Every year, growing numbers of us are unhappy with the shopping frenzy that surrounds the holidays but most of us don’t know how to get off the treadmill. What if we worked together to find another way to celebrate?  This holiday season join us in finding more of what matters.

During the two-weeks of the historic UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (December 7th-18th), we’re bringing people together to talk about the impact of holiday spending on their lives and the environment.  Join the No Impact Project and Center for a New American Dream for nationwide pre-DVD release community screenings of the documentary, No Impact Man, and a post-screening discussion about how to simplify our holidays this year.

Find a screening near you, click here.

To host a screening in your community or to learn more, contact us.

As someone who grew up in a suburban environment, I’ve often marveled at the differences in city kids’ childhoods. On the plus side, New York infants can sleep serenely on a subway or ambulance-filled street. On the minus side, growing up in a huge city tends to mean living under a rightfully-watchful parent’s gaze. Millions of people mean exponentially more things can happen to your child, and in a place where people may not know many neighbors, the number of safe havens for a kid may be few.

This need for supervision, more than the lack of green space, is what I have often mourned when observing NYC kids. No matter where you live, kids simply have less unsupervised play time these days, though this time is very important for child development.

Trick-or-treating as a childhood institution is an expression of civic trust: though I guess you can get the candy x-rayed just to be sure, it takes a certain amount of faith to take your child and knock on someone’s door asking for candy. New York’s answer to Halloween ranges from community center parties to apartment-building-wide trick-or-treating. This Saturday families gathered at the Stuyvesant Town commons for music, rides in a horse-drawn carriage, and a chance to gawk at all the creative costumes. The party was open to all, and no candy was exchanged. It was just a free good time, with several hundred strangers who had nothing in common except Halloween spirit. I’ve read that social capital tends to be accumulated by these chance encounters governed by low-level trust and public identity There was something quite moving about watching all the parents herding their children through the chaos, the little firefighters and princesses tumbling in the grass. Whatever force kept everyone cooperating for the sake of every child’s good time was somehow different than the one that must have existed at a party where everyone knew each other. Maybe it explains the confidence that I have often observed in urban-raised kids: a sort of strong sense of self, coupled with the ability to share space. That day it was easy to see what can be right about urban community, and with a fun tradition like Halloween.

Someone told me once that only a middle-class person would be drawn to shabbiness; anyone who has known want would be already too well acquainted with second-hand goods, which would have a painful connotation. I’m not so sure that is true. I have known elders who certainly did know hard times in their lifetimes and who expressed a horror of thrift stores. These were the same folks who used things until they were absolutely used up, and didn’t mind passing on gently used items among family, so maybe it was the impersonal nature of second-hand stores that bothered them. The idea of wearing a stranger’s history, rather than a family member’s. Regardless of their source, I think that used things offer a fundamental challenge to modern culture, with its high premium on the new.

The new (as in unused), and the novel (as in never experienced before), have been conflated: portrayed as shiny, wrapped in plastic, pristine. The unnecessary shrink wrap on nearly everything is meant to give a feeling that you are the very first person to have touched it. Once it has been touched, once something shows the first evidence of wear, it has lost something that can never be regained. Whereas I think of shine as something that can be renewed, maybe with a little effort, like on a wood floor.  Old clothes could be restored to something to be proud of by practicing the lost art of ironing.  Which would you rather have: something that is new, once, or something that can be re-newed, for a long time?

The subject of old things reminds me of a short story by the Chilean writer Jose Donoso. An elderly couple, who are well off and a little bored, happen upon a coffee-table book featuring sumptuous photographs of homeless people. The couple is so drawn to these photos that they start dressing up like the people in the pictures, eventually leaving their comfortable apartment behind because they are drawn to the textures of a worn world. The moral of the story seems to be that their life had been so orderly that they felt it had no hold on them. While most people don’t erupt into this craving for worn things, I think it does happen that we surround ourselves by a revolving flux of new things. When we look around and don’t recognize ourselves in anything around us, then the emptiness that is the precursor to shopping sets in.

What would happen if the longing for the new was channeled into the desire to re-new? Rediscovering the book that has languished on the bookshelf, updating an old shirt with repurposed buttons, refinishing old furniture… There are lots of ways to renew, while still making our lives more recognizable to ourselves. Maybe our culture is moving back in the direction of holding on to things. It’s good practice for creating a life full of texture and grasp-able things. Tellingly, when something is really worn it becomes well-worn. Worn the way it’s supposed to be. Here’s to the old, the renewed, and the new with the promise of becoming well-worn.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy

“The growth of clean energy can lead to the growth of our economy.” - President Obama

As part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act President Obama has allocated $3.4 billion stimulus grant money for 100 smart grid projects throughout the United States to modernize our power grid (locations can be found on the chart above).  Once smart grids are installed  “meters can report in, appliances can control how much energy they use, and electricity stored in batteries can supply quick jolts of energy where needed, replacing the expensive power plants now used to meet peak power needs.”  The project is expected to increase job opportunities, reduce electricity use approximately 4 percent by 2030, and reinforce the growth of renewable energy sources.

For now, much of the projects focus on the installation of smart grids.  According to President Obama, his plan to install 18 million meters and household devices throughout the United States ” will allow you to actually monitor how much energy your family is using by the month, by the week, by the day, or even by the hour.”  As a result, families will be able to keep their minimize their electricity usage and budget costs when electricity is high in demand but low in supply.

As expected, the President has faced some criticism regarding the energy stimulus plan.  Critics claim Obama’s investment is a waste of spending or allege that the smart grid projects will not be enough to reduce dependence on foreign oil. Furthermore, analysts are afraid the smart grid may be a security risk.  Security measures must be taken to make sure nobody will be able to hack into the upgraded power system.  If the system is hacked, the damage will effect a much larger scale of people compared to the current electric grid system.

No energy system is perfect.  Efforts are being taken to make sure the energy grid system is secure.

Click this link if you want to hear President Obama’s speech regarding smart grids.

More information regarding the smart grid stimulus bill can be found on the Dept. of Energy’s website.

Jonathan Bloom’s Wasted Food Blog recently mentioned the Swedish term “lagom” which means “just enough” or “just right.” This is not the “snack size” swindle performed when manufacturers make tiny cookies that induce you to eat more. This is a different value, a state of mind that is as choosy about the right fit of a meal as one would be about a shoe. A food that is not “mega” or “ultra” is even better for being just right.

Then there is the Okinawan idea of hara hachi bu, or eating until you are 80% full. Okinawans are known for their longevity, so they must be doing something right. Can you imagine a restaurant advertisement here that touted “you’ll be 80% full after one of our meals”?

As the seasons change it is even more important to take a conscious stance towards food consumption. Cold weather tends to bring out the hibernating instinct in all of us: comfort foods soothe on bad-weather days while hot beverages and soups can sneak in extra calories as they warm. Wherever we get the inspiration, our culture needs to start valuing the “just right” and the “almost-full.” Like Goldilocks, it pays to be discerning, pursuing the state of “just right.”

OK, this is all fine in the abstract, but what does it mean on the ground?  It means that banks “too big to fail” are part of the old and credit unions and local banks making loans within the community are part of the new.  It means that big box stores, mega-salaries, and derivatives are part of the old and farmers’ markets, time banks, and local CO-Ops are part of the new.    It means being more in touch with the goods and services you use as well as the people who provide them.  It means living more sustainably within your locale—minimizing global trade in stuff and optimizing trade in ideas.  And it means time—more time for you, family, friends and community. 

The New Economy is much more than I have stated above, but let’s leave it here for now, because we will be talking much more about this in the future.

Mr. Waits is a master at fusing unexpected language with uniquely rhythmic arrangements. But his song “Step Right Up” that came on the radio today is not a creation of his artistry so much as a revelation of the language and rhythm that already exist…in sales pitches. These are the so-called weasel words of advertising–hollow, with the meaning sucked out. A sample:

“They come in all colors, one size fits all No muss, no fuss, no spills, you’re tired of kitchen drudgery Everything must go, going out of business, going out of business Going out of business sale Fifty percent off original retail price, skip the middle man Don’t settle for less How do we do it? how do we do it? volume, volume, turn up the volume Now you’ve heard it advertised, don’t hesitate

If not completely satisfied, mail back unused portion of product For complete refund of price of purchase Step right up Please allow thirty days for delivery, don’t be fooled by cheap imitations.”

Tom Waits’ voice is many things but it’s no siren call, so the allure of these seemingly meaningless phrases must come from their familiarity. How many times have we given into advertising promises and sales pitches aimed straight at our consumer desires? It seems absurd, to hear this language devoid of context, to hear it as a lulling rhythm, but advertising surrounds us with its promises and cajoling. To the extent that we are emboldened to spend, it has done its job. As holiday sales predictions get bandied about this year, it might be good to refer to Waits’ “Step Right Up” every once in awhile: because a jingle or two can’t be the only thing that runs our economy.

Applesauce is a kid-friendly way to have an apple a day while offering protection against cancer–a Cornell researcher found that apples contain a phytonutrient called quercetin, which is more effective in blocking tumors than vitamin C.  In fact, one apple “packs more cancer-fighting antioxidant capability than a 1,500-milligram megadose of vitamin C.”

Start with apples from your local farmers market and follow these recipes(1, 2)  to make your very own applesauce.  Applesauce can be served both hot and cold with additional toppings of whipped cream, ice cream, or yogurt. Or try to make homemade apple butter, a delicacy unequaled by the stuff you can find in the store.  Many savvy cooks keep homemade applesauce in the freezer to have on hand as a low-fat substitute in baked goods.

Applesauce is one of those kitchen techniques that needs to be demystified, while the different apple varieties need to be discovered and savored with the appreciation of a connoisseur.  A little elbow grease yields a far superior product that can be canned and passed along as homemade gifts.

To finish out the evening we decided to watch a DVD from Netflix, but thought that we would also–as our version of a featurette–watch a bit of one of the Bioneers presentations prior to the main feature.  And we picked a piece of Annie Leonard’s talk– (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-2Iejh691k).  We were gratified that she too talked about the feelings and internal debates associated with being a concious consumer.  We felt commonality and urge others to: Think On!

Regardless of your feelings about clowns, this suggests that spending a lot of time talking on the phone might prevent us from truly appreciating life.  Stopping to smell the roses deserves full attention, after all. There is even some research suggesting that some people have become addicted to their mobile phones. So-called “connection junkies” may be so dependent upon the reinforcement that mobile communication provides that our always-on, unlimited-minute culture may keep them permanently distracted from just plain living.

Like anything else, cell phones are a commodity that can either add to, or take away from, life. We’ve all been stuck in public places with people carrying on very personal conversations for all to hear, and maybe felt a little sad for the person who is oblivious to their surroundings. This loss of personal boundaries is just one symptom that the urge to connect has started to control us instead of the other way around.  Being comfortable with quiet time is one measure of a healthy personality. So lest you miss a chuckle, (or for coulrophobics, lest a creepy clown sneak up on you) keep your cell phone use in balance.

The good news is that handwashing is a simple and effective measure to take against the spread of many common infections. Most likely, it’s not the soap you use but the regularity with which you wash your hands that will determine how effectively you keep the germs at bay. Look for personal care products with ingredients you can pronounce and minimal packaging; the more organic, the better.

In addition to fighting against germs, natural soap can also provide relief to people with dry or sensitive skin. Natural soap does not have any added chemicals during the production process. Due to the added minerals and vitamins natural soap can help nourish and hydrate the skin. The Global Healing Center websites provides ingredients commonly found in natural soaps.

Common organic ingredients you may find in organic soap include the following:

Organic Aloe Organic Oats

Organic Peppermint Organic Prickly Pear Cactus

Common natural ingredients you may find in organic soap include the following:

Cinnamon Olive Oil Goats Milk Wild Carrot

Sea Salt Essential Oils Sunflower Seeds Sunflower Petals

Wild Horsemint Wild Yucca Root Moroccan Red Clay Unrefined African Shea Butter

For more information on natural personal care products (and to learn the answer to the question, “Is there such a thing as too clean?“), check out the Conscious Consumer Marketplace.

Measuring carbon impact requires complex calculations–it may take even more work to make carbon impact simple and meaningful enough for most consumers to understand and act accordingly. The country’s top burger chain, Max, claims that already, since the carbon counts started appearing on the menu, sales of lower-impact items have increased 20%.

The conscious consumer movement struggles to navigate between the lack of public information and information overload. Just think of the rather disheartening news that New York’s restaurant menu calorie counts don’t affect the number of calories patrons order…or may influence them to consume slightly more calories. I’ve actually found the menu calorie counts to be kind of illuminating on my trips to New York, but that may be because I don’t see them every day. There’s one factor that never ceases to be real to all of us: money. Until the true cost of growing, processing, packaging, shipping, and selling food is reflected in its price, it’s going to be hard to drive home which products really are better choices on an individual and planetary level. Since about 25% of carbon emissions produced by people in industrialized nations is related to food choices, we need to figure this out. Yet food is wrapped up in culture, emotion, and habit…how is crowding more information onto ever-more-informative labels going to influence those of us in cultures that are increasingly ignoring basic common dietary sense?

I think the answer lies in a hybrid approach. More information is always good, but it’s the difference between reading a recipe for a souffle and watching someone construct one. That’s why the Michael Pollans and Martha Stewarts of the world attract such attention. Food is almost a bogeyman these days: it is grown in shadowy places, processed with obscure ingredients, and our desire for it seems unable to be tamed. I think the new heroes of cable–the chefs and reality would-be chefs–are so popular because they are in charge of food, making complicated miracles with it, reaching out to others with the universal language of taste. How many of us can say the same of our diets? For right now, Sweden will have to be our role model for carbon impact labeling. Hopefully they will work out some of the standardization difficulties and the practice can spread to the US.

I don’t know what others are doing, but for us this less impactful life means less driving.  But it also means careful shopping.  Last night for instance, we were making decisions on produce based not only on whether or not they were organic but where they came from and how they were packaged.  We find it a little offensive, for instance, to buy organic spinach that has traveled 3000 miles and is housed in a plastic tub.  Seems to defeat the whole intent of growing organically and purposely disconnects us from farmers.  

Likewise, our new toothbrush choice was influenced by whether it was recyclable or not.  Milk and apples went though the same decisional screens as well.  As did our purchase of two cans of wild caught salmon where the debate centered on price per pound, can size and potential waste.  Clearly, this type of conscious consumerism is a change from the Supermarket Sweep type of grab and throw cart-stuffing engaged in by most Americans.  The end result being we did not buy much and did not have to carry much to the Metro and that is OK.

So go to the International Day of Climate Action event nearest you (www.350.org) and brave the crowds, but that is only part of it.  You also have to be brave enough to change the way you live and consume. 

“No one really warns you about the never-ending monotonous work required in housekeeping. Once you start thinking about it, you realize how utterly unnatural the endeavor is.  “Keeping house” is very much actually what the word suggests:  wresting the home back from the jaws of nature determined to reclaim it, trying desperately to preserve stasis in the face of an unrelenting assault.  In a way, ‘housekeeping’ is the opposite of gardening, where the lifecycle of seed to compost is honored.  Nature wants to make your house compost.”

The outside of a home must be protected from the wear and tear of harsh weather; most people landscape the surrounding flora to some degree; and then there is the inside, where dust, mold, and grime send their minute armies to encroach daily upon a fragile cleanliness. Advice on zen gardening abounds, but how can the same  go-with-the-flow principles be applied to other house maintenance tasks?

For me, cleanliness is a summit, a zenith attained and lost all too quickly. Zen gardening would call my clean house a flowering shrub that blooms for a very short period and lies dormant the rest of the time.  Sustainability in housecleaning is very difficult; it’s feast or famine as far as my attention for chores goes. I’m either scrubbing hard at stains in the porcelain sink, or letting dishes pile up in it. A more sustainable, daily cleaning schedule would probably be better than my current catastrophic rhythm. My cleanliness fortunes run more like the boom and bust of the stock market, not a pattern I really care to mirror in my living space.

It is easy to think of housekeeping as a kind of battle. My basement apartment has a tendency to mold and innumerable crevices that attract crickets–manifestations of the natural that I could do without. There are strata of clutter that flow into certain collection spots before finally attracting my organizational ire. Scrubbing, dusting, organizing–none of these are necessarily violent actions, but I often think of them as vanquishing the foes of dirt and neglect. Who knows if it would be easier to establish an easier harmony with dust and clutter if I didn’t see them as the enemy? The dust is following a natural cycle, after all, and the kitchen table and bookshelf must exude their own gravity like planets to collect the all mail and assorted odds and ends that must be cleared away every so often.

It is hard to separate the natural from the unnatural in a home, because it is only natural to feel good in a space that is clean, orderly, and not so chock-full that you can’t move around. Recently I discovered the Unclutterer blog and have really enjoyed their take on the sometimes nonsensical behavior that contributes to the accumulation of stuff around the home. What makes a living space a home is always going to have an elusive element to it. There is something frankly irrational about the way I enjoy certain housekeeping tasks (mopping the floor, washing the dishes) while despising others (sweeping the floor, putting the dishes away).  It’s no wonder that people used to believe in spirits of the hearth and other inhabiting powers that could make or break a home.  A home must be cultivated.  Like a garden. So why not a zen garden, then? A place where dirt, if not allowed to take over, at least is encouraged to leave with gentle, natural cleaning products rather than blasted away by chemicals. A space where things are valued and cared for so that extra stuff isn’t acquired in the first place.  A homey feeling can’t be bought in teh form of an air freshener. These are the ideals, of course, but with a little effort housekeeping might be more like a perennial plant, always springing up fresh, rather than a once-in-a-while bloom.

It’s fascinating to see how every aspect of life was up for grabs: nighttime itself could be banished, winter could be held at bay, and food would come from unfamiliar sources. Now that we are beginning to see that a Pandora’s box-worth of unnatural compounds have been released upon the earth, it’s difficult to relate to such hubris. Today our futuristic visions are less of wealth and ease than they are of a post-industrial longing to return to Eden, looking back to a time when something as basic as the seasons was not up for question. When humans could walk with less anxiety about the footprint left behind. The modern concept of “sustainability” seems more about creating a present that does not preclude its continuation in the future, rather than a super-technological future which leaves the present behind in favor of a dazzling, no longer earthbound, new reality.

The recession has helped call into question the assumption that business-as-usual can and should continue indefinitely. But what to do now? Is there some point, or collection of points, in the past that we can identify as a basis from which to start building sustainability? Or was the whole American project always tainted by this unrealistic assumption of an endless frontier? How do we begin anew without creating our own version of the 1950s, with fears of planetary annihilation coupled with dreams of a robot-mediated easy life.

• A big believer in strong climate legislation like the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act of 2009, currently before the Senate?
• Frustrated by the often spurious objections to climate legislation?
• A master at expressing yourself in 140 characters or less?

If you answered yes to the above questions, participate in 1Sky’s 1Climate, 1Tweet campaign. Three of the five winners will be chosen based upon number of retweets, so get ready to spread the word with a simple message about why climate legislation matters. The top five finalists will receive prizes.

All the more reason to get our health care system fixed, I suppose.

But the point of this study is not to debate death panels but rather to debunk the notion that fossil fuels are really so cheap compared to renewable energy…  which tends not to kill anyone unless you get clipped by a wind turbine or wander into the beam of a concentrating solar thermal device.

And this highlights the subject of true cost accounting.  You won’t find the exact words “true cost accounting” anywhere in the mission statement of the Center for a New American Dream.  But trust me, they are in there when we talk about protecting the environment, enhancing quality of life, and promoting social justice. Much of what we advocate for is tied to creating an economic system and a societal attitude that does not allow the environmental damages and toll on human health to be written off the ledger books.

In economics, we speak of externalities–items not included in the price tag. Some externalities are good (money you spend fire proofing your home makes your neighbor’s home safer). But too often, the externalities are bad–air pollution, ruined rivers near coal mines, global warming–and those costs are borne not by the person who buys the product and presumably reaps the benefit, but by society as a whole and in particular by those who get no good from the goodies.

There will always be environmental costs associated with extracting raw materials and disposing of waste when we produce and consume consumer products. And it’s also true that there will always be stuff we want bad enough to pay the price. But that’s just it. We have to be aware of and willing to pay the full price, and adjust our wants and needs accordingly. Consumer products can’t be made cheap simply by pretending these costs don’t exist and that people and natural resources and unlimited and unbreakable.

The trick, of course, is to examine what we really need, and then find ways to fulfill those needs and produce the same benefits at lower costs. When we tally up the real price of fossil fuels and examine who is paying it and how, renewable energy increasingly looks like the better deal.

But now I’m out in the “real world,” and the joy of cooking can no longer escape my eager spatulas and baking pans. I’ve also learned something incredible since moving from Southern California; there are four seasons!? While my friends in San Diego and Los Angeles were basking in the mid 70s last week, I found myself clinging to life during our first cold font because I don’t own a coat. Mom, if you’re reading this, don’t worry, I’ve since purchased a very warm coat and won’t catch the flu.

Though I’m sure a bleak and crushing winter is awaiting me, I’ve found a silver lining; I can cook in season. I can welcome fall with a variety of squashes and pumpkins, winter with cranberries and spring with, what I can only imagine to be an endless supply of home-made pies and maybe watermelon, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.

Buying in season is a great way to break out of a cooking rut. It literally forces you to live in harmony with the Earth’s orbit around the sun and find new (and exciting) recipes that utilize the current harvest.

But cooking with seasonal produce isn’t just a new way for me to keep my spirits up while weathering a major climactic change (for me, at least). It’s also great for the planet! To keep a constant supply of food in grocery stores year round, produce can sometimes be shipped thousands of miles from where it’s being harvested to your shopping cart. This transportation, and the necessary food preservation, accounts for a major supply of air and greenhouse gas pollution.

By purchasing in season and local produce, you can support local farmers while reducing your environmental footprint by eliminating the distance your food had to travel to reach you. To find out which produce is local and in season for you, visit the NRDC’s “Eat Local” tool. You can also use New Dream’s local buying guides to buy a variety of items, including food, locally.

Now, excuse me while I make some hot apple cider and google “how to build a snowman.”

Housing cooperatives are created with seven guiding principles known as the “Rochdale Principles.” These include an open and voluntary membership, democratic and economic participation, autonomy, education, and outreach to other coops and the community in which they live.

These principles create a community where every member has a vested interest in each other and the success of the coop. Every member has a stake in how everything is run and has a designated responsibility to contribute to the community (I was on the maintenance crew, membership committee and sustainability crew, for example). The best part of this situation was that, by owning and bearing the responsibility of running the coop, members develop a strong sense of ownership and belonging to their community. When other students would ask me, “Who owns that building?” referring to my coop, a predictably confused look greeted my response of, “we do.”

I absolutely recommend living in a coop if you are looking for a new place to live. Student coops obviously require that you be a student, or at least associated with a nearby university (for a list of student cooperatives in North America, click here) but there are general housing cooperatives as well (to search for a housing cooperative, click here).

However, there are other cooperatives besides housing. In fact, there are many different types. Grocery coops, for example, are member based stores that typically sell organic and healthy foods and maintain accountability to its members through elections (to find a grocery cooperative near you, click here). There are also various types of farming, agricultural, banking, etc. coops. And coops don’t have to be small organizations either, some are major corporations. A famous example is REI, a national chain of stores that sells camping and recreational equipment. It has over three million members and holds elections every year for its board .

Cooperative relationships have even found themselves into business purchasing practices. In these cases, members form a group purchasing consortium to leverage their purchasing power and lower costs. Oftentimes these are designed to reduce the cost of environmentally preferable products through cooperative contracts (to watch an RPN webinar on how institutions can participate in cooperative contracts, hosted by yours truly, click here).

My main point is that engaging in a cooperative environment, be it housing, food, business or otherwise, is a great opportunity to become a member of a fantastic and rewarding community; one that is for the people, by the people, and of the people.