Is the paradigm shifting?
We think it is.
Last week in this blog we introduced our newest series THE BIG SHFT. In it, we train our camera on 10 people who are changing the way we live today. They inspire us in the way they're moving the universe forward a notch or two with an eye towards the environment.
Last week we featured the young entrepreneur Tom Szaky and the green jobs pioneer Van Jones. This week, we're rolling out two heavy hitters: the food pioneer Alice Waters and the environmental industrialist Bill Ford.
Both of these trailblazers were prescient in their view that there was a better way to do things. Both have seen the tide rise to (finally) catch up with them.
Since founding the Berkeley eatery Chez Panisse 40 years ago, Alice Waters has helped inspire nothing short of a culinary revolution. These days, she's busy heading up the Chez Panisse Foundation, a non-profit organization that funds The Edible Schoolyard Project, where students at public schools learn to harvest and grow ingredients that are then used in their lunches.
Bill Ford spearheaded a sustainability report for the company his great-grandfather founded nearly a century earlier. At the time, these green ideas were not well-received. Today, they are at the center of Ford Motor Company's strategy for success. Introducing eco-minded vehicles like hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and EVs, and improving energy efficiency at the factory level, Bill has radically transformed the way his company operates and the cars it produces.
So, if you're in need of a little inspiration, check out these episodes of THE BIG SHFT and let us know what you think. We'll respond on Facebook and Twitter.
Alice Waters, Food Revolutionary
Bill Ford, Environmental Industrialist
SHFT.COM is a cultural media platform, founded by Actor/Filmmaker Adrian Grenier and Film Producer Peter Glatzer offering original video series, curated shopping, and a host of resources that speak to an inspirationally conscious lifestyle.
good things, great ideas.
I use the word "ecology" because an "enviroment" has been redifined to include cultural elements which have little to do with the sciences. IT MUST BE POSSIBLE for the broadest element of the U.S. populace to support sustinable practices if you sincerely place the future of the planet as your number one priority.
And do peer over that hill - that electricity is increasingly coming from gas-fired plants, with 1/3 the CO2 and almost none of the nasties. The US leads the industrialized world in CO2 reduction since 2006, exceeding the Kyoto targets, because of increased natural gas (and the recession..). I used to scoff at the all-electric "solution", but natural gas changes things.
As far as hybrids go, I've had one since 2009 (Honda Insight) and I still love it. I don't think I will ever buy another conventional fuel vehicle after driving a hybrid. Any future purchases on my part will be either hybrid or EV (or fuel cell, if that ever becomes practical, but I'm not counting on it.) I know I don't speak for all hybrid drivers, however. I will say that most other hybrid owners I've talked to also love their hybrids though (some Prius owners, some other Insight owners, and some Civic owners). I have heard dissatisfaction from some owners of hybrid SUVs however, such as Ford Escape Hybrid owners, Saturn Vue owners, and Toyota Highlander hybrid owners. This may account partially for the statistic you cited.
It is an advertisement for the 'green poultice' theory of treatment for the disaster that is before us.
Want facts: see: www.worldometers.info. No advocacy, just facts in real time.
Also, country by country: World Factbook. A publication of the U.S,. Central Intelligence Agency.
Also, no advocacy. Very up to date.
Furthermore, our electrical grid is overloaded as it is. There is no way it could withstand everyone plugging in a car.
My state and city - for example - has long funded transit through taxes levied on -wait for it - those who DON'T use mass transit. The justification, of course, was that you wanted to incentivize the right behavior. Except the 'right' behavior, is enormously more expensive than the alternative, particularly if you look at personnel and capital costs - it's just that that cost is not borne by the transit users. Transit, as it exists in my city and state - can exist ONLY if the vast majority of people DO NOT use it and are willing to pay the costs for those that do. However fair this may be from a social-equity standpoint, it's not a business model that will EVER allow transit to be anything other than a bit player in local transportation needs.
1. Hunting. Eating meat that you hunted and killed yourself. This activity is actually carbon negative (eliminates more carbon than it produces)
2. Vegetarian eating only local organic vegetables. This activity is almost carbon neutral.
3. Eating whatever is on sale at the grocery store. This activity is carbon positive.
2. Oganic vegetables would supply few minutes more.
3. The grocery stores won't have a lot of sales let alone food soon. Most of the corn crop is dad and most of the remainder is commited to ethanol.
4. Then they'll go after the elitist utopian "greens" as a main course. That should hold 'em for awhile.
Put them in jail if they drive too much. That'll stop 'em. Why should I care what people "love"? What if they love eating mommeat? Am I supposed to accept that because they "love" it? I say make them stop, by whatever means necessary, and make them "love" something else. People's tastes are not innate, inborn, part of their "soul." They are inculcated by the media. Inculcate new good tastes. Sheesh.
If a government started by telling people whether they could drive or not, do you really think it would end there?
One day, the members of the Occupy and Tea Party movements will realize they're fighting diffferent ends of the same dragon. And the dragon will become very angry.
DON'T FEED THE DRAGON!
One was the Sonoma Mission Inn, whose chef at the time, I believe was Charles Saunders, a true pioneer of the fresh and green ideal. I'd like to see more written about some of these early trend setters and the path they blazed for the others who followed them.
I think it was a big change in the restaurant industry here in the US, not so much in Europe where seasonal was still traditional. But I know that many cooks were ahead of the folks in berkeley, just not quite so adept at self promotion.
When we dine out , we go to places we can afford, too. And the food offered in our region comes from our region!
"Our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change."
http://wapo.st/Nrqe5b
It's ironic your example, the 1930s Dust Bowl, was human-made.
We will need walkable cities and neighborhoods and smaller, more energy efficient buildings if the goal is to slow global warming, protect the environment, human health and prepare for the inevitable shift away from fossil fuels.
Troy,
NZ.