Leadership

Context: People consistently push back on the suggestion of them acting more sustainably, especially environmentalists and liberals, claiming that individual action doesn't achieve meaningful results, as if acting sustainably was a burden or chore. Since when did acting in harmony with nature become so onerous? Why pretend to care about the environment if you don't like it so much? New view: How about any action at all? Nearly no American is doing anything meaningful. Most who think they are doing something meaningful are doing counterproductive things where they mean well but achieve the opposite, what I call "stepping on the gas, thinking it's the brake, wanting congratulations." People who don't understand systems don't see how, for example, carbon offsets increase greenhouse emissions. But most are…

Today begins my sixth month disconnected from the electric grid. I didn't think I would make it more then a couple days when I started. Instead, I've found the experience liberating and joyful. Not hurting other people eases the conscience. In fact, connecting with them through taking more personal responsibility for how I affect them, including you, mitigated through the environment. It's a sustainability leadership exercise first and foremost. More than half the world lives in cities and I'd wager the majority believe, as I did before trying, that what I'm doing is impossible and not joyous. You can't lead someone else to live by values you live the opposite of, partly why there are effectively no leaders in sustainability and why no one knows…

Pollution hurts people. I polluted less in the past four or five months than ever before. Not polluting connects with people and cultures. Why don't we try more? Here's the bill: What my sustainability leadership will lead to If you think what I'm doing is pointless or won't add up, you don't know how leadership works. At the very least, some people will think "You can do that? I want to try." And they'll outperform me. Living by your values is not sufficient to lead others but it's necessary. While it becomes easy to live sustainably (with practice), it can be hard to split with mainstream culture, but it's rewarding when that culture opposes values like Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do…

I meant to post yesterday that it began my second year with the fridge unplugged, but I forgot because as unbelievable as it felt to make it more than a few days the first time, it just takes practice. All humans lived without refrigerators for 300,000 years until about a hundred years ago. Then we became entitled, dependent, and obese. It turns out what made it work most was relying more on fresh fruits and vegetables, learning to cook, and learning to ferment. Nothing special. Nothing people haven't been doing for millennia. Living without the fridge wasn't the hard part. Dealing with other people is. They keep saying how I'm special so it's easier for me or they're special so it's harder for them, but…

Today began month 5 disconnected from the grid, one of my life's most educational and rewarding experiences. I didn't know how I'd make more than two days. My goal was one month. I had no idea I'd make it this far, nor how much it would connect me with traditional cultures and reveal our culture's entitlement, addiction, resignation, abdication, capitulation, and ignorance of how much of life we've numbed ourselves to. Greenwich Village Sun We learn through experience. Nearly half the time I wasn't even using solar at home, though I was using my "cheat," that I could plug in my computer and phone at NYU. Over half the human population lives in cities. If they consider what I'm doing impossible, as I did before…

My second article in the prestigious Leader to Leader Journal just appeared. It's peer-reviewed and edited, so if you're used to reading me hear, it should be a step up in quality. The article is We Who Choose to Lead Are Humanity's Best Hope to Save Civilization. Sustainability lacks leadership. It has plenty of people sharing information, numbers, and instructions, or what I call CCCSC, short for coercing, cajoling, convincing, and seeking compliance. Those techniques are nearly the opposite of leadership, in my opinion. My goal is to engage people who call ourselves leaders, to start leading. In person I tend to speak more bluntly about it, because I know how much potential we have to bring joy and overcome all the resignation, capitulation, and…

People keep complaining when I say I do something to pollute less that not everyone can do it. They lecture at me things like that not everyone has access to a farmers market and that there are single mothers in the world, as if anyone didn't know these things. Keep in mind that polluting, by definition, means hurting people. Stop complaining that trying to pollute less---that is, to hurt people less---is hard and change it. If you complain people don't have access to farmers markets, food coops, or CSAs, start one! People can make decent livings starting and operating them. The work will be incredibly rewarding, as will the community you form. Stop complaining about finance and start a credit union! Stop complaining people don't…

Today is day 100 off the grid, a nice milestone, about 98 days longer than I thought I could before starting. I'm not sure when I'll reconnect or why. I'm thinking about when my next bill comes, around September 9, which would give me three consecutive bills with 0 kilowatt-hours. My "cheat" I allowed before starting was to plug in at NYU, where I worked before the experiment. I wasn't trying to solve everything. I didn't even think I'd make a few days. Since I'm nearly two months into without even solar power, I've learned how to live with zero power. Dried beans I can eat by sprouting. Leafy vegetables I can preserve by keeping in water, which grows them, or fermenting them. Instead of…

For an informal survey, I went to a supermarket to observe the items in at least 100 shoppers' carts. I didn't make it all in one trip and lost count, but have passed 100 carts. Every item in every cart was packaged. Even fresh produce was put in plastic bags (plus all the ones I saw in the produce aisle had stickers). I'm sure some shoppers buy produce without packaging, but all the ones I saw put theirs in plastic bags. Polluting culture = Hurting others culture We have created a culture where the absolute basics of life require hurting other people. It bears repeating: We have created a culture where the absolute basics of life require hurting other people. Think about it: if simply…

I got my second bill with zero kilowatt-hours: Everyone's response includes speculating how it's easier for me because I'm (take your pick): single, male, in New York, or privileged in some other way. Nobody speculates why it would be harder for me, like I don't get economies of scale that I would if someone else were involved. But let's grant every possible advantage. If you didn't hear of me doing it and someone asked if you thought someone could draw zero electrical power in his apartment for a month, let alone two, admit it, you'd likely guess it was impossible, or if possible, not by someone still living his regular life. If you thought it was impossible, some belief led you there. That belief or…

What happens to a culture that doesn’t live by its values? It twists itself up, trying to rationalize what it considers wrong yet still does. In the case of slavery or denying women the right to vote, it creates stories that people who are equal really aren’t. Quoting the historian and former Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Eric Williams, Slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the consequence of slavery. That is, people being unwilling or unable to let go of slavery created stories that the people they were hurting and killing weren’t equal or whatever nonsense would help them sleep at night while patently violating the Golden Rule. We are following that path. Nobody loves their country more than I love…