Brene Brown: the power of vulnerability

Recently, a colleague forwarded me a talk at the TED conference by Brene Brown, a social researcher. The talk, entitled, "The power of vulnerability," explores some simple yet profound topics that are directly related to our authenticity and well-being.

As we grapple with the complexity of sustainability issues, perhaps looking at these basic human characteristics will go a long way to working effectively together and allow our best selves to shine through.

Sustainable Communities: The Oberlin Project

One of the more intriguing sustainability initiatives currently taking place is the Oberlin Project spearheaded by David Orr from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. The College owns a 13 acre plot in downtown Oberlin which they plan to develop and make a LEED platinum neighborhood. Working with the Clinton Global Initiative and the US Green Building Council, this initiative brings together a partnership with expertise in changing neighborhoods and improving peoples lives.

In their effort to revitalize about a dozen buildings in the next several years, this effort may prove to be a viable example of collaborations between colleges and their local communities. Rather than remaining as educational islands, by engaging with their communities colleges have an opportunity to implement their vision of sustainable practices into their local towns. In effect, expanding their ideas into projects that improve the lives of local residents while enhancing their educational mission. Replicating these types of projects may prove essential as we reinvent the meaning of creating sustainable and thriveable communities.

Paris: Electric Car Sharing Pioneer

Going beyond its already successful bicycle rental program, the city of Paris will launch a new electric car sharing program next year. It's great to see the idea expand from bikes to cars. Paris will be the first major city with such a program. The new program, called Autolib ("automobile" "liberte") is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 22,000 tons a year. The program will build 1,400 rental and re-charging stations in Paris and surrounding communities. Autolib is set up as a government/private industry partnership with Avis, the French National Railway company (SNCF) and the Paris Transit authority (RATP).

As the wave of electric cars is mainstreamed, and the suburban/metropolitan traffic congestion increases, I can envision this car sharing model becoming more popular and widespread in other cities. The convenience and cost (likely cost is approx. $6 to $9 per half hour) will likely appeal to tourists and residents who need a transportation solution that is free from car ownership.

For further details see: http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/JustOneThing/story?id=8291655&page=1

Presidio's MPA Program and Sacred Activism

Yesterday aI had an opportunity to speak to a terrific group of students from the Presidio Graduate School's Masters of Public Administration (MPA) in Sustainable Management program in San Francisco. What an amazing group that is studying ways to integrate sustainability policies with programs in government, NGO's and the private sector. These types of programs are at the vanguard of shifting the perspective for seeking effective initiatives that can make a different in people's lives. Our discussion turned towards what we can do as individuals and the importance of aligning our values with our work.

This brings me to the book by Andrew Harvey, The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism and the Institute for Sacred Activism and Networks of Grace. How to combine compassion and activism. The new institute lists a number of groups doing work in the sustainability field that embraces "compassion-in-action." What a great way to highlight grass roots efforts that are making positive changes by aligning ourselves with our purpose.

Bioneers and Beyond

Last weekend was the Bioneers conference in San Rafael, CA. For over 20 years the Bioneers conference has been spearheading the people and organizations leading the charge for environmental, social and economic change worldwide. Profiling the individuals and their work helps to ground these ideas with practical applications.

I participated in a new bioneers program titled, Backstage@Bioneers-- a live webcast interview program with host Terrence McNally. I was on the program with Sherry Boschert, founder of Plug In America which supports the expansion of electric cars. Our topic: climate change. Although neither Sherry and I are climatologists per se, it made it all the more relevant since we each covered how we became interested in sustainability topics and the role of climate change in our work. Since there are very few climate 'experts," we can each do our part to reduce greenhouse gasses by taking steps in our daily lives related to driving cars with cleaner emissions, conserving energy in our homes, supporting our local economy, etc.

I also had an opportunity to host a panel: "Unleashing the Entrepreneurial Spirit in the New Economy." The panelists included Michele McGeoy from Solar Richmond, which trains youth in installing solar panels, Adam Davis from Solano Partners, a conservation finance firm, and Jeff Marcus from Ecospan, a bioplastics company. As with the plenary sessions, getting to hear the stories of how these entrepreneurs launched their firms and handled the challenges in creating a successful organization was remarkable. These are their stories inspire and spark new ideas in our own work. The Q/A segment brought really interesting points and highlighted the tremendous experience of the attendees.

Bioneers is also adapting to the times and is now experimenting with a Bioneers conference in Europe-- the first one was in Holland and apparently went quite well. It is definitely time to scale up and mainstream these ideas. The TED conference began their scaling process a few years ago and appears to be very successful. Last summer on a flight to Boston, I saw videos of speakers from TED who were part of the airplane's media program. By offering its video of presenters for free, TED has shown its commitment to spreading these ideas far and wide-- A winning formula that others will likely follow soon. Bioneers and TED have provided a wonderful template for expanding their reach for the exchange of ideas and practices that are improving the world. Beaming Bioneers, with 20 worldwide sites this year and TED Global are important steps in that direction.

More on Resilience: Adapting to Change

The concept of resilience is back as a hot topic for the last several months. Yes! Magazine just completed its August issue focusing on resilience; Ode Magazine and other publications have also focused on this idea. After the recent massive floods in Pakistan and Ladakh, and other natural disasters, resilience comes to mind as a way to cope with these extreme disruptions. There's also the resilient aspect of managing the economic downturns and building economies that better withstand downward cycles.

Coming from a scientific roots resilience speaks to the notion of bouncing back. How to recover, adapt, create flexibility so that a system can change as it confronts adversity. Nature does it in how it recovers from wildfires, floods, droughts; species are resilient in how they adapt to cold temperatures, scarcity of food, water, etc. And when it comes to humans... how resilient are we?

At the personal level, our bodies are remarkably resilient in fighting disease, healing from trauma, and adapting to change. At a community level, the resiliency of our food, energy, water, infrastructure becomes more vulnerable. We become less dependent when we rely on a regional power grid, water systems that source water from long distances and food that travels thousands of miles on trucks running of fuel with price fluctuations. Perhaps resilience is closely related to localization: home grown skills from growing local food, local energy and water sources and building a strong social capital base that taps on the local labor, experience and expertise.

Resilience is also about awareness that change is a constant-- that challenge is how we adapt to change. Strength to cope with change comes from working with our neighbors and identifying the skill sets to become more flexible in, for example, insulating our homes, developing an efficient transit system or schools that are rooted in knowledge about their local communities.

All these factors balance place-making, community building and sharing social and natural capital.

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For more info. about resilience, check out:

Resilience Alliance.

The Resilience 2011 conference takes place March 11-16, 2011 at Arizona State University.

Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in A Changing World. by Brian Walker, David Salt and Walter Reid.

Slow Movement

I recently heard about the Slow Movement.

In their words:

"This website supports a growing cultural shift towards slowing down. On this site we discuss how we have lost connection to most aspects of our life and to the natural world and rhythms around us, and how we can reconnect – how we can live a connected life. The Slow Movement is a worldwide movement to recapture Meaningful Connection this state of connectedness. The movement is gaining momentum, as more and more people recognise their discomfort at the fast pace and disconnected nature of their lives."

There is also a book, In Praise of Slowness: How a worldwide movement is challenging the cult of speed, by Carl Honore on this topic of slowing down.

Our choices include how much technology that often speeds life up do we want to interact with?Making these choices gives us more time to digest, incubate and respond after evaluating the options presented. Also, what are the priorities on what to focus? Being more in tune with the natural rhythms (be it seasons, day, growth and decay) would seem to be an approach into slowness.