Green Options

People often ask me: “So what set you on your present course of operating a sustainable business, growing most of your own food organically, working from home, and powering your entire farm and business with renewable energy?”  People ask me about that definitive moment where it became obvious that I needed to live and work a different way, a better way that didn’t involve never-ending growth, consumption, and earn-and-spend.

There was no such moment, or crisis, that transformed my life of power suits, lattes, or gotta-have-it-all-now mindset.  Instead, my sustainable journey (which very much continues to this day as an evolving journey) resulted from a growing understanding about the issues facing the planet and its inhabitants, both through personal experience and by learning of these changes from other organizations or individuals.

One such organization that serves as a compass for my endeavors is the Worldwatch Institute, a nonprofit organization that produces the authoritative State of the World book series as well as numerous other books and resources to build an ecologically sustainable society that meets human needs. Each year, a new State of the World book is not only jam-packed with interdisciplinary research and analysis that a non-scientific mind (like mine) could comprehend, but organized in such a way to make it both practical and powerful for anyone searching for ways to express a vision for how to live on a planet without destroying it or exploiting its inhabitants.

Each year, the State of the World book series focuses on a particular theme which might address energy, community, food and agriculture, population, health, trade policies and natural resource use, just to name a few.  For 2008, their State of the World: Innovations for a Sustainable Economy provides both a timely analysis of how our “free trade” global economy has gone astray and insights into the powerful movements afoot, including localization, a triple bottom line approach to business, microfinance, and the low-carbon economy.

The number of jobs lost this year is close to 2 million. But while each American stands fearful that his job might be the next one to go, President-elect Barack Obama is planning a new economic recovery plan that will save or create 2.5 million jobs very soon. Obama wants Americans to sleep easy this Holiday season. He wants those who have lost their jobs should know that they have a future.

Travelling from Italy to Central America takes a long time: an intermediate stop in France or Spain and many hours flying over the ocean. But when you arrive on one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean you forget to be tired.