On, In, and Around

Shoppers were frantic yesterday at our local "big box" grocery store -- the "hoarding" instinct seems to click in when a storm is approaching. Probably good for the economy, I guess!
My habit of observing what people have in their grocery carts was in high gear. It's hard to muffle my internal editor, who wants to tap that young woman on the shoulder and say "Excuse me, but don't you realize for the price of that bag of frozen french fries, you could buy several pounds of fresh potatoes? And elminate the corn starch modifiers, anti-caking agents, and all other manner of chemical showers they've been sprayed with?" I bit my tongue...
This habit has gotten worse since my involvement in the Swedish "Natural Step", the framework developed to help folks analyze how their decisions impact four basic principles of sustainability. The principles make it easy to focus on "the big picture" in very small ways. Of course, Sweden is positioned largely on bedrock, and long ago ran out of 'good' places to bury trash. They've HAD to become more sustainable.
There are some very basic truths about the planet that scientists agree on, such as:
1. We're extracting substances from the earth's crust faster than the planet can deal with it.
2. We're inventing chemicals, not found in nature, that nature has no system to deal with - hence the buildup of transfats in the flesh of polar bears, etc....
3. We are PHYSICALLY degrading nature at a faster rate than it can repair itself; ie, overfishing, overlogging, overpaving, etc.
4. The factors above make it systematically very difficult for humans to meet their needs.

The Natural Step provides some basic frameworks to use in looking at these 'violations' above:

The first principle of sustainability: Eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of substances extracted from the Earth's crust (for example, heavy metals and fossil fuels)
The second: Eliminate our contribution to the progressive buildup of chemicals and compounds produced by society (for example, dioxins, PCBs, and DDT )
The third: eliminate our contribution to the progressive physical degradation and destruction of nature and natural processes (for example, over harvesting forests and paving over critical wildlife habitat); and
And the fourth: Eliminate our contribution to conditions that undermine people’s capacity to meet their basic human needs (for example, unsafe working conditions and not enough pay to live on).

A "backcasting" process allows individuals, businesses, municipalities and others to plan within their organizations for ways to better meet their needs. Looking ahead into the future and deciding, for example, that we want to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, allows us to project backwards in time to see what kinds of steps we can take NOW to move towards that goal.

The backcasting idea is used in education: decide what you want students to learn; then plan the steps of the lesson to get students there. It works, and it's decidedly NOT what our businesses, groups and municipalities routinely do. Take Enbridge Energy, for example. They are basing their proposals for a new, very expensive oil pipeline on THE SAME PROJECTIONS of energy needs FROM THE SAME SOURCES - rather than admitting that 30 years from now, fossil fuels may not be the way to go.

Backcasting is so logical that it quickly invades your thinking. Ditto for the principles of The Natural Step. When our stove broke the other week, I actually went through the mental gymnastics to look at the big picture of what kind of stove would be more sustainable: gas, or electric... I love the new commercial for Brita water filters, where a plastic bottle sits on a conference table. The caption: 20 minutes in the meeting, forever in the landfill....

What we're putting ON ourselves, from clothing to cosmetics; what we put IN ourselves - from genetically modified corn to Frankenfoods; and what we bring AROUND ourselves - our building materials, architecture, heating and cooling systems, etc. all have huge implications for sustainability.

Once you start thinking that way, it's very hard to go back!
Check online for more on The Natural Step. Also please view our website: www.sustainabletwinports.org; and our YouTube clips introducing the project (search Sustainable Twin Ports on YouTube) for more information....