What Matters Most    Today we consider the psychological impact of the H1N1 Virus, what’s commonly called the “swine flu.”  We all know that this is a new Type A flu that’s a genetic combination of swine, avian and human influenza viruses.  Rather than talk about the epidemilogy of this flu virus, let’s consider our response on a more humanistic level.  What’s our reaction to new information when it seems to threaten us?

Joining us today, by phone, are Tom Skinner, Senior Public Affairs Officer at the Centers for Disease Control, and John Tauer, Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Thomas, and Nancy Childs, Professor of Marketing at St. Joseph’s University.

Starting with Tom Skinner at the CDC, we asked him how all this new information about the H1N1 Virus affect us.  “We certainly don’t want people to be unnecessarily frightened or afraid.  The best antidote for fear is information, and we simply want people to be informed.

“For the most part, people who come down with this novel strain of influenza are going to be just fine.   They may feel miserable for a few days, some may feel like they’ve been hit by a train, but by and large they’re going to be just fine!

“However, there are some individuals who are really at increased risk for the serious complications from influenza, and then unfortunately we see people die from influenza.  So, it’s high risk individuals that we really want to communicate the importance of following the steps to protect themselves and most of all get vaccinated when vaccines become available.”

John Tauer, Professor of Psychology at the University of St. Thomas, offers his opinion about what he considers to be a healthy response to this virus.  “What’s interesting is the ability to discern ‘How much fear should I have right now?  What precautions do I want to take?’  And then, the other part of it, and this gets a little more away from the physiological  into the psychological, ‘How much control (A) do I need to have and want to have; and (B) how much control can I have?’

“Often times, whether we want control or not, whether our body is panicking or not, often times we just don’t have much control over things outside of us and that’s a hard thing for us to accept especially in a society like ours where we preach individualism to our kids and you can be anything you want. 

“Well, what that tells them in indirect terms is not only can you be anything you want but you can control your destiny.  You alone are in control.  And, that’s really healthy in a lot of achievement domains but when it comes to fear it’s going to lead us to try and grab on to something that we’d like to think we can control and we really can’t.

“There’s a certain amount you can do but there’s also a certain amount you have to live with.  I don’t know that we can really control everything and the best thing people can do is just really be careful, short of locking themselves in the house for the next several months and saying, ‘I’m not going to go anywhere.’  Then we’d be sacrificing months of our lives because we don’t want a week or two of a really lousy illness.

“One of the things that may have helped was the initial buzz about swine flu, that initial scare and some of the cases that started to get publicity last year,  but then it didn’t take off.  It didn’t have that exponential growth.  I think that allowed people to calm down a little bit and look at things rationally but also look at it as, ‘This is really serious, too.’  And, strike that balance between ‘Yeah, let’s have a healthy amount of fear but let’s be practical, too, and see what we can do.’ ”

Nancy Childs at St. Joseph’s University sees folks reacting to this flu virus in a variety of ways.  “People act individually.  You’re going to see people overreact, you’re going to see people underreact.

“You can get a segment of the population that starts crying for sanctions.  If someone is out there ill and not practicing good hygiene, good preventitive health, should they be arrested, should they be penalized?  You’ll have people that react in that way, asking for sanctions, which is not where you want to end up.  You know you don’t want a police state over this.

“The other thing that’s fun is that people always do the thing you don’t expect.  One of the things that came out…people didn’t want to go to restaurants at all because they felt that was too susceptible.  But, you still want to see people, you still want to socialize. 

“People somehow felt comfortable entertaining or socializing outdoors.  Huge bump in barbecue!  This idea that you could have a barbecue, socialize outside, that’s okay.  They can take that risk.  No one saw that coming, stores were not nearly prepared for the kind of purchases that generated.

“People are looking for other ways to substitute for their normal behavior.  Mexico City was literally quarrantined two weeks.  You go a little nutty when you’re confined that long.

“The CDC is putting out notes to schools.  They’re giving them documents that they can utilize and right in them is telling parents to prepare for these lengthy absences and even suggestions about having board games and other activities to keep your child entertained at home.

“I always feel that we get interesting cultural bumps, almost discontinuities, when we have an unusual environment.  And, once it happens, you don’t go back!”

Tom Skinner’s final thoughts for us are, “…we simply want people to get informed on what they can do to protect themselves.  We want them to go about their business, their ordinary lives, but we just want them to take some simple, common sense steps to protect their health.

“And really mainly those are just making sure they don’t go out when they’re sick, they don’t send their kids to school when they’re sick.  Stay home if you’re sick.  Don’t expose yourself to others.  And, wash your hands.  We know that hand hygiene is important.  And also getting vaccinated is the most important when vaccine becomes available.

“So, we have really good, elaborate surveillance systems in place to detect changes in the virus that we’re seeing.  Fortunately, we’re not really seeing any right now and we’ve looked at viruses from all over the world and we haven’t been able to detect any significant changes to the virus that would be of concern to us at this point.

“We’ve got surveillance systems in place that helps us monitor flu activity in the United States.  It also helps us determine if the anti-viral that we’re using to treat flu are effective.  It helps us to detect any significant changes in the virus.  Those systems are all in place and operational.”

 The advice that Tom Skinner, John Tauer and Nancy Childs seems simple enough:  Stay informed and don’t overreact.  Decide what you can control and what you can’t control.  Stay calm.  Barbecue with friends.  Keep the kids at home when they get sick and buy some new board games.

Very simply, it’s still a wonderful life. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

What Matters Most    Senator Jack Hatch is serving his second term in the Iowa Senate after winning re-election in Novermber, 2006. 

As Assistant Majority Leader and chair of the Health & Human Services Budget Subcommittee, he represents central Des Moines, which includes some of the highest and lowest income families in the state.

In June of 2009, Senator Hatch was appointed Chair of the White House Working Group of State Legislators for Health Reform.  He will lead state legislators who are health reform experts from around the country in advising the President on national health proposals for health reform.

We asked Senator Hatch to reflect on how he got into politics and if there was a single experience that really transformed his life, that really made an impact on his decision to enter into public service.

“I think that the part of my life that I can remember that was a transformation, I was just elected student body president in high school.  I remember we had a guy from Hartford, Conneticut, come in and talk about social justice.  This guy comes in and talks about how we have to change our apathy.  There’s one thing we can do as people and that is get involved, and I started volunteering.

“I volunteered my senior year, and the more I volunteered, the more my eyes were opened.  I got to know African-American families.  I got to know kids.  It just spiraled into a real commitment.  As this program said, ‘You create a riot of commitment,’ and I remember taking that phrase ‘a riot of commitment’ and bringing it to Drake University, and I came prepared to act!

“So, I organized the Revitilization Corps at Drake, and when we were doing hunger activity for breakfast programs in Des Moines, we caught the imagination of students because all of sudden we started having fasts.  We had a university-wide fast where all the kids who ate at the dining halls voluntarily gave up their meal for that evening, and the university turned over that equal amount of money to us, and we passed it onto breakfast programs in Des Moines.”

And what year was that? 

“The spring of ‘69 was when we had our Hunger Hike.  And then we started volunteering.  We maybe had twenty or thirty students and two years later we had over 750 students volunteering.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Are we saying that the core of your beliefs and how you were feeling at the time is a result of this call to action?  It didn’t come from the curriculum?

“It was a call of action that I learned prior to just coming to Drake, and it took me a year in high school and the first couple of months of college to realize that there were thinkers and there were doers.  On the university, most of them are thinkers and I didn’t have time to do all that.

“In university, it’s the ivory tower, the ability to gain some sort of intellectual stimulation.  That’s all well and good and that’s absolutely necessary but there’s another type of stimulation and that is the activism, the doer.

“I took the Revitilization Corps that was started in Hartford, Conneticut, and made a chapter of it at Drake, and it was a volunteer, but it was also a very political, activity.  People started joining and we assigned them to community centers and tutoring in schools, and it just didn’t stop and all of a sudden I had four or five chairmen of committees that I had formed.  People were acting independently but they were all acting together.

“The thing that got us together was that we were all activists.  There was not alot of directing on my part.  These were self-directed students, all pulled together under a common cause.  They had a commitment.

“So, there was a real hunger in the late 60’s, early 70’s, of these students being asked to do something beyond themselves.  And, it wasn’t just the do-gooders.  It was social justice.  People knew we were bigger than something, bigger than what we were as individuals.

“Now, we had students going outside and working with your corporate leaders and your chamber of commerce and your consumer leagues and your budding environmental groups outside of the university.  Those programs organized and funded on the university but we were really doing community-based organizing.  Housing issues.  Education.  Health issues.  Race relations.  That’s part of the thing that still drives me now is that some of the issues that I started with and started to organize are still issues we’re organizing now.”

What’s of interest to me is how one develops their moral compass because it seems like there was a spiral of success that you were experiencing, that you were really good at the campus politics but you continued with this whole urban development.

“My values and my moral beliefs clearly stem from my upbringing as a Christian, but it’s really the choices you make somewhere along your life, and me, it was in college that really pointed my moral compass to where it’s leading me now.”

As a business person, you’re a developer.  So, what determines what kind of project you take on?

“I do affordable housing and I also do commercial building but my commercial property is in historic buildings; it’s in downtown Des Moines and Cedar Radids, Iowa.  The reason I did affordable housing was because nobody else was doing it in the inner city or in downtown neighborhoods.  They were always doing it in safe areas toward the edge of the city or suburbia or small towns.”

“There was enormous pockets of poverty that still needed to be engaged and there was very little activity going on.  So, I started investing downtown and once I got my first building built other developers came down, we have now ten, fifteen projects that have been completed in the last five years because people have recognized and have rediscovered the downtown living.

“As an urban person that was a challenge and we’ve met it.  And now, the business is going well.  We’re succeeding.”

You also have a public life.  Besides the business side of your life, you’re a State Senator.  So, you’re taking the social justice and you’re taking that into the legislature.

“I’ve had a good career in the legislature, but I don’t go to the legislature to make friends.  I go to the legislature to get things done.  And, I first started with environmental issues in the House of Representatives here in Iowa.  When I switched to the Senate, I worked on human service issues and most recently in health care.

“People are wondering, ‘Why do you work so hard at these issues?’  I didn’t see passing a law being enough.  You have to pass a law and move the agenda forward by insuring that people are actually going to have outcomes.  If you pass a law and you’re not sure of the outcomes, it wasn’t that good of a law.  Or, if you pass a law just to let people feel more comfortable or resolving a regional issue, again, it’s not worth my time.

“I’ve got to be engaged in legislation that has the greatest impact on the greatest number of people because that is the only way you’re really going to solve the social and economic injustices that we have.  We still have a huge number of people in poverty in this country.  That’s been an issue with me from the very beginning of my political and social justice career.  And my aggressive behavior in the legislature has been to push my colleagues to do more than they feel comfortable.  They get pushed to that level, they’re ready to be pushed to the next level and the next level.”

You are like that hurdler.  You are just raising the bar all the time.  So, how do you create that vision?  What’s inside of you that is causing you to raise that bar all the time?

“I think, one, I have a very clear idea of what’s right and wrong.  I have a belief that we as a nation understand right from wrong.  And then, secondly, when I see something that’s wrong I like to try and fix it.  Being a public official, I have a greater responsibility to fix it.  I think there’s an expectation by the citizens for us to do more than just go to the legislature and vote.  They actually want us to go and solve problems.  I take that literally.”

Let’s think ahead.  How does one institutionalize this type of social justice?  How do you get it to have some holding power?

“That’s the big challenge.  Some people say that once your beliefs and your activities are institutionalized then you’ve succeeded.  If your changes become the norm, your standards become what people regularly accept as being good, your work is forgotten but the results of your work becomes the standard for the next generation.

“I like to think that the environmental work we’re doing, the health care work we’re doing, is all going to be part of a process that is making life better than it was before but there’s always going to be somebody else coming behind you who is going to make it better than what you did.  You’re always waiting for those people to emerge.”

So, if you were to talk to an 18, 19, 20-year-old person who is wanting to move this social justice idea forward, what would you tell them to do?

“Well, there’s enough social injustice now for them to decide what they want to work on.  There’s never going to be a point that you’re going to run out of ideas.  This nation always has to be reminded that we have to have our compasses pointing in the direction of what is morally and consciously right.  And, sometimes we get off track so that 18, 19, 20-year-old will always have to remind us to always get back on track.  In some cases it will be less noticeable than others.

“When we were in school, it was the Vietnam War, it was Civil Rights.  The next two generations, they’ll be struggling with some more racial issues but also gender issues.  What may come next may be more international issues, where we’ll have to solve more of our problems globally because we’re so tied together economically more than we’ve ever been before.

“There are challenges out there and there’s no challenge too big not to get involved in.  The only thing that happens when you have a challenge that’s too big is that too many people decide not to get involved.  It doesn’t take an army to create a movement.  The army will come together when more and more people understand the issues.”

What Matters Most    Laughter fills the room where four generations of women gather together: mother, daughter, granddaughter and great granddaughters.   They share the same twinkle in their eyes, wisdom and sense of humor.

Sharon Sand speaks plainly and simply about their relationship.  “I think that women are incredily strong, and I think that women are the glue that hold things together because as part of our nature we see things from a more global  perspective.  We see how a situation or an event is going to ripple out into the family, how everyone is affected.”

At this particular point in American history, Sharon believes that women make a significant difference.  “I think women are really important right now because I think the global view actually goes out beyond our families to seeing from a different perspective.

“The one thing we have as part of our nature is our nuture and that compassion.  So, I think that women, right now, are really going to have much more influence because we can’t muscle our way through things anymore.

“I think that the world has been driven by a masculine energy for thousands of years.  Now is the time when the feminine energy is going to make the difference.  Women are very good at compromise.  Very very good at compromise.  And, I think that anything we care about, we think about it, and we think about whatever it happens to be, whether it’s something personal, how that’s going to play out and affect others that are around us.

“Not from a place of needing to take care of everyone but just from a consciousness.  The world, right now, really needs that feminine energy, not just within our families. 

“I mean, ‘Who makes things okay?’  When momma’s not okay, nobody’s okay.  So, momma does it!

“And, within my family of the four generations, the women in my family are very strong women.  We’re just more of a stabilizing force.   I love the relationship that we have…four generations of women.”

Collaboration and Communication

The four generatons of women–mother, daughter, granddaughter and great granddaughters–know how to get along with others and each other.  “For Page, she just really loves people.  And, she’ll say, ‘Well, that person was mean to me but they’re probably having a bad day.’ 

“It’s not that she doesn’t come into conflict.  She does.  But, I think that there’s a lot of allowance for allowing people to be who they are.

“Some days we’re on and some days we’re not, and some days we’re bitchy and some days we’re not and some days we’re more caring and more thoughtful and some days we’re not.   And, so it’s just an allowance for the humanness.

“We have a tendency to want go to that place if somebody’s rude to us, there must be something wrong with me.  I don’t think that Page takes that on that way.  And, I know that Hannah doesn’t, either.  I think there’s just this solidness in them. 

“I think they choose also how much they’re going to participate with someone.  Shannon used to say this to them when they were really, really little and complain when playing and say, ‘So and so did this to me!’ or ‘So and so did that to me!’

“Shannon would say to them, ‘Hannah, you’re a sovereign nation.  They can’t make you do anything.  They can’t make you feel any way.  You are a sovereign nation, so you get to choose how much you’re willing to take on or how much you’re willing to participate.  If that person is mean to you in some way or it’s just not fun to play with them because you have to play with them in whatever they want to do, you get to choose.  But then, you can’t complain.’

“So, I think that there’s a self-responsiblity there as far as how much you’re going to allow someone else to affect how you feel.  And, I’d always love that when Shannon would do that, she’d say, ‘Page, you’re a sovereign nation.’  And, both of them do have this very strong sense of self.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Coming from a Place of Abundance

Great granddaughters, Page and Hannah are teenagers.  Granddaughter Shannon is in her mid-thirties.  Sharon is sixty-two.   Sharon’s mother is eighty-five.  Their ability to share their thoughts and feelings with one another is the foundation of their strength. 

“When we are all together, eventhough Hannah is seventeen and Page is thirteen, my mother being eighty-five, we just have fun. 

“They can talk to my mom in the same way they would talk to me or they can talk to their mom or they can talk to a friend and so there’s just a connection that is a camaraderie whenever we get together to do something. 

“My mom listens to what they have to say.  She’s not caught in the mindset of the time in which she grew up.  I think my mother’s values were always very different than what society’s values were portrayed. 

“I can remember when she was on strike in the fifties working at Boeing, coming home from school and seeing commodities on the kitchen table, and it was like, ‘Whoa!’ 

“And, I said to her, ‘Are we poor?’  And she said, ‘No, that’s a mindset.’

“The values she gave to me, that I gave to Shannon, that my daughter gave to her daughters, is that you can come from a place of lack or you can come from a place of abundance and it doesn’t have anything to do with what you may have acquired in your life.  It’s an energy, it’s a feeling.  That’s what my mother gave to us, and we didn’t grow up with a lot, that’s for sure.  But, we were happy.  We were happy.

“We can’t get that from someone else.  We can only get it from ourselves.  But, our families can help us to belong because we do belong to our families no matter how diverse and different we may be, we belong.  That’s what we have those families for.

“No matter where they go, no matter what they do, they always have someone to come home to and that’s generationally.

“If I”m gone tomorrow, they have their mother.  They have their great-grandmother.  If their mother’s gone tomorrow, they have me and they have my mother. 

“But, most of all they have themselves.”

What Matters Most   Barbara Butler grew up in a small town in upstate New York, and, with seven brothers and sisters, life was uproarious.

“My parents were very big on everyday, no matter what the weather–and, in upstate New York the weather can be terrible sometimes–we’d go outside to play.

“We were in this neighborhood with lots of kids, too.  So, I was really into running around outside and very fond of my trees and playing in trees.  We played lots of games.  We had swing sets.  We didn’t really have play structures at that point, but then we’d go up to the school and play on the play structures up there.

“I think what we really had was tons of freedom.  Basically, I just had to be home by dark.  We ran around kind of wild.  It was very fun and I realized when I went through college, my mom wanted me to be a lawyer then life started to look a little serious and I didn’t want to do that.  They were a little upset with me at first; they didn’t know why I was wanting to learn construction but I like that it was outdoors and then when I stumbled on the play structures, I really loved it.”

Play as Work

Barbara Butler stumbled on play structures accidentally.  “I was doing construction pretty much just to pay the bills, and I was being a fine art painter, and I was dabbling in writing and I was exploring being an artist.  I had started working for my brothers in D.C.; they had a contracting business renovating brownstones.

“I learned a lot from them, and then I moved to San Francisco and started a little backyard business with a friend, and we were doing decks and fences and hot tubs, trying to do a very artistic job of it but I was definitely seeing it as separate from my art.

“Then, I had a client, turns out it was Bobby McFerren, right at the point of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”  They hired us to do their backyard, which was classic San Francisco yard, about five stories tall and not a level spot in the yard.

“So, we were doing their decks and staircases, trying to make the yard useable.  They had said they wanted an unusual play structure.  I was immediately taken with the idea.  I went and I played on all the play structures in town, brought my play knowledge back up to speed, and came up with this design for them that was these carved totem poles and had wicky wacky angles to it.  I had a lot of fun with it.

“By the end of that, I was like, ’Okay, that’s it, that’s all I’m going to do from here on in.’  And everybody said, ‘You can’t do that!’  And I said, ‘Yes, you can!’ ”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pulling It Together

The McFerrin Project brought together all the different interests that Barbara Butler held near and dear:  love of the outdoors, art, using wood, her fond memories of her youth.

“It really did.  It just pulled everything together.  I couldn’t believe it.  The only thing it didn’t really pull together was an income.  It was really a hard way to make a living!

“So, it was sculpture.  It was art.  It was color.  I made my own stains.  It was all about play, thinking about kids running around it.  It just satisfied everything and I knew that this is what I wanted to do and I had trouble getting clients at first.  I mean it’s actually still a bit of  a hard sell.  People still want to know why they’re so expensive and why is it important to do.  But, I’ve persevered at it for twenty-two years now.”

Barbara offers suggestions for where to begin in your own backyard if you’re thinking about a treehouse or a play structure.

“I think the thing to do is start with looking at your yard.  Is there a place that’s not used at the moment?  Is there some place where nothing will grow under the trees?  Is there an odd little corner?  You can make something to fit to a funny little spot that you weren’t sure what to do with.

“Kids tend to be really delighted by that.  They like something a little mysterious.  So, I always recommend, don’t put it too close to the house.  When they’re two, you might think you want that but by the time they’re four or five,  you want it a little bit away from the house so the kids have a little distance and they can be really loud.  You want them to be having some place of their own and you want them to have some wild fun.  So, I think picking the site is a pretty important first step.

“And then, you decide: could it be a treehouse?  It’s always better if it’s a treehouse.

“So, that might be a little technically difficult for some people but I always encourage people to, if they can’t hire me then they could hire a local contractor and you can call us to buy parts or to buy plans or even just to help with the design.  I think there’s a lot of options there.  A contractor could come in and give an idea about what they could build for that area.

“Thinking about what to add for it, you shouldn’t underestimate slides and swings.  Kids just love those.

“Also, they want something up high to peer out to the world, a little bit of a lookout.   If they have a fast way down, which is a slide, and then some swinging, then some climbing back up.  You’ve really captured it all if you get that in.

Butler usually incorporates grips on a climbing wall.  “Kids are wild for those and you can put them all over.  You can do it as a wall that they can just go up and back down or you can have it go up and into the window.  You can have them go round and round on them.  They’re really fun to add.   And, I get those from a professional rock hold company and we have them add an extra screw hold so they can stand-up outdoors.  They’re fantastic to use.”

Importance of Play

Picasso said that it took him fifty years to unlearn what he learned, and Barbara agrees.  “I just have so many great memories of my childhood playing constantly.  I just want to keep making that happen for kids over and over.

“The importance of play is really easy to get swept under the carpet.  People are very concerned with academic achievement.  And, I think in this economy, people are worried a little about frivolous stuff.  But, I actually think play for kids is incredibly important. 

“We have to make these places outside.  We’ve restricted kids lives quite a bit in terms of they’re supervised, they’re scheduled, they’ve got to take interviews to get into kindergarten.  They’ve got stresses that we didn’t have as kids.  I think having a play space in the yard that’s not the same as the house is really important for kids well being.  They have someplace to go outside.  They can get dirty.  They can run around.  They can make mistakes.  They can climb up the rock wall and maybe they don’t make it the first time, and if they fall,  they’ve got bark chips for them to fall on.

“You’re setting up a place for kids to try things out and try out who they’re going to be as an adult.  You’re going to be encouraging creative play, combining that with physical activity.  It’s just a fantastic activity.  I hate the thought of people forgetting about it.

“I’m all for play and obviously I love building the playhouses and treehouses, and I encourage people to get the kids designing it with you and enjoy the whole process.

“The childhood will go so fast.  I just have so many great memories of my childhood playing constantly and I just want to keep making that for kids over and over.”

What Matters Most   Karl Ahlrichs explains “the world that we’re in now, and emerging now, we can call it the ‘new normal.’  

“Where we were wasn’t sustainable and it may not be reattainable.  There’s this zone that were in for probably the next year to eighteen months where the new rules haven’t been written yet from an employment standpoint, from an employer’s standpoint, from an employee’s standpoint.

Ahrlrichs says that uncommon sense is needed for this crisis we’re facing.  “On October 15 of 2008 at about 2:30 in the afternoon when we collectively looked at each other and realized that the stock market was heading south and we weren’t sure how far south it was going, that common body of knowledge became dead batteries.

“The panic that we saw on the pundit TV shows and in the business press was that the markers that we had always counted on as being good guide posts to how to run business really weren’t responding the way people thought.

“So, that’s when I realized we were done with common sense, we really need uncommon sense to get through this.  It was not just a cute marketing phrase, we really needed to back away from the thinking that got us here and go to the next level.

“For the first time in years, everybody’s nervously eyeing each other and focused on survival.  Unions are willing to give unilateral give-backs.  Employees are willing to work harder than they thought they should.  Managers are willing to adapt to a one-size-fits-one mentality.  This is a time where everybody is really back to basics.

Build a Road Map

Karl suggests that one of the best things we can do is build a road map and figure out a couple of things from that.  “When I say ‘road map’ I really mean road map.  I mean a piece of paper with squiggles, arrows, notations that can guide your path.”

Ahlrichs elaborates, “Get a copy of your organizational chart as it is today…the boxes and the dotted lines.  First step is locate yourself on the map and look at who’s around you, and draw in additional people in their proper spots who may be key vendors but this is basically the road map of who is in your world and what their official reporting structures are.

“Then get out a second color pencil and start adding clues and cues about who [each] person is, how they react to the outside world, how they get data, how they decide things, basically cryptic words that describe what they’re like.

“Then get another set of color pencils, draw in a different color, the actual alliances of people.  This person over here in marketing and this person over here in operations went to the same school, they belonged to the same fraternity, they’re buddies.

“I guess my point is draw in the political affiliations.  What is the glue that holds people together?  By the end of this exercise, things will be making better sense, and into the future as you keep it updated, this will be an excellent guide for a couple of things: communication and why did that happen.

“Communication from the sense of I want to make sure this message gets to that person, let me get out my road map and let me make sure who is on my side, who is allied with them, who hates them, and make sure my message is guided around the land mines and through the welcome spots.

“And then secondarily, you’re really able to figure out why something happens.  And one final point, do not leave this on your desk.  This is your own secret road map.  This is not to be shared.  This is your own private view of the world.  While it’s being done for the noblest of reasons, mainly for better communication and for you to understand things better, others might see this as Machiavellian and manipulative and political.

Ahlrichs is suggesting that this road map will take some stress away from our panic.  “We’re panicked because things don’t make sense.  Once we map out what we do know, then we get a level of clarity that allows our brain to really start working on the fiddely bits around the edges but it also has the reassurance of  ’Okay, this makes sense.’  Once you figure out what you can control, you let go of what you cannot control, and there gets the clarity of being good employee in these modern times.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vital Life Skills

Sometimes, the stress wreaks havoc with our powers to observe and figure out what’s going on.  “People who just appear to be lucky, one of the key things behind that is a lower personal stress level.”

What makes us better observers?  “There’s really three life skills that have emerged that have moved to the head of the pack.  They are listening, adaptability and, let’s call it presentation, we could also call it communication.

“We’re back to basics now and the core competencies that really are going to make a difference, one of them–and this is a key one–that’s a willingness to listen.

“I’m an extrovert.  For years, I only had two modes.  I was either talking or I was getting ready to talk.  I was either talking or I was waiting for you to stop.  In our current situation, I truly do have to listen, and that has been a very difficult skill for any extrovert to learn.

“The second point on life skills that apply to work was adaptability.  We have to become different and we have to be comfortable becoming different.  Speaking personally, I’m over fifty.  People don’t like to change much as they get older because patterns are comfortable.

“In addition to listening, a key life skill is maintaining behavioral flexibility.  I find the best way to really keep the personal flexibility as a part of my life begins back at home before I get to the office.  We wake up in the morning and we always go to the same place in the bathroom, and we always do the same things in the same order, then we go and get the same cup from the same spot, and pour the same beverage into it, and get in the same vehicle, and drive the same route, and by the time we get to the office, we’re already twenty rituals into daily life.  Now we want to become adaptable at that point?

“It really needs to be a core part of life.  I drive a different route to the office pretty much everyday.  If I pull out of my garage, half the time I turn left, half the time I turn right.  I am sending my brain a message that the pattern is to not have a pattern.  If I find myself listening to the same station three or four days in a row, I’m changing stations, or I’m turning the radio off, or I’m plugging in my Ipod and learning Spanish, or I’m just doing something different.  This is causing the brain to get comfortable with change.”

We take that adaptability into the work place with us.  “I said it was a life skill for a reason, not a work skill.  We’re trying to be more effective at work, and this whole social networking…Facebook…that’s becoming a part of the organizational world where it’s not a social network anymore it can become an operational network where those are tools used to communicate inside and around organizations and across silos.  That means you have to be adaptable enough to be in it and understand it.

“The third point is communication…presentation.  We have such high standards of what a good communication and what a good communicator and what a good message looks like that, if we don’t keep our communication skills polished or if we don’t learn newer or better communication skills on a daily or weekly basis, we will be very frustrated because our ideas will not have traction.

“We need to understand that the standards for what we will put on page have to be fitting to modern sensibilities, modern standards, modern attention spans so we have to write concise, engaging, short prose.  We need to write zippy sentences and have a hook and an interesting angle.

“Secondarily, there’s a skill that’s been languishing in the background for decades but it’s going to come up front and center these days, it is the power of summary.  People want the punchline first.  You walk into a meeting and the boss turns to you and says, ‘Why didn’t our marketing plan work last quarter?’  You need to lapse into reflective thought for no more than five seconds and give him the answer in one sentence, ‘We missed a marketing window in Europe, we hit it on the East Coast, there were two shifts in buying patterns we did not expect and we think we have it covered for next quarter.’  There in one sentence is the punchline.

“Now, you can go on and support it.  The boss relaxes because you understand the situation and you can concisely summarize it.   Power of summary is an executive tool.  The power of summary is something introverts are very good at and extroverts are not.  That’s again something we extroverts have had to learn.  We just want to talk through the whole thing and someplace in there is the answer.”

Uncommon Sense

In summary, Karl provides three tips to provide employees with uncommon sense in this time of crisis.  “All those years that I worked coaching people on their personal careers, I found there were three things always present in the people that seemed to land on their feet and do well.

“They are personal focus, attitude and we’re back to listening skills.

“By personal focus I mean they could at least articulate what they wanted, not specifically perhaps but what was in it, or not specifically perhaps but what wasn’t in it. 

“So that somebody doesn’t say:

‘What do you want?  I want a job.’  

‘What kind of job?   I’ll take any job.’  

“That doesn’t help!

“Secondarily, our society rewards attitude and it punishes people with a pity party going on.  The ones who flagellate themselves and announce that they’re not lucky, that this is being done to them, that the world controls them.  Pschologically, it’s an external locus of control, they’re not running themselves.  We would perceive it as this person has a bad attitude.  Even if you’re grouchy, it’s important not to appear grouchy.

“Third, again it really comes down to listening skills–listening and paying attention to the world around you, the people around you, the situations around you, reflecting on it and that guides your actions.

“If somebody has those three things:  focus of some type, a post off on the horizon that they’re driving to, the appearance of having a positive self image and personal self control, and a feedback loop of listening to the world around them.

“If they can do those three things and they use them in an operational networking framework, if they’re using it within a social networking framework, if they’re using it within their family, I have observed that these people as they go through life will reflect and feel that they had a fulfilling time on earth and that’s all we can really hope for.”

What Matters Most   Bernd Heinrich’s camp in Maine isn’t a permanent place to live, especially in the winter time, but it’s a good summer hang-out and certainly his inspiration for Summer World.

“I really love that hill that I’ve had since 1974, and built a log cabin there in the early 1980’s.  That’s the only place in Maine where I go because I love it there.

“I don’t really like to think of myself as totally a local author because I talk about universal things like the insects and plants and animals.  They could be observed anywhere, it doesn’t have to be here, but I just like to relate it to direct experience and go from there.”

Many of us go into nature and so much goes by us.  How does Bernd prepare himself when he goes into nature?

“A lot of it is built-up from familiarity.  I was living in the woods when I was five years old and I’ve always been in close touch with nature whether it was in the woods or on the farm, and then later on in my studies of biology.  So, I have the perspective of immediate tactile experience from collecting insects, and having pets, and being out in the woods, and hunting and fishing and working on the farm.

“You develop an eye for what’s expected and once in awhile you see something interesting that pops out because it’s a little bit different.  Basically, I see what stands out, that I’m interested in and I can then write about.  And then, I have the context to go with it because of the experience.”

Going back to the same location in Maine, that’s also quite helpful.  “Exactly.  I think you hit it there.  That’s the main reason why I like to go back there because I can have the past experience to draw on, to put it in context in terms of time and seasons.  I know what to expect so that really helps.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Patience of a Scientist

Bernd Heinrich is a patient person.   ”I’m very patient if I find something that really grabs me.  As long as I’m grabbed by it, I go with it.  For example, the bumblebees I started then worked on them for fifteen years.  Then the ravens I started, made some observation and did some experiments, and it ended up about fifteen years as well.

“So, it keeps expanding, and it’s not always the same.  But, as a scientist you have to be extremely patient.  It derived from the passion of finding out. ”

Besides being a very good natural observer, there are other skills that Bernd puts to use.  He also takes into the woods an ability to draw what he observes.  “I’m very pleased a lot of people seem to like the drawings.  I just try to draw what I see because there are so many beautiful things so I look in detail and I probably see many things in more detail than others might because I’m so interested in it.

“So, I can draw what I’m really interested in, what grabs me at the moment and something else, I couldn’t draw at all.  I really have to be into the beetle or the bird or whatever it is that I’m drawing and then it comes out.

“I did my first couple of drawings when I was about seven or eight or ten but only two or three or something and then later on I did several and through all these years I just occasionally would do some and then I started doing more when I started writing books.  First, I did just pencil drawings and later on I did water coloring as well and I really like that at this point.”

Heinrich encourages nature drawing as a way to heighten perceptions of what nature offers.  “Nothing makes you look more closely than when you try to draw it.  You really start looking at the details and that has definitely sharpened my eye because it has really forced me to look more closely, more than I ever did before.

“And, the writing actually does the same thing because once I start to write I discover all the things that I don’t know and then have to think about them and I get ideas and so I find out the questions that I have to try to answer so my writing for general audiences has really helped me improve my science through the writing.”

When Heinrich goes into nature, a pad and pencil usually travel with him along the way.  “Very frequently, actually I do.  I may not be purposely out there taking notes but I often have a pencil and I might write down a few key words to help me remember. 

“I keep thinking of things and I write them down to look back on them and then later on I write in a journal.  Sometimes, it’ll be right after I get back home or else in the evening.  Of course, when I was doing work with the ravens I’d have to be taking notes continuously in a notebook.  But, general observations, just being out there for the pleasure of it, I often come on things and write them down but not in detail later until I sit down later on.”

Heinrich also uses a camera to record his observations.  ”I’ve always liked to photograph.  In fact at one point I really thought I wanted to be a photographer or maybe a movie maker, or something like that, recording things.

“I bought a Kodak Box Camera, I must’ve been about eleven.  I got it from Sears and Roebuck.  After doing barn chores for the neighbor, I got a little spending money.  And I took a picture of a porcupine and a deer and ever since I’ve been taking pictures of  animals. 

“If I see something nice, I take pictures.  Actually, there’s a lot of them.  For example, with the bumblebees I really got into photography then because I wanted to publish pictures of the bees.  When I needed the pictures for a book then I get busy and do pictures.  So, it goes on and off depending on what topic I’m on.”

The Earth We Walk On

Midway through Summer World, Heinrich reveals:

The one and perhaps only true religion that I can in good conscience honor is one the encompasses the earth we walk on and that promotes our well being and our physical connection to it.

“I think there’s nothing more important than the earth that we live on and our relationship to it.  It’s just something greater than ourselves, something that’s real that everybody can get ahold of and be enamored by and I can’t think of anything  relevant more to happiness.”

We seem to be a species that’s not adapting too well.  “It’s the population.  There’s just too many of us and technology has allowed us to multiply to ungodly numbers and mine resources at rates that no other animal can.

“It’s not the technology, it’s what we’ve done with it.  We don’t have birth rates and death rates in balance like every other organism on earth.”

In nature, when we see a species overpopulating, what happens?  “Well, usually what happens is the organism gets weakened and then, because the resources are scarcer and it’s not quite as healthy and pretty soon when they’re close enough to each other then diseases can spread rapidly from one to the other and there’s a big crash.

“So, that’s what usually happens.  The population can often increase to huge numbers but then it always crashes.  Always.  And then, it rebuilds itself.

“So, I don’t think humans will ever go extinct but I do believe that at this present rate we could very well have a huge, huge crash.”

Bernd believes there are lessons we can learn from nature about living and dying.  “Every species is unique.  But, we conform to the same basic rules and laws.  Basically, all animals multiply up to the limit of the resources and then they crash.

“And, one would think that we would take a lesson from that and not allow ourselves to get to that point because we can look ahead and see what happens in this case, in that case, in the other case.  So, this is going to happen to us, too, if we don’t look ahead.

“I don’t think we should take the example and do it the same way the lemmings do…and multiply up to the very limits of our resources and then crash.  I don’t think that will benefit our long term happiness.  I think that’s what we should be concerned about.

“The more we are removed from nature, the more we will become removed from nature because we’ll know less and less and it’ll become strange to us and we won’t be able to adjust and lose our roots.”

What Matters Most   Nathan Shedroff has a great smile.   It gives the impression he solves problems with a good sense of humor.

Nathan says, “It’s the only way to approach life.”

In his newest book, Design is the Problem, he explains, “Design and designers have helped create a world where people are compelled to buy things that they don’t necessarily need or buy new versions and throw out their old versions when their old versions aren’t particularly bad.

“We contribute to consumer society that is beyond consumer, it is about over-consumption.”

This is why design is the problem.  Shedroff continues by explaining the idea of retail therapy.  Retail therapy is the idea that “purchasing things, whether we need them or not, is going to make us feel better about ourselves, which is completely fallacious because it’s temporary, it’s unmeaningful and it’s unsustainable.”

Shedroff prefers to use the word “sustainable” when defining good design rather than “green” because sustainability better expresses what we’re trying to achieve.

 ”It’s not a perfect word, either.  There’s alot of controversy around the word ’sustainability.’  But the two most important things to understand about sustainability are:   it’s not just about the environment and natural resources, although that’s a big part of it.  It’s also about human resources or social issues as well as financial sustainability and financial resources.

“The other problem with the word ‘green’ is that it carries with it a lot of historical and cultural baggage.  It turns a lot of people off.  So, when people hear the word ‘green,’ many people think hippies and birkenstocks and the environmentalism movement from the 1970’s and, while the principles behind sustainability completely is compatible with a lot of what was being said back then, it’s still very different.

“And so, if you’re saying ‘green,’ for instance, for the first part your ignoring the social and financial implications and, for the second part, it’s not this ‘green’ that we were talking about in the 70’s, which is a turn-off for a lot of people.

“So, it’s not just a smart place to go if you want to open the tent for as many people as possible.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Restore

For the design profession, Nathan introduces four different strategies for implementing a sustainable design:  reduce, reuse, recycle and restore.

“Design strategies under reduce are all about getting the most out of the least amount of material.  So, how can we design and ship and construct products that don’t have excess materials, that don’t have toxic materials, or at least have fewer toxic materials and maybe made from renewable energy?

“All of these seem a little foreign to us today but if you went back to my great grandparent’s farm in western Kansas, everyone on that farm would understand immediately you need to make the most use of the materials you’re given and you need to be smart about how you use energy.  You need to be efficient.  So, everything under reduce is about how can you make most value with less material, less energy, less transportation, et cetera.

“Under the strategies for reuse, there are specific ways of designing things so they can be reused rather than just destroyed or landfilled.  The product can have life after the first intended use, which means all the embodied energy that went into constructing that thing doesn’t get wasted and destroyed.  It can be used for something else.

“And then, under recycle, there’s specific design strategies that engineers, designers and architects as well as other business people can use to make sure that when that product is finally not useful anymore, it can be broken down and recycled efficiently and easily if you take some certain steps in the development of that product to begin with.

“Lastly, once you’ve gotten really, really good at these other strategies, it’s not enough to just reduce the impact on society, on the environment, on the financial system of the things that you make, when you get really good at this, you can actually restore natural and human capital, and for that matter financial capital, and it’s a new way of looking and working. 

“So, rather than just being less negative, you can actually be more positive.”

Life Cycle Analysis

What may be called the whole story of sustainability encompasses people, resources and money.  We have a way looking at sustainability that analyzes the entire life cycle of our experience with the product or service.

“There’s an easy and a more in-depth explanation of life cycle analysis.

“The easy side is just that we all need to realize that when we go to the store and buy something a good 50-75% of the impact of that product we find in the store, during it’s life cycle, has already occurred.  And, it’s occurred in the manufacturing and distribution of that thing. 

“All product categories differ slightly so, for instance, clothes have a different impact in the use phase than they do in the manufacturing phase and certainly a different impact in the disposal phase.  And, every product and service goes through a period of manufacturing, which includes sourcing raw materials and creating sub-assemblies and final manufacturing and shipping between all these different entities, finally shipping to a customer at a store or at their home.  That whole phase is responsible for a great deal of resource and energy use.

“Then, when we have the product or service–we use it–there’s a use phase that often requires more energy and material.  For instance, your dishwasher requires you to put water in it, plug it into the electrical system to run it, and to use soap in it, so it’s still using goods but no where near as much material and energy that went into creating the dishwasher itself.

“And, when you’re done with the dishwasher, there’s a disposal phase.  Potentially, if it’s recyclable that dishwasher has to be broken apart and pieces that are valuable can be sent to different recycling streams or it gets thrown into a landfill or burned, which has an impact.  It has an impact on the environment in terms of the atmosphere.  It has an impact on land use.  A dishwasher is probably fairly benign but, if you’re talking about a television, you’re talking about lots of heavy metals that could then leach into the water supply and create a toxic problem in soil.

“And so, life cycle analysis just says if we want to make better decisions about this television or that television.  Or, this car versus that bicycle, we need to consider the entire life cycle of these products and really figure out what’s going on.

“And then, the complex side of life cycle analysis is that there are actual engineering tools that measure the impact and the amount of materials that go in at every step of the way and that’s really for designers and engineers to deal with. 

“So, when buying a product, you shouldn’t have to deal with that level of detail but they do have to understand that stuff comes from somewhere and after they’re done using it, it goes somewhere.  And those ’somewheres’ have impact.

“The controversy of the Hummer versus the Prius, most people would look at both of those cars and say, ‘Clearly, the Hummer is worse for the environment by a substantial amount than the Prius.’

“There’s only been one life cycle analysis that I’m aware of that’s been public, looking at the full impact of these cars.  In that first analysis, I think it was in 2004, the Hummer actually came out with a better impact than the Prius.

“And, of course, Prius owners and Toyota and lots of people were up in arms.  The interesting thing isn’t which one is better than the other.  The interesting thing is learning why it’s so complex.  Last year when they updated the same assessment, the new numbers showed that the Prius was slightly better than the Hummer.

“Part of the problem is that even experts can’t agree because this is such complex work.   So, sometimes our first assumptions that things are totally obvious aren’t necessarily so because so much of it is hidden from us. 

“All of the manufacturing costs and impacts are hidden from consumers.  We don’t get to go through the factories.  We don’t go to the mines where the minerals are mined.  Most of this is invisible to us, which is what makes it so difficult”

Savor the Design

Nathan also believes that design solutions should be savored.

“There’s a whole movement that originated in Italy called the ‘Slow Food’ movement.  It has since been translated into a lot of other areas as well.

“It started with the idea that fast food isn’t nutritious.  And fast food isn’t particularly enjoyable.  It’s just consistent and fast.  It’s not even particularly nourishing.

“Food is a communal activity.  It should be an enjoyable activity.  It should be nutritious.  It should be respectful of the way the food itself was grown. 

“Designers, architects, engineers and builders have the opportunity to do something similar with the things they create.  So, an example of this might be a set of china or silverware that has been handed down through generations in families.  Or, for instance, your Toyota pickup truck that you’ve had for over thirty years now and your relationship to it and the fact that it’s still running, you’re essentially savoring the ownership of that Toyota pickup truck.  And, it’s a very different way to view products and services and our relationship to them than fads and trends are built around fashion for its own sake where ‘Oh, that’s so yesterday.  Or, that’s so two years ago.  Or, pink is the new black.  No, orange is the new black.  No, black is the new black.’  It’s a completely different mindset to not worry about what the new black is and to savor the things that are well-made and enhance our lives, and designers and engineers and architects can specifically contribute to building those savorable things.”

There’s a wonderful line from an old Frank Zappa song where he said, “…[who cares if] you’re so poor that you can’t afford to buy a new pair of mod a-go-go stretch elastic pants.”

Shedroff agrees.  “And, two months from now, you’ll probably think, ‘Why would I have wanted to?’

“There’s a lot of talk about the recession these days and whether it’s going to change our consumption patterns.  And, you know I think it has a potential to, which I think it would be a good thing but I don’t think it’s anything for sure.  There’s a lot of discussion about what would a post-consumer world  look like?  What would the world look like both from a society standpoint and an environmental standpoint and a market standpoint if people consumed less or if they consumed more rationally and they just didn’t buy stuff to have fifty pairs of shoes, one for every emotion they happen to have or forty watches or three cell phones when they can only use one at a time.  What would that world look like?

“I think that’s probably the most interesting question to ask as we get close to the end of this decade.  I don’t think anyone has any answers yet but I have a feeling that that world might be a little bit more rational and meaningful and savorable than a world where we just constantly cycling through stuff for its own sake.”

Justin Townes Earle’s new album, Midnight At the Movies, was released on March 3rd.

JTE performs on Saturday,  August 22, at WMSE Backyard BBQ  at Cathedral Square Park.  Contact WMSE for show time.

91.7 WMSE-FM is a non-profit, listener-supported radio service educationally licensed to the Milwaukee School of Engineering.  WMSE Radio 91.7 FM has been the premier source for diverse music programming in Southeastern Wisconsin for over 25 years.

Full Tour Schedule for Justin Townes Earle

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Like the late Van Zandt, Earle uses a base of acoustic blues and prewar folk to build his own brand of American roots music.”  ~Nashville Scene

Sophomore releases, such a bumpy road they tread, with expectations being expectations and the fickle nature of hype and short attention spans, how can they live up to the excitement generated by a stellar debut? Within the first song on Justin Townes Earle’s second album Midnight At the Movies, you just know you’re hearing something special, that you are party to the unknown and exhilarating paths being explored by an artist on the creative ascendancy. Midnight At The Movies displays an adeptness and musical sophistication of remarkable, organic breadth and is as lyrically sharp as a lover’s tongue as she is walking out the door.

If you didn’t look at the songwriting credits, you’d swear the songs were penned on the stoop of a one-pump filling station in dust bowl era Oklahoma, the smoke-filled song and dream factories of Tin Pan Alley, or at the back door of Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville. Justin effortlessly taps the romanticism imbued in the beaten-soled travelogues and mythos of Woody Guthrie; the lounging around a campfire at a work camp and the edgy angst of a wintry Minneapolis (yeah, just try to get that mandolin line from the cover of the ‘Mats’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” out of your head.)

Midnight at the Movies is held firm by Justin’s astonishing vision and conviction, yet roams o’er the vast landscape of American music without so much as a stumble. From the deft ear for orchestration and ambient arrangement reminiscent of Randy Newman right through, somehow, the countrypolitan cool of Lambchop and hipster retro vibes of Palace Brothers or Magnetic Fields (simply look to the title track for proof), to the amber smooth swing of the Ray Price smilin’ thru the heartache school of country (”What I Mean To You,” “Poor Fool”), to the immediacy and disarming simplicity of country blues (”They Killed John Henry”), to songs that tell a novel’s worth of emotion in a few lines (”Mama’s Eyes”), Justin Townes Earle pulls it all off with a confidence and candor that tells the listener that the daring exhibited on his debut album The Good Life only hinted at the growth to come.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Since the release of The Good Life in early 2008, Earle has been a busy man, occupying himself with such activities as performing on the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Fest, Chicago Country Music Festival, Americana Music Awards, Down Home in Norway and his debut on the Grand Ole Opry. He toured non-stop for the past year including pump-priming appearances in the UK, Australia and Scandinavia. Features on NPR’s Morning Edition, Mountain Stage and World Café caught the ears of millions of listeners and admiring ink ran in publications like New York Times, LA Times, Nashville Scene, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, American Songwriter and No Depression. The Good Life debuted on the Billboard Country Chart first week, no small feat for a new artist.

Midnight at the Movies was produced by RS Field and Steve Poulton at the legendary House of David studio. Justin was joined by his touring partner Cory Younts as well as longtime cohorts Bryan Davies, Pete Finney, Josh Hedley, Brian Owings and Skylar Wilson.

Source: Justin Townes Earle MySpace Music

What Matters Most     Dave Bonta is quick to point out that all earthly energy is solar originated in its basis.

“Wind energy is really just the thermal nature of the air currents moving across the earth based on thermals from the heating and cooling of the earth.  Tide energy rolling across the earth is also a form of solar energy, as geothermal is.  All energy, even biomass, is based on solar energy.  And, all of that is renewable since the sun should last millions and millions and millions of years as a dependable resource.

“Fossil energy is actually solar based, too.  Coal, oil and gas are all based in sunshine.”

Although the basis of all energy may be solar, the difference is what energy sources are renewable and what energy sources are nonrenewable.  Renewable include photovoltaic (PV), thermal, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydropower and tidal currents.  Nonrenewable include oil, natural gas, propane, coal and uranium.

What distinguishes renewable from nonrenewable is the amount of time it takes to replenish the energy source.  The nonrenewable sources were formed long ago during earth’s development.  Their supplies are limited.  The renewable sources are replenished in a very short time.  Day after day, the sun shines, the wind blows and the rivers and tides flow.

Carbon-loading of the atmosphere

Dave stresses, “The difference between the two is that renewable energy typically doesn’t increase the carbon-loading of the atmosphere.  It’s carbon neutral.  It’s based on recently sequestered carbon.  It’s not using fossil carbon, carbon that was sequestered years and years and millions of years ago and now being re-released in the form of emissions.

“The difference between a nuclear plant and a solar panel really has to do more with the fact that the solar panel can be renewed.  The energy comes in daily.  The nuclear plant is a finite resource in that the uranium has got to be mined, and it has to be processed, and it has to be sequestered somewhere after it’s been used.  As a waste product, it has to be dealt with.  The solar and the other renewable sources don’t really have those issues.

“When we’re talking about biomass carbon as opposed to fossil carbon,” this is the distinguishing factor, “because that applies to carbon dioxide generation.  And carbon dioxide generation, as you know, creates the blanketing of green house gases that helps to create the green house effect and that’s where the global warming comes from.

“So, when we burn a product like a piece of wood, and we burn it in such a way that it’s releasing carbon, that’s recently sequestered carbon.  That piece of wood is fifty or sixty years old but the carbon was in our recent history.  Carbon that’s coming out of the coal or out of the oil or out of natural gas was sequestered millions of years ago when the atmosphere was different, when it was heavy with carbon.

“And, now by burning those things and re-releasing the carbon from those older, fossilized products, it’s like sticking a straw in the earth and pumping the carbon right back into the atmosphere and recreating an atmosphere that we can’t live with, that life can’t survive with.

“The difference is extremely important.  Yes, all energy is solar based but the difference is what the energy release does to our atmosphere.

“It’s really important if we’re going to start to look at renewable and sustainable solar energies, we keep mindful of the differences, and one of those big differences is carbon.”

Steve Snyder adds, “And, another thing, the difference of renewable, the basis of it, it will always be there, the sun for the next six billion years will always be there, the wind will always be there. 

“But, even if uranium and nuclear power plants were renewable energy, they would not be sustainable because you would always have the waste.  You cannot sustain that type of energy in the long term because eventually the amount of hazard you create and potential danger there, you could not sustain that over the long term.

“If there was an endless supply of oil, if there was an endless supply of coal, the use of those would not be sustainable because it would eventually negatively impact the environment and our lifestyle to such a degree that we could no longer use them.”

“It’s one of the basics,” continues Dave.  “Once we’ve been able to explain that to people, they have that ‘Aha’ moment.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sustainable Living: A New Set of Values

If we want to create a sustainable house, then we need to start by re-creating the not so big life.  This is a value issue.  It doesn’t belong to the building industry.  We need to take responsibility for our level of consumption.

Steve begins, “Dave and I are perfect examples of opposite ends of the spectrum.  My wife and I live in a 200-year-old farmhouse.  He lives in a house that he and his wife knew all this information and they started from the ground up and they did everything right to start with.

“My wife and I, we changed our light bulbs.  We put up storm windows.  We blew in cellulose insulation, changed our appliances.  Efficiency and conservation is built-up.  There’s two different ways you can go at it, I went one direction, and he went the other because I moved into an old farmhouse and had to do these things.

“So, there’s lots of ways to do it and solar systems are very scaleable.  We’re hoping we can show there’s nothing to be afraid of.  You can do it little by little or you can go whole hog and start from the beginning and do everything right from day one.”

There are challenges, however, facing the value shift to renewable and sustainable green solutions.  There seems to be three main prejudices.

Dave explains, “It’s a sense that this stuff is just too expensive, it can’t be afforded.  The only way it makes any sense that anybody could ever buy it is if the government hands out checks.  That’s a prejudice that goes back to the first solar dawn back in the early 80’s.

“The other prejudices have to do with whether or not solar actually works, whether or not the technology is good enough to actually replace fossil fuel.  People hear that a solar panel is a 14-15% efficiency, they say, ‘My electric heater is 100% efficient.’ So, when you start to look at things like that, it makes it a more difficult challenge.

“It’s true that solar panels don’t have much more than a 14 or 15% efficiency in most cases but the resource that you’re drawing from is unlimited.  And so, even if it’s only 5 or 10%, it’s still cumulatively a huge amount of power that can come down and be captured.”

“And, it’s free power,” Steve adds.

“Yeah, it’s free power once the initial investment is made,” confirms Dave.

“The other prejudice against solar is it’s bone ugly.  And that was, again, part of the first dawn of solar when a lot of folks got into the business and started hanging all kinds of things off houses that looked like Coney Island.

“In a lot of cases, the people who were doing this were into it for the government incentive checks.  As soon as the government incentive checks stopped coming, they went out of business promptly and they left a lot of junk on people’s roofs.  After a couple years, it quit working and the people were left with a bad taste in their mouth about whether solar really works or can work.

“So, those are the three prejudices we have to combat.”

Dave concludes, “Solar and green, they are beautiful and they can be worked into a design for any home and to be elegant and be lovely all for themselves.

“The other thing that we’re trying to say is that it is affordable.  Now, certainly government incentives help.  And, there’s going to be, I suppose, under this new administration what they’re calling a ‘New Green Deal.’  And, they’re going to be putting money into our infrastructure.  That’s fantastic!  That’s exactly what we need to do and I’m happy to see that come and, naturally, we support that.

“But, the other thing is the fact of whether or not it actually works.  It will work, it works splendidly but it’s all a question of re-sizing our demand.

“If we want to keep using at 40 or 50 or 60 kilowatt hours a day….if we want to keep heating the night sky by not insulating our homes or windows….if we want to maintain wasteful habits of driving giant, giant cars around that suck up 6 miles of gas for every mile….if we want to do those kind of things then no amount of energy is enough.

“We have to start to look at what we actually use and once we look at our demand, and once we look at our load, then it’s easy to come up with an affordable and sensible answer to that.  And then, we can make that beautiful and we can also make that affordable.

“So, those are the three things we’re asked to do.  When most people come to understand that they’re wasting more power than they’re actually using, then they say, ‘Gee, what can I do about that?’  Well, ‘Thank You,’ that’s the right question.  We can help you answer that question.”

What Matters Most    You might say Sara Snow is a natural.

Her parents, Tim and Pattie Redmond, pioneers in the organic food industry, are the founders of Eden Foods.  Sara grew up in a home focused on conserving natural resources, reducing the impact on the environment and providing the family with the healthiest foods possible.

The Redmond family lived in an idyllic setting in the sticks of northern Michigan where their home was equipped with solar panels and stocked with food harvested from their own garden.

Sara was lucky enough to be raised around a dinner table that hosted guests who would soon become the leaders in the natural and organic food industry.  From her earliest childhood, she’s been inspired by their leadership as well as other like them and in her new book, Fresh Living, she shares her wealth of knowledge with us.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Green Diva: Robyn O’Brien

Sara introduces us to green diva, Robyn O’Brien who is the founder of the Allergy Kids Foundation.  Robyn, a mother of four kids, launched AllergyKids on Mothers Day 2006 after her fourth child was diagnosed with food allergies.  As a result of her daughter’s severe allergic reaction to scrambled eggs, Robyn began reading food labels, discovering the unhealthy truth about our food supply.

As a long-time conservative Republican, Robyn’s experiences in motherhood led her on an unexpected journey into the food industry revealing how the processed food corporations, chemical corporations and the federal government allow toxic proteins and allergens to enter into the American food supply.

O’Brien never considered herself to be an environmentalist or tree-hugger.  She describes herself as a “kid hugger” and it was O’Brien’s love of her children that led to her shocking discoveries.

As explained at her website, “AllergyKids directly impacts the well-being and livelihood of children and their families by creating universal awareness of food allergies, educating the population about the severity of food allergies and the important role that diet can play in healing these children.”

Overwhelmed by the knowledge of the ingredients of what her kids were eating, O’Brien started waging her personal campaign against the conventional wisdom of what we usually considered “good” food and started changing the foods she was feeding her family by providing them with fresh, natural products.  This is why Robyn O’Brien is one of Sara Snow’s Fresh Living heroes.

Heart of the Home: Your Kitchen

Sara Snow explains, “In the kitchen, food is, of course, paramount.  In my opinion, food is one of the first steps, the most important step someone can take when they’re trying to live that healthier life.  It’s such an important part of who we are.

“We make countless food decisions every single day-at least three involving three square meals-and probably twenty different food choices every single day.  It’s a real opportunity to affect your body for the better or sadly for the worse.”

Sara continues, “In the kitchen, there are choices you can make to have a healthier family and a healthier home by infusing more organics into your diet, organically grown foods, not only fruits and vegetables but also things like cereal, milk and cheese.

“[You can] buy more locally grown foods, too.  So, that means shopping at a farmer’s market or belonging to a CSA.  CSA means “Community Supported Agriculture.”  It’s a system by which you actually become a member of a farm.  So, in exchange for a membership fee, you get a weekly share of that farm’s crop.  That’s two good ways to get fresh, local food, which is so important.

“Our foods travel so far in this country.  On the average, they travel about 1,600 miles so when you look down at your plate of chicken, broccoli and potatoes, those foods travel over a thousand miles just to get there.  So, it wastes a lot of freshness but it also wastes a lot of petroleum and other natural resources in the transportation of those foods.  This is why buying local foods is so important.

“It supports your local economy.  It supports your local farmers.  Often times, it’s the small family farms that absolutely need our support and so important to the vibrant nature of our country.  It’s so important that you support them.  And then, you’re getting the freshest food possible so that should also correlate into the healthiest food.”

Fair Trade in Your Kitchen

Another decision we can make when buying products for our kitchen and throughout our home is to be sure imported goods obtain a Fair Trade Certification.  “It means the farmers or the producers of that product were paid a fair wage, that they were given fair working conditions,” Snow elaborates.

“Often what happens is that a community can really be changed as a result of your purchasing those fair trade products because those families are able to purchase better food for their families, afford better health care, invest back into their farms, into their communities and into whatever product they’re producing for you.

“It’s a tremendous way to affect some real change just by choosing those food items or other items around the house that have the fair trade logo on them.  So, in the kitchen you’ll most often see fair trade tea, coffee, chocolate; a lot of time, people see fair trade bananas.  But, it also extends into baskets, blankets and jewelry pieces.”

Fair trade practices add another dimension to what we mean by sustainable.  It means that just not the product is sustainable but also that the community is sustainable.

Sara adds, “It’s not only about sustaining ourselves.  I think that, especially in this country, we focus a lot on how can I be healthier, how can I be wealthier, how can I be more comfortable, how can I be more sustaining.  And, it’s really not just about ourselves.

“We have to step back and look and see we all share this planet, we’re all in this together, and really it’s about how can we sustain not only ourselves but our communities, our state, our country, our world, our planet as a whole.  That also means reaching across and sustaining communities who may be half way across the globe.”

Sara Snow grew up in this life of healthier, greener, fresher living.  She understands that it is a possibility to live this life and embrace these values.  Maybe it requires some sacrifices and it may not be easy but it’s important we make changes today.

As in the case of Robyn O’Brien’s family, Sara knows people suffer health issues.  Sara believes that if we can all decide to make one or two small changes, if we can all group together and take small steps toward healthier, sustainable living, this is how we will collectively affect some big positive changes.