, founder, member of advisory councils, participant, and member of boards of directors.
We met at her house in Los Angeles for an interview which we taped a show for some of her numerous radio broadcasts; I’ll post a link when it’s available. It was instantly apparent why Nancy has won these awards for her broadcasting. In the dozens of questions she asked in the half-hour show, she showed a terrific command of the subject (clean energy), and phrased every one of her queries so as to elicit something of value and interest to the listener. Perhaps most important, I felt a sort of warm kindness in her smile, making me feel very safe and at home, which served to make me even more forthcoming than I would have been if I had felt myself pressured or stressed.
Thanks for the opportunity to be a guest on your show, Nancy. It was a great honor to meet you.
Ever hear of upcycling? It’s a term coined by a professor of a German university in the 1990s, meaning the repurposing of material that is deemed to be worthless, and adding value to create a product that can now enjoy a new life.
Think of how few things were thrown away during the Great Depression. Think of some of today’s cultures, say Native Americans, and the deep abiding respect they maintain for nature, and how unwilling they are to buy, consume, and discard “stuff.”
I came across Looptworks the other day, a company that takes dozens of different materials that would have otherwise been discarded and sent off to landfills, and reprocesses them into new, high-value and really cool products. Scrap neoprene from waste in the process of making surfers’ wetsuits becomes cases for laptop computers. Scrap cotton becomes new T-shirts and other clothing.
Looptworks rep Cy Cain made me aware of the ecologic impact of making a cotton shirt in today’s world, based largely on the water required to grow the cotton in the first place. “We’ve already paid the price of bringing that cotton into the world. Now that we have all that material, it seems senseless to throw it away.” Makes sense to me.
Attending the Opportunity Green conference in Los Angeles yesterday gave me the opportunity to meet some terrific people and get aquainted with some incredible business concepts. Check out IndoTeak, a company that turns out wonderful, attractive, super high-quality products made from reclaimed teak.
When many of the old large buildings in Indonesia are razed or renovated each year, IndoTeak employees are there to deconstruct them and salvage the old teak. Every bit – and I mean every splinter (there is literally zero waste) — is reprocessed with eco-friendly glue into one of dozens of different types of products. The very top quality goes into high-end furniture, but the vast majority into any of different types of beautiful flooring. Even little bits of wood wind up in the flooring’s lower layers.
Now of course anyone could do something like this with a cost structure from hell, and wind up selling the flooring at some ridiculously exorbitant price. But most of this stuff is $9 – $10 a square foot! IndoTeak employs 500 semi-skilled people, and pays them three times what they have been making if they were working in the fields. Good things all around.
I spent many happy hours milling around the Opportunity Green conference in Los Angeles yesterday, meeting people who represent many dozens of different eco-friendly businesses. How many will succeed in the marketplace? That’s a function of the level of appetite we have for taking care of the environment and for each other. And the jury’s still out on that one; green products that cost more than their eco-toxic counterparts may be a tough sell—especially in today’s economic climate. (more…)
