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November 2009 
What would you most like to see changed in the world?
synonym for light
recently I was given an assignment to write an essay about one thing I would change in the world, if I could magically change anything. here's the answer....
If anything were possible—and I do believe that anything is indeed possible given the right amounts of imagination, ingenuity, determination, dedication and good, old fashioned hard work—what is the one change I would make in the world? After countless hours of contemplation on this subject, I have come to the conclusion that I would make all existing human communities into sustainable communities. This is a tall order, but I believe that it is entirely possible.
I’ll start by describing the type of community I have in mind. A sustainable community, to me, is one that meets the needs of its current population without damaging the prospects of future generations or stealing the resources of other communities. When I think of human needs I think of these things:
- clean, fresh air to breathe
- clear, clean, fresh water to drink
- nourishing, nutrition-filled food
- shelter
- clothing
- family, friends, community
- education
- transportation
- cultural enrichment--art, music, literature, dance, etc
- health care, medicine, preventative care
- religious & intellectual freedom
In order to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land on which we grow our food, the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers would be strictly regulated and the use of natural pest control and fertilizers would be encouraged. In order to conserve our dwindling fossil fuel supplies and again, protect our shared air, water and land, all buildings would use wind or solar or micro-hydro power for their electricity needs. We would use passive solar, thermal mass and natural convection for heating and cooling our living and working spaces. We would use the water that falls from the sky to drink and wash, then reuse that water to irrigate our food plants, then reuse the water draining from our planters for flushing our toilets, after which that water would be returned to the earth for filtering. (We could actually eliminate the use of water in toilets entirely. There are now numerous affordable options for clean and efficient composting and incinerating toilets.) New buildings could be designed this way, older buildings could be retrofitted to be super efficient. We would abolish “throwaway” products. We would more highly value products that can last a lifetime. We would reduce, reuse, recycle and repair. In our closed system, the Earth, nothing would be thought of as “trash”, but rather as a precious resource. In a sustainable community, work, school, shopping, entertainment, and living places could be within walking or bicycling distance from one another. Bicycle and pedestrian pathways would be the rule rather than the exception. We would have high speed, affordable, high quality, and efficient mass transit in every city on every continent.
When we think of Planet Earth, our shared home, as one large community we see that the wellbeing of each one of us is tied to and dependent upon the wellbeing of every other one of us. We currently have many types of human communities across the globe, but we are indeed one large interdependent community, as well. Abraham Lincoln said, “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” In my mind the same applies to resources. Those who would deny resources (clean air, water, food, shelter, clothing, education, transportation) to others deserve them not for themselves. By using more than our fair share of limited resources (fossil fuels, metals, water) we deny others their fair share--others in poorer countries and future generations. By polluting the air we all share and breathe, we deny others the basic resource of fresh air. Often, by buying cheap, throwaway goods, we deny others a living wage, a fair wage, and in so doing we deny them access to nourishing food, comfortable shelter, and quality education. In order for our individual communities and our one large community to be sustainable, we must all be aware of whether or not we are using more than our fair share.
Our planet currently supports the lives of more than 6.7 billion human beings. According to the World Watch Institute, we can expect 3 billion more to join us in the next 50 years for a projected population of almost 10 billion by the year 2060. I believe that we currently have the resources, ingenuity, know how and man (or woman) power to meet all the needs of every human on this planet and to do so without robbing future generations of the resources they will need to survive and thrive. What we lack is the collective will to do so. But I believe, passionately, that we are at a turning point and that this is not the time to lose hope. I believe that the future of humanity can be bright and joyful. Will you join me in making this idea a reality?
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5393
http://www-popexpo.ined.fr/eMain.html
http://synonymforlight.gaia.com/blog/2009/6/restart-reset-reality
Access: Public
this is so awesome. How can it become reality?
I'm in, Dawn! One place to begin is to really start paying attention to what we consume…especially the “throw away” stuff and the junk we allow ourselves to put in our mouths. If every single person could slow themselves down long enough to consider what they really need to be happy (and this is not an easy exercise) I think we'd surprise ourselves by how much of an impact simplifying our lives could have. Thanks for a lovely post.
Mamakat - Exactly!! Exactly!!
and here's something else……
http://synonymforlight.gaia.com/blog/2009/11/november-30-day-yoga-challenge-and-fund-raiser
it's a long read, but I think you might find it gratifying..
I'm with you and I know that sometimes I don't do all the right things - sometimes the picture gets pretty complicated. But there is this big divide between the people who really believe that a sustainable life will just be unpleasant for them or that it's only for goofy freaky looking people who smell bad and the other people who realize this isn't just the only reasonable path but potentially a really nice path, paved with creativity and intelligence and beauty and traveled by folks who smell just fine and are having a great time. I think we need some PR here. I nominate Dawn for the job!
tink – I know I don't always do the right things either, but I do keep trying. :-)
nicole – a teacher, whom I adore, who worked in Flint, Michigan many years ago, teaching about race relations, told me that it just takes one person in a peer group to stand up and speak out about what is right to begin to change things in that peer group. when she told me that, it really re-energized me. it made me think that having discussions with people who really, really disagree with me, or at least seem to, can make a difference. those discussions can be challenging - but meditation, yoga, etc help me keep my center and remember not to be attached to the outcome– show up, pay attention, tell my truth, and be unattached to outcome. :-)
here are some of the questions I ask myself before parting with my hard earned cash….
sk myself, before buying something: is it necessary? is it useful? is it nurturing or nourishing? is it breathtakingly beautiful or amazing? do I really need it? will I still love it and use it five years from now? can I borrow it from the library or rent it if I'm just going to use it once? do I have space or time for it, really? where have the materials to make this come from? did it's production damage the planet? did it's production needlessly exploit people? what will happen when I'm done with it? will it just end up in the landfill, hence polluting my own environment? could I make it myself? can I live without it? don't I have enough already? am I forgetting that more stuff doesn't = more happiness? am I allowing myself to be manipulated into thinking I need/want this? is this way of spending money in line with my values of environmental protection, fair labor practices, diverse, local and sustainable economies?
tink – I'll need more yoga if I'm going to be in charge of that kind of pr.
now back to work with me. my trainee awaits…..
xoxo
~d
Dawn, I love all your questions (this comes from someone who has in the past been incapacitated by trying to choose which brand of toilet paper was the optimal choice) and I try to ask all those things too, although I don't think I do it in words exactly.
But I'm still nominating you, or maybe all of us, to make the idea of sustainable living come across as the interesting, sexy, joyful good time it can be rather than just a good argument point or an “ought to”. Do you know what I mean?
People who feel that they're just being expected to give something up and there's no joy on the other side are understandably reluctant and no amount of guilt-tripping will win them over. I think much more unicycle riding is called for and you're the girl for the job.
Oh by the way, I'm sending you the purple velvet thrift shop shirt and something else I promised you a while back but the right one had to come to me so it will be on its way to you soon. Even though more stuff doesn't equal more happiness, I think you'll smile.
awesome questions. i am going to have to have a heart to heart with my Robert around them, see if we can gradually incorporate them more into our own lives. thank you!
tink – I have also been incapacitated by tp choices in this lifetime. I understand the dillemna. :-)
oh and I do think that sustainable living can absolutely be interesting, what could be MORE interesting?, sexy and joyful– yes. yummm. I never, ever have to eat mcdonald's for starters. slow food, local food is tremendously more yummy, at least that's what my taste buds have been whatever-washed into believing. :-)
and giving things up can be SO freeing! I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but please know that I do often “preach” to the non initiated. I am considered to be the craziest treehugger punk girl at my workplace – I get ridiculed periodically, but it doesn't bother me much and I've seen lots of folks move “left” over the years and one even says it's my fault.
you are absolutely right that guilt tripping doesn't work. you have to be in the world – living joyfully - carrying all that joy around with you and when people see it, they want it and they often ask how you got it and then you get to tell and show and sometimes it plants little seeds in minds and those seeds grow into real change. :-)
that's another reason why I've simply got to keep cultivating joy and peace and love and all those “cliches” – who would want to do the things I suggest doing if I was just miserable and miserly???
I say, walk softly and wear and huge smile…… :-)
—
not to say that I haven't been in HUGE arguments with my husband over the years, particularly when the organic sticker shock hit him in the face in the supermarket. when I absolutely refused to buy the chemical laden bananas which were more than a dollar a pound cheaper. I think I said, rather loudly, “i will NOT save my self a couple of dollars at the expense of children in south america who get cancer from just living next to chemical laden banana plantations. I simply can't do it.” and he thought to himself – who IS this crazy person??? but we went home with organic bananas (probably in january… another story) and now he never comes home with chemical laden produce unless there is just no other choice and sometimes we even just go without if we can't get something local or at least organic. and now he grows a garden in summer and advocates for backyard chickens!! :-)
what in the world am I going on about?? I have to get up in a few short hours for some meditation and yoga. so night night.
buenos sueños a mis amigas.
¡dios mío! I forgot to say how excited I am to check the mail this week. I may indeed have to pull out the unicycle and start riding it – in honor of the purple velvet thrift shop shirt.
and SOME things, revered, and with special sentimental value, CAN make one happier. :-) not more things, but things that are more special. :-)
buenas noches, otra vez. :-)
Have you read any of Eliot Coleman's stuff about year round gardening? I meant to get that going for this winter but didn't get started soon enough, but it's my plan for next year. I have the other book, his earlier one, but I'm going to get the one I linked to because I'm sure in those ten years he's got some new ideas. Anyway, it defrays a lot of the sticker shock for organics if you grow them yourself, and nothing is more local than right outside your door. He lives in Maine so it is definitely do-able in Colorado - or North Carolina!
I get crazy when I see those lists of the foods that are safe vs less safe produce to eat non-organic, because that SO is not the point. I mean, even organically raised meat has pesticide residue because it's in everything, all our water supplies, we're changing the sex of frogs swimming in our synthetic estrogen pesticide soup, migrant workers get sprayed by the crop dusters while they're working, people who live in agricultural areas have a hugely increased risk of Parkinson's disease just from being close by, and some person at the grocery store is going, well, here on my list it says that if I just buy organic apples and greens I'll be fine and I don't have to worry about this other thing so I'll buy the cheap one. I mean really, if it's the expense, eat less. Problem solved.
Email me your address again please! It's in my other computer although I know it's in my email somewhere but I might as well just delete all that stuff I keep in my email because I can never find it again. (I'm currently limited to just the lappy which is fine except for some stuff I really want from my hard drive…)
Yes, I agree about certain things just being special, but also about paring down…and I choose to keep odd things. We aren't doing any christmas giving this year, because even if we give everybody Kiva accounts or something like that, they will gift us back with stuff. I have a conflicted relationship with stuff because I love to collect things for art projects but then I have these boxes of very random things and does the world really need more goofy art projects anyway? I'm trying now to shift toward making our house the art project itself, to make functional art and not stuff to stick on a wall or shelf. I want to make all my own clothes eventually - which would be helpful anyway since I'm six feet tall and nothing fits right.
This probably should have been an email - Krissy was laughing a while back because you and Farland were having a private conversation about meeting up somewhere or something on Facebook, just in the stream of things and it was kind of cool. The coolest thing about internet connections is that otra vez can be anytime at all.
wha?? why didn't I see this til just now?? I have to shut off the computer this very minute, but I'll be back here tomorrow to continue this otra vez anytime private public conversation. ay dios miyo. or something like that. :-)
I'm so glad this wasn't an email because it has so many good points in it and they are good to leave here for all to see…..
“it defrays a lot of the sticker shock for organics if you grow them yourself, and nothing is more local than right outside your door.” – yes!! yes!! yes!! I'll get the book!
“I get crazy when I see those lists of the foods that are safe vs less safe produce to eat non-organic, because that SO is not the point. I mean, even organically raised meat has pesticide residue because it's in everything, all our water supplies, we're changing the sex of frogs swimming in our synthetic estrogen pesticide soup, migrant workers get sprayed by the crop dusters while they're working, people who live in agricultural areas have a hugely increased risk of Parkinson's disease just from being close by, and some person at the grocery store is going, well, here on my list it says that if I just buy organic apples and greens I'll be fine and I don't have to worry about this other thing so I'll buy the cheap one. I mean really, if it's the expense, eat less. Problem solved.”
yes!! yes!! yes!! I couldn't have said that better myself. exactly!!
“I'm trying now to shift toward making our house the art project itself, to make functional art and not stuff to stick on a wall or shelf. I want to make all my own clothes eventually - which would be helpful anyway since I'm six feet tall and nothing fits right.”
this is brilliant. I just have to help adam get over his all off white walls addiction. my art projects make him crazy if they involve our actual house. and making our own clothes – I've been toying with the idea of signing up for a spinning and dying wool course in the spring and then a knitting class because although I kind of know how to knit it would be better if I learned a few more tricks. :-)