From The Green Skeptic Archives: Philanthropy & Environmental Change: Should Social Capital Markets Take Over?

Deep SEA. Photo by Mickey Rosenau

[Note: While on hiatus this week, I'm posting selections from The Green Skeptic Archives. This one was originally posted on 23 October 2007.--SEA]

I'm taking up a friendly challenge here.

Lucy Bernholz, who writes the excellent blog Philanthropy 2173, and I started a blogalog (Did I just coin that term?) between our blogs about the state of philanthropy and environmental change.

It began in response to Lucy's listing of green blogs in the wake of Blog Action Day last Monday, and her noting the lack of discussion of philanthropy on the sites listed (including mine).

My defense stemmed from a concern about philanthropy and its effectiveness as an agent of change in the environmental sphere, which actually was the origin of this blog. I have grown increasingly concerned about the ability of traditional philanthropy to effect lasting change at a pace commensurate with the global challenges we face.

I expressed this concern in my essay for GreenBiz, "Confessions of a Green Skeptic," several years ago about the Earth Charter.

Back then (March 2003), I wrote, "we need to demonstrate how profitable being green can be, and how essential it is to a truly global sustainability. If we can turn the greed motivation to green motivation, effectively turning it on itself, does the means justify the end? Hard to say. But if greed isn't going away anytime soon, we are left with trying to redirect the motivation any way we can. Guilt has worked, but only gets us so far. 'Envy trumps guilt' every time."

This sentiment was influenced by Thomas Friedman's thoughts on the subject expressed in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, that "if conservationists are going to get ahead of the greedy we need to move faster. 'For now, the only way to run as fast as the herd is by riding the herd itself and trying to redirect it,' Friedman writes. 'We need to demonstrate to the herd that being green, being global, and being greedy can go hand in hand.'"

And it was echoed by Gretchen Daily and Katherine Ellison in their book, The New Economy of Nature, from which I quoted, "the record clearly shows that conservation can't succeed by charity alone. It has a fighting chance, however, with well-designed appeals to self-interest."

Things have changed quite a bit since I wrote that essay -- the world has gotten flatter, green has become the new black, Al Gore won an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for his work on climate change, and the herd has started to move to greener pastures.

But a lot hasn't changed. In Philanthropy, as Susan Raymond points out in a two-part piece called "Does Philanthropy Scale?," the "vast majority of American nonprofits are small; 60 percent or more...have less than $100,000 in annual revenue." And, Raymond notes, "the average foundation grant to nonprofits is on the order of $25,000."

Raymond also points out that "the number of nonprofits with $10 million or more in revenue has increased by 73 percent in the last decade," and asks, "when $25,000 is the average grant, is philanthropy the answer to organizational growth? Indeed, is it even relevant as a source of capital?"

I'm going to quote one more thing from Raymond's essay: "The evolution of microfinance teaches that, when what had been a philanthropic initiative matures and proves its worth, alternative capital sources step in and redefine the opportunity. Is achieving scale, then, the clue for philanthropy to either evolve or exit? And, if so, do we need to rethink what we mean by 'philanthropy' for large organizations or proven initiatives in social markets?"

I quote Raymond's piece at length because it corroborates some of my own thinking on this subject. She rightly points out that the biggest advantage of philanthropic capital is its "ability to take significant risk, to seed a promising idea and recognize that all promising ideas can be failures."

So risk tolerance or tolerance for failure, playing on the field of ideas and at the edge of problems "where the probabilities of success are unknown, is the key playing field for philanthropy."

For many ideas, perhaps chief among them those addressing environmental issues, it may be time for other types of capital to be brought to bear. I'm particularly interested in what Raymond describes as "a multiplicity of approaches to organizational finance in the nonprofit sector...for self-reliance, sustainability, and (yes) profit" to come to the stage.

This is not far from what Lucy refers to as "tri-sector solutions," such as the B Corporation she has described or the bond purchase strategy Raymond describes in her piece. (In the latter, Raymond explains, "'Donors' took on the role of guarantor rather than funder, and the resources flowed at levels that donations would never have been able to sustain.")

Elsewhere in the web pages of onPhilanthropy, John Bloom of RSF Social Finance, posits that "social finance holds that the purpose of money and finance is to support human initiative and to foster the evolution of new community."

And, Bloom suggests, social finance recognizes "the human and environmental consequences of economic activities...[and] presents a picture of a healthier sustainable future -- and one that leaves behind the industrialist model of philanthropy..."

I will continue this dialogue here on The Green Skeptic, because I think it is an important one, and part of an ongoing, evolving thought process for me that started over four years ago and which led to this blog. Thanks to Lucy for calling me out about it and fostering this dialogue.

Clean Tech: Unlocking the New Green Economy

"How do we begin reorganizing the industrial economy?" Umair Haque asked in his Edge Economy essay "A Manifesto for the Next Industrial Revolution."

Haque answers his own question: "By using markets, networks, and communities to alter the way resources are managed: to weave a fabric of incentives for sustainable growth and authentic value creation into the economy – a new economic fabric that's meaningful to people."

I've been thinking a lot about this call to action while developing my new idea to "organize" (to use Haque's term) the green energy financing space. And I've been wrestling with the following questions (among others):

What would it take to infuse new DNA into the way green energy is financed?

Can we redraw the boundaries of value creation in the 21st century?

Can we expand the access to participation in this space?

Can we create a company that is based on the values of integrity, openness, transparency, and "a fierce embrace of what's good" (as Haque writes elsewhere)?

Can we create a company that develops incentives for people to reorganize and manage resources in a way that reduces the barriers to entry for most people?

I'm becoming obsessed by these questions and am trying to create a response to Umair's challenge.

I hope that what I'm working on with a few very smart people will help reduce or eliminate the "clear, durable, structural barriers to efficiency and productivity" in this space.

The pursuit of answers to these questions is one of the reasons I'm leaving Ashoka at the end of this month. I need to focus my time and energy on trying to explode the boundaries of value creation and unlock the new green economy.

Call me a fool, wish me luck – or come along for the ride.

Aspen Environment Forum: My Three Take-Aways

Many years ago, someone offered me a piece of advice when I was suffering from information overload at a conference: don't try to absorb or act on everything; just make sure to write down your "3 Take-Aways" before you leave.

This approach has worked out pretty well for me over the years, and last week I dispatched this piece of advice to a young participant of this year's Aspen Environment Forum.

Then I took my own advice. So, here are my 3 Take-Aways from the Forum:

1. There is much to be done and we need all energy options (and plenty of patience) to make progress and ensure prosperity.

2. There are plenty of solutions and plenty of opportunities, but the window to act is now (especially regarding energy efficiency, alternative energy technology, and along the value chain).

3. The New Green Economy needs to be inclusive, especially mobilizing training and redeployment opportunities for disadvantaged and poor people in stressed communities -- to move from pollution and prison culture to solution and social uplift environmentalism.

That seems like a lot, but really one flows to the next. We can do this if we just get our butts in gear. What are we waiting for?

And, I don't remember who you were, but if you're out there, thanks for the good advice!

Innovation: Dave Eggers and his TED Wish for Engaging with Local Public Schools

Stop what you are doing right now and take 20 minutes to watch this very inspiring talk by 2008 TED Prize winner and author Dave Eggers. His wish? That the TED community personally, creatively engage with local public schools.

With charateristic aplomb and earnestness, Eggers talks about "how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open their own volunteer-driven, wildly creative writing labs. But you don't need to go that far, he reminds us -- it's as simple as asking a teacher 'How can I help?' He asks that we share our own volunteering stories at his new website, Once Upon a School."



Thanks to Paul Pedrosky at Infectious Greed for alerting me to the posting of the video.

[Note: Initially, I can't seem to get the embedding code to work, so here is a link to the page on TED.com: Eggers @ TED]

Philanthropy & Environmental Change: Should Social Capital Markets Take Over?

I'm taking up a friendly challenge here.

Lucy Bernholz, who writes the excellent blog Philanthropy 2173, and I started a blogalog (Did I just coin that term?) between our blogs about the state of philanthropy and environmental change.

It began in response to Lucy's listing of green blogs in the wake of Blog Action Day last Monday, and her noting the lack of discussion of philanthropy on the sites listed (including mine).

My defense stemmed from a concern about philanthropy and its effectiveness as an agent of change in the environmental sphere, which actually was the origin of this blog. I have grown increasingly concerned about the ability of traditional philanthropy to effect lasting change at a pace commensurate with the global challenges we face.

I expressed this concern in my essay for GreenBiz, "Confessions of a Green Skeptic," several years ago about the Earth Charter.

Back then (March 2003), I wrote, "we need to demonstrate how profitable being green can be, and how essential it is to a truly global sustainability. If we can turn the greed motivation to green motivation, effectively turning it on itself, does the means justify the end? Hard to say. But if greed isn't going away anytime soon, we are left with trying to redirect the motivation any way we can. Guilt has worked, but only gets us so far. 'Envy trumps guilt' every time."

This sentiment was influenced by Thomas Friedman's thoughts on the subject expressed in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, that "if conservationists are going to get ahead of the greedy we need to move faster. 'For now, the only way to run as fast as the herd is by riding the herd itself and trying to redirect it,' Friedman writes. 'We need to demonstrate to the herd that being green, being global, and being greedy can go hand in hand.'"

And it was echoed by Gretchen Daily and Katherine Ellison in their book, The New Economy of Nature, from which I quoted, "the record clearly shows that conservation can't succeed by charity alone. It has a fighting chance, however, with well-designed appeals to self-interest."

Things have changed quite a bit since I wrote that essay -- the world has gotten flatter, green has become the new black, Al Gore won an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize for his work on climate change, and the herd has started to move to greener pastures.

But a lot hasn't changed. In Philanthropy, as Susan Raymond points out in a two-part piece called "Does Philanthropy Scale?," the "vast majority of American nonprofits are small; 60 percent or more...have less than $100,000 in annual revenue." And, Raymond notes, "the average foundation grant to nonprofits is on the order of $25,000."

Raymond also points out that "the number of nonprofits with $10 million or more in revenue has increased by 73 percent in the last decade," and asks, "when $25,000 is the average grant, is philanthropy the answer to organizational growth? Indeed, is it even relevant as a source of capital?"

I'm going to quote one more thing from Raymond's essay: "The evolution of microfinance teaches that, when what had been a philanthropic initiative matures and proves its worth, alternative capital sources step in and redefine the opportunity. Is achieving scale, then, the clue for philanthropy to either evolve or exit? And, if so, do we need to rethink what we mean by 'philanthropy' for large organizations or proven initiatives in social markets?"

I quote Raymond's piece at length because it corroborates some of my own thinking on this subject. She rightly points out that the biggest advantage of philanthropic capital is its "ability to take significant risk, to seed a promising idea and recognize that all promising ideas can be failures."

So risk tolerance or tolerance for failure, playing on the field of ideas and at at the edge of problems "where the probabilities of success are unknown, is the key playing field for philanthropy."

For many ideas, perhaps chief among them those addressing environmental issues, it may be time for other types of capital to be brought to bear. I'm particularly interested in what Raymond describes as "a multiplicity of approaches to organizational finance in the nonprofit sector...for self-reliance, sustainability, and (yes) profit" to come to the stage.

This is not far from what Lucy refers to as "tri-sector solutions," such as the B Corporation she has described or the bond purchase strategy Raymond describes in her piece. (In the latter, Raymond explains, "'Donors' took on the role of guarantor rather than funder, and the resources flowed at levels that donations would never have been able to sustain.")

Elsewhere in the web pages of onPhilanthropy, John Bloom of RSF Social Finance, posits that "social finance holds that the purpose of money and finance is to support human initiative and to foster the evolution of new community."

And, Bloom suggests, social finance recognizes "the human and environmental consequences of economic activities...[and] presents a picture of a healthier sustainable future -- and one that leaves behind the industrialist model of philanthropy..."

I will continue this dialogue here on The Green Skeptic, because I think it is an important one, and part of an ongoing, evolving thought process for me that started over four years ago and which led to this blog. Thanks to Lucy for calling me out about it and fostering this dialogue.

Innovation: Hacking Philanthropy Sessions, Hosted by Union Square Ventures

Imagine a room packed with a ton of brain power, knowledge, and expertise from the world of venture capital, technology, social change, and philanthropy and you've some idea what I walked into yesterday up at Columbia's Casa Italiana.

Brad Burnham, Fred Wilson, and Andrew Parker of Union Square Ventures -- the Three Tenors of New York's Silicon Alley -- brought together an illustrious gang for a day to talk about "Hacking Philanthropy," or how to bring philanthropic pursuits into the 21st century.

The participant roster was an all-star cast, including Charles Best from DonorsChoose.org, Premal Shah from Kiva.org, nattily attired Craig Newmark from Craig's List, Graham Hill of Treehugger.com, Red Hat and Lulu founder Bob Young, Dick Costolo, co-founder of Feed Burner, Victoria Vrana from Venture Philanthropy Partners, Tom Watson of Changing Our World, my new colleagues from Ashoka, Sushmita Ghosh and Leslie Crutchfield (whose new book, Forces for Good should do for non-profits what Jim Collins' Good to Great did for the private sector), Meetup.com Founder Scott Heiferman, Tom Reis from the estimable Kellogg Foundation (the only old guard institution represented), Jason Paez from the youth-centric start-up Party 4 A Purpose, Ashoka Fellow and Idealist founder Ami Dar, and even newly anointed MacArthur genius Saul Griffith of SQUID Labs. Quite a powerful group. (Not to mention we were joined at lunch by Maya Lin, who gave us an early look at her latest work in progress.)

The collective power of the group was exemplified by the conversation, which ranged from the potential for lightweight web services to increase the efficiency, reach, and effectiveness of philanthropy to wrestling with real-life business process issues. For eaxample, how to help Kiva close the gap between the numbers of on-line lenders versus certified microlending institutions in the field or why DonorsChoose, which currently focuses on putting school teachers in need with donors, could extend its reach to include other projects and pursuits.

For me, this event was timely. I have long been concerned about the state of philanthropy, among them: 1.) big institutions are so wedded to process and priority setting that they forget it's not about what we're selling to donor-investors but about what they are buying, 2.) that traditional philanthropy is still perceived as old fashioned, inefficient and stodgy, 3.) that, in fact, perception is reality, and 4.) that we risk losing the potential for catalyzing the network effect because we're focused on the wrong things. I could go on, and so could have this group.

It was a lively dialogue and, hopefully, just the beginning of an ongoing conversation among the participants. For now, kudos to the USV gang for bringing this group together. I have the impression it could be the start of something remarkable. Perhaps the full impact of our conversation yesterday will surface down the road and we'll be able to point to this session as a catalyst.

Social Entrepreneurs: Kawasaki Interviews Bornstein

One of our favorite business entrepreneurs/bloggers/authors (The Art of the Start), Guy Kawasaki, interviews one of our favorite chroniclers of social entrepreneurship (How to Change the World) and microfinance (The Price of a Dream), David Bornstein. What a cool combination: Kawasaki-Bornstein

Oh, and more good news is that Bornstein has updated How to Change the World for a new paperback edition. Looking forward to his new insights and to replacing my Penguin India edition that got mixed up in the binding process!

Global Climate Change: Idean Salehyan's "The New Myth About Climate Change"

This from YaleGlobal Online: Global warming is a serious problem and could result in a decline of basic resources such as water or food in some regions of the world. But Idean Salehyan rejects the notion that climate change will necessarily lead to civil wars, uncontrollable immigration and global violence.

“Dire scenarios like these may sound convincing, but they are misleading,” writes Idean Salehyan for Foreign Policy. “Even worse, they are irresponsible, for they shift liability for wars and human rights abuses away from oppressive, corrupt governments.”

Global leaders can muster a strong response to climate change, reducing carbon emissions and adapting to changes. Salehyan also offers the reminder that abundant resources often lead to conflict more so than scarcity. People are responsible for their reactions to scarce resources. The world is fortunate to have plenty of fair warning about climate change, and governments can take action to cooperate or compete.

As Salehyan concludes, "Yes, climate change is a serious problem that must be addressed, and unchecked environmental degradation may lead to intensified competition over scarce resources in certain regions. The good news is that the future is not written in stone. How governments respond to the challenge is at least as important as climate change itself, if not more so."

Read the full article: The New Myth About Climate Change

What Are Your "Right Questions"?

We all have questions we need to ask of ourselves, others, and our businesses. But what are the right questions?

Seth Godin, in his little book that tells you when to quit (and when to stick), asks you to ask:

"Is this a Dip, a Cliff, or a Cul-de-sac?"

"What chance does this project have to be the best in the world?"

"Are you avoiding the remarkable as a way of quitting without quitting?"

These are questions I wrestled with recently in thinking about my old job versus my new opportunity. When I could answer those questions, I made my decision.

Before I left TNC, I was trying to get answers to a few of questions that I (and donor-investors) need answered about our priorities:

1. What change has been affected by our actions and strategies?

2. What places are protected that may have been lost?

3. Whose lives are improved?

4. Why could the change not have happened without us?

I still think they are the right questions and, slightly tweaking the second one, are adaptable to any business.

Lucy Bernholz, in a post last week on her excellent blog Philanthropy 2173, suggests three questions for donors to ask themselves:

1. What do I care about enough to dedicate my time and money to?

2. Who can help me do it?

3. How do I know if they are doing a good job?

What are your "right questions"?

IMAGINE: John Lennon Piano on Tour with Mission of Healing and Hope

This sounds like one of those conceptual art pieces John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono was famous for over 30 years ago. The piano on which Lennon composed his anthem "Imagine" is touring sites of violent death in an attempt to bring healing and call attention to violent crime.

The Wall Street Journal (imagine seeing John Lennon on the front page of the WSJ!) reported this morning that the tour was organized by the current owners of the piano, singer George Michael and his longtime partner Kenny Goss. The pair bought the piano at auction from a private collector for $2.1 million.

Naive symbolism? Folly in the face of the prevalence of violent crime? The kind of thing John would have done in his post-Beatles activist youth? Maybe. But for the people who have experienced it, such as Alec and and Gabi Clayton in Olympia, Washington, whose son, Bill, took his own life at age 17 after he was attacked in a hate crime, it may provide healing and call attention to the types of violence that are all too common across America. (Read Gabi Clayton's blog)

The tour includes anniversary appearances at the sites of world tragedies, such as the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, New York's World Trade Center, the federal building in Oklahoma City, the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on the 39th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination on the balcony of what is now the National Civil Rights Museum.

It all started last November at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. The tour was conceived after the piano was showcased at the IMAGINE exhibition at the Goss Gallery in Dallas last year.

"Imagine a world without violence, a world of peace. This sentiment echoes the lyrics to John Lennon’s 1971 song, 'Imagine,'" claims the Lennon Piano Tour website.

The Steinway upright is being photographed at each site for a possible book and documentary to "spread a worldwide message of peace, transcending time, cultures and boundaries."

Like the "Free Hugs Campaign," the Lennon Piano Tour is a simple act that touches people directly with a message that speaks louder than words of protest.

"This is about hopes and dreams and the world condition," Goss told the Associated Press last April.

The tour will likely conclude in December in front of the Dakota, where Lennon was murdered in 1980.

View a slide show of the stops along the tour: Lennon Piano. An RSS feed for updates is also available.

Watch the video of the Imagine Piano arriving at the Clayton's home and being played by proto-blogger and singer/songwriter Steve Schalchlin.



A moving tribute to a lost son.

Social Entrepreneurs: Moving from Dialogue to Action, Part Three

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you may have noted a few recent references to Ashoka. I’m about to move from The Nature Conservancy, where I’ve spent the past 15 years (read my reflections on that anniversary from last month: Conservation Mission Success), to Ashoka, the global association of leading social entrepreneurs.

Ashoka was named for the Indian leader who unified the subcontinent in the 3rd century BC. He renounced violence and dedicated his life to social welfare and economic development. The organization was founded in 1980 by Bill Drayton.

Ashoka was built on the simple premise that the most effective way to promote positive social change is to invest in social entrepreneurs, individuals who are devising innovative solutions to the most pressing social issues of the day.

For the past few years I’ve been tracking social entrepreneurs and the growth of this approach to social change. Indeed, it’s one of four focus areas for The Green Skeptic. A year ago, I wrote about the need to move from Dialogue to Action and proposed to step up my efforts to promote social entrepreneurs on this blog. So, now I'm going to take more direct action.

I’m convinced social entrepreneurism is the next big thing: mobilizing individuals with system-changing solutions for the world's most urgent social problems.

There's still a strong environmental component to my interests, obviously; but this move allows me to expand my impact in a more triple-bottom line fashion: economic, environmental, and social.

I’ve also been exploring some of my own ideas for potentially systems-changing action on climate change and energy distribution. Ashoka is the right place for me to explore these ideas for tackling climate change impacts on the poorest of the poor through small-scale, distributed alternative energy options.

It’s a bittersweet farewell, as you may imagine; sort of like leaving home. The Conservancy’s mission is in my DNA, however. I will continue to stay in touch with the Conservancy and many of my colleagues there.

And in some ways, there is a symbolic continuity in this natural growth move for me: I’m trading TNC’s oak leaf logo for Ashoka’s oak tree logo.

Both organizations are dedicated to “innovative solutions that are sustainable and replicable, both nationally and globally.” Ashoka is built upon the idea that individuals can effect social change by being empowered to act at the local level while promoting social change on a global scale.

I’ll be joining Ashoka after Labor Day and will keep you posted on this and other developments in the social entrepreneur space here on The Green Skeptic.

The Top 12 Hottest Environmental Issues

I'm a solutions guy and have started to swear off the moaning, groaning, and hand-wringing most greenies get mired in. (Did someone say Henny Penny?) Kevin Bryan of the Meridian Institute and I pushed hard to make the recent ELP/NJIT climate conference be focused on solutions. It was a great success and (almost) everyone felt hopeful coming out if it. I know I did.

But when a colleague asked me for a list of "the 12 hottest environmental, conservation and sustainability issues facing our planet today," I felt obliged to answer.

Here is my list, which was off the top of my head this afternoon, not necessarily in order of importance (other than climate change, which affects or exacerbates all of the others):

1. Climate Change (the uber issue).
2. Clean fresh water (for drinking, industry, energy, pharmaceuticals, technology).
3. Deforestation, especially in tropics.
4. Rising sea levels and warming ocean waters.
5. Collapsing fisheries and destructive fishing practices.
6. Energy (continued dependence on fossil fuels and switching to alternative resources).
7. Diminishing connection and access to nature among children ("Nature Deficit Disorder").
8. Poverty, terrorism and environmental refugees.
9. Maritime safety and pollution.
10. Biodiversity and ecosystem loss and degradation.
11. Agriculture and food security.
12. Global infectious diseases and vector-borne disease proliferation.

Surprising what remains from a little over a year ago -- and what's changed. Here's my last post on the subject, from Earth Day 2006: My 10 Thoughts for Earth Day.

Wish I could Plexo this so you could vote on each and move them up and down. But until then, I'd like to know what you think -- all of these are open for discussion.

Tell me what you think.

In Memorium: Colin Fletcher, Inveterate Walker

Colin Fletcher died last week at the age of 85. For those of us who considered his book The Complete Walker a kind of bible, this news represents the end of an era.

I recall the first time I cracked open a copy of Fletcher's book almost 30 years ago. To a teenager interested in the outdoors, but for whom the Boy Scouts were too cultish and conservative, Mr. Fletcher's lyrical, funny, and practical way with dispensing advice about walking and backpacking was a godsend.

My pal Geoffrey Rule turned me on to Fletcher. Geoff was from British stock and Fletcher was Welsh. They both had an enthusiasm for walking, especially in wilderness, that was infectious and seemed cut from another time.

Mr. Fletcher wrote about his own experiences in the wilderness in such books as The Thousand-Mile Summer (1964) about his walk through the Mojave Desert and the Sierra Nevada range, The Man Who Walked Through Time (1968), which chronicled a two-month long trek along the length of the Grand Canyon, and River: One Man's Journey Down the Colorado, Source to Sea (1997).

But it was The Complete Walker that gave me advice about gear, what to take on various trips, and what to know about walking in the wilderness, which to Fletcher remained "a delectable madness, very good for sanity." Although the book was far too large to pack on a backpacking trip, I still won't leave for a multi-day trek without consulting it. Even today, I've turned to the book when planning for one of my 40-mile excursions in the Wind River range, the White Mountains, or Yosemite over the past few years.

It's an indispensable guide. And Fletcher was a companion who will be missed. Luckily, his book is still in print, in an edition updated by Chip Rawlins: The Complete Walker.

Here's a link to his obit from the Los Angeles Times: Fletcher

Global Climate Change: More is the New Less

Seth Godin has a post this morning about the marketing behind global warming and reducing carbon emissions. We've had a dialogue on the subject before (see Global Warming & Other Misnomers...) and our opinion hasn't wavered.

"'Fight global warming' is a fine slogan," Seth writes. "Except it's meaningless. That's like dieters everywhere shouting, 'eat less' while they stand in line to get bleu cheese dressing from the salad bar."

I tend to agree with Seth on the point that we will always struggle if we try to convince Americans (and those who desire an American lifestyle) to do with less ("Reduce, Reuse, Recycle") or to limit themsleves. We just don't have such restraint. And, as I've argued before here, it's not about limiting growth, but encouraging a better kind of growth.

Seth uses as an example car dealerships, which list their wares according to decreasing horsepower. Or restaurants that offer increasingly huge portions for the expanding waistlines of Americans. (How about the practice of offering free dessert for every kids meal. No free lunch? Maybe not, but there's free ice cream!)

We crave more. That's why hotels are in competition now to see who can offer you the most free food: Hot all-you-can-eat breakfasts, free cookies with check-in, how about "lunch on us?" Even fast food chicken chain Chik-fil-a doesn't feature chickens telling you to eat less beef; they have cows exhorting you to "Eat More Chicken!"

So, if Americans crave more and environmentalists continue to ask us to want less and use less, what's the disconnect there? Everyone knows how hard it is to get people to change their lifestyle. How do we expect to be successful getting the herd to reduce its carbon footprint when its been supersized?

Better, Seth argues, to make it about doing MORE. "Let's figure out how to turn this into a battle to do more, not less," he writes, suggesting we "require all new cars to have, right next to the speedometer, a mileage meter. And put the same number on an LCD display on the rear bumper. Once there's an arms race to see who can have the highest number, we're on the right track."

Let's make this a campaign about more and maybe we'll get somewhere.

Global Climate Change: New Scientist Guide for the Perplexed

Do you find all the claims and counterclaims, information and disinformation around the topic of climate change perplexing? Can't keep all the acronyms straight and or keep track of how many scientists really believe we're all doomed?

New Scientist magazine has just put together a "roundup of the 26 most common climate myths and misconceptions": New Scientist, Perplexed.

It includes explorations by various authors of such topics as:

• Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter

• We can't do anything about climate change

• The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong

• Chaotic systems are not predictable

• We can't trust computer models of climate

• They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

• It's been far warmer in the past, what's the big deal?

Including links to source material. You'll want to bookmark this one for future reference. And a link to "assessing the evidence."

Print edition on newstands now.

A Poem for Earth Day

What a glorious day, weather was absolutely gorgeous. I got to work in the garden with my kids and help a Temple University complete her project in broadcast journalism (more on that later). Then a wonderful walk in our neighborhood and more family time, before dinner with my wife in an intimate restaurant. (Not to mention the 4-in-a-row homers by my Red Sox against Yanks.) And tomorrow, I'm off to Boulder, Colorado.

Consequently, I won't have an opportunity to do my usual 10 thoughts for Earth Day. Instead, I'll leave you with a poem of mine, "Healing," which recently appeared in The Elegant Thorn Review:


Healing

"Healing, not saving." ~ Gary Snyder


"Healing, not saving," for healing
indicates corrective, reclaiming

restoring the earth to its bounty,
to right placement and meaning--

Forward thinking, making things new
or better or, at least, bringing back

from the edge. The way
bulbs are nestled in earth,

starting to heal again--
the way a wound heals.

Keep warm. Sun following
rain; rain following drought.

Perhaps we have come far enough
along in this world to start

healing, protecting from harm,
from our disjunctive lives.

The way the skin repairs with a scab,
injury mediated by mindfulness.

The bark of the "tree of blood"
heals wounds we cannot see.

Deliver us from the time of trial
and save us from ourselves.

--Scott Edward Anderson


Another of my poems was posted today on poet Deborah Fries' new Good at Last blog: "Dead Red Wing."

Every Day is Earth Day...

Blogging: Green Skeptic Included in Green Gamma Search Engine

I received word last night that The Green Skeptic is now featured in Green Gamma Search Engine. Here is a bit about them from their web site:

Green Gamma is a search engine for green products and information. It is also a sustainable community for green minded people. Welcome!

If you search "Gamma" wave on Wikipedia here's what you'll see:

"A gamma wave is a pattern of brain waves, associated with perception and consciousness" and " Gamma waves are involved in higher mental activity."

There you have the genesis of Green Gamma. Green thinking is perceptive and involves a higher mental activity.

This isn't pompous thinking, it's simply a statement that if you are in Gamma mode, then you are not thinking of self and are conscious of the world around you. That's a good thing!

You can check it out at: Green Gamma