Sustainablog

Lester R. Brown

Our early twenty-first century civilization is being squeezed between advancing deserts and rising seas. Measured by the biologically productive land area that can support human habitation, the earth is shrinking. Mounting population densities, once generated solely by population growth, are now also fueled by the relentless advance of deserts and may soon be affected by the projected rise in sea level. As overpumping depletes aquifers, millions more are forced to relocate in search of water.

Desert expansion in sub-Saharan Africa, principally in the Sahelian countries, is displacing millions of people—forcing them to either move southward or migrate to North Africa. A 2006 U.N. conference on desertification in Tunisia projected that by 2020 up to 60 million people could migrate from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and Europe. This flow of migrants has been under way for many years.

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Life, Money and Illuision is not about the magical arts or wizardry, though it does demystify money and Wall Street’s greedy aspirations abetted by the global push for more growth and consumption (and jobs).

Life, Money and Illuision: Living on Earth as if we want to stay (New Society, 2009) by Mike Nickerson is a driving tome that reconciles how our economy operates in relationship to the ecological and social systems on which we all depend.

In this second revised edition of Life, Money and Illusion, Nickerson explains that “Life” refers to the biological processes by which living things maintain themselves over time. “Money” represents our economic ideology that claims that as long as the volume of money changing hands increases, all will be well. “Illusion” refers to the fact that these two perspectives are directly opposed in terms of how they would solve current problems.

As one might imagine, a book of this stature and ambition — if providing meaningful analysis and argumentation (which it does superbly) — is not a cursory or a casual read. Running 448 pages, Life, Money and Illusion is meticulously fashioned in easy-to-understand language that makes Nickerson’s arguments and ideas both compelling and provocative. It draws from numerous fields, including ecology, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and, of course, economics.

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What were you thinking about on September 16, 2008? Green business ideas probably weren’t at the top of the list… September 15 was the day that Lehman Brothers went belly up, and you were probably more focused on your portfolio and savings. As such, Tim Sanders’ book Saving the World at Work (released on - you guessed it - September 16) got buried under talk of a second Great Depression.

Sanders and publisher Doubleday decided to give the book another go, and relaunched it on September 16th of this year. I’m glad they did: while the title led me to believe I was going to be reading another “how to” book on greening the workplace (which is not a bad thing), Sanders goes well beyond tips on saving paper and electricity. There are ideas for “greening” a company, but Sanders contextualizes these action steps within an examination of the “triple bottom line,” and a broader “Responsibility Revolution”: “…a broad-based movement of people and companies taking a disruptive approach to making a difference - contributing to our quality of life, locally and globally, for current and future generations.”

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Dominique Browning, the former editor-in-chief of House and Garden, is partnering with Environmental Defense Fund to launch a new column called “Personal Nature: Dominique Browning’s distinctive take on all things environmental“. The column will highlight the human impacts of environmental threats like climate change and ocean pollution. Her first piece explores the language we use in talking about climate change and the need for individual and social action.

“It is only a small leap from caring about what’s going on in a garden to caring about what’s going on in the larger environment,” says Ms. Browning. “Environmental issues are hitting the very place we want to feel safest: home. Home ought to be a sacred place of retreat, rest and peace. It won’t be if we turn our backs on the world. This new column was born in the spirit of paying attention, becoming educated and aware and talking about what we can do now. I’m hoping to give matters of global urgency a human touch.

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Environmental care is a practical, worldly thing. But it is also a step in one’s personal evolution. On the one hand, it is a practical response to the environmental problems we are facing. It is also a foresighted response to the issues (economic and environmental) that we might be facing if we don’t think more about the environment we live in and rely on. But, on the other hand, it is much more than that.
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This post was originally published on Eco-Libris blog on September 5.

On August 19 Cleantech Group published a report that was supposed to put an end to an ongoing debate on the question if the Kindle and other e-readers are actually greener than physical books. The release’s title was “E-readers a win for carbon emissions.”

It was supposed to be the life cycle analysis many people, including myself were waiting for. I have to admit I was very excited to read about it as we follow this debate for a long time. I decided to read it and see if this is really it. If it’s really over.

The report, entitled ‘The Environmental Impact of Amazon’s Kindle’ was written by senior reporter Emma Ritch. I read the executive brief (7-page long) and was happy to find a well-written analysis that integrates many pieces of information that together create a more coherent picture. At the same time I wasn’t that sure about the validity of the findings.

There were two main issues that bothered me mostly: the carbon footprint of a single Kindle and the assumption about the number of e-books the average user is reading. As you’ll see these are important factors in the analysis and have significant influence on the findings.

Here are my thoughts about them in more details:

1. What’s the carbon footprint of a single Kindle?

This is an important part of the analysis - you can’t have a comparison between physical books and the Kindle without this figure. But fortunately the report has it: “…the second-generation Kindle represents the same emissions as 15 books bought in person or 30 purchased online. That would yield a range of between 60.2 to 306 kg of CO2, or an average of 167.78 kg of CO2 during its lifespan.”

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As millions of Americans are finding themselves waking up with less disposable income, fewer job prospects, less income thanks for forced furloughs or lost value in their 401(k)s, some are rediscovering the joys of growing our own food, sharing picnics with others in our community, going for hikes in the woods, or spending more time with our family. Instead of working at a job they hate, they’re starting their own enterprise that makes the world a better place.

As it turns out, a new version of happiness is emerging based on relationships and connections to each other and nature, not all the goods found at the Mall. Many of us are choosing to live and work in a world where the economists (who presently dominate the national economy and national discourse) don’t matter.

The authoritative new book from Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska, Less is More: Embracing simplicity for a healthy planet, a caring economy and lasting happiness (New Society, 2009), is just the right tonic for these topsy-turvy times. Side-step stress, don’t give into your fear, and thrive, instead, in a world of abundance where freedom and cooperation still reign.

My wife and I had a chance to peek at the advance galley of Less is More before it went to print and found Andrews and Urbanska masterful both in their prose and their ability to bring together an eclectic array of writers, thinkers and sustainability advocates who live in ways that echo what they write about.

Less is More is divided into three parts — simplicity defined, solutions, and policies — each containing short essays, analysis and inspiration from some of the leading sustainability, simplicity and community thinkers and doers. From Sarah Susanka discussing clutter and Robyn Griggs Lawrence’ tome on wabi-sabi time to Juliet Schor’s exploration of a carbon-friendly economy and David Korten’s treatise on caring and connecting, a diverse array of perspectives woven throughout Less is More illuminate why there’s greater freedom in having enough rather than always striving to have more and more. Writes essayist David Wann: “According to surveys taken by the US National Science Foundation for the past 30 years, even with the steady increases in income, our level of overall happiness has actually tapered off.” So what’s the economy for anyway, to support a bigger government or make a few really rich people richer?

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The stresses in our early twenty-first century civilization take many forms—social, economic, environmental, and political. One distinctly unhealthy and visible illustration of all four is the swelling flow of garbage associated with a throwaway economy. As noted in my book Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, throwaway products were first conceived following World War II as a convenience and as a way of creating jobs and sustaining economic growth. The more goods produced and discarded, the reasoning went, the more jobs there would be.

What sold throwaways was their convenience. For example, rather than washing cloth towels or napkins, consumers welcomed disposable paper versions. Thus we have substituted facial tissues for handkerchiefs, disposable paper towels for hand towels, disposable table napkins for cloth ones, and throwaway beverage containers for refillable ones. Even the shopping bags we use to carry home throwaway products become part of the garbage flow.

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Lifestyle is the biggest underlying contributor to our environmental impact. The things we buy, the products we use, the way we travel, are all influenced greatly by our lifestyle. Our lifestyle is the root of all our green (or not green) actions in some way or another. How we think, what we think about, how we spend our free time, our daily and weekly habits, what we decide to bring into our lives — this is our lifestyle.

I’ve come up with a top ten list of lifestyle factors that I believe have the biggest impact on whether or not we are living sustainable lives. Is your lifestyle sustainable?
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This post was originally published on Eco-Libris blog on July 20.

As part of our efforts to promote green printing, we continue to closely follow the printing industry, keep you posted with printers who have already adopted eco-friendly practices in their business and speak with them on the state of green printing, the trends, the challenges in the present and their plans for the future.

We posted already two interviews with green printers (Greg Barber and Deb Bruner) and today we are happy to have another green printer on our blog: Livio Ciciotti of Monroe Litho (Rochester, NY).

Livio Ciciotti is an Account Executive with Monroe Litho based in Rochester, NY. He is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Print Media. He has been invloved in printing since high school. Livio is also in the Marine Corps Reserve, an honor graduate from the School of Infantry he now serves with 3rd Battalion 25th Marines out of Buffalo, NY and is preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan.

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