So when I was in high school, Kent State happened. I didn't even really hear about it, or at least I don't remember hearing about it - so unconnected and clueless. All I knew was that some guys got suspended for wearing black armbands to school. I didn't follow the war when I was in high school beyond my vague awareness about my brother going for a physical because he had been drafted - again, really out of touch (no, he didn't have to go). Environmental issues? Nah. I just wasn't tuned in to much outside of my own little world of school, family, homework, friends, the band.

At Transylvania, in college, my eyes began to open a bit. I had some really great professors in sociology and anthropology - I began to read more and to listen. There was a big big world outside of Lexington, KY, with a lot going on, with people who looked and thought and believed differently than my family, my friends, and I did. I stepped out a little - campaigned for McGovern against Nixon. For me, it had become mainly about the war. McGovern lost, of course. And the war. Well, we know what happened there. Promises broken.

Years passed - getting educated, working, having children and making a family, voting, trying to keep up with things. My focus for years was on kids' issues - my own kids, other peoples' kids, working with families, schools, pediatricians, day care centers and preschools. 

My focus is still on kids, just in a different way. Julie and Michael are adults, and someday in the not too distant future (no rush, guys - no rush), I may have grandchildren. And this is what I want for my children and my grandchildren:

• a viable and biodiverse earth that can provide clean air and water, and healthy soil to produce abundant food for nourishment for everyone
• equal access to safe shelter, to health care, and to education
• a peaceful world without horrible blood-letting conflict over oil, religion, access to water and land, or my gun's bigger than yours - enough already! enough!
• a culture where there is respect for all workers who contribute to the common good - mothers and fathers who stay at home to raise their children, crossing guards, teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers who build bridges and water systems, farmers, factory workers, safety officers, cooks, landscapers -- you know as well as I do that this list goes on and on
• a well-educated citizenry - a society that selects lawmakers and leaders who will WORK TOGETHER for the common good, that supports a government that is not shaped primarily by corporate interests

I want this world for my children, other people's children, and our grandchildren. And I believe that most of those involved in the Occupy Movement want the same. Yes, there are goofy self-centered attention-seeking people who are part of the movement. Are there not also goofy self-centered attention-seeking people in the finance world? In government? I do believe there are.

I hear criticisms that the movement participants are lazy and entitled and should just get a job - or in Newt's words, "Go get a job after you take a bath." How utterly condescending and hateful and disrespectful.  Really? He and his brethren should be heading down to Wall Street and LA and Philly and Pittsburgh and talking to the people who are part of the Occupy Movement - our leaders have the responsibility to talk with and learn from every constituency in this country, regardless of race, economic status, age, ethnicity, political persuasion, job status, education, and so on. How else will they be able to make important decisions for the common good? The reality, however, is that money speaks more loudly to our lawmakers. And people like Newt Gingrich will not humble themselves in order to learn from the mostly young people who are the future of our country. So very sad.

I hear criticisms that the movement's aims are vague and unfocused. Can we truly say that Congress is focused and united? It is true that there are multiple goals of the movement - when I participated in the 10-17-11 Occupy Pittsburgh march, which led to the creation of the camp downtown, I saw many many different groups represented, each with its own story and agenda. But the common thread was the larger story that lives are being negatively affected, in significant long-term ways, by a topsy-turvy world where big companies make laws. 

Define plutocracy - Bill Moyers himself, a man of intellect, faith, and integrity speaks out about this. Or, as environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr. has said, consider fascism or government by business. Yes, this is very harsh. But please let's really think about the ramifications of the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission for our democracy.

There has been much written about Generation Y - my children's generation, the kids of the boomers. A common refrain is that this Generation Y is selfish and narcissistic. Check out this book as just one example of this allegation -- Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before. Note: if this is true, they didn't get this way on their own.

I am leaping with joy to see young people take a stand for concerns that are larger than themselves, that are related to the health and well-being of all citizens. It makes me happy to go downtown and see the orderly tents of the Occupy Pittsburghers. It makes me happy when my own kids and nieces and nephews ask questions and make comments about the movement, whether or not they agree with me. It makes me happy when I hear my students talk about what this all means. Because it means that they are at least partially attending to what is going on. They are thinking and questioning.

I just finished two very good books about social change and social movements - Martin Luther King's Why We Can't Wait, his writings about the civil rights movements in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, and Grace Lee Boggs' The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century - she has been involved in civil rights, labor, and environmental work in the Detroit area for decades. What I heard from these wise activists confirmed what I already knew from my work with families and individuals: Change is hard, and resistance to change is intense. 

Social change is hard and it is scary. It threatens our familiar assumptions and routines. Both King and Boggs emphasized that rebellion and revolt are not sufficient to produce long-lasting change - toppling the king from the throne does nothing good if you do not have something else to put in place. And they also emphasized that long-lasting constructive social change requires pushing against unfair and unjust practices, in persistent non-violent ways, AND - I find this SO important - stretching ourselves internally, as individuals, to grow and learn and become more fair and just and kind and generous and loving.

Please take the time to read many different accounts of the Occupy Movement, from all sides. Take the time to talk with people who are walking the talk - go downtown in your city and talk to people at the camp (if they are still there). Hear what they are about. Think about what they - and we - can do to keep the conversations and activism and change processes going even as the camps are being demolished. Take it seriously. Eyes wide open, connected, and clued-in.

How often do we really stop to think about our common infrastructure, and how greatly we depend upon it each day to do our jobs and take care of our families? Public infrastructure includes many different elements, including roads and highways, bridges, waste and sewer systems and water treatment and distribution systems, transportation systems... These are public works that we make use of every day.

And in the US, they need work. Physically, many structures are decaying. Systemically, the works haven't yet caught up to what we need in order to protect the environment in the present and long-term. Think for a minute. Under President Eisenhower, massive work was done to create interstate highways that crossed the country - this coincided time-wise with the explosion of the automobile industry. These efforts led to massive changes in our cities and our daily lives - the birth of the suburbs and shopping centers and malls, the deaths of inner cities and mom-and-pop businesses. We are now recognizing how the reliance on roads and cars has affected us in unexpected and not-so-good ways... but that's another story for another day.

In the 21st century, we are called on to re-examine our structures and systems in terms of safety, environmental, social, and economic needs. We have the ability to collaboratively imagine how we might meet our communal needs in better ways, taking into account what we now know about pollution, the effects of degraded environments on economic, physical, and mental health, the importance of community connections and relationships for our well-being, and so on. It is a different paradigm that we must use, as we imagine and create together.

In Pittsburgh, we have wonderful opportunities to think about these issues - and to act. We need our bridges to function as an integrated city - they need work. Our sewer and water systems are ready for an overhaul. We have willing and able citizens who need jobs. We have the knowledge, skill, and experience base within our citizenry to make these changes in ways that will protect the environment and our health and well-being. Let's talk.

First, from the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network comes an opportunity for people to be visible in showing both the need for jobs for citizens who really want to work AND the need for the nation to strengthen its physical infrastructure. According to PIIN, the Greenfield Bridge is structurally deficient and falling apart. Millions of unemployed people could be put to work fixing crumbling roads, bridges, and other infrastructure like this, across the country - let's urge our leaders to think about how this could be a WIN-WIN situation. Actually, let's become leaders - become part of a Participatory Democracy, as opposed to or even side by side with a Representative Democracy, speaking out directly about concerns and creating and communicating about possible solutions. 

If you want to be present at an event that will involve a conversation that addresses both the jobs issue and the infrastructure needs in a positive direction, consider coming to the Day of Action on the Greenfield Bridge. Details are below:

When: Thursday, November 17 · 5:30pm - 8:30pm
Where: Gather at Magee Park, followed by a march to the Greenfield Bridge, 745 Greenfield Ave,
Pittsburgh, PA

AND.... EDUCATE YOURSELF ABOUT ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE - OUR AGING SEWERS...  Alcosan is currently proposing one of the most comprehensive overhauls of our sewer system that we have ever seen - it will take years to complete. The work has not yet been started, so this is the time to speak up about using what we now know about green technology to do this project right. Alcosan is holding a series of town meetings to solicit input from community members about their plans - info is available on their web-site. Tonight, there will be a town meeting on the Southside. Details: 

Wednesday, November 9th, 5:30pm - 7:30pm
I.B.E.W. #5 Circuit Center & Ballroom (Region-wide)
5 Hot Metal Street | Pittsburgh, PA 15203 

How fortunate we are to be able to speak up and show up in public to address situations that concern all of us. I hope to see you at one of these events!

Last night I was privileged to attend the fall gathering of the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network. The meeting was held at Rodef Shalom - which was packed with over 1000 people who represented many races and ethnic backgrounds, as well as many religions and faith traditions. PIIN is a vibrant group in Pittsburgh modeled on the Gamaliel Foundation which has as its mission "teaching ordinary citizens to unleash the power within themselves to collectively impact the social, political, environmental, and economic decisions affecting their lives." How cool is that?

What a powerful gathering! The first area of focus in the meeting was gun violence -  remember Rev. Glenn Grayson and Marsha Grayson who lost their son G to random gun violence a year ago? Rev. Glenn spoke - actually raised the roof with his pain and passion about getting rid of the guns that are floating around the city and are being used to kill primarily young black men. Others spoke with wisdom and fervor about civil rights of immigrants, documented and undocumented, the need for better public transportation, the very significant racial gap in education - there is about a two grade-level gap in national reading and math assessment test scores between black students and white students - unacceptable, and employment issues. Many citizens spoke of trying to find work at a living, family supporting wage - wanting desperately to do work that would enable them to buy food and clothing, and pay for housing for their families. Other spoke of having to wait an hour to catch a bus to take their child to daycare so that they could then go to work, only to have the bus pass them by because it was full.

These pleas were particularly meaningful during this time of increasing recognition of the enormous gap between rich and poor. For example, Fred Smith, founder of Fed Ex, has had an average annual salary of $9.79 million over the last six years, according to Forbes Magazine. His employees average between $15-22 per hour. Thus, Occupy X.

I didn't realize it at first, but the timing of this meeting was critical - the week before the November elections. Many candidates and office-holders were invited to the meeting, and several, but not all came. Highlights included Police Chief Nate Harper's commitment to step up the efforts to track and control guns in the city (hopefully with the Mayor's support - he was not present); School Superintendent Linda Lane's commitment to distribute the budget more equitably between all neighborhood schools, regardless of neighborhood income or racial make-up; and State Rep. Dan Frankel's (D - Squirrel Hill) commitment to advocate with Governor Corbett - who was not present - for more funding for public transportation in the city.

We can vote in many ways - during elections next week, with our dollars in terms of spending locally instead of in support of huge corporations, and with our feet and bodies - stay tuned for information about a rally on November 17th at the Greenfield Bridge - where we will speak up about the need for jobs to support our families and to support the nation, particularly in light of our country's need for strengthening of our crumbling infrastructure.

In the meantime, down the road at F.U.S.E....

Jordan Howard will be hosting a release party for his forthcoming debut mixtape, "the DREAM". The event will take place at the F.U.S.E. Center in East Liberty. Admission is a $5 donation at the door. This $5 donation will allow you to gain access to all of the evening's festivities, and you will receive a CD copy of "the DREAM". Jordan will also be performing 3 tracks from the mixtape that evening. The MC for the evening will be Pittsburgh's own DJ Sally Grace. Hope to see everyone there!

There is a prayer practice called "lectio divina" - slow, contemplative reading of sacred works or poems in which one listens carefully to one's heart, to the still small voice of a greater wisdom that might be speaking through the words. A few years ago, in a centering prayer group, the leader read the story of Jesus and Bartimaeus, the blind beggar. She read the story, slowly and softly. She asked us to listen closely, to sense where we might have been in this scene of Jesus, followed by crowds and his disciples, coming upon a blind man begging him for mercy. Where would we be?

This is what I heard, in the stillness of my heart. I would be sitting at a Starbucks across the road, watching and waiting. I would be sipping tea and reading a book, unobtrusively observing the crowds following Jesus, hanging on him, asking him for help. I would watch to see what would happen. Maybe after the crowds thinned out and things settled down, I would approach Jesus. I would ask him how he was, who he was. I would say that his life looked hard, and I wondered how that was for him.

And Bartimaeus? Yes, I would have wanted to reach out to him as well. But in the crowd? Nope. Not likely.

So that was where I was in that public scene. I most definitely was not part of the crowd of people, the public "hangers-on" in my mind, nor was I one of the disciples, committed to the mysterious journey that lay ahead. I also did not rush over, in this public arena, to help Bartimaeus myself. I watched by the side of the road. Safe, private. Curious, moved, but uncommitted. Not going to be part of the crowd.

I have been taking baby steps away from Starbucks toward the crowds, toward the beggar. I have been taking tiny steps toward being part of it all, accepting that I won't lose who I am in the crowd and that I might even learn something or have something to contribute myself. And realizing that maybe voices raised together in a crowd can mean something. So I went to Blair Mountain this summer and today I went downtown with the Occupy Pittsburgh group.

The sign above kind of sums up today. The common factor among the people who were at the Occupy Pittsburgh march was the "commons" - all eyes were on humanity, the larger good, not on the bottom line. Poverty, race, education and health care cuts, the huge costs of war, student debt, environmental destruction - today I heard voices raised for people, not dollars. Justice and equity, fairness, empathy, accountability and responsibility. And you know what? It is all connected.

There were babies in strollers, students from grade school through college, union members, older graying seasoned protesters, clergy, veterans. I got to see my Kalie and her family. Everyone was respectful, kind, generous. There was joy in the group, along with a sense of frustration that things have come to this point. There was a feeling of - "Enough. No more." I felt privileged to be part of the group, to be among the crowd.

This is what democracy looks like.

Power comes in all shapes and sizes, from all directions, many sources. The most lasting power, the most sustainable, comes from within. From within the individual, the family, the community. It is "power with" as opposed to "power over." This kind of power can move mountains.

Pittsburgh has power galore - here are just a few amazing things going on around here - Sunflowers, YERT, F.U.S.E. Read on.

Sunflower Power. Last night was a wonderful benefit event at PerLora on the Southside of Pittsburgh, raising funds for POWER - Pennsylvania Organization for Women in Early Recovery. Why the Sunflower theme? Because...             

Recovery is very challenging. I have a daughter who is, thankfully, well into recovery from her eating disorder. From Julie, I have learned that recovery can be a very long and lonely road. Groups like POWER are there to make the process just a little less awful.

Sherree Goldstein, owner of the Square Cafe in Regent Square, donated food for the event. The staff from the Square donated beauty and glamour and service! Look at Hallie and Jess above! On top of these contributions to POWER, Sherree - along with Hallie, Jess, Chelsey, Lizzie, Christina, Sara x 2, Heather, WILLIAM, Kevin, Ariel, Laura - and... and... senior moment I can't remember... more and more and more beautiful people - also serve love and grace everyday at the Square. 

And next up... YERT and F.U.S.E.

The Pittsburgh Premiere of the documentary "YERT - Your Environmental Road Trip" - will take place at Chatham University in the Eddy Theater at 7 pm on Tuesday September 20. Check out this trailer. Here is a "Short Synopsis" of the film - I am so excited to see this!!!

50 States. 1 Year. Zero Garbage? Called to action by a planet in peril, three friends hit the road - packing hope, humor. . .and all of their trash - searching for innovators and citizens solving humanity's greatest environmental crises. Piling on personal challenges as they explore every state in a year (the good, the bad, and the weird), an unexpected turn of events pushes the team to the brink in this award-winning docu-comedy. Featuring Bill McKibben, Wes Jackson, Will Allen, Janine Benyus, Joel Salatin, David Orr, and others.

Funny story - my older brother Ray Ely has an urban farm in Louisville, KY - apple trees, other fruits, vegetables, rabbits, chickens, rain barrels, rain garden - the real deal. Here is just one of his YOUTUBE demonstrations - Ray Ely and Permaculture. So I see that YERT was going to play in Louisville tonight - I email him about this exciting new film since it seems like it is right up his alley and - truth be told - it's kind of fun thinking that the little sister can teach the big brother something.... His response - two of the three people who created the film, Ben and Julie, live around the corner from him and he knows them well! Small world. More about Ray later - he is an amazing man. Once he said to me, "You know, we all really deep down know what right is. We have just forgotten." He is living a good life, sharing his food and his wisdom and knowledge with his community, educating and empowering others.

AND last but certainly not least - F.U.S.E. - Fostering Skills for Urban Kids through Social-Emotional-Literacy Education. Yes, F.U.S.E. is a BLAST whether or not the letters exactly match up to the group's purpose! Two of my new friends, Michele Passorello and Christine Carnevali, also regulars at the Square, have started this project. Christine is a high school teacher in nearby Wilkinsburg. 

F.U.S.E.'s Mission: 
Passionately committed to bridging Pittsburgh's literacy gap faced by urban youth, F.U.S.E. merges artistic and authentic learning in a safe, neutral, and green space. The pursuit of social and emotional wellness is our core value.  We believe this vision, coupled with explicit connections and community relationships, will lead youth to their own self-advocacy and actualization. 

F.U.S.E. will hold its first fundraiser on Thursday September 22 at 6 pm at - where else? - the Square. 

Pretty powerful stuff, eh?

We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road -- the one less traveled by -- offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth. (Rachel Carson, from Silent Spring, 1962)

Being a leader is hard. "Leadership" is different from "management" - good leaders inspire, take risks and make strong stands, listen carefully, and surround themselves with wise people who will argue with them. They do not set out to prove themselves right... they work hard to do right, to do what is in the best interest of all. They do this in an inspirational way, looking deeply into their own vision as well as those of others, and moving creatively toward possibilities.

An effective leader does not do the expedient thing. While she listens carefully and considers others' ideas and hopes, she does not make difficult decisions primarily based upon whom she might please or displease in the moment.  She has to hold the future in her mind and heart at the same time she is firmly rooted in today. There are times when short-term benefits might yield significant long-term costs. 

Considering the future and thinking about the best interests of all - these are not simple perspectives to develop and promote, particularly in a culture driven by immediate gratification of individual needs and in a political system in which decisions rise and fall based on popularity stats and donated dollars.

So, a couple of things have come down the last couple of weeks, midst news of earthquakes, hurricanes, and tropical storms. A couple of important things, nationally and locally, that I hope we all think about.

First, under former Governor Rendell, Pennsylvania's government had been part of five federal environmental lawsuits supporting health protective regulations of greenhouse gas emissions and ground-level ozone, the primary component of smog. Under current Governor Corbett, the PA government has pulled out of these lawsuits. This is, unfortunately, consistent with the current administration's lack of action on another environmental front - there has been a failure to ensure that fracking and gas drilling along the Marcellus Shale area are safe activities, a failure to consider environmental safety issues impartially with the best interests of all in mind. 

Second - and we will see that simple party affiliation seems not to matter - this from the New York Times...                

                    President Obama abandoned a contentious new air pollution rule on Friday, buoying
                    business interests that had lobbied heavily against it, angering environmentalists who
                    called the move a betrayal and unnerving his own top environmental regulators.

It must be very difficult for Obama to juggle all of the needs presented to him, many of which he has inherited. I have no doubt that job growth is a high priority, that fixing the economy is important. At the same time, the sad -- oh so sad -- reality is that the least of us is hurt the most by a failure to give equal attention to the environment. Pollution of air and water is a social justice issue. Poor people are disproportionately exposed to pollutants that result in acute and chronic health problems. These are people who have the least power to effect change in the system - the least economic clout, the least access to high quality education and health care, the fewest opportunities to reverse trends that have plagued generations before them. 

Our economy may be protected - may be - in the short-term by decreasing regulation of industry-related air pollution, but the long-term costs of ignoring environmental issues are huge - in terms of damage to physical and mental health, stunted education and job preparation, and economic instability. The costs to the viability and sustainability of our ecosystem are enormous.

Maybe Obama has a plan - I am hoping that his decision to back off air pollution regulations is truly just a delay, that he will get back to this very soon. I am hoping that he keeps environmental issues in a prominent place on his desktop.

I don't have easy answers obviously. But I do think about what makes good leadership and have a few thoughts gleaned from conversations with Michael and Julie this weekend...

• This semester, at Washington University, Julie is taking a Praxis course focusing on leadership. She related a class discussion about "energy" in leadership - and talked about how a leader must be aware of her own energy, up or down, positive or negative, and learn to manage it and to understand its sources. A leader must also be sensitive to the energy of her co-leaders and those she is leading -- must learn to "read" this energy accurately and to use this information in the leading and decision-making process.

I have thought about Julie's comments -- where is Obama's energy? what is its quality, its sources? what is the energy of those around him and the larger citizenry like right now? how might that affect his leadership?
 
When I try to put myself in Obama's shoes, I have a hard time imagining what it might feel like to carry as much responsibility as he does, what the nature of his work energy might be. Were I in his shoes, I suspect that, along with determination and hope, fear and uncertainty would be frequent visitors.  Who among us doesn't often feel afraid and uncertain in these times? Our lack of ultimate control over weather and natural events has been evident in recent weeks -- and the same goes for our economic system. And yet... and yet. There are ways of living long-term -- most of which will admittedly require change and unfamiliar perspectives and experiences -- that can begin to shift these things a bit into a better direction. 

Can a leader recognize fear and uncertainty when these feelings arise, in herself or in those around her? Can she understand how these feelings might affect her and her decision-making? A leader might fear making the wrong decision, letting people down, or not having enough information to really know the best decision. A strong leader must dig deep down into such uncertainty, then come back up to lead with clear-eyed strength and courage, avoiding compromises that are too, well, too compromising, avoiding paralysis. It must be hard - it must feel like Whack-A-Mole at Chuck E Cheese - you bop one problem down, and another two pop up - faster and faster.

I sense a different kind of fear among some industry leaders - a fear of a different future, in which power might be more equitably distributed. If this fear exists, one response is to do what is necessary to protect one's own power base. I might be wrong. I wish that I were wrong, that the vision of our leaders in government and industry extended well beyond themselves. Please tell me and show me that I am wrong.

• Michael has recently started his job at BCG, which, according to its web-site and Michael's comments, is a global management consulting firm and the world's leading advisor on business strategy. Michael does not give me any details about the projects he is working on - this information is confidential (and I secretly think he loves telling me that he can't tell me stuff). But he has talked with me about the processes involved in the projects. He describes working on a team of really really bright people from all over the world who are not afraid to ask difficult questions - indeed, asking as many challenging questions as you can before drawing conclusions or making any recommendations or decisions is required. According to Michael, the team goes into a project without assumptions, or at least aware of assumptions which they will then question. The team does not work in order to support or prove a particular hypothesis or to buttress a pre-existing vision of how someone wants things to work out. The goal is to think it through from all angles - first just deciding how the questioning process should itself be framed - and then to draw some initial conclusions. I can see that this process might need to be repeated many times as new information emerges.
  

So I wonder what it would be like if the people leading us worked in this way? I guess I cannot assume they are not, but I am not seeing the evidence that they are.

Think again, think deeply, about what Rachel Carson said almost 50 years ago - The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road -- the one less traveled by -- offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth. 

The other fork of the road does involve uncertainty and risk - it is, after all, less traveled and less familiar - but it also offers possibility. Possibility! What if? Can we? What if we were actually to step  off that too easy, smooth superhighway? I dream of each of us driving, leading into a future of possibility in our own small but significant ways, in our own corner of the world. 

Always remember that your own path, your own voice, matter. On the Resources page is information about how and where to communicate your ideas about what needs to be done.

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Condello in person, an urban farmer - gardener - magician - activist - mentor who lives on Whitney Avenue in Wilkinsburg. I mentioned him in a recent post. Chris and his landlady, Casey, took me on a tour of the street and the neighborhood nearby, showing me the work that Chris and his young neighbors had done together. As I told you earlier, Chris' street, Whitney Avenue, has about 10 abandoned houses out of 22 homes on the street. Chris told me that the word in town used to be - "Avoid Whitney Avenue at all costs." It was seen as one of the most dangerous areas in Wilkinsburg. Chris showed me houses where formerly broken or boarded up windows are now covered with colorful murals painted on boards by an art group and kids on the street. He and friends keep all the abandoned yards mowed, and have planted flowers and vegetables around the houses. The lots behind and beside Chris' rented apartment have been transformed into Eden - apple trees, more varieties of tomatoes and zucchini and basil than I ever knew existed, grapes, berries, onions, herbs, flowers, swiss chard, pumpkins. Under the supervision of Chris' young neighbor, Brandon, kids from the street work in the garden and often can be seen sampling the fruits of their labors. They also sell some of the produce at a stand on the front porch of one of the empty houses.

The peace garden, above, was built by Chris and others on the corner of a block where a young man was murdered. Again, the community came together to work on this, and continues to maintain it.

I will tell only a tiny bit of Chris' story, because I really want you to visit his blog yourself and, if you are in Pittsburgh, to meet him in person. Chris told me about his decade-long heroin addiction that was so bad that his family lived with a constant fear of a phone call announcing either his death or arrest. He said to me that he has put so much bad karma out there in his life that he is trying to return as much good karma as he can. I asked Chris if he considered his garden and neighborhood work to be part of his recovery. His response - "It IS my recovery!" On Friday, before he left to install a water heater in a neighbor's home, Chris gave me some zucchini and onions, which we added to our own tomatoes, radishes, and lettuce for a good meal that night.  

I encourage you to read today's post on Chris' blog for a sense of the substantive work that he is doing and the leadership he is demonstrating. In short, Chris' helpers discovered that some other kids had wrecked the garden, throwing veggies around and tearing things up. The police were called, the kids were found, and, under adult supervision, the kids gathered up the ruined vegetables and put them in the composting bin. It is touching that the young boys who had helped to grow the garden told the other kids that they had trashed food that would cost a lot of money in the grocery.

The only word that I can think of to describe an experience like this - to describe what Chris does in general - is love (Chris, don't know if you agree or not - but that's how I see it!). Love, laced with generosity, forgiveness, accountability, and responsibility. Not bad. I know Chris does not consider himself a saint, however - he acknowledged feeling frustrated when people don't always pitch in to take care of the flowers that beautify the street. But the generosity, enthusiasm, and caring are what came through when I listened to Chris.

Michael and Leah's wedding is almost upon us! It will truly be a celebration with so many families and friends gathered together to bless this union. Leah and Michael have love - lots of it. They are patient with one another, generous, forgiving, kind. This is a good way to start a life-time together. Please keep them - and Chris and his kids and friends - in your heart and prayers.

Pictures below - Leah and Mikey, and the garden and young gardeners via Chris' blog.

Home. Where is yours? Where do you feel safe, cared for, relaxed, able to be yourself? Where is your "place"? What makes it your special place?

My home is Pittsburgh, specifically the communities in the eastern part of the city - Regent Square, Squirrel Hill, Highland Park, East Liberty, Lawrenceville. These are wonderful communities, rich with history, striding confidently into the future with new ways of being together. 

What makes this place my home? I love the diversity of people and ideas and opinions that are here - I love seeing the bodacious bumper stickers on the cars, the older citizens who steadfastly stand at the four corners of the Forbes and Braddock intersection on Saturday mornings to protest the war, the quirky local restaurants, the vibrant houses of faith that serve their congregations and the larger community, the parks and the rivers. I love the friends that I have in this place who share many of my values and ideals, and who vociferously disagree with me on others.

My house is part of this home. It was built in 1929 and has had, I believe, four owners since that time. It is a sturdy bungalow, built for another time with its very tiny closets, built-in bookshelves, scarred wooden floors. It has a tiny yard which is just big enough for a garden of radishes, lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini. My house is part of my home because it provides shelter and comfort for me and my loved ones. Last winter, Michael brought his fiancee Leah to my home and invited his high school buddies over to introduce them to Leah (by the way, the wedding is 11 days away!). I have known these boys-men for most of my son's life - yes, he invited only his guy friends, with whom Leah more than held her own - I left them at the dining room table around 11 pm, and went to sleep on a cloud of happiness, knowing that these people who are so important to my son were gathered in this home to celebrate Michael's next step in life.

Of course, my family is also part of my home, my place, even when they are geographically removed. Around my house are Julie and Michael's art projects, books, toys, photos, gifts, cards.... pieces of their lives and spirits that are shared with me, that find a home in my house. My home is shared with Steve a good part of the time - filled with his generosity, humor, and kindness.

Poet Gary Snyder says - "Find your place on the planet. Dig in and take responsibility from there.” I have found my place. I identify with my home - my house, my neighborhood, my city, my family. It is part of me, and I see myself as part of this home. I feel an allegiance to my home, a sense of ownership beyond the financial property sense - a sense of responsibility to it. My home includes both property owned by me and the more important commons - that which is accessible to all, not privately owned. I will protect it, take care of it, improve it. 

The Earth is also my home - this planet with all of its natural beauty and chaos, side-by-side with human-made technology and structures both wonderful and terrible. I try to stay connected and present to all parts of this home, as well as my smaller home, so that I am aware of how it is feeling and doing. I feel loyal to this much larger home. I have a sense of responsibility to care for it, not to hurt it, to heal its brokenness. I know that I am part of this larger home - embedded in it and dependent upon it - so that what is good for this larger Earth home is in the end good for me and my loved ones.

Tell us about your homes.

In 1973, I was invited to be part of a colloquium panel at Transylvania University - the topic was something related to changing social, familial, and sexual behavior. The question I was to address was whether the changes we were seeing in the mid-60s to mid-70s in the US were evidence of a social revolution. 

At that time, it certainly seemed that things had been turned topsy-turvy. There were frequent allusions to the generation gap, the sexual revolution, the decline of the family. Certain previously disenfranchised groups (people of color, women) were gaining a little more power, rights, and respect. Some of the silent people were finding their voices. 

Based on my limited memory, the 1973 cultural landscape looked different than it had when I was a young child. So were these changes revolutionary? Today, I don't know how in the world I thought that I was qualified to answer this question - I don't feel qualified to do so now. Keep in mind that in 1973 I was all of 20 years old, and that all I knew was what I had lived - a middle-class middle-sized life in the middle of Kentucky! And yet, I somehow gamely took it on.

My response then, as I recall, was that the changes, while perhaps experienced by individuals as revolutionary, were not evidence of a social revolution. A true revolution involves forcible overthrow of all aspects of an established society or government, and a replacement of what is overthrown with something new and markedly different. Power changes across the board are felt. Decisions are made using significantly different processes. New institutions replace old ones. A revolution, in my mind, is an intentional act, a focused movement resulting in pervasive change. What we were experiencing in 1973 felt more like social evolution, incremental changes within many populations and institutions that led to a sum greater that its parts - but these changes were occurring under the same government operating under the same Constitution.

Believe it or not, nerd that I am, I think about this question often as I watch what is going on around me, locally and globally. I think about it as I read and talk with others about environmental issues - climate change, global warming, sustainability, social justice. It feels like there is an accelerating rate of change on this earth in many areas - in information processing and sharing, in levels of consumption of material goods, in changes to the earth. 

Or is it my age, my stage of life, that makes me notice things in this way? I see bubbles of revolutions happening in different parts of the world - think of the spring of 2011 in the Middle East and Africa. But it all also seems gradual and incremental - an overthrow of a government does not result in the immediate establishment of the new government - there is lots to do to get there, if ever, if the old government does not come back and grab power.

In 2008, entrepreneur and environmentalist Paul Hawken wrote Blessed Unrest, his documentation of "the largest social movement in the world." He told stories of how millions of groups of people, from corporations to governments to small NGOs to community groups, were working to address the related issues of environment and social justice. Millions of groups and people across the world, not necessarily connecting with one another in any way, but nevertheless having significant impacts. I think of the recent March on Blair Mountain. Focused change, intentional effort - but not yet revolutionary in a large sense.

Others, like Bill McKibben for example, write about what will happen to the earth and human existence if energy policies, practices, and uses do not change - it is not pretty. Millions of people across the world are trying to do things differently, but the pace of change, of environmental degradation, is so rapid, that it might sometimes feel like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.

Are revolutionary acts required to mitigate or reverse climate change, to establish fully sustainable living practices that do not compromise the needs of future generations? What would those acts look like? Or will small but significant and cumulative changes make the difference - whether they be moving to local food production and distribution or dealing with corporate financial influence on the political process? Do individual actions matter? Can the small tremors caused by the millions of people involved in "the largest social movement in the world" result in a beneficent cultural earthquake? Evolutionary or revolutionary?

Another question - do hard changes come only when our backs are pushed to the wall? Like, when gas prices rise to $10/gallon - or when clean water is so scarce that communities fight over it. Or can we effect change when our lives are good?

I certainly don't have the answers. But I think about work done by Canadian psychologist Catherine O'Brien in 2008 about sustainability and happiness. She describes two conventional beliefs that present challenges to moving people toward more sustainable living - one, the belief that economic growth is synonymous with happiness and two, that consumption of material goods results in happiness. And I think about how pervasive these beliefs are in our culture and how they influence our daily thoughts and behaviors - mine included.

I don't think there are easy, black or white answers. I'm just thinking out loud and hoping to hear from others.

Oh. The radish. It's from my garden - just a little piece of my own tiny slow evolution - best eaten, according to Steve's mom, with a little butter, coarse salt, and a crusty baguette.

From March on Blair Mountain:

We march to preserve Blair Mountain, abolish mountaintop removal, strengthen labor rights, and an investment in sustainable job creation for all Appalachian communities.The March on Blair Mountain is a peaceful, unifying rally involving environmental justice organizations, workers, scholars, artists, and other citizens and groups. The march commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, when 10,000 coal miners rose against the rule of the coal operators and fought for the basic right to live and work in decent conditions. Currently, Blair Mountain is threatened with obliteration by mountaintop removal (MTR) mining, and it is here that a new generation of Appalachians takes a stand.

In the spirit of the original march–which consisted of mountain peoples, African-Americans, and immigrants from all over Europe–we reach out to a diversity of groups to march in solidarity for the workers, communities and mountains of Appalachia. If you stand with us, you are one of us — a true mountaineer.

Lots of good stuff is happening in West Virginia as I write. Visit these sites for current news about the March on Blair Mountain:

• Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
• Kentucky Rising (on Facebook)
• March on Blair Mountain

We have had beautiful weather in Pittsburgh this week - great for hiking, walking, and biking, and just sitting and listening to the birds. It is raining heavily today - hope the marchers in WV are staying dry.

I am planning to go to the last two days of this event - going for a training session on Friday and the march up the mountain and rally on Saturday. In preparation, I have been reading the 2008 Silas House/Jason Howard book - Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal - through interviews with and stories of many mountain people, I am learning and remembering a lot. 

My brothers and sisters and I used to spend some weeks each summer in Lynch, KY, the site of the highest mountain in KY - Big Black Mountain - where my parents grew up and my grandparents lived. Half of Big Black Mountain is in Lynch, KY and half is in VA. The half that is in VA has been decimated by mountain top removal. The people of Lynch and nearby Cumberland and Benham are fighting the forces of A and G coal to preserve their part of Big Black Mountain.

I think about Lynch a lot. I remember the smell of coal dust - not unpleasant, but what did I know? - and the rattling sound of coal-carrying trains, and the sights of the miners clomping up the road in their heavy boots at the end of a shift, white eyes in coal-darkened faces, some as young as 14 or 15. I also remember, back in the mid-late 1960s, seeing the separate bath houses labeled for "colored" and "white" miners. 

Although my older brother and I were born in Lynch, our family moved away from Harlan County when my father entered the University of KY to study engineering, funded by the GI Bill. Lexington was a big city compared to Lynch. I often wonder what this change was like for my mom - who eventually was the  mother of five children. I wonder what it was like for her to move from such a small town, far away from her home, friends (who are close friends to this day), and parents - to a city with bluegrass and softly rolling hills, a city that was so different in culture and topography than her mountainous home. 

In my childhood, the only way to get back to Lynch for a visit was over twisty mountain roads, torture for this little girl who was prone to car-sickness (particularly when adults smoked cigarettes and cigars - oh, how times have changed! no seat belts then either - all five of us climbing back and forth over seats, elbowing and stepping on one another). 

In college, I came across Yesterday's People: Life in Contemporary Appalachia (1965),  by Jack Weller. This was written about Appalachia pre-cable TV -- actually, probably, pre-access to much TV at all - the signals just couldn't come in. This was written when many people actually did live up in the hollers. It was fascinating to read Weller's ideas about tendencies of children in the mountains to express stress and anxiety psycho-somatically - through tummy aches and headaches - particularly when the worry was about separation from home and family. 

Makes sense when you think that many of the people had not ever traveled much outside of their small community or county. I could certainly identify with that. Our homes, where we have grown from deeply-planted roots, really shape who we are. 

Makes me wonder about what it would be like NOT to have deep roots in a particular place. Do you then root yourself into something that is different, that you can carry with you wherever you go? What or where would that be?

Oops - off track here! I am really looking forward to my trip later this week, and I will let you know how it goes. Hope to have stories and pictures to share.

Friday morning, I was sitting at my regular table at the Square Cafe, eating my lemon ricotta pancake and drinking iced tea, helping Jim with his crossword puzzle, and enjoying the easy start to the day. Spring was finally here. Graduation was scheduled for the weekend. A fresh semester would start Monday - with me teaching some great students who would be new to me. Life was (is!) good! 

I picked up the Post-Gazette and noticed two front page articles - front and center - and began reading.... and lost my appetite. I felt tears coming to my eyes, and an ache in my heart, and, yes, I admit it, anger and fury - all over my body where those feelings reside, I felt their heat and intensity.

The articles that fired me up? (1) A story about the newly published independent review of the Upper Big Branch coal mining explosion that took the lives of 29 coal miners on April 5, 2010. The finding - gross neglect - primarily on the part of Massey Energy's shoddy oversight of mine safety, and the federal and state regulatory officials who had counted and cited several hundreds of safety violations and yet never closed the mines. AND (2) the first person accounts of the men who survived the mining disaster. 

As noted in the first story, the independent review does not read like a dry technical report written by sterile bureaucrats. It reads like a thriller - a record of a historical event that rivals stories of war, natural disasters, plagues. Its main characters are humans - archetypes that have existed for centuries. An extra-big villain - Don Blankenship, a West Virginia native with an uncanny facial resemblance, though with a little more flesh, to another despot with a tiny black mustache - Mr. B is known as the dark lord of West Virginia coal country. 

Rolling Stone magazine published an expose of Mr. B's work and his response to the mining explosion. Shortly after the article appeared, he resigned as CEO of Massey Energy - with a mighty big golden parachute, I might add. His salary had spiked in the months before the disaster. And even though he saw a drop in salary of 48% by the end of 2010, he still walked off with millions and will sit pretty for the rest of his life. The people most directly affected by his actions and non-actions related both to the explosion and the mining-related environmental devastation could most certainly use some of that money - for health costs, for pain and suffering, for de-valued homes, for educational funds for spouses and children left without a husband and father. Yes, they sure could use - and most certainly deserve - such help.

Don Blankenship may be one of the big villains. There are lesser bad guys galore - many of whom look the other way in order to keep their jobs and salaries and, sometimes, their political seats - or maybe, because they are human, to avoid conflict and confrontation. 

Those in the middle - the ones who know that the jobs they work both keep food on the table and poison the creek out back - these people often just feel stuck. These are the folks who don't see or understand alternatives, or fear change, or don't trust that things could be better, so they stick with the familiar.

The heroes and/or victims - they are the coal miners, and their families, and future families who will face the vast destruction associated with the mountain top removal typical of Massey Energy and similar companies, and with the dark underground mining in dank and dusty caves. Many of these heroes and victims come from a long line of miners and have deep roots in the mountains of Appalachia. The drivers of the plot - greed, neglect, inaction and passivity, ignorance, acts of God (according to Mr.  B), bogged down bureaucracy, and many others.

Not so much talked about though? The chorus of this drama - the reporters and observers who do not necessarily act in big parts. You and me. Watching television reports about the explosion, reading newspapers, talking to friends, maybe signing petitions to voice our disgust with big coal operations, and.... flipping on light switches, recharging our multiple devices, typing away on our keyboards, TiVo-ing our favorite shows, and generally living our day to day lives without really seeing the men and the families of men whose labors feed the energy that travels the wires to our homes.

To really understand the fix we are in, we need to recognize that fossil fuels have supplied cheap, abundant and effective energy of all kinds for over a century - much cheaper than in most other parts of the world, much cheaper than the price of alternative energies that aren't yet built to scale, cheaper today than the long-term costs associated with the use of fossil-fuel driven energy. We review our electric bills, maybe shop around for a lower rate, turn off lights when not in use, perhaps even unplug the coffee-maker and other LED-lit appliances. We do that, most of us, without really understanding or even actually thinking about the fact that most electricity in our country is powered by coal burning plants... which are fueled by coal.... that is dug from deep underground by men in hazardous conditions (even in the 21st century) or sheared off the surface by giant machines doing mountain top removal that destroys the natural environment and the health of the people who live nearby. 

Can those (we) in the chorus be villains or heroes, or are we limited to the passive roles of observer and reporter? When we see disaster coming, can we intervene and prevent chaos and destruction? Can we warn the heroes and victims-to-be? I think the authors of these dramas can have the chorus do whatever they want. I think we can even become authors of the dramas, or at least co-screen-writers.

We don't have to do it alone. We have options - one coming soon is the March on Blair Mountain in West Virginia - from the web-site:

We march to preserve Blair Mountain, abolish mountaintop removal, strengthen labor rights, and an investment in sustainable job creation for all Appalachian communities.The March on Blair Mountain is a peaceful, unifying rally involving environmental justice organizations, workers, scholars, artists, and other citizens and groups. The march commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, when 10,000 coal miners rose against the rule of the coal operators and fought for the basic right to live and work in decent conditions. Currently, Blair Mountain is threatened with obliteration by mountaintop removal (MTR) mining, and it is here that a new generation of Appalachians takes a stand.

In the spirit of the original march–which consisted of mountain peoples, African-Americans, and immigrants from all over Europe–we reach out to a diversity of groups to march in solidarity for the workers, communities and mountains of Appalachia. If you stand with us, you are one of us — a true mountaineer.

According to his parents, Rev. Glenn and Marsha Grayson - and to news reports - Jeron Grayson was a star athlete, a wonderful son and brother, a loyal friend, an excited college student, an inspiring community member, and an aspiring activist. On October 17, 2010, Jeron was tragically and randomly killed, while home from Hampton College, by a young man with a gun.

Rev. Glenn and Marsha have lived and worked for years in Pittsburgh - and have been particularly devoted to improving the lives of young people in their Hill District community. They have founded the Center that CARES  in their neighborhood. The Center that CARES provides tutoring, mentoring, advising, and travel experiences that support and broaden the lives of young people from kindergarten through young adulthood.

How did this extraordinary couple respond to their devastating loss? In typical fashion, they have recently launched a public campaign that urges young people to stay away from guns. The campaign is called "G" Stands for Never Touch a Gun - named after Jeron who was fondly called G. Look for billboards across Pittsburgh with pictures of Jeron. And take some time to view the WQED documentary about Jeron and his parents' work.

Sustainable health and well-being often involves conservation and protection of the natural world - and it also very much involves conservation and protection of the social environment. A healthy community provides safety for its residents, love and education of its young people, and caring among neighbors in hard times, in addition to food and shelter. It provides these supports in ways that can be sustained over the long term, across generations. Marsha, an attorney and a student in Chatham's MS in Counseling Psychology program, and Rev. Glenn, pastor of the Wesley Center AME Zion Church in the Hill District, make significant contributions to the sustainable health and well-being of their neighborhood, Pittsburgh, and beyond. 

The work of Marsha and Rev. Glenn is very important - and it is work that each of us can do in our own way, in our own corner of the world. Think about how you might add to the sustainable health and well-being of your community. Look around for other individuals or groups that you might connect with to do great things. And let us know what you do.

The British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred one year ago. Or I should say - began one year ago. The spill stretched over weeks, and the devastation to animals, plants, water, and human well-being continues to this day. And the spill tragically affected a region that was barely recovering from Hurricane Katrina - a region with "a history of health disparities, environmental-justice concerns, recurrent impacts of natural disasters, and poor health metrics" (NEJM, 2011). 

I was at the Hibiscus Bed and Breakfast in Grayton Beach, Florida just a few weeks after the spill, and witnessed first hand how this event hurt the communities. I saw sadness, fear, and anger, and heard worries about how the region could economically survive the assault on its primary sources of income - tourism and recreation. Each day, citizens walked the beach to monitor the status of the water and shore, and reported back to community leaders who were making difficult decisions about how to respond.

What is the situation today? Research cited recently in the New England Journal of Medicine indicates that, while the long-term effects of the oil spill on physical health of the human residents of the Gulf Coast are uncertain, there is clear evidence of negative effects on the residents' economic, mental, and social well-being. There is also clear evidence from a variety of sources that the damage to the region's ecosystems is vast. 

Also in the last year - floods, droughts, AND wildfires in Australia, the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear plant disaster in Japan, and floods and landslides following a cyclone in New Zealand - all related to natural disasters and extreme weather. Topic for another day - how has climate change and global warming affected the frequency and severity of extreme weather events? There is a connection. More directly related to human choice - ongoing mountain-top removal and related air and water contamination - and negative health outcomes - in West Virginia. These are just a few of thousands of environmental situations and events that put health and well-being at risk.

What rays of hope have we seen in the last year? I look for rays of hope each day when I read the news, and I do find them, midst the darkness. What shines most brightly for me are reports of the voices and actions of ordinary citizens and a few government agencies in protest against destruction to the environment and in support of healing and protection of the earth. There are many many examples of this - here are just a few:

• Possible contamination of water by drilling for natural gas is a BIG issue in western PA -- and just last Tuesday in Pittsburgh, over 700 citizens turned out for a public forum to discuss the Marcellus Shale project - both to educate themselves and to speak their concerns. That is 700!
• In related news, the PA Department of Environmental Protection asked the state's natural gas drillers to stop delivering contaminated water to water treatment plants, setting a May 19 deadline - don't know yet what will happen if the drillers don't comply, but it is a start.
• Activists in Chicago occupied a local coal plant, protesting its pollution of nearby residences, restaurants, shops, and schools.
• In West Virginia, a march on Blair Mountain is planned for June 5-11, 2011, to demand an end to coal-mining via mountain-top removal, a strengthening of labor rights, and a transition to a sustainable economy.

I could cite many, many more rays of hope. Scan your local paper and another paper like the NY Times each day - buried under the heavy news about corporate influence of government, extreme weather events, and the spread of radioactive substances from the earthquake-tsunami area to places thousands of miles away, you will see glimmers of courage and strength. And when you read or hear about something that makes you angry - that threatens the well-being of your children, go right to the Resources page and let someone who has power in the government know how you feel and what you want. Teach your children to do the same.

We ordinary citizens are beginning to really understand that everything is connected, that damage to the earth affects human health and well-being in addition to the ecosystem, and that humans can make better choices in the interests of our grandchildren's futures. 

 

I have had some reactions to the "angry mother letter" that I posted last week - if you haven't read it, a brief scan of it now will help you understand what follows. Basically, the letter is from mother earth to her human children, in which she chastises her children for their destruction of their home.

Some people reacted with - I am a mother; I so get that level of frustration. Others said - Seriously? Will this anger really help? 

I have done some reading and thinking since I posted the letter, and I can empathize with both positions. I am a mother of two amazing children - in spite of their amazing-ness, there have been times when I have felt beyond frustrated with their behaviors and choices, and when I probably did not speak to them in a particularly loving way. And yet - I am the mother of two amazing children - and when I have expressed my frustration to them in a less than loving way, it has almost always gone badly. It has seldom resulted in the desired response - "Oh, yes, mother dear! I goofed! I am so sorry and I will never do it again." The more typical result of an attempt to parent via anger, shame, and guilt has been that the focus shifts from what the child could possibly learn and do differently to dealing with the icky crap that comes with angry outbursts.

I have learned over the years that parenting or teaching by anger, humiliation, shame, or guilt does not work - and that doing so poisons the relationship that is so essential for growth to happen. So I can totally see that the letter from an angry mother earth might result in shut-down by its readers - a closing down to the important seed of truth and wisdom that is buried deep within the diatribe. The result of reading the letter may not be the desired - Wow! I never thought of this! I am going to clean up my act right away and compost, recycle, be thoughtful about consumption, and write my representatives! It may more likely be anger in return, denial, and distance - certainly not thinking it through and considering changes.

Research may shed some light on this. Studies that investigate the effects of having someone complete a carbon footprint assessment (which provides feedback about how "green" the person is in daily living) yield interesting results. Briefly, for participants who already identify themselves as being sensitive to environmental issues, knowing the carbon footprint may reinforce already existing good habits or lead to additional positive changes. For participants who do not identify themselves as environmentalists, the outcome may be the opposite - no positive change and perhaps even a decrease in environmental concern (for further reading, see Vess and Arndt, 2008, and Brook, 2011, under Resources). Why might this be so? It is no doubt complicated - and yet, it may also be as simple as thinking about how any of us feel when we learn that we are not doing something we should be doing, or that we are screwing up - even if this isn't done in an angry way.

We are human - which means that, sometimes, our response to such feedback is resistance and defensiveness - which certainly does not help our cause.

One area of research that might be adapted for the purposes of understanding all of this is the area related to stages of change and motivation. Have you ever tried to make a significant behavioral change in daily living - to lose weight, to stop smoking, to drink less alcohol? Most of us who make these attempts go through steps of increasing readiness prior to actually making and maintaining the change - I will talk more about this later. 

What is important about this line of study is that there is greater success in change when we can meet people where they are in their readiness to change - when we can accept that they are not yet ready to act differently, but that they are at least contemplating doing so. When we can accept them at that pre-change stage, then we can help them take baby steps toward an actual behavioral change. We do this from a place of openness, support, curiosity, and acceptance - not from anger and judgment. I wonder what this might mean in terms of talking with people about environmental issues? What do you think?

So, I did not do the Amizade Water Walk last Saturday as I had intended to. The walk, set at Duquesne University, was advertised as an opportunity to experience just a tiny bit of what women and children across the world do each day in order to get enough water just to survive. Participants in the event were to have carried a bucket of water for about 4 miles up and down hills and stairs but, as noted here, they actually walked for about 6.4 miles (the photo here is from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

I did not do the walk for a couple of silly and cowardly reasons. First, I am 57. Often, when I show up for community events like this, I am the oldest person by 20-30 years (GO Pittsburgh young people!). I imagine the other participants thinking wtf is this old lady doing here. And yes, I could have invited a friend. My second reason is not unrelated to my first - I was a little afraid that I would not be able to complete the walk and that I would thus end up feeling embarrassed - an ego-driven excuse if I ever heard one!

What I did instead, the following day, was to do a car-less Sunday. This meant that I walked to the grocery, the East-End Co-op, and carried my groceries home - about 3 miles round trip. I realize that this exercise was probably trivial, and had no impact beyond my momentary thinking about convenience, privilege, inequities and injustice, and cars (which, by the way, were abundant along my walk, blasting a glorious melange of jazz, gospel, hip-hop, and pop music out their windows) - but I did it anyway and don't regret having done it.

Sometimes it just seems like the local and global problems related to social injustice, pollution, climate change, overconsumption, and poverty are just so very big and overwhelming. Sometimes I feel so angry that I could explode when I read about the new Pennsylvania rule that coal company and other corporate executives (who clearly have vested interests) have to/get to review and sign off on regulations related to natural gas drilling (fox in the hen house???) when safe water and human health are at stake. Sometimes I wonder why the heck I think about this stuff and write about it when my efforts will be just a teeny-tiny blip on the screen. Sometimes I wish I could not be aware and interested, and could stick my head back in the sand. Most of the time, I realize that, in spite of my small efforts, I am still not walking the talk as much as I could.

What does this mean? Do these realities mean that we give up? Or that we give everything away and devote ourselves exclusively to work that tries to right wrongs? Have you ever wondered about these things?

Last Wednesday night, Juliette Jones, one of the founders of the Hazelwood Food Forest, came to speak to my class on Psychologists in Organizations and Communities. Juliette is young, creative, energetic, and hard-working. I listened to her and wondered about how it must feel to be undertaking such meaningful work at her young age and about what childhood experiences had given her the wisdom to take this path. Then she mentioned that she had not come to her interest in gardening and sustainability until after college, a mere few years ago.

We are who we are, learning and growing and teaching from our unique place in the universe. How can we go wrong with wanting to move forward from where we are, even if we take small steps? What is the alternative? What would happen if lots of people who felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tasks before us still determined to take those small steps, together? Again, what is the alternative?

In coming posts, we will look at what we know about how people change, about the roots of altruism, about the costs of denial. I welcome your thoughts.