Cinnamon Swirl

Nature close-ups

2007-10-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

One highlight of the retreat was seeing two Western Blue-Tailed Skinks. These are beautiful little lizards with metallic-blue tails that really catch the eye in an otherwise green-and-brown forest setting.

Oh, and another highlight was seeing a tarantula :-). It was quite large-- perhaps 6 or 7 inches including the legs. It was fascinating to watch it walking down some steps outside the retreat center. It would hang its body and seven legs over the step, just suspended by one leg. But it wasn't quite big enough to stretch to the next step, so it would hang for a few seconds and then just... let go, and drop onto the flat surface of the step. Magnificent.

New major at Stanford

2007-10-03T09:26:00.000-07:00

Stanford has launched an intriguing new major in its Engineering department: the Atmosphere and Energy major.

The interdisciplinary undergraduate program is being launched as governments and businesses around the world try to reconcile their need for energy with increasing concern about the effects of pollution on human health and the climate.

"The major will create students who will have the skills to do things that are in high demand," said Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. "To come up with creative solutions to global warming and pollution while also addressing energy needs."

Neat stuff. I would guess we'll see more and more programs like this at many undergraduate institutions. The thing to notice here is that this major is in a mainstream department -- the full-fledged Engineering department. It was not created as a "special" program sequestered off to one side, like an "Atmospheric Sciences" program or an "Environmental Engineering" minor. This major stands side-by-side with Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering in status (if not yet in numbers-- but just wait).

A quiet fortnight

2007-09-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

I am leaving later today to go on a 2-week silent meditation retreat. It's a small group-- perhaps 20 of us. This will be the longest time I've spent on retreat. I feel happy that we will be there supporting each others' practice. Sometimes the impression is that meditation is a solitary, even an isolated, activity, but it is not.

More words to come here in October...

Failure of Imagination at Burning Man?

2007-09-16T07:21:00.001-07:00

Joel Makower, a long-time consultant, analyst, and supporter of green business, went to Burning Man this year. He was intrigued by the Green Man theme, and had also been invited to engage in a public dialogue with his friend, the editor of Conscious Choice magazine.

Makower wrote an interesting blog entry about it. Here's the part that caught my eye:

There was more than a little skepticism about companies' motivations in "going green," but more than that I was struck by the audience's failure of imagination. I asked the group, which seemed overwhelmingly to dislike Wal-mart, what it would take for that company to be seen as green. No one had a clue. I threw out a few ideas -- "What if every Wal-mart store had a 'small-mart' inside with outlets featuring local merchants and products?" "What if every store was solar-powered, with excess energy fed back to the local community?" -- but there were no takers. Even this relatively creative bunch couldn't envision how a behemoth retailer could ever be an environmental role model. That's a concern -- not just for Wal-mart, or retailers in general, but for any big brand seeking to be seen as a model green citizen.

Attendees-- nay, devotees-- of Burning Man pride themselves on their outrageous imaginations and unrivaled creativity in the face of a habit-prone, half-asleep society. Much of that slumber is, in my view and probably theirs too, due to the numbing effect of modern business. Did they really have no creative ideas except to throw out the whole concept of Wal-Mart?

Hmmm. Let's take a broader view. I am not sure I would call the audiences' non-responsiveness a failure of imagination. After all, the culture set up at Burning Man is consciously non-commercial. Transactions are based on gifting or barter, rather than money. Essentially, participants are creative enough to imagine and enact an entire system that is different from the one we usually live in. If I were in such a mindstate, it might indeed be hard to get back inside the commercial viewpoint and start imagining different possibilities for a company like Wal-Mart. My guess is that Makower simply encountered the people in the audience at a time when they weren't in the right mode to answer his query.

However, there is no need to choose which kind of creativity is "better." We need imaginative solutions for companies right now, as well as imaginative options that launch us beyond the current system. Both the present and the future need to be transformed, so we can celebrate the fact that people are working on both fronts.

Maybe the best ideas and actions are the ones that transform both the present and the future. What might those look like?

Subtle but important

2007-09-15T07:53:00.000-07:00

Experience does not happen to us; experience is what we do with what happens to us.
--Gervase Bushe

10 Questions for the Dalai Lama

2007-09-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago, I took a voyage down to Monterey to see a movie: 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama. Oh, it was worth the trip. This movie is moving, thoughtful, painful, and beautiful. I cried many times, both from compassion and from inspiration.

Here’s the descriptor from the website:

How do you reconcile a commitment to non-violence when faced with violence? Why do the poor often seem happier than the rich? Must a society lose its traditions in order to move into the future? These are some of the questions posed to His Holiness the Dalai Lama by filmmaker and explorer Rick Ray. Ray examines some of the fundamental questions of our time by weaving together observations from his own journeys throughout India and the Middle East, and the wisdom of an extraordinary spiritual leader. This is his story, as told and filmed by Rick Ray during a private visit to his monastery in Dharamsala, India over the course of several months. Also included is rare historical footage as well as footage supplied by individuals who at great personal risk, filmed with hidden cameras within Tibet. Part biography, part philosophy, part adventure and part politics, "10 Questions for The Dalai Lama" conveys more than history and more than answers - it opens a window into the heart of an inspiring man.

The film shows many sides of the Dalai Lama. I enjoyed seeing his playful side in particular, the part that is bored with religious ritual (despite his embodiment as a religious leader). There was amusing footage of the Dalai Lama dashing delightfully into the crowd that had gathered to watch a religious procession because he recognized someone there. During long pageants and celebrations, he sometimes gazes at other people or examines a nearby flower arrangement.

When he traveled the world in the 70s and 80s to gain support for Tibet, he traveled coach class. His logic was that if world leaders were truly welcoming him as a person, it would not matter what door of the plane he walked out of.

There was a moving interview with a Tibetan monk who had been imprisoned and tortured in China. The monk had begun believing in nonviolence, but after being tortured, his mind was filled with hate and revenge, and he told the Dalai Lama that they should use weapons to attack the Chinese. In his account, he talked with the Dalai Lama for two hours, after which he returned to favoring nonviolence. The Chinese may be powerful enough to make a monk want to kill, but it took them years of torturing him to do that. The Dalai Lama altered him back to a mind of peace and goodness in just two hours. Which is more powerful?

Some of the most amazing footage is that filmed in secret in Tibet. Some is being released for the first time in this movie. It shows Chinese forces attacking monasteries and towns, sometimes beating unarmed monks and citizens.

I very much appreciated seeing the Dalai Lama’s compassionate and equanimous side in the movie also. He takes in the violence of the world—really sees it—but fashions a skillful response. He does not get upset or vengeful. Nor does he deny it or condone it. He deals with it, patiently trying to transform what he calls “negative emotion” into feelings of connection. It’s a long task, given the floods of negative emotion running through the world, but he’s a patient man. He never stops this task. Every chance he gets—from encountering a minor annoyance to facing the brutality of war—he finds a way not to fall into the trap of perpetuating hatred, ill will, greed, or fear. In every case, the buck stops here. It’s inspiring to watch.

I highly recommend this movie.

Anita Roddick flies free

2007-09-10T20:09:00.000-07:00

Died last night at age 64. May she find peace. She certainly enhanced the world with her presence.

Face time

2007-09-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

'Tis Kim.

The Joy Diet - my own take on Slow Food

2007-09-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

I've been seeing more and more "sustainability diets" -- 100% Organic, The Food Stamp Diet, The 100-Mile Diet, even The 100-Yard Diet. Having just read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, my eyes are attuned to such things, and I've even been tempted to try one or the other of these culinary challenges.

But I'd rather invent my own. Why? Because many of these diets seem to miss the point by containing an air of moral superiority -- who can eat the most sustainably? As if there is a single, knowable answer. If the perfect sustainability diet becomes a formula you can follow without thinking in order to achieve a guilt-free lunch, how is it different from the weekly diet fad portrayed in the tabloids?

I can see it now: Lose 10 tons off your carbon footprint in just 10 days! Without going hungry!

The diet I am inventing contains the essential components that have meaning to me. I invite you to examine your own priorities and do what feels right to you. Here's what I want from my food: Joy. Not only the joy of eating something that tastes good or that I know is healthful for my body. I want to know that the food was provided to me with joy, by people who care about food, healthy living, and respecting the Earth. It's a lot like the Slow Food concept, but I'm using my own language.

We may choose a vegetarian diet to avoid cruelty to animals, but can we really feel good about eating vegetables from a farm that exploits Mexican laborers? In the Joy Diet, a strawberry picked in resentment by an underpaid illegal immigrant laborer would be shunned in favor of one picked by a person who sincerely cares about berries.

Other parts of the food supply chain matter too. I'd like to buy food from someone who smiles at me and genuinely hopes I enjoy it (say, the person at the farmer's market) than from a minimum-wage checkout clerk whose personhood has been diminished by the command-and-control environment of many large supermarket chains (this is not the clerk's fault, of course). And I'd like to eat food that was prepared lovingly by myself, a friend, or a dedicated chef, rather than mass-produced and put in a package identical to a million other such packages.

The Joy Diet is about eating food that was grown, sold, and cooked intentionally, for the purpose of nourishment and connection. This is a difficult diet to follow because such information is not always available (although it does favor items grown in your own garden and from smaller farms). We can never guarantee that every step of the chain contained that intentionality and joy, but we can do the best we can.

At the very least, I can assure that I am one step of that chain: When I sit down to eat, I can remember all the people who contributed to bringing that food to my plate, and I can have a brief moment of appreciation for their contribution toward keeping me alive for another day. Doing this, I assure that no meal contains zero joy.

When I started thinking about who follows this diet most closely, the answers were interesting. One group is obviously people like Barbara Kingsolver's family, who committed to eating food from their own area (and mostly their own farm) for an entire year. In most cases, they knew who had grown the food they were eating. Another group includes the Buddhist nuns to whom I offer a meal from time to time. Buddhist monks and nuns cannot buy or cook food-- everything they eat is donated by laypeople, and they eat just once a day (or sometimes twice, but never after midday). In other words, they exert no control over their food-- no organic, no local, no vegan, etc. And yet, everyone who gives them food is doing so out of desire to support their practice, out of devotion to the way they are living their lives. So they are always assured that two steps in the chain contain intentionality: Those giving the food, and themselves eating it. The rest of us just get the second one. But if we are diligent, we can aspire for more by buying from farmer's markets, choosing organic options, and other elements that might be found in more formulaic sustainability diets.

I feel that if people were committed to growing and eating food that is healthful and brings us joy to cook and serve, then many of the other problems with our food supply and food choices would resolve themselves. We would naturally stop overusing pesticides and nitrogen-based fertilizers, and would treat farm labor more humanely. We would cook more and rush our meals less. There is plenty of room for individuality in the Joy Diet-- no need to become a tofu-lover or give up dessert. Just pay attention.

I can say from experience that this way of eating has good results.

The electric car isn't dead yet

2007-09-08T18:39:00.000-07:00

I just saw a cute electric car parked by Trader Joe's. License plate: WATTGAS. I love it.

Tai chi and calligraphy

2007-09-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

Another interesting detail from the CXW workshop (see below) is that Grandmaster Chen is an accomplished calligrapher. He showed us samples, which were stunningly gorgeous. I certainly don't have a trained eye, but the balance and grace in the characters sang forth from the scrolls. He explained that the tai chi movements inform the strokes. I imagined him doing the xin jia form that we learned at the workshop-- with an inkbrush in his hand.

The Grandmaster of Chen tai chi

2007-09-02T06:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended an all-day tai chi workshop with Chen Xiao Wang, a current Grandmaster of the Chen tai chi form. He was visiting from China. It was a pretty big deal. We don't think about these sort of time scales in the West, but Chen tai chi was founded centuries ago.

The training was physically tiring (9 am - 6 pm), and yet in that tai chi way, also physically energizing. The workshop was large-- maybe 50 people, (in a hot gym with loud fans.) CXW speaks English reasonably well, or at least adequately to lead a workshop. His voice was quiet and gentle, but he was firm in making us do what he wanted. He was particular about where we stood, and spent a lot of time adjusting us in our rows throughout the day. We alternated doing the form and sitting in a circle while he demonstrated portions of the form. The atmosphere was quiet and formal, with no chitchat among the students except during breaks. As a meditation retreat veteran, this felt normal and comfortable to me. I realized it might not be to everyone when my tai chi teacher (also a student at the workshop) commented on it to me at a break, as if to make me feel more comfortable. I didn't actually need that.

The form we learned was "xin jia" or "new framework," which I hadn't done before. Some of the moves were familiar-- lots of tai chi is combinations of familiar stuff. (Kind of like cooking uses all the same ingredients in different combinations). But overall, I always had to take my cue for the next move by watching CXW or an advanced student nearby. An hour or so into the workshop, I realized that my intention was really not to come away knowing the xin jia form-- that would be impossible in just one day. That made everything easier! Then I just fell into feeling the moves, as clumsy as I was, with no obligation to actually learn the form. In doing so, I learned some tai chi-- how to move the energy and feel the body-- if not the specific form itself.

Learning from Grandmasters and other "stars" has a distinct quality. We can intuitively sense when a person is truly accomplished in an art -- that's why they are respected as a Grandmaster -- and hence we know we are getting a really high-quality lesson. Just watching CXW's body move was like witnessing the purity of nature: A sunrise, a powerful redwood tree, a running hyena. And there is a communication there that goes beyond words. My body can learn just from mimicking his, and the learning is at a direct level that doesn't require my brain to intercede.

At this time in the world, such Grandmasters can travel widely, influencing large numbers of people through these types of workshops (and less intensively through videos). But very few students get access to them as direct apprentices for extended periods because they are so busy travelling the world. (Or at least, the ones I see are. Now that I write it this way, I realize that there are also quiet Grandmasters who still carry the tradition of training proteges directly).

But that leads to the next point: Day to day practice. That's where the real training comes. We can't improve ourselves just hitting the one-day workshops with the highest Grandmasters we can find. We grow through steady, unglamorous work. Now, we do need a teacher. Any skill worth really learning will be hard enough that we need a mentor and guide who gets to know us personally and trains us in a way that works for us. But absent being able to work directly with CXW, the Buddha, or Mozart, we can still benefit greatly from a reasonably accomplished teacher who is both humble and confident, both compassionate and challenging, and who genuinely wants us to succeed.

So if you don't know any Grandmasters, don't worry about it. Just keep practicing; that's what counts.

Buddhism and Sustainability

2007-08-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

I was asked to sit on a panel at a local Buddhist group -- a teacher was out of town, so the students put together this panel on Buddhism and the environment. One person spoke about composting and buying organic, while another (a professor of ecology) spoke about ecology vs environmentalism and the pursuit of truth through science. Both topics link nicely to Buddhism.

After all that inspirational stuff, my topic was ..... business. But actually, sustainable business links to Buddhism too. I shared a couple of ways that my current schooling and consulting in sustainable business relate to my Buddhist practice. In fact, I appreciated the opportunity to explore and integrate my ideas about this.

My views are somewhat in flux, but for now, here are my thoughts on the intersection of Buddhism, environmentalism, and business:

Buddhism and Sustainability

I am studying Sustainable Business. The word “sustainable” or “sustainability” is not easy to define, but the concept can be understood fairly easily: The current way that we use the Earth’s resources to meet human needs is not wise and cannot continue in the same manner for much longer. We are using things up too quickly, destroying habitats and other species in the process. We need something more harmonious that will serve long into the future.

“Sustainable development” is commonly defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brundtland Report, 1987). It encompasses the way we make and use money, the way we handle the Earth’s resources, and the way we build our society and human relationships. There are other terms for “sustainability” also— “resilience” or “harmony,” for example.

Sustainable businesses are concerned with the “triple bottom line”—meaning that they endeavor to add environmental and social value in addition to making a financial profit. We say it as, People, planet, profit. The three legs of sustainable business.

But what does sustainable business have to do with Buddhism? There are probably many connections; I’d like to discuss two that are meaningful for me, one practical and one more idealistic.

Starting with the practical, we can use the cornerstone Buddhist principle of acknowledging and dealing with reality. At this time, all but a very small number of the world’s economies are essentially capitalist. And of the world’s 100 largest economic entities, around 50 are countries and around 50 are companies. If we are to transform our methods of meeting human needs, business must be included.

Sometimes in environmental or social justice circles, an assumption is made that business is evil. Phrases like “the corporate empire” or “global corporate hegemony” are said casually, implying that business is always a problem, and it is best to ignore it, resist it, or otherwise work outside of it.

But is this true?

A further assumption is that business is totally different from Nature, which is naturally mutualistic, synergistic, and harmonious.

But is this true? Conservation biologist and long-time Buddhist practitioner Michael Soule points out that we need to include everything in our view of Nature:

“There’s a false romanticism in contemporary Buddhism, […] which is the denial of nature’s dark, violent side. Buddhists may want to perceive balance, harmony, and nonviolence in ecosystems because such a view would seem to justify nonviolence in human communities. But murder and infanticide are common in mammals [and other creatures]. Should this be a model for human behavior? Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, even though it may be adaptive in an evolutionary sense. [The point is,] when you look at nature from a Buddhist point of view, you have to accept the whole package, not just look at the things you like about nature, its beauty and grace, and forget the rest.”

Bringing business into the picture, we can notice that the world is economically interdependent just as surely as it is ecologically interdependent. To a greater degree than ever before in history, my welfare is connected to that of other people in distant countries. Including business in our field of practice is a way of taking responsibility for our economic interdependence.

This includes our consumer buying decisions, but it also includes the practice of business itself. Can business have a heart?

Interface Flooring Systems has a goal called Mission Zero: Eliminating any negative impact of its operations on the environment by 2020. Since 1996, it has decreased its waste to landfill by 70%. Employee bonuses are linked to environmental improvement.
Nau clothing gives 5% of its sales (not profits) to charities, as well as designing its products with their entire life cycle in mind to minimize environmental impact. The company website includes a blog written by employees about practicing sustainability.
REI redesigned the way it gives product information to customers, potentially reducing its use of paper by 37,000 pounds per year. (A single action by business can have a large impact compared to our individual conservation efforts).
David Green figured out a new method of doing simple cataract surgery in India, as well as a new way to manufacture intraocular lenses. The lenses from his company, Aurolab, cost $4 apiece, compared to other companies’ prices of $100. He then devised a tiered pricing model for his hospitals whereby wealthier patients pay a higher price and subsidize 65%-100% of the surgery cost for poorer patients, so that now more than 200,000 cataract operations are performed per year in India, compared to just 5,000 before he arrived. He calls this “compassionate capitalism.” (David Green meditates, by the way).

None of this is to justify or condone the very real damage that has been done by global business or the stunningly uncompassionate actions companies have taken. There is plenty of ignorance and greed in the business world.

The point is that we can choose to work toward a better way. There is nothing wrong with using the water, land, and minerals of the Earth to support human life. (There is no need to feel guilty about eating, taking a shower, or whatever). What matters is how we do it. Are we going to pursue hoarding, grasping, and disrespectful taking, or are we going to treat the resources around us as gifts, sources of joy, and opportunities for practice and insight?

This leads to the second, more idealistic, connection I see between business, environmentalism, and Buddhism.

There is a verse in the Dhammapada – verse 283 (in “The Path,” Magga), Gil Fronsdal's translation – that is humorously environmental on the surface, but also points toward the challenges we face with global business.

Cut down the forest [of desire], not [real] trees.
From the forest [of desire], fear is born.
Having cut down both the forest and the underbrush,
Monks, be deforested [of desire].

Notes on page 134-135 of Gil’s translation:

"This verse seems to contain a number of word plays and so is difficult to translate. For example, it plays on the two meanings of vana, “forest” and “desire.” The commentaries explain that once, when the Buddha told his monks to cut down the vana, they started to clear the forest. He then had to clarify that he meant to “cut down the forest of desire, not the forest of trees.” […] The verse might also be punning between nibbanaa (“free of forest”) and nibbana (Nirvana)."

One reason our current business practices are unsustainable is that they are born from a thick forest of desire. We generate and buy more and more “stuff,” which we then have to protect. We fear losing what we have, even though it seems not to be making us happy. As the Dhammapada verse states, indulging our desires creates fear. When you read the newspaper, and especially the business section, most of it is about desire and fear.

The companies mentioned previously are not “Buddhist companies” (whatever that would be!). They are part of the growing population of companies, non-profits, and other groups dedicated to practicing sustainable and responsible business. In a sense, these companies “swim against the stream” — the stream of the conventional single bottom line that only cares about short-term financial profit.

But is it enough? A triple bottom line is still a bottom line. It’s still about competing in a marketplace, selling goods, and paying salaries. Only a handful of businesses are daring to venture beyond recognized models.

Some are. There is a non-profit in Portland Oregon called SCRAP (the School & Community Reuse Action Project). They operate a retail store selling art and creative materials that are donated in an effort to keep them out of the landfill. Although SCRAP is doing retail, their inventory is donated — an interesting merging of dana (generosity/donations) and capitalism. Other examples include community repair/reconstruction shops, blood donation, common pool resources, social entrepreneurship, micro lending, time banks, shared computer processing power, and Fair Trade practices.

But for those companies still practicing the bottom line, I see it as a process. Moving from a single bottom line to a triple bottom line is not enough to save the planet, but in taking that step, businesses transform themselves into something new. And that new entity becomes capable of imagining other steps to take, which then leads to another transformation. We don’t have to see the end point from here. We can trust the process of expanding the consciousness of business to bring about transformative change. It is enough to see a little bit more interconnection and to have a little bit more ethical behavior this year than last year. Each tree of desire that we cut down saves several real trees.

I work as a sustainable business consultant, helping people in companies make their products and business practices more harmonious and humane. Some are just starting to wake up, while others already have quite a broad conscience. This work brings me face to face with my own desires, aversions, and delusions. In my lifetime, I don’t expect to see world peace or a full economic transformation come to fruition, but I do know that I will see more and more deeply into my own mind as I work with other people aspiring to comprehend the economic Indra’s Net that we live in.

When the forest of desire is cut down everywhere, we will have no further worries about the real trees that grow on Earth.

Cat community

2007-08-27T08:07:00.000-07:00

For complicated reasons, I spent 3 hours yesterday in a small apartment that houses 9 cats (and a rabbit). In fact, my job there was to provide some cuddling, as they had not had that for a while.

As might be expected, these cats had formed their own community. They've known each other for a long time, and two sets of three of them are littermates. I was the intruder-- although the important one with opposable thumbs-- and it was an interesting process to get to know these felines.

I have included their real names on the grounds that they probably wouldn't mind and don't have reputations that can be manipulated anyway.

During the time there, I did verify that yes, there are 9 cats. At some point, I saw all of them, although a couple just for a moment. Berg and Abbey were the bravest and friendliest, both taking turns on my lap. When one slipped off to get food, the other zipped over and claimed the space. I regret that I really only have space for one cat on my body. I should say that their owner's no-cats-on-the-couch rule has pretty much gone by the wayside. Abbey has created her own dent in the easy chair by the window, and most horizontal surfaces are totally coated with fur. I sat on the couch and let them walk all over me and anywhere else they wanted.

Fae came by many times to snuggle around my neck and sniff my head, and even accepted a little petting. Neb showed off his huge, fearful eyes, but somehow got past that raw emotion to receive some petting. Clearly the desire for touch was strong enough to break through the fear barrier.

Elora, I feel, is having a hard time. She's actually the one I saw first when I came in the door, and she never warmed up to me. Growling and hissing, she let me know I was NOT the right person to walk in and start doing things like putting bags of laundry away. She wanted to sniff and sniff and sniff me, but the scent never got familiar. I tried ever so gently petting her, which was OK for a few strokes, but eventually she swatted me so I stopped pushing it. Later, she was willing to sit warily a few feet away from me and even dozed off, so perhaps I was at least downgraded from Extreme Threat to merely Suspicious. Even by the end, she still growled at me on the way out. I was glad she had her 8 companions still-- it seems to be a stressful time for her.

Climber mostly sat on the stairs and watched me. He has an intellectual look. At first his eyes were filled with fear, but later he seemed to have settled into acute observation and even some scientific testing. I noticed him moving down the stairs slowly. At first, he perched up just where the staircase gets a view of downstairs. An hour later, he was about 3 stairs lower. And then he was another stair lower, and actually lying down. He took a lazy nap there, his feet draped over the stair. When he woke up, he began inching toward the place where he could go from the stairs to the back of the couch (where I was sitting). He didn't make it the first time because I looked up at him. But later, when he inched forward again, I was careful to watch only out of the corner of my eye. With great deliberation, he tiptoed off the back of the couch and over my legs to jump down to the floor. He seemed amazed and relieved that it had gone so well. He got some food, and when he went back upstairs, he made great effort to walk all the way around behind the chair in the front window and past the front door, perhaps so he wouldn't have to go right by the couch in plain sight. But overall, he seemed happy to have conducted a few experiments with this new, strange human, and survived to tell about it. I could see the wheels turning in his head as he wrote his own lab report about what happened.

Pip I saw once. I looked up from my book, and he was suddenly there on the stairs, just looking at me. He didn't stay long once he had been noticed, but he didn't have a panicked look in his eyes either. It was more like he was just having a look to see what all the fuss downstairs was about, and once he had seen it, he could go back upstairs.

The other mainly-white one, whose name I've forgotten, also appeared once, or maybe twice. Both times, it was behind Climber on the stairs, sort of peering over his shoulder. That one genuinely looked scared and didn't have any interest in eye contact.

The shadowy black one was the same -- just one appearance near the top of the stairs, and then zipped back to safety. In that one's case, it seemed like appearing was a mistake. He/She thought that because it was quiet, all the humans were probably gone, but NO!! There was still a human there, reading on the couch. Horrors!!!! What a cruel trick, to be quiet, but still be there.

Some folks make broad statements about "cats" as a whole. But anyone who knows cats well knows that they are each totally unique. These 9 offered a rich spectrum on this fascinating visit.

A new basis for Arab economies

2007-08-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

Part of sustainability for countries in the Middle East is figuring out a basis for livelihood beyond selling petroleum. For all our talk about "ending our dependence on foreign oil," it will come to an end some way or other as oil resources dwindle.

And then what? Naturally, we are most focused on the effect this will have on ourselves, so we are pursuing many alternative energy options. We worry about how we will make and distribute goods, including food, as well as how we will travel for business and pleasure.

But what about for the countries that used to sell petroleum? Neither they nor the rest of the world can afford a collapse of their economies. (If you think the raw emotion pouring out of that region of the world is powerful now, imagine how it will be when they are having trouble feeding themselves.) That's why this article caught my eye:

Venture Capital to Boost Innovation in Arab World

The amount of money they are talking about is rather paltry at this point (although presumably it is not as expensive to do research there as it would be in, say, Silicon Valley). But still, this is a good start to building a foundation of value for their societies. After all, the first scientists were from the Arab world. They were far ahead of their European counterparts in such fields as astronomy and mathematics. Maybe it's time to reconnect to those roots.

Free kids

2007-08-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

In the past few days, I've seen an amazing and heartening sight on several occasions: Groups of two or three kids hanging out together on their bikes/skateboards or walking. They're not under the watchful eyes of paranoid parents, or boxed into the security of a minivan or SUV. No, they are actually right out there in the elements, unsupervised. Laughing and joking, and looking carefree and happy.

Can you believe it?

It's pretty shocking in these times of terror -- irrational parental terror, that is. How nice to see kids being allowed to be kids, exploring the world on their own terms. Learning by experience in an outdoor setting, not indoors on a video screen. It's too late for some kids-- who were fenced in like workers at the clothing factories in Southeast Asia (for their own protection, of course). But perhaps a few from the next generation will have some direct understanding of the world they live in. Without that, the Earth is really in trouble, not to mention human relations.

I am aware that this post leans toward one end of a spectrum of sentiment. But it's the end that needs more emphasis right now. If you've got kids, please let them out. We don't need more Nature Deficit Disorder.

Seeing without context

2007-08-15T07:58:00.000-07:00

Having just returned from a 10-day silent meditation retreat, I read this essay about photography as an essay about meditation. What we see in our minds is not so different from a series of photographs, to which we automatically apply captions, labels, comments, and context. What if we didn't do that? What would we see in there?

Come and see.

BGI on YouTube

2007-08-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

BGI was recently featured on "Peak Moment" -- here's the YouTube video. It's a 25-minute interview with our esteemed and fearless Dean, Jill Bamburg.

I'll let it speak for itself.

Calling SF residents

2007-08-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

If you live in San Francisco and don't have solar panels, this may be of interest. The city has a challenge to install solar on 10,000 buildings, and is only 5% of the way there. You can find out the potential of any building for solar with this handy map:

San Francisco Solar Map

Perhaps it will inspire other cities to create their own maps too.

New dimension?

2007-07-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

I put a blanket in the wash today, first checking the tag just to be sure it could go in the washer. It said: "Machine wash cold with like colors. Turn inside out." I really tried, but had to admit defeat.

B Corporations

2007-07-26T07:02:00.000-07:00

There are certain accepted business structures - eg, sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations (differing mainly on legal liability, ownership, and methods of financing). And within corporations, there are several structures. Now there is a new one.

B Corporations.

The "B" is for Benefit. B Corps agree to adopt a version of the triple-bottom-line in their corporate charter. This means measuring and acting in favor of not only financial profit, but also environmental and social value. B Corps intend consciously to do good-- for people, the planet, and in creating financial value. They deliberately seek the places where these things overlap and enhance each other.

I find this heartening. A handful of companies have pioneered the B-Corp status, and others will likely follow. It may not become mainstream anytime soon (Wal-mart? Hmm. Probably not even HP), but it demonstrates to all companies that there is an option about how to be in the business world. The goal and intention behind a business is a genuine choice; it's not just "all-out-for-financial profit" or "take-the-high-road-and-be-a-nonprofit."

I suspect B Corps-- if and when they include public companies-- will be pretty interesting to SRI (socially responsible investment) funds. Given that this type of investment is becoming more popular, it is likely becoming "safer" to go public as a socially-minded organization.

Adhering to a triple bottom line is different from adhering to the single (financial) bottom line we have now. It requires more complex thinking, for one thing. But it also begins to loosen the unnecessary associations that have grown in our minds between suppressing our values and making a living. Many of us have come to dully accept that if we want to support our families, we need to knuckle under and work in a hierarchical office with rules that make no sense, doing something we're not that connected to that probably also burns the planet's resources. What choice is there, we think day after day as we plod through our lives.

Well, there is a choice. If we decide to make it. The new presence of B Corporation status offers that choice to CEOs when it didn't officially exist before. The rest of us have to make it in our own way also.

What's stopping you?

Do you need a Big Belly?

2007-07-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

Urban trash cans are often overflowing, despite being emptied multiple times/day (up to 10 in New York City!). While "reduce" is the best solution to our growing mountain of trash, Sea Horse Power has a nifty practical idea for urban waste. It's the Big Belly, a solar-powered compacting trash can! Using energy from the sun, it automatically crushes the deposited waste into two smaller cubes, ready for collection.

Watch the Big Belly in action

This is a great idea because denser urban living is often more sustainable than spread-out or rural options, and hence a method for controlling trash is welcome. Jim Poss, one of the inventors, is a professor at Bainbridge Graduate Institute, among other talents.

The future of solar power

2007-07-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

The future of solar is already here. A group of kids -- as in, 5th through 8th graders -- has created a solar energy start-up in Silicon Valley.

Start-Up Fueled by Kids' Imaginations

The energy and interest here are inspiring. These children are looking at the world and trying to help in whatever way they can, not from a place of greed or fear ("how can I get what I want and feel secure about it?"), but from a place of connection. They are totally undaunted by the fact that they can't create a standard balance sheet and don't have a clear sense of where the money they'll need is coming from. They are just going ahead with the idea that emerged.

So the rest of us hardly have an excuse for feeling daunted :-). This was a such a welcome inspiration for me to read this morning.

Body metaphors

2007-07-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

I recently read Donella Meadows' The Global Citizen, and felt freshly inspired about the wonders of systems theory. She had a marvelous gift for encapsulating complex ideas in readable essays formed around real-world examples, from policies to sheep farming. It reinforced the sense that although the world is not simple, it is comprehensible, and the roadblocks we suffer can be opened up by just a small shift in perspective.

A recent conversation with a friend centered on the use of body metaphors to reconceptualize economics. I found myself thinking of Meadows' beautifully interconnected worldview, and we mused on how to communicate the image of a biological economy. It's not a unique image-- others have seen it-- but we felt moved by its significance.

Of course, there is a broader perspective. Just today, I ran across this passage in Stephen Batchelor's Living with the Devil--

"In 494 BCE ... the consul Menenius Agrippa successfully put down a slave revolt in Rome. Agrippa persuaded the slaves that just as it would be unreasonable for the limbs of a body to rebel against the belly that sustains them, so it was unreasonable for workers to rebel against the Senate. Convinced, the slaves left their entrenched positions on the Aventine Hill and returned to the city to serve their masters. The same argument has also been used to justify the Indian caste system, in which each caste is seen as a different body part of the great primordial Man (Purusha): "His mouth became the Brahmin; his arms were made into the Warrior; his thighs the People, and from his feet the Servants were born." By sacrificing narrow self-interest and acting according to one's nature, each person thereby plays an essential role in sustaining the greater life of the whole.

When Shantideva uses this same organicist metaphor to illustrate how all beings are empathically interconnected, and Pascal and Eckhart, following Paul, draw on it to affirm how all members of the church are one in the body of Christ, they ignore its potential for justifying tyrrany. The story of Agrippa shows how the mere recognition of the organic interconnectedness of society is not in itself sufficient to generate compassion for others. Nor does the Indian belief that all people are one as members of a single body imply that they are entitled to the same rights or freedoms. [...]

Insight into the interconnectedness of life with only reinforce feelings of universal love and respect if we are already committed to the principles of equality, liberty, compassion, and nonviolence.... The image of life as a single organism in which we are all connected to each other is an insufficient basis for morality and ethics." (pp. 170-173)

His answer for what is a sufficient basis for morality is interesting too -- it's the realization of our own fragile vulnerability and the recognition that everyone else feels this at their core, too. Forget the organism -- we can connect on the level of being frightened little cells. And in fact, until we do this, we will not be able to create a well-functioning organism, an idea Batchelor develops throughout the course of the book.

Batchelor would agree with this comment from my friend (thanks J): "It's like a contrapositive -- knowing we're interconected doesn't bring peace, but forgetting that we are surely brings misery."

Cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax

2007-06-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

The United States Northeast has instituted the country's first mandatory cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Here's a map of how it works. Basically, there's a limit set on how much carbon can be emitted by the region, and all power plants will receive permits to emit some fraction of the total. Those who want to emit more than their allotment have to buy the right to do so from those who aren't using all of their allotment.

There are many instruments for lowering carbon emissions. Cap-and-trade is one, and a carbon tax is another. In some ways, carbon taxes and cap-and-trade are equivalent, but not all. In particular, in the event of a clean energy innovation, a carbon tax produces a superior result. Check out the economics:

First, consider the demand curve that could be drawn on a graph with Quantity of CO2 (Q) on the x-axis and Price of CO2 (P) on the y-axis. The demand curve slopes down to the right because higher carbon emissions are only desirable if the price of CO2 goes down.

A carbon tax amounts to controlling the P variable. The government might charge a price P* for emitting CO2, in which case companies will settle on emitting some quantity Q* that balances how much tax they pay with making money by producing and selling goods, which creates CO2. The government’s tax revenue is P*Q*.

In the case of cap-and-trade, it is Q that is controlled. Perhaps the government declares that only Q* of CO2 can be emitted and auctions off the permits to do that. The price of a permit will settle at - you guessed it - P* because that is the price that companies will be willing to pay for the right to emit Q* in their operations and still make the maximum profit possible. Again, the revenue from permits is P*Q* (although not to the government this time). [Aside: Notice that the amount of money a company has to pay is identical whether there is a tax or cap-and-trade. These two choices are economically equivalent, even if they have a different psychological effect].

However, which axis is controlled affects what happens when there is a clean energy innovation. Such an innovation has the effect that less CO2 can be emitted for any given level of activity – in other words, the curve shifts to the left.

If there is a carbon tax, then that means the price of CO2 is held at P*, and the result is that Q(new) is to the left of Q* on the Q axis – ie, less CO2 is emitted.
But if there is a cap-and-trade system, then the quantity is held at Q*, and the result of the shift is that P(new) is below P* on the P axis – ie, the price of permits goes down.

Conclusion: Because the larger goal is less pollution, the carbon tax gives the better result.

The flip side is that the carbon tax gives the worse result if technology changes mean greater energy consumption. With a carbon tax, emissions would go up, supported by higher revenue from the new technology, while the cap-and-trade system would hold emissions steady at Q* (and the price of permits would rise). However, given that we are currently in a time of clean-tech goldrush, it seems far more likely that we'll benefit from the carbon tax. Thus, I support a carbon tax over cap-and-trade.

However, companies generally prefer cap-and-trade. Recall from above that they are totally economically equivalent to a company: the same dollars must be paid out. Maybe the preference has to do with maintaining some sense of control; the very word "tax" is annoying to companies. Or maybe there is an ulterior motive: they'd like to influence the type of cap-and-trade system such that it includes grandfathering.

There isn't just one way to set up the cap-and-trade system. One possibility is to do it like the Northeast is doing it, where the total emissions are capped at constant in the near term, and then begin declining. There is also a scheme that includes "grandfathering"-- allowing plants to keep emitting what they are already emitting even though the cap may go down in the future. That means the brunt of the lower emissions is borne by new power plants, the argument being that it makes more sense to start fresh building clean plants than to mess around spending money on improving old plants.

I'm not so sure it's worth "writing off" the old plants. And I suspect another reason why companies support grandfathering is that it allows them to buy time, hoping that the legislation will change before the cap starts going down. After all, the cap usually starts declining a few years in the future (2009 for RGGI)-- plenty of time to change political administrations and get the whole scheme changed.

Again, the carbon tax is the superior option for the actual goal.

On the other hand, I have a friend who just made the cut to proceed with a Phase II proposal to sell carbon credits to RGGI power plants. His little company could supply a couple hundred thousand out of the 188 million permits being issued. It's a neat energy production method too: a biodigester that turns manure into energy. This has the duel advantage of preventing the manure from turning into nitrogen pollution, which is a big problem in agriculture these days. So I wish him well.

[Supplementary note: I just ran across this bit from New Scientist (June 23):

New Scientist Magazine has undertaken a survey to measure the level of US public support for three different forms of carbon emission regulations on the production of electricity and the manufacture of vehicle fuel. The three forms of carbon regulations that were examined were: low-carbon standards (i.e. setting fixed carbon reduction targets for either producers of electricity or producers of vehicle fuel), emissions taxes and cap-and-trade systems (i.e. emissions trading). The survey found that US citizens showed a clear preference for schemes that would set mandatory low-carbon standards on either electricity generators or producers of vehicle fuel and cost the consumer the least. Thirty-nine percent preferred low-carbon standards for electricity generators, compared with 8 percent who wanted to see the introduction of a cap and trade system for the production of vehicle fuels by oil companies. The survey also found that 85 percent of US citizens believe that global warming is happening – similar to the findings of earlier research.

There is a third way to control carbon - just dictate that it must be reduced to X amount by some deadline. This is, hands-down, the least efficient and least pleasant way to do it. It's not even the most just. In other words, Americans are favoring the worst scheme from nearly any viewpoint. So we should not be surprised when policies created based on this viewpoint fail in the near future. Cause, effect.

Carbon taxes and cap-and-trade are both more likely to be effective.]