social sustainability

Making a Difference

2011-01-15T11:43:00.000-08:00

-Jennifer Fosket

On any given sunny day, I'm apt to be at the Albany Bulb, walking the dog, building pirate ships with my kids, searching out new art installations. A former construction waste dump, it was decommissioned in the late 1980s and covered with dirt. Things started to grow on it. Today, huge slabs of concrete and twisted rebar intermingle with grasses, trees and bushes. It's like a fantastic display of mother nature reclaiming what's hers or perhaps it's warning us of the persistence of industrial waste. Either way, there is something endlessly fascinating about the place. There are huge sculptures made from found objects, natural and otherwise, eclectic mobiles hanging from the trees, painted rocks and mosaics. Every time we go, it's slightly different because the wind and water transform or erase what the artists create and in this too, the bulb is a living example of human/nature interactions.

It's also usually a trash pit. At the beach, plastic water bottles, plastic straws, plastic bags, plastic everything litters the sand and rolls in and out with the tide. I cringe as I watch my barefoot children frolic in the waves. Yet, despite how much I love and use this place, I have never so much as picked up a single plastic water bottle and thrown it in the garbage. Until last week.

Last week, I arrived at the bulb and was amazed to find the beach clean. Instead of rolled up plastic bags and straws, seaweed and shells littered the ground. I still haven't been able to find out what lovely souls are responsible for the clean-up. When I went again, the effects were slightly wearing off--here and there garbage was scattered across the beach. Without thinking, I dug a bag out of my pocket and started picking up trash. In the end, I spent thirty minutes and filled my bag.

Reflecting on why after years of being one of the many neglectful users of this beach, I finally pitched in to help, I realized that it was because I felt like my efforts would matter. When the beach was overrun with trash, the whole problem seemed insurmountable, but once it had been cleaned, keeping it that way transformed into a doable problem that I could personally help accomplish. This highlights a critical factor in motivating people to get involved: the belief that ones own efforts can make a difference. Of course, I should have been picking up trash all along, but it wasn't until I could see and believe that I could make a difference that I actually overcame inertia and took action.

Postcard from the Spill Zone: Jackie Orr's Journey Down Highway 1

2011-01-07T09:51:00.000-08:00

-Laura Mamo
I recently found this powerful sociological account of visiting the BP disaster area by my colleague, Jackie Orr. In this piece she reflects on the complexities and accountabilities of all of us as simultaneous participants and members of those affected by environmental degradation and disasters. We need more embodied and intellectually engaged thinking like this. Thank you Jackie.

Postcard from the Spill Zone: Jackie Orr's Journey Down Highway 1

Green Festival

2010-11-08T12:11:00.000-08:00

-Mary Rose LeBaron
Green Festival…and your official invitation to join a movement

Its all Happening!!! How many of us have had that exuberant feeling of glee and excitement? The feeling that everything around you is resonating on your own personal wave length, stopping you in your tracks for a few moments, filling your being with sheer gratitude?? My day at the Green Festival in San Francisco was this kind of day and I am still buzzing from the effects of the kindness and efforts of our fellow men and women to create a sustainable, just and peaceful world.

You may wonder what has me in such a tizzy? And why would one little green festival make such a big impression on this petite, blonde, former housewife, recently escaped from the urban blight of southern California?? I can answer that…It is simply this; Every life being on Earth is facing the same crisis and it matters to me. A crisis that is by our own hand. Our environment is damaged, but along with many other intelligent optimists I believe in the abilities and reasonableness of people to pull us back from the brink of extinction. I had the opportunity to hear some of our most prominent enviro-leaders speak about the work they are doing and paths they are forging for us.

Richard Register spoke on the importance of our built environment and the alarmingly sad fact that our car culture is keeping us trapped and beholden to Big Oil. I can’t do his research, knowledge and activism justice in one short blog here so please look him up. www.ecocitybuilders.org He is doing great work on building cities for people, not cars.

John Perkins, author of Hoodwinked spoke about how we are in the grips of corporate domination and that the next period must be OUR time. As individuals we may feel meek, but together our voices will shift the tide and break us free from corporate control.

If any of you are familiar with Annie Leonard’s body of work and her “Story of Stuff” documentary you will understand how planned obsolescence is part of the design to keep us in the endless loop of consumerism and ultimately aloneness. Consumerism is a common thread that binds us together and yet separates us. As a society we have shared in the pleasure of acquiring new gadgets, fascinated at new technologies and wanted the next shiny new one. Yet, this consumer culture separates us. Our society has been separating at the seams; a fabric getting thread bare.

If southern California taught me anything it was this; we buy and buy, seeking out a comfortable home to raise our children in, following our “American Dream”, going to work each day in our cars, driving for multiple hours a week to and from the office to provide for our children and selves in a way that we thought fit for such “deserving” and “upstanding” people as ourselves. Hmmmm, see the common word here? ….self. What I started to see and learn, thanks in part to a book called Deep Economy , by Bill McKibben, is that all this “self” thinking was coming at a cost, an astronomical cost to our society. The individualistic values that corporate America was dazzling us with had indeed effectively divided us into neat little bundles. Individual pods, our homes, separated by fences and huge garage doors, distracted by gadgets, video games, TV.

Here we were celebrating our individualism and greatness, yet forgetting what makes us feel great really was shared connections, building upon each others ideas to create things, to be a part of.

Friends, I want you to BE A PART OF with me. If you don’t know where to start, start with me. You can email me at maryroselebaron@gmail.com and if you are not a spammer I will give you my phone number. We will get connected. It is that simple. We will not be divided. Our survival depends on us vitally renewing positive connections.

So there I was, program in hand and a copy of his latest book Eaarth, sitting in the front row with good company, (two nice ladies from Sunnyvale, also HUGE Bill McKibben fans) giddy with excitement to see the leader of the global groundswell environmental movement based on one number, 350. A movement such as this is enough to restore one’s faith in humanity. That’s what its really about for you and me. Let’s connect now, and make more connections. Can you feel that? Its togetherness. Our time here together may be limited so we are going to make the most of it, face this crisis together, share in the environmental solutions, take actions that are smart and beneficial to life on Earth, and resolve to not be separated any longer. I feel that wave rising, get on board, bring a friend! Its all Happening!!

350 day of Climate Action

2010-10-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

Mary Rose LeBaron

My day with the Friends of Five Creeks working to restore a creek between 9th and 10th St. in Berkeley was a nugget of delight as far as community activism experiences go. Working together with others towards a shared goal; that of creating viable global climate solutions was rewarding and beneficial in more ways than one. First as an experience that was shared, meeting others from my local community and enjoying new happy fellowships and second, meeting on the basis that we are part of a larger global community with a common goal. If one visits the website www.350.org one can see the pictures that are streaming in from across the globe from other work parties on 10/10/10. In short, our work party consisted a walk and tour of the existing stream bed and a talk from a few of the organizers including an ecological urban designer who along with Friends of Five Creeks has designated enough land to create and re-invigorate a healthy habitat for Steelhead Trout in Berkeley and Albany, This was followed by an hour and a half of creek side clean up. The local homeless population had been sleeping along the creek bed and had left considerable amounts of trash behind. My particular work party group had the job of bagging up and moving this trash about a hundred yards down the creek bed to an area where it would later be picked up and disposed of.

One of the aspects that I most liked about this project is that Friends of Five Creeks is making a fantastic urban green space, open to the public, filling it with native plants, and along part of the creek they have planted several fruit trees and made a small gathering place in the shade of these fruit trees and willow trees. Richard Register, our tour guide explained that he wants children to come walking along this path and be able to pick the fruit from these trees so that they can know where fruit comes from and experience the pleasure of picking it in their own community.

Van Jones and Prop 23

2010-10-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

Mary Rose LeBaron

Oh what a night I had listening to the man himself….Van Jones!

Yes, I guess you could say I was a tiny bit star struck. You would be too once you realized what a dynamic and incredible idea man Van Jones is. Author of The Green Collar Economy and former “Green Czar” for the Obama administration, Van is back in the Bay Area doing inspiring work. The event I attended on October 3rd was a night of community collaboration and phone calling to inform voters about a deceptive piece of legislation on the California ballot this November. Prop 23 is funded by Texas Oil companies to the tune of 20 million dollars. They claim that Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, requiring California to develop regulations that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, is going to hurt California’s economy and destroy jobs. The truth is that while embracing the Global Warming Solutions Act may reduce jobs in the dirty energy business, it will definitely increase jobs in the California green energy sector…ie: Silicon Valley and beyond…to local solar and bio-fuel businesses etc.

I share Van’s spirit of belief in the hope movement. Some of what he touched on was the inspiration behind the change that we saw in 2008 with the election of Barack Obama. Van said we were “the movement that met the man” In other words, who inspired who? Did Obama inspire us or was it the other way around? Our power as concerned, socially aware, loving individuals is to act together with shared goals and values. Texas oil may have billions of dollars but WE have our collective power, the power that got AB 32 approved in the first place. So that is incredible; knowing that Texas oil had to spend 20 million just to backlash against OUR collective voices.

In 2008, when Obama and McCain were having their debates, one thing that there was never disagreement on was that clean energy was beneficial to America and that our economy could be strengthened on the backs of new green jobs. That’s right, the clean energy idea was shared by both sides in 2008. Now we see the latest headlines, that the Tea Party is taking sides with Texas oil in trying to pass prop 23. It is puzzling to be sure, the energy that seems to spur on the Tea Party.

“But consider the fact that lies uncontested don’t shrink in growth, they GROW.”

This quote from Van’s speech leaves me with the resolve that it is simply unacceptable to let the lies of the Tea Party and the incredibly profitable oil companies (62 Million per day for BP) go uncontested.

An important date coming up to note, is 10/10/10, global day of action for climate solutions. Check out www.350.org for a local work party that you can be involved with.

Finally, another exciting bill that the California senate has put forth is SB 375, a bill to support sustainable communities. Here is the link to more info; http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/sb375/sb375.htm Hooray California!! As Van said the other night,
“

Our glory is now, in our achievements!” and I say today is our day, seize the moment, make one small act based on love, and voila! We have created a movement!!

A Housing Project in Victoria That Embraces Nature

2010-07-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

Linda Baker, reporting for the New York Times, writes about Dockside Green, in Vancouver Island, B.C. We also featured Dockside in our book, Living Green.

Read the article here.

Toxins in Building Materials Again...

2010-06-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

“WARNING: This area contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.”
A familiar sight to Californians, these are the words that appear on signs in countless buildings complying with Proposition 65, requiring posting warnings of exposures to harmful chemicals listed in a state-run database. Architect Tyler Krehlik with Anshen+Allen Architects, was struck by the irony of green buildings still having to post this sign because of unknown effects of possible chemicals in building materials. So Anshen+Allen teamed up with McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) to try and determine how they could factor human health into material selection criteria. Read the article here.

Are Green Buildings Healthy Buildings?

2010-06-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

As sociologists interested in the ways green communities and green buildings benefit health, we tend to focus on the benefits most obvious to us as sociologists: Things like access to green space and nature, sharing resources, community-mindedness and localism. We've been less focused on the nuts and bolts of the buildings themselves, their materials and inner-workings. To be honest, we've probably been overly naive in our assumptions that green buildings themselves must be good for health: if they're good for the health of the environment, they must be good for human health, right?

Well, maybe not.

A new report from Environment and Human Health, Inc. criticizes LEED and other green building certification programs for failing to include health as an important part of what it means to be green. Thousands of different chemicals, many of them known to be hazards to human health, become components of building materials and LEED does little to ensure that they are kept out. What's worse, by virtue of their energy efficiency, LEED-certified buildings that include dangerous chemicals in their building materials may actually increase our exposure to toxins. One of the factors that makes green buildings green is the fact that they have tighter envelopes compared to other buildings and this may create intensified exposures to toxins if they are present in building materials. The report also criticizes LEED for failing to include strong assurances of safe, quality drinking water and for not restricting the use of pesticides in landscaping or ensuring that they don't seep into groundwater.

The reports strongest critique, however, is reserved for the US federal government which has failed to protect public health through strong testing and regulation of chemicals used in everyday life.

Hazardous chemicals have become components of LEED-certified indoor environments primarily due to the failures of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and EPA’s neglect of the problem. Congress has provided EPA with limited authority to require testing of likely hazardous chemicals in building products. Thus new products may incorporate tens of thousands of untested chemicals with no government oversight.

The report ends with recommendations for improving LEED by giving more weight to those aspects of buildings that effect health.

Environmental links to cancer

2010-05-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

Throughout the history of cancer research, environmental causes have been like a dirty secret tucked into dark corners of the institutions of mainstream cancer research: We know they're there, but rarely do they see the light of day. The release of today’s 2009 Presidential Report on Cancer, titled “Reducing Environmental Cancer Risks,” makes clear that if the U.S. wants to reduce cancer rates (and health care expenditures), it is time shine light on the environmental links to cancer. The report calls for a comprehensive, cohesive policy agenda on environmental contaminants to human health that includes committing serious research dollars and regulatory power to understanding and minimizing preventable risks in the environment.

The report also describes concrete actions individuals can take to reduce exposure to possible cancer-causing agents such as filtering water, not microwaving plastic, choosing pesticide-free food and using headphones when talking on cellphones (among others). But mostly, these individual solutions serve to highlight the bigger problem: A regulatory system that uses a reactionary approach rather than a precautionary one. Instead of requiring proof of safety, the public bears the burden of proving that a given environmental exposure is harmful and because of the difficulty of amassing such proof (scientifically, politically, because of the dearth of research funds devoted to such questions...), proof often only emerges once tremendous harm has already been done. At this time, only a few hundred of the more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety and the effects of multiple chemical exposures is hardly addressed. The report systematically reviews some of the most well-documented contaminants in our environment and highlights the alarming ubiquity of them, the multiple paths of exposure in our everyday lives.

As President Obama states:

“With the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the unacceptable burden of cancer resulting from environmental and occupational exposures that could have been prevented through appropriate national action.”

It’s about time. While efforts have been underway to expose these links by environmental activists, women’s health activists, cancer activists, and others, it's disconcerting how rarely it gets on the national agenda. We applaud this step toward putting it there and urge everyone to read the report and make a commitment to work toward eradicating cancer-causing agents.

Verde Partnership Garden

2010-04-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we had the distinct pleasure of touring Verde Gardens, a more than decade-long experiment in community and sustainability at an elementary school in North Richmond. North Richmond, an unincorporated are of the San Francisco Bay Area has a long history of economic and environmental injustices and Verde Partnership Garden is one of many projects working to counter some of the negative trends in the area.

It was an uncharacteristically cold spring day when we went to the gardens, but that didn't stop the kids from flocking to it. We arrived just after an egg hunt and the kids had to return to class, but at each breaks, kids would return to the garden, choosing to spend their recess pulling weeds, harvesting vegetables, fruits and herbs, or just hanging out with the garden leaders.

David and Bienvenida gave us our tour. Their enthusiasm was infectious and their knowledge formidable. As they pointed out what was growing in the garden they told stories about past projects the kids had done with that particular plant or described uses for it and it's significance to the community. They related stories of their experiments with different forms of compost, types of soils and best conditions for growing.

It was only halfway through our tour that we realized Bienvenida and David were mother and son. David had been coming to the garden since he was in first grade and is now working at Verde Garden as well as spearheading other garden projects, as a full-time passion.

We look forward to meeting up with David and Bienvenida again and finding out more about their ongoing commitments to creating a greener and more socially just Richmond.

Environmental Sustainability Requires Social Sustainability

2010-03-09T09:02:00.000-08:00

We have been following the WorldWatch Institute's Vision for a Sustainable world and were pleased to find a post on their blog from last Fall demanding that social sustainability be included in environmental sustainability. A set of questions they pose mirror ones we are asked at each and every talk we give no matter the audience: "Will people be forced into false tradeoffs—choosing economy over ecology, or vice versa? Will sustainability happen at the cost of growing disparities and hardship?

Social Green is determined to debunk the myth that green innovations can only happen with increased costs to a populous already economically suffering. Or that green tech is only for those at the top of the income latter. In Living Green we provide many examples of affordable green living as well as developers and communities devoted to affordability + environmental justice. Through our current research we are continuing to work with communities doing just this and we hope to share some of our findings with you soon.

WorldWatch echoes our message: "environmental sustainability requires social sustainability...Environmentalists need to be as aware of the social dimensions of sustainability—well-versed in issues like living wages or occupational health and safety..."

Read their post to find out more.

Environmental Sustainability Requires Social Sustainability

The Preserve in Stockton

2010-02-16T10:26:00.000-08:00

"The Preserve in Stockton will be a socially vibrant, ecologically sensitive, and economically sound community. It is designed to create new and diverse housing choices and jobs, attract new businesses, and enhance the health and well-being of both people and the environment. All of these goals will be achieved while allowing us to comfortably live within our ecological fair share of the planet."

This is the vision statement of a new community currently being planned for Stockton, California. Stockton may not be the first place that comes to mind when thinking about sustainability, but lots of surprisingly exciting things are afoot in this town in the heart of California's San Joaquin valley. But more about that in our next post; today, we want to tell you about "the Preserve" a master-planned community that, if built according to its current vision, will turn on its head everything you think you know about master-planned communities.

Developer A.G. Spanos Companies has envisioned the Preserve in accordance with the Ahwahnee principles and Bioregional's principles for a One Planet Community (a community which uses only one planet's worth of resources instead of the five planet's worth used by a typical community in North America today. The Preserve is aiming to be a model for a new way to build community that is both radically sustainable and eminently livable.

Two significant environmental issues at stake in Stockton are the diminishing wetlands that this town, adjacent to the Sacramento Delta, was once replete with, and the culturally, socially, economically and environmentally significant history of agriculture in this region. The Preserve plans to restore wetlands and other natural habitats as well as promote sustainable agriculture.

A significant portion of the land is reserved for environmental restoration and agriculture, providing residents with locally-grown food, open space, and natural habitats that will attract a wide array of plants and animals.

Social and economic sustainability are also at the forefront of their efforts. Businesses and retail, recreation, bike and walking trails, education, health care and job creation: All of these things are woven into the blueprint for the Preserve. Their plan is to make it simple for residents to live a healthier, more environmentally responsible lives. Check out their website to learn more.

Grants for Farmers Markets

2010-01-18T07:52:00.000-08:00

On the topic of increasing access to healthy foods, The US government is offering grants to create and expand farmers markets and other direct producer-to-consumer markets. The Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) allocated $5 million for Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010 and $10 million for Fiscal Years 2011 and 2012. It's open to applicants from agricultural cooperatives, producer networks, producer associations, local governments, nonprofit corporations, public benefit corporations, economic development corporations, regional farmers market authorities and Tribal governments. In 2009, the programs funded included two efforts to increase low-income consumers' access to farmers markets in California and in Arizona.

Thanks to the online magazine Shareable for drawing attention to these grants. And, if you think you might want to go after some of this money and start a farmers market in your area, Shareable has a great guide to get you started: How to Start a Farmers Market.

Social Sustainability in Backyard Gardens

2010-01-17T09:42:00.000-08:00

One of the most eloquent examples of creating social sustainability can be found in a simple vegetable garden. In places where green space, healthy foods and economic resources are all in short supply, a backyard vegetable garden can help provide all three.

An article in today's New York Times describes a group called La Mesa Verde, which goes into people's homes in low income Latino neighborhoods to plant backyard organic gardens.

It's so simple: planting edible gardens contributes to economic sustainability by providing inexpensive, readily available food. One participant in the La Mesa Verde program described saving $90 a month on grocery bills because of the garden.

And the benefits extend beyond the pocketbook: Providing people with the means to accessing inexpensive, healthy foods is important to promoting health equity. An endemic problem in low income communities of color is lack of access to healthy foods (i.e., fresh produce) and a predominance of cheap, unhealthy foods. This, in turn, exacerbates health inequality. The article describes the efforts of La Mesa Verde, started by Raul Lozano, son of farmworkers and a passionate gardener, as part of a national movement "to make healthy food readily accessible to marginilized urban neighborhoods."

Participants also describe the social benefits of bringing their families together, of connecting with children and enhancing community connectedness. And, of course, planting a garden brings with it innumerable benefits to the planet.

Healing and Natural Disasters

2010-01-15T09:24:00.000-08:00

There's an important link between sustainability and community healing after natural disasters. This is a link we are exploring in our new book, tentatively titled Healing Green. Beyond the way devastating destruction holds the promise of regeneration and the implicit opportunity to rebuild in a new and innovative way, we think that rebuilding sustainably after natural disasters serves an important healing function for the communities most effected.

We are thinking a lot about this promise of healing as we grieve for the thousands upon thousands of people who have lost their lives, their families, and their communities in Haiti. It's hard to find words to describe the magnitude of such loss and easy to feel helpless as we watch on our television screens, donating money to organizations we hope can help ease some of the suffering. And though against the backdrop of such urgent need, it's hard to imagine a future in which rebuilding will be the focus, such a future will come and we are heartened to see efforts already underway to incorporate green community practices into the rebuilding effort.

The Clinton Foundation has been working with Haiti to "build back better" in the aftermath of the hurricanes that battered the country in 2008 and plans to continue that effort when rebuilding begins this time. The USGBC is working with the Clinton Foundation in these efforts and they will look to, and learn from, the experiences of other communities that are rebuilding green after being crippled by natural disasters. Communities such as Greensburg Kansas which was virtually demolished by a tornado in 2007. The town decided to rebuild as a model green community. Check out the Greensburg Green Town website to learn more. A significant portion of the recovery effort in New Orleans has also looked toward green building principles and practices as they rebuild.

We think it is of crucial importance to build social sustainability into the recovery efforts in Haiti--as the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, much of the current devastation can be linked directly to poverty and injustice. Without building codes or adequate infrastructures, with a public health crisis in existence even before the earthquake, the damage is much greater than it might have been had this disaster struck somewhere else. And in order to answer the promise of building back better, economic and social injustices will have to be addressed along with environmental ones. As we write about the rebuilding of communities in our book, we will continue to look for lessons about how incorporating social sustainability into rebuilding can help heal the wounds wrought by natural disasters.

Toxic Housing and Health

2009-11-13T09:13:00.000-08:00

An article in today's SFGate recounts the struggles of children living with asthma caused, in part, by overcrowded, run-down, aging buildings in one of San Francisco's oldest neighborhoods. The plight of kids with asthma in the Mission district is but one example of ways the built environment has serious consequences on health and well being.

Last Winter we wrote here about Breathe Easy homes in the High Point neighborhood of West Seattle. These ultra-green homes are built for low-income families where some members are asthma sufferers and they have been successful in improving asthma symptoms and decreasing hospital visits.

Integrating some of these green features into other low-income communities where aging, toxic buildings are taking a toll on health would make an enormous difference. But, as the SFGate article suggests, there are some steep obstacles: corrupt landlords and indifferent public policies have led to overcrowding and to an unwillingness to meet even the minimum standards of healthy housing.

Situations like these occur everywhere and in response, groups like those that make up the Alliance for Healthy Homes are working to make healthy homes a reality for everyone. Among other things, they are providing residents of toxic homes with the tools to document their situations and advocate for change.

Citizens Housing to Close

2009-10-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

We just learned that Citizens Housing, the management company responsible for running the Folsom/Dore Apartments featured in Living Green will close and be taken over by the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC). Economic issues forced this closure and while we congratulate the reputatble low-income housing developer, TNDC, for surviving the economic crisis facing the housing industry, this is nonetheless sad news for us.

Above all, we hope that TNDC will work hard to ensure a smooth transition including excellent continuum of care for the residents at this property and the others run by Citizens. We are concerned that the social justice mission of enhancing the lives of residents, not merely sheltering them, that has been at the heart of Citizens' mission, may be at risk.

Citizens Housing has been a model for providing people's right to housing with a strong commitment to residents' health, wellbeing, and overall life success. When we interviewed Nina Berkson and Kevin Edelbrook we were touched by their personal commitment to the staff and residents at Folsom/Dore: These two staff members have worked relentlessly to build a management team from janitors, desk clerks, to office staff who understand they are part of an innovative program designed to enhance the lives of formerly homeless, at-risk of homelessness, and market rate tenants; they are part of the solution to a world that is increasingly apathetic to those in need; segregated by socio-economic status; and aware that environmental concerns must take center stage to reverse local environmental health exposures and global climate change.

The Sharing Solution

2009-09-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

This morning I had tea with Janelle Orsi, co-author (with Emily Doskow) of the book, “The Sharing Solution: How to Save Money, Simplify your Life and Build Community.” I already knew I liked the idea of the book when we decided to meet—the promotion of the values of environmentalism via sharing resources is one which resonates with Living Green. But, boy was I in for a treat when I sat down to read the book after our tea was over.

The Sharing Solution is a well-written, straightforward and inspirational book, overflowing with great ideas for ways we could all share with each other. There are chapters on specific things that can be shared: sharing food, sharing housing, sharing household goods, sharing care for children, family and pets, sharing transportation, sharing work; and, along with inspiration, the book provides concrete steps for forging connections with like-minded sharers and steps to making it happen.

The authors are attorneys and the book includes agreements, check-lists, forms and sample contracts that provide the average person with the tools they need to create protected, mutually beneficial sharing relationships. It also highlights the triple bottom line benefits for each type of sharing—benefits like reducing consumerism, forging community as relationships begun for practical sharing purposes grow into trusting bonds, and saving money.

I could feel my own excitement mounting as I read the book and couldn’t help thinking, “I can do that!” The Sharing Solution should be required reading for all.

Vlogger discusses Living Green

2009-08-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

Margaret Fabrizio, the land artist featured in our book, Living Green, has posted a Vlog on YouTube and Vlogger Heads. In it, she says, "I don't know how I got into this book." It's the sub-title, 'Communities that Sustain' that most puzzles her. Why include an artist living lightly on the land? Why use the term "community"?

Community is a concept that is quite undertheorized in North American cultures and scholarship: It is largely taken-for-granted. It can be used to signal kinship, affinity, proximity, inclusion, and to erect borders and boundaries. We use it in our book to demonstrate that "community" is many things to many people. It can emerge from the concrete or the ephemeral; it can be shared through virtual or "real" place and time, or through ideas and dialogue. There is no single or correct use of this term or ways to be a community.

As soon as Margaret posted this Vlog, many people left comments. This technologically-mediated set of contacts is another way in which Margaret participates in bringing people together whether or not she intends to. And it is not only sharing that signifies community: Margaret communes with the trees, the animals, the meadows, and all things that pass through, plant seeds, or spend time on the land. Her Nature and Art Conservancy is a form of living on and with the land that inspires human emotion, creativity, and action. Treating the earth with respect and love is not new, but it is something that often goes unrecognized as a significant and important way of acting that is a form of "living green," providing a lesson for how to stop some of the destruction done to the climate and the earth. Thank you Margaret for making this comment and, for creating another work of shared art.

A Community Cat makes a Neighborhood

2009-07-10T12:49:00.001-07:00

I would like to introduce you to Olivia. Olivia is an SPCA feral rescue cat living on Pacific between Van Ness and Franklin Streets in San Francisco. I met Olivia last March. And then I met Omar, Kathleen, Virginia, and at least twenty other human neighbors who live on the block. I like to joke that Olivia should have a facebook page for all her "friends." I wonder if others out there have stories about neighborhood cats creating social interaction on their blocks? Since I met Olivia I have heard neighbors offer to shop for one another if someone is ill, to check in on each other's partners, kids, dogs and lives and I have been a part of time spent just sitting outside, talking together and watching the people and pets go by. Olivia, of course, is often a main part of the conversation but in between we seem to learn about each other's jobs, health, and lives. On an urban block this is unusual. Do you have stories like this? If you don't know the story of "Pretty Boy," an East Village Cat who recently passed away, you can read about him here. If so, let me know. I'm all ears.

e-waste and global health inequality

2009-06-24T09:12:00.001-07:00

In a follow-up to our recent post, "Place Matters" on place and health inequality, we bring your attention to last night's global frontline story, "The Digital Dumping Ground" based on research by producer Peter Klein and a group pf UBC graduate students. The Digital Dumping Ground reports on the route of e-waste from the U.S. to some of the poorest communities in Ghana, China, and India. Watching the footage and its images of roads, fields, and workshops full with the industrialized world's waste is frightening enough, but to see the people forced to eek out a living "recycling" this waste is downright horrifying. While the story depicts an environmental crisis of waste, it also painfully reveals the disproportionate burden of exposure to contaminants among the world's poor and vulnerable (as a reminder watch the video series Unnatural Causes on Health inequality). Although the health consequences are already felt by those working in this unregulated disparate economy, the extent of the exposure is largely unknown to them. The story demonstrates the importance of thinking globally as we work to create more sustainable local communities.

Sustainable Community...on a barge?

2009-06-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

Mary Mattingly is an artist with a unique vision for a self-sufficient community on the water. By "on the water" we don't mean waterfront, but literally floating on the water. She is building a sustainable, navigable living space on a barge called "Waterpod". Not quite ready yet, the barge already contains a windmill and will include gardens for food growing, chickens, the capability for composting waste and will secure drinking water through purified rainwater. Check out today's story in the New York Times and be sure to go to Mary Mattingly's website for a glimpse of her amazing work including her "wearable homes".

Living Green Book Launch

2009-06-03T11:44:00.001-07:00

We had a great time last night celebrating the publication of our book, Living Green, at the San Francisco Center for the Book. It was a thrill to see the book in print and to have so many of our friends show up to mark the occasion. Margaret Fabrizio was our honored guest and we were thankful she was there to talk about, and show images of, the amazing land and art featured in the book.

Book Parties!!

2009-05-20T13:26:00.001-07:00

We are excited to announce three upcoming Bay Area events to celebrate the publication of our book, Living Green: Communities that Sustain.

On June 2nd, we will be celebrating at the San Francisco Centre for the Book where we will be joined by local artist, Margaret Fabrizio whose art and land are featured in the book. There will also be wine, cheese, good friends and good times.

On June 25 at 7:00, we will be at the Green Arcade in San Francisco. The Green Arcade is a new and fantastic resource specializing in books on the environment, politics, sustainability, the slow food movement, organics, urban planning nature, and children's books. Even if you can't make our event, we highly recommend making a trip to this fabulous independent bookstore.

And, speaking of fabulous bookstores, on June 29th, we'll be across the bay at Berkeley's amazing Builder's Booksource. An institution on fourth street since 1982, the Builder's Booksource was at the very cutting edge of the green building movement and continues to be a vital resource for anyone interested in green buildings or sustainable living. We'll be there June 29th at 7:00.

Linking Communities and Built Environments

2009-04-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

Building Magazine has just released our first web exclusive promoting our forthcoming book, Living Green: Communities that Sustain. Building magazine is a leading voice on the news and issues of Canada’s building development industry. We are thrilled they have chosen to discuss our book on their website. The excerpt selected summarizes the scope of the book and our effort to sketch the best practices for enhancing community through the built environment. We, at Social Green , are currently explanding this research with a specific focus on the ways community + built environment influence health. A place based approach to health and health inequality, we believe, needs to be understood and incorporated into current building designs to best meet our 21st century goal of environmental, economic, and social sustainability.

The Commons, Part II

2009-03-11T11:35:00.000-07:00

The International Forum on Globalization distinguishes between three types of commons. First, the natural resources of the planet. These are the commons we spoke about in our post last month: water, forests, mountains, wildlife. Second, they talk about a social commons: health care, social security, education and the other social goods that many believe should be basic human rights. Third, they talk about the cultural and knowledge commons. It's this third one we want to expand on here.

As medical sociologists, we have written extensively about the ways knowledge can be viewed as a resource. Knowledge about our bodies, how they work, what we need to do to keep them healthy; knowledge about what kinds of services are available to us and how we can access them; knowledge about the impacts of our daily practices on our health; knowledge about signs and symptoms and how to respond to them are all important for overall well being. Lack of access to such knowledge is often cited as a major culprit in health inequalities.

These same principles extend beyond medical and health-related knowledge to knowledge about any number of subjects. Access to knowledge is a resource. Period. Those with greater access to knowledge can learn about things that matter to them and take actions based on that knowledge.

The Internet is a major resource for promoting the knowledge commons. Wikipedia, Craigslist, YouTube are examples of extremely popular websites which enable people to freely access--as well as contribute to the creation of--knowledge and information. The popular photosharing website Flickr partnered with the Library of Congress to create The Commons--a free and accessible library of publicly-held photography collections (the above photo of the New York Public Library circa 1911 is from there). The concept of knowledge as commons is also alive and well in public radio, television and the people actively fighting to keep the airwaves free.

Alongside examples of keeping knowledge free and readily accessible are pressures to do the opposite. Copyright laws and corporate ownership of knowledge limit access for many. The group Creative Commons is working to counter these pressures and provide an alternative to the private ownership of ideas. They provide free licensing to artists, scientists, engineers or others who may want to copyright portions of their work, but also provide access to some or all of it for others to use, re-use, build upon, etc.

Another champion of the knowledge commons is Carl Malamud, a long time activist for public access to knowledge and information, who has accumulated vast amounts of government documents, films, court proceedings and raw data to ensure free availability on his website Public.Resources.Org. He also fights against attempts by governments or others to copyright what is in the public domain.

This spirit of activism and sharing of knowledge and ideas as well as tools has been a vital part of computer engineering, where alongside the corporate, private sphere an alternative, free and open world of computing has grown. For example, the Free Software Foundation was founded in 1985 to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users. Among other FSF provides free licensing and software for people who want to share, develop and use software. They say,

“To use free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting the right to learn, and share what we learn with others. Free software is the foundation of a learning society--where the tools we all use are free to share, study and modify.”

Perhaps the quintessential example of the knowledge commons is the public library. In addition to the holdings of the library itself, libraries are places where people without other access can freely use the Internet, they often serve as community centers, venues for free lectures and group gatherings. At the library you can search for a job, figure out how to fix your car, learn how to manage high cholesterol, delve into ancient history or access SAT study guides: Libraries provide people with free access to knowledge and resources that can make a difference to their everyday lives. For these reasons, we think strong public libraries--and the knowledge commons more broadly-- are essential to social sustainability.

Obstacles to Living Green: Illegal Clotheslines

2009-03-05T13:05:00.001-08:00

Photo by Willow Poppy

On our recent trip to the High Point neighborhood in west Seattle, one of the folks we talked to pointed out a significant way his capacity for green living was hindered: local ordinances that forbid the use of clothes lines. It turns out that High Point, like many planned communities, cities and muncipalities across North America is a place where line drying clothes outside is banned as an unsightly nuisance to neighbors.

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that close to 6% of electricity generated in the United States comes from clothes dryers. Project Laundry List estimates that the average resident could save up to 15% on their utility bills by line drying instead of electric drying. Their website features a calculator where you can see for yourself how much money you could save by greening your laundry practices. Using the power of solar energy and wind to dry clothes seems like such a simple way to live greener in our everyday lives. Why would it ever be restricted or banned?

The restrictions may come from citywide architectural regulations or, more commonly, from Homeowner's Associations (HOA) which are charged with protecting the value of homes in planned communities and condominiums. Restrictions on line drying stem from the perception that laundry on a line is an eyesore. And that isn't the only thing that's being restricted: many HOAs forbid the use of solar panels, forbid small houses, large vegetable gardens, native gardens or require the use of lights from dusk to dawn, the use of water and/or pesticides on your yard. It seems HOAs may be acting as significant barriers for many people to improve their carbon footprints.

Luckily, slowly, governments are taking action to ensure that every citizen has the right to live green, regardless of what their HOA says. In Florida, for instance, legislation ensures the right of all of its citizens to erect solar panels on their homes and also, happily, to dry their clothes outside.

The Commons, Part I

2009-03-04T07:01:00.001-08:00

In our forthcoming book, Living Green: Communities that Sustain, we describe ten principles, derived from our research, that are key to making a community sustainable: We call these the Ten C’s of Social Sustainability. One of these is the principle of the commons.

The model of the commons understands the Earth and its resources as shared gifts, rather than private property. Perhaps the most practical and specific lesson we learned about what makes a community sustainable over time is the way that sharing resources enables each person to live higher quality lives with less of an environmental impact. From shared spaces and car shares to clothing swaps and shared infrastructures, the possibilities for commons abound and the impact on people’s everyday lives can be profound.

We found this video on YouTube and it inspired us to investigate a bit more the ways activism around the idea of the commons is emerging at different sites.

Many of the planet’s natural resources--water, forests, wildlife--have traditionally been commons, shared resources. Historically, in Europe, the commons were shared agricultural, grazing and open lands and they were steadily enclosed and privatized over the course of many hundreds of years. The privatization of public resources is not new, but it is expanding through regressive politics and policies and as new technologies enable different kinds of enclosures: patenting seeds, genetic materials, claiming parts of outer space and cyberspace and probing more deeply into the earth’s core.

Protecting the water commons has become a particularly intense site of activism. Many believe that as a non-renewable, essential resource, water should exist outside the realm of private property. But, as the planet’s water supply dwindles, private sector interest in it grows. The Blue Planet Project asserts that over one billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and more than one million children die each year of diseases caused by unsafe water and lack of sanitation. In response, the organization and others like it around the world are working to protect water from commodification and maintain free access.

For an excellent articulation of the water commons, the group On the Commons has published an extensive report which you can download here. In it, they describe some of the ways private interests have encroached upon the water commons. One of these is the bottled water industry which has taken, virtually without limits, from the water commons and then sold it back to us at enormous profit. Also at a signifiant environmental cost. Another pathway to privatization is through the industries that have emerged around cleaning and reclaiming water--these provide an expensive and easily privatized solution to the water crisis, which might also be addressed by stopping pollution and ensuring the safety of the water commons for all.

Champions of the commons argue that if we see water as a commons, we are more likely to feel shared ownership of it and be invested in keeping it clean or cleaning it up. This is evidenced in the many victories of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an alliance of organizations that empowers citizens to get involved in protecting lakes, rivers and streams in their own communities.

The air we breathe, the atmosphere, the sky, outer space can be seen as another commons. In his recent book, Who Owns the Sky, Peter Barnes proposes the idea of a “sky trust” to protect this commons. The Sky Trust would require companies to pay for the right to release their carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The money would then be placed into a Sky Trust owned by all citizens--thus providing financial incentive to reduce emissions. The money from the sky trust would belong to the public to be used for common benefits.

Perhaps the most powerful example of protecting the commons can be found in the work of Vandana Shiva and her organization Navdanya (which literally means, nine seeds). Central to their work has been protecting the rights of farmers to freely use seeds, protecting seeds from patents and privatization at the hands of large corporations and in the process, protecting farmer’s rights to earn their livelihood as well as protecting all of our rights to biodiversity.

Clean Coal Outed

2009-02-26T16:26:00.000-08:00

We are LOL at This is Reality's spoof, directed by the Coen brothers, on so-called clean coal. While we are behind him, even President Obama uttered this term in what was an otherwise green-friendly address to congress. Please Obama, money for green-tech innovation not clean coal.

The Importance of Recess

2009-02-21T17:03:00.001-08:00

As a follow-up to our previous post about kids in nature, here's an excellent article about the importance of recess. Reporting on the results of a recent research study published in the journal Pediatrics, this New York Times article articulates the importance of recess to children's learning, their behavior in school and their overall health and well-being. Kids need to be outdoors everyday, need some unstructured, free-play time in order to be at their best.

Place Matters

2009-02-13T11:28:00.000-08:00

We recently returned from another site visit to the High Point Re-development in West Seattle. We collected reems of data on the community aspects of this project and are in the process of developing research questions to hone in on the complex ways place matters to health and well-being.

Our approach as medical sociologists focuses on the "the social determinants of health:" The idea that one's social class, immigration status, language, race/ethnicity, education, neighborhood and other social factors shape exposure to health risks (i.e., toxic chemicals, discrimination, stress, anxiety) as well as access to resources that can help mitigate the effect of those risks (i.e., education, health care, healthy foods, social mobility). These social determinants directly correlate with health inequity as many of us are disproportionately affected by these social inequalities and their corresponding adverse health effects.

One of the benefits of green communities, particularly those with an environmental justice component, may be to intervene into these inequalities. The High Point re-development is a great case study for exploring this and we aren't alone in thinking so: you can see High Point in the amazing 7-part documentary series Unnatural Causes. The documentary series and accompanying website is an excellent resource into understanding health equity and the way that place matters in health and illness.

Children and Nature

2009-02-01T08:45:00.000-08:00

With the release of his 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv ignited concern about young people's disconnection from the natural world. Children spend an increasing amount of time indoors and the time they do spend outside is typically in structured environments like playgrounds or engaged in structured activities such as organized sports. Direct experiences with nature are rarer.

The buzz created by Louv's publication and its subsequent second edition, was followed by attempts to understand, through research, what effect the phenomena Louv called "nature deficit disorder" was having on the health and well being of young people. Some notable findings include research by University of Illinois scholars demonstrating that children with Attention-Deficit Disorder have an enhanced ability to focus after outdoor activities such as camping and fishing (Faber Taylor et al., 2001; Kuo and Faber Taylor, 2004). Other researchers have confirmed a correlation between play in nature and children’s developing imagination and sense of place (Manuel 2003; Louv 2005).

Louv sites multiple reasons for the lack of time spent in nature amongst children: diminishing wild spaces that are accessible and/or considered safe, overscheduled lives, shifting values, and others. One way his and others' work on this topic has been turned into concrete action is to target schools as a site where environmental education can be emphasized and time outside can be built in.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) passed by the Bush administration in 2001 standardized the expectations for what children should be learning in school and implemented testing to assure every school met those expectations. Set goals for reading, math and science have been articulated and schools whose test scores fall short are penalized. A consequence of this has been that schools have, out of necessity, focused a vast majority of their time and energy teaching for the standardized tests. A 2008 Center on Education Policy study reports that since NCLB has taken effect relatively large shifts have taken place in the amount of instructional hours allotted to various subjects: Increases in math and english have occurred while decreases in most everything else.

For those concerned about the time children spend outside and their opportunities to learn about nature and the environment, these changes have been disheartening. In response, a far reaching coalition of citizens, politicians, environmentalists, parents and educators have initiated the No Chid Left Inside Act. This act would add environmental education to the things that we agree all kids should know and would provide new federal funding for outdoor learning activities and high-quality environmental education.

No Child Left Inside is one of multiple initiatives to reconnect children with nature. To find out more about some of the remarkable efforts afoot, the Children and Nature Network has an amazing website that includes a map of North America highlighting places where efforts have been initiated to get kids outside and bring natural spaces back into cities.

Given that large swaths of green open spaces are not available in most inner city communities, we are not only heartened by these efforts, but we are also interested in learning more about how conservation of small urban spaces might improve the health of children and adults who reside near them. For example, we've been spending time lately with the Urban Creeks Council, a group dedicated to the restoration of creeks within urban settings and we hope to conduct research that can tell us what kinds of benefits are occurring in the lives of people who live, work or play in the restored environments. We'll keep you posted.

Green Alley Projects

2009-01-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

Among developers and city planners, there is an increasing emphasis on building green neighborhoods, not just green buildings. New Urbanism has been a force within urban planning and architecture to bring the components of a village - walkability, mixed-use, neighborliness - back into North American planning. As medical sociologists, we study and document the connections between communities and human health and well-being. At the center of sustainable urbanism is an intention to, among other things, create, support or revitalize neighborhoods where the requirements for achieving a high quality life can all be met without ever getting into a car. When sustainable communities happen, they not only improve environmental conditions, but they get people exercising, experiencing nature and breathing clean air both indoors and out. As creatures of the planet, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that what’s good for the planet’s health is also good for ours. Douglas Farr documents this well in his book, Sustainable Urbanism.

Green Alley Projects are one such way to increase human health and wellbeing. And they are popping up in most major cities across the United States, Canada and elsewhere. As featured on Planetizen in collaboration with grist, these projects are designed to convert concrete alleys used mostly for garbage disposal, parking, and as throughways through urban areas into shared community, green spaces. In Los Angeles, for example, the city's alleyways account for more than 900 linear miles of pavement. Research by the University of Southern California's, Center for Sustainable Cities has shown that activity occurs in alleys only about 20% of the time – and much of that activity involves either driving or walking through.

But today, city alleyways are being converted into shared green spaces that provide community space, planting areas, and for some cities, permeable areas that absorb stormwater. For the cities of Seattle and Vancouver such projects have shown to reduce stormwater flooding and facilitate groundwater recharge. In a two-year study of one pilot project, the amount of stormwater leaving the street was reduced almost completely.

South Los Angeles is home to a high concentration of alleys found in dense single-family residential neighborhoods. The city's Green Alleys Program has the goal of converting these from unsafe, dirty alleys into shared green areas. Similar to Baltimore’s Community Green: Shared Parks in Urban Blocks project that we study, the Green Alleys Program is currently in the process of establishing design and project selection criteria to begin alley conversion.

The importance of these urban alleyways to human health and well-being must be better understood. It is not only the benefits to the aethetics or the improved water or air quality of the neighborhoods, it is also the impact of these gardens on what urban planners and sociologists call social capital. By getting people walking in their neighborhoods, by encouraging participation in local economies, people become more tightly woven into their communities. In our research, we found that having social connections and meaningful bonds facilitate environmental sustainability at both an individual and a community level. In our current research and book project, Healing Green, we are exploring the health impacts of built and non-built environments.

dawn breaks on a new day in america

2009-01-20T11:14:00.001-08:00

dawn breaks on a new day in america

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Green Google

2009-01-17T20:45:00.000-08:00

This week, several news sources reported on a study of the carbon emissions produced by Googling. The oft-cited analogy (strongly denied by Google) was that the carbon emissions of two Google searches is the equivalent of the emissions produced by boiling a kettle. To put this number in context, Google performs about 200 million searches a day--so, imagine the energy required to boil 100 million kettles every day. Google retorted that your computer will emit more carbon in the time it takes Google to perform your search than Google emits doing the search.

Either way (and especially if both of these things are true), there’s something eye-opening to the facts of the environmental impact of our personal computing and Internet use. The Internet, in particular, tends to seem invisible and thus, benign, in terms of resource consumption. In sociology, we call this a black box phenomena--input goes in, output comes out, and we don’t pay much attention to what goes on in between.

So, what DOES go on in between? And, more importantly, what are companies like Google doing to improve their environmental track record?

The IT industry produces approximately 2% of the world’s carbon emissions; a figure that puts it on par with the airline industry. But, while turbo jets tend to capture our collective imagination with their very obvious display of power and energy-use, our computers and Internet, while pervasive, tend to buzz along below our green radar.

In the 2008 Economist World Report, Tom Standage reports that 49% of these emissions come from personal computers and printers, 37% from telecoms networks and devices and 14% of data centers. The magic that enables us to type the name of an old friend into a search engine and be instantaneously rewarded with a list of Internet sites featuring a matching name, is magic which requires vast amounts of power and energy; it requires mind-boggling numbers of servers and computers; computers that are stored in warehouses that need to be cooled, powered and maintained. It also requires our own personal computers and the power necessary to maintain and ultimately dispose of them. All of this is after the mining for resources that will go into manufacturing electronic devices and the manufacturing itself and all of the attendant energies and waste that THAT generates. It turns out the magic isn’t magic at all but a lot of hard work and non-renewable resources.

So, what’s being done to mitigate the impact of all of this on our planet? Well, as it happens, it is particularly ironic that Google was singled out by this week’s news reports for the carbon emissions produced by their searches because they are sustainability leaders in the IT industry. Google has launched a series of green initiatives that target everything from their commitment to making it easy for their employees to commute to work, to the food they serve at their campuses, to their commitment to using recycled water onsite. Google is leading the way in the creation of zero-carbon data centers: typically, data centers are powered by dirty energy, like coal. But, because data centers for the IT industry can be located literally anywhere in the world, they can be located in places where they can take advantage of clean energy sources such as wind power or geothermal. See Amelia Williamson’s article for how Google and others are venturing into zero carbon data centers. Google is also a board member of a new coalition called Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which is organizing the industry to reduce computer power consumption by 50%.

Ultimately, while the recent news on the energy intensiveness of Google searches may have unfairly targeted the wrong company, we see the media flurry as a positive thing for drawing attention to the too-often-invisible impact of the ubiquitous IT industry on our collective carbon footprint. We know that we will be following the greening of IT much more closely from here on out.

Social Sustainability Site of the Week - Fort Mason Community Garden

2009-01-12T08:50:00.001-08:00

Urban community gardens have long been in existence as ways to promote community and alleviate the challenges of social and economic downturns. The Bay area of San Francisco is home to a vibrant community garden movement. While many of these emerged out of the City of Berkeley's Peoples Park movement of the late 1960s, community gardens have been in existence since at least the 1890s as increasing numbers of people moved to urban centers. In her history of the U.S. urban garden movement, City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America, Laura Lawson, Professor of Landscape Architecture, details the the evolution of urban garden programs from cultivation and charity societies, to depression era food gardens, to post WWII victory gardens, to todays community garden movement.

On a windy yet sunny day in San Francisco we visited the Fort Mason community garden in San Francisco. When we arrived, we found a garden protected from the ocean and bay winds by a hillside leaving a warm, quiet valley for gardening, social interactions, and strolling through the built-in paths throughout the site. We met two volunteers, Loraine and Joel, both on the four year wait list for a garden plot to call their own. We chatted about their love of gardening and they told us that although there is a four year waiting list anyone can volunteer, meet other gardeners, and work in the dirt. Joel and Lorraine did not know each other prior to volunteering at the garden. Now they talk and work side by side on many days each month and they seem to have become friends and neighbors.

The community garden at Fort Mason was organized in the early 1970s by artists and community activists, with a goal of bringing gardening to public school children and to create gardening jobs. In a history of the Fort Mason garden written by Alexander Dixon in 1988, the story is told of the original garden as a "poet's garden", a "culinary exchange", and a budding "populist arboretum." Today the garden is well organized. It is self-supported, managed by its members, and home to over 125 garden plots. The bulletin board on site lists the names of those on the waiting list, announces activities and upcoming meetings and work days. It also announces the recent deaths of a few men and women who spent many years as members of the garden enriching their lives and clearly touching the lives of others.

We found a community garden movement in San Francisco still going strong, with more gardens being established every year. Our visit enforced for us the importance of building gardens into community development projects not only as a way to provide open green spaces, but to meet many of the differing needs of residents. Gardens provide educational opportunities for school-aged children on food sources and organic cooking as well as environmental stewardship. For adults, gardens provide both recreational activity and economic relief from food prices. Gardens enhance social sustainability as commons, meeting places, intergenerational programming, and opportunities for community involvement.

Living Small

2009-01-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

“Better living through simplicity” is the motto for the small house society, an organization dedicated to the promotion of smaller homes. Their mission is “to support the research, development, and use of smaller living spaces that foster sustainable living for individuals, families, and communities worldwide.”

Jay Shafer, one of the groups founders, has lived in tiny houses (all less than 100 square feet) for over ten years now. On his website you can view videos of some of these remarkable spaces and hear Shafer describe what motivated him to embark on this small living adventure. Sustainability was high on his list of reasons: recognizing the impact any sized house has on the environment and wanting to minimize that impact by minimizing the space to what was absolutely necessary. He also hates vacuuming. Shafer’s philosophy is “dream big, build small” and his company, Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, creates an array of models of truly tiny houses.

We saw how living in smaller spaces makes a huge difference for environmental sustainability at many of the sites we visited for our book Living Green: Communities that Sustain. Places like Los Angeles Eco-Village emphasize higher quality lives with less space. When you live in less square footage, you consume less energy and, importantly, by necessity, have less stuff. At a place like an Ecovillage or a co-housing community, the downsides of having less space (i.e., no guest room for when Aunt Mildred comes to visit) or less stuff (i.e. no table saw when you need one) are tempered by the ample shared space and shared stuff.

And, the benefits of living with less are not only environmental. A growing number of people are finding themselves drawn to the “small house movement” because of the economic implications. Less square footage and less stuff is cheaper to maintain.

Andy Thomson, founder of Sustain Design Studio has created the miniHome. In an interview by David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things, Thomson described how the fact that we in North America currently consume so much energy that we would need ten additional planets to sustain ourselves, led him to try and create a house that would use one tenth of the energy of a standard house--thereby reducing our consumption to a sustainable, one planet level. The result is the miniHome. It's an off-the-grid, prefabricated, modern home that stands at just 325 square feet. Thompson lived in one (may still live in one) with his wife and two young children. Check it out on the Sustain Design Studio website.

Welcome Michael Meneer

2009-01-01T11:58:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to welcome Michael Meneer to our Social Green team as our communications consultant. Michael brings to Social Green over ten years of public affairs, strategic communications and political experience in Vancouver and Washington D.C. Michael will be spearheading the book launch of Living Green: Communities that Sustain the first book to be published in our Social Green series. We look forward to working together to share our research findings about the best social practices of green building design and developments.

Social Sustainability Book of the Week

2008-12-30T12:52:00.000-08:00

"Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century." By Randy Shaw

This is an amazing book about early environmental justice efforts by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. As Shaw argues, these early movements are not only an often overlooked part of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s, but they set the stage for our contemporary environmental justice efforts.

See Shaw’s book here: Beyond the Fields

Social Sustainability Site of the Week

2008-12-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

One of the key components of social sustainability is changing people’s mindsets. Getting people to think differently is the first step toward getting them to act differently. As Sociologists, one of the things we know is that, sometimes, the best way to create the possibility to think about something in a new way is to radically alter one’s taken-for-granted reality. It’s like the fish that doesn’t know it’s in water until you take the water away: if we fundamentally disrupt taken-for-granted reality, we can see those aspects of our everyday life that are so ingrained that we don’t even think about them. And, once we are able to look self-reflexively at them, it’s possible to imagine that things could be otherwise.

These are the thoughts that come to mind as we explore this week’s social sustainability site: Karma Kitchen. Inspired as a way to promote the value of a gift economy, several volunteers started Karma Kitchen in 2007. Today on any Sunday, everyone is welcome to eat delicious vegetarian Indian food at Karma Kitchen, which is located at a local restaurant, “Taste of Himalaya.” As with any other restaurant experience, you come in, you sit down, and you are served a delicious meal. But here, when your bill comes, the total reads $00.00. With it, comes the message that you may pay the generosity forward in any way you wish. Receiving that bill is a profound moment: an opportunity to re-examine preconceived notions and expectations. To ask oneself, How can I contribute?

"Run by volunteers, our meals are cooked and served with love, and offered to the guest as a genuine gift. To complete the full circle of giving and to sustain this experiment, we leave it to the guest to pay it forward, expressing their goodness in whatever way they wish. One immediate option is to contribute toward the cost of serving a future guest. In keeping this chain going, the generosity of both guests and volunteers helps to create a future that moves from transaction to trust, from self-oriented isolation to shared commitment, and from fear of scarcity to celebration of abundance."

The philosophy here inspires its participants to think differently about economic exchanges, to think in terms of reciprocity, trust and generosity instead of monetary transactions. Experiencing something familiar (eating out at a restaurant) in a context which has shaken up the usual rules of the game provides an opportunity to look critically at our standard operating procedures and imagine that there are alternatives to our taken-for-granted reality.

Breathing a Little Easier

2008-12-09T16:05:00.000-08:00

Asthma is a growing public health concern in North America: it is the leading cause of chronic illness among children and the rates for children are steadily increasing. It is also an illness which disproportionately effects people in low socio-economic statuses and its symptoms are exacerbated by compromised indoor and outdoor air quality.

One of the ways this public health problem is being addressed in Seattle is through innovations in the built environment. In the High Point neighborhood in West Seattle, 35 Breath Easy homes targeted for low-income renters are helping to mitigate the impact of asthma and hoping to reduce asthma attacks by improving indoor air quality.

Breath Easy Homes include:

Airtight construction, insulated windows and an insulated foundation, minimizing dust, pollen and other contaminants that can enter from outside.
Positive ventilation to remove stale air and filter incoming fresh air.
Hydronic, instead of forced-air heating, reducing airborne particles and organisms.
Hard flooring surfaces such as linoleum, replacing carpet that can trap dust and allergens.
Window blinds, instead of curtains, to reduce trapped dust.
Low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) emitting paints and cabinetry materials, reducing potentially harmful chemicals in the air.
A HEPA filter vacuum, efficiently removing dust and other toxins and debris.
Landscaping designed to reduce seasonal pollens.

At High Point, residents were chosen to live in the Breathe Easy homes based on the severity of asthma and have agreed to participate in a study that will assess what kind of impact living in the homes has on their illness. The study is being conducted by King County Health Department and the University of Washington’s Dept. of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Community Medicine.

Living Green due in stores in May 09

2008-12-01T15:54:00.000-08:00

We are thrilled to report that the copy edits are in and Living Green: Communities that Sustain is now in press. Living Green showcases communities across North America that are living in ways that protect the environment and contribute to social justice.

The green building movement has incorporated the concept of the triple bottom line to assert that sustainable long-term progress in terms of environmental quality, economic development and social well-being needs to be balanced: One aspect cannot be emphasized over another. Yet the factors that best promote social well-being are the least understood. Living Green: Communities that Sustain, identifies and describes the ten mechanisms we found to be most central to a successful sustainable development. These mechanisms are built into communities and enhance social along with economic and environmental concerns. In this book we outline these best practices of social sustainability along with specific examples from our field research.

Through stories of extraordinary communities across North America, Living Green examines the impact living in these communities has on personal health, well-being, and the capacity for pursuing sustainability. It includes interviews with developers, architects, and residents, highlighting personal ideals and efforts to pursue a sustainable lifestyle. The book’s three parts explore:

• How community is central to sustainable living in everything from cohousing to communes (Takoma Village Community Co-Housing, Eastern Village Co-housing, Ouje-Bougoumou, Twin Oaks Commune);

• Communities that specifically integrate green building design components with social justice politics such as racism, poverty, and urban alienation (L.A. Ecovillage, Chez Soi Green Energy Benny Farm, Folsom Dore);

• Housing options geared toward mainstream living that offer individual choices to those who wish to live green (Michelle Kaufmann Designs, Cazadero Nature and Art Conservancy, Dockside Green).

This is the first book in our co-authored Social Green Series. It is being published by New Society Publishers, a publishing house that not only brings to press fantastic books on sustainability and social justice, but operates by those principles itself: it is in its third year of being a carbon-neutral operation. You can pre-order the book now at New Society Publishers. We will keep you posted about upcoming book events this Spring and Summer.

Baltimore Alley Gating and Greening Initiative

2008-11-20T21:33:00.000-08:00

We are excited to announce that Baltimore's local NPR affiliate, WYPR, will be airing a segment on the Baltimore Alley Gating and Greening Initiative tomorrow morning (Friday the 20th of November) around 9:05 am.

Both local and national media interest in this exciting initiative highlight how Baltimore city officials, developers, and residents are reclaiming blighted alleys and turning them into community assets. Local listeners, tune in tomorrow at 9:05 A.M. to 88.1 FM. If you miss the segment or are outside of Baltimore - you can always listen via the website of the Maryland Morning show with Sheilah Kast at: http://www.marylandmorning.org.

For more information about the community greening initiative, see www.communitygreens.org

Sustainable West Seattle

2008-11-17T13:46:00.000-08:00

This week we traveled to the High Point neighborhood of West Seattle to begin our new research project. The project is an NSF funded qualitative research project in which we will be investigating the mechanisms by which people are able (or not) to live in more sustainable ways in various communities and neighborhoods. Taking off from what we learned in our book about sustainable communities (Living Green: Communities that Sustain, forthcoming in June 09 from New Society Press), we are interested in learning more about how one's built environment and community promote or prevent them from taking actions in their everyday lives that contribute to sustainability.

High Point is a new neighborhood, a redevelopment in a Seattle suburb that has a history of vibrant cultural diversity as well as economic hardships. It is designed to be the most progressive, environmentally friendly community in the country and is Seattle’s first Built Green™ neighborhood. It is situated on 120 acres in the middle of West Seattle, about ten minutes by car to downtown Seattle. When we went, we took an express bus that buzzed us into downtown Seattle in no time.

Wandering through the streets of High Point on a spectacular Seattle Fall day, we were glad we chose it as our first site to visit. The native landscaping includes big old trees and newly planted ones lining the wide streets and many were still a-blaze in Fall color. The reds and yellows and oranges made even more brilliant thanks to the clear blue of the sky and bright sun that began to glow orange as it set on our walk.

The neighborhood includes a wide variety of housing types--single family attached, detached, apartments, townhouses--each sharing a distinct style and most including front porches and a neighborly atmosphere. Already active and well-lived in, High Point is also still under construction: the final of its phases is slated to be complete in 2010. It is expected to accommodate over 4,000 residents in approximately 1,600 homes, about half of which will be owned and the other half rented. The housing targets a multiple range of income levels, but with an emphasis on affordability. In addition to standard single-family residences, there is a seniors' residence and an assisted living home on-site. All homes meet a minimum of Built Green 3-Star standards, with many achieving 4-Star level and ENERGY STAR® certification.

In addition to the homes, the neighborhood also includes a beautiful public library and a community health center. A grocery store and other retail stores are in the plans. These will be an important addition to the social sustainability of the neighborhood.

Interspersed amongst all of these buildings there are large areas of greenspace: grassy lawns in front of and between houses are larger and more communal than in most neighborhoods, multiple well-appointed playgrounds pepper the site, a protected greenbelt hugs one side, there is a lovely pond and wetland populated by birds, and intertwined in all of this are multiple community gardens. As we walked, we noticed signs explaining some of the green features of the neighborhood like the porous concrete that made up the ground beneath our feet. We look forward to learning about what these and other sustainable features of the High Point community mean to the residents and what other, less visible elements are also impacting their lives.

Welcome

2008-11-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Social Sustainability: our blog companion to our non profit organization Social Green. Social Green is dedicated to exploring and enhancing the social side of sustainability.

This blog is a companion to our non profit organization, Social Green, and to all of the books and projects associated with our work at Social Green. It’s an informal space for us to share thoughts on all things related to the social side of sustainability and to network with others who share these interests.

In Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawken describes sustainability as an infinite game. We play finite games to win, he says, but we play infinite games to keep on playing. “Sustainability; ensuring the future of life on earth, is an infinite game, the endless expression of generosity on behalf of all.” As an infinite game, sustainability necessarily involves any and all projects aimed at preserving life or promoting justice on planet Earth. Hawken goes on to say, “Any action that threatens sustainability can end the game, which is why groups dedicated to keeping the game going assiduously address any harmful policy, law, or endeavor.”

We love this metaphor because it speaks eloquently to the interconnectedness of all efforts to make the world a better place. And, we are excited to be a voice emphasizing the social threads that run through all of these interlinked endeavors.