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From a thread on the Journey to Zero-Waste group on Facebook, several reading recommendations:

Can One Person Really Make a Difference? (cbsnews.com)

Children’s book If Everybody Did, by JoAnn Stover. (“A teacher read this to my class 50 years ago; it was life-changing,” said the member who posted this recommendation.)

Can One Person Make a Difference? (80000hours.org)

Decline in plastic bags on seabed suggests measures to tackle plastic waste are working (Independent) “Despite the reduction in carrier bags, the overall amount of deep-sea litter remained roughly constant due to an increase in the number of other plastic items, including bottles and fishing debris” (emphasizing the need to keep moving forward with efforts to reduce all categories of plastic trash).

Watch This Man Walk Around NYC Wearing His Trash (YouTube video). I actually have met this guy, Rob Greenfield. He spoke at our Florida Permaculture Convergence in 2018. Here’s a guy who makes an impact that ripples out far and wide.

By the way, J2ZW is now 113,000+ members strong.

The following is something I wrote a couple of years ago and forgot about. It showed up on my “throwback” Facebook feed and I thought it worth pasting here. Hope you find it helpful!

Unfortunately, most of us at one time or another will have to deal with naysayers and haters. One friend recently had someone say to her, “What have YOU done for the world?” Implying that she hadn’t done much or anything to make a positive difference.

Well, I don’t know who the naysayer was, but I do know for a fact that my friend is a staunch advocate for the wellbeing of Mother Earth and all species, including her fellow humans. And, perhaps even more important, she is a living example of someone willing to be REAL, be herself. In the face of scorn, criticism, and the rough rock-tumbler that daily life can be, a good-hearted person being him/herself is practicing courage and service to a degree that often reaches revolutionary.

We must never, EVER underestimate the beneficial impact of a good-hearted person who’s willing to be his or her own self. This beneficial impact starts in the family or inner friend-circle, and ripples out wide to the planet and the cosmos.

There are many forces against being one’s own self. Thank you for not caving in to them. Thank you (all of you who are reading this) for showing up in the world as YOU, and doing the work you feel is most needed.

(Some very “logical” types might respond, “Well, who else can I be but me?” But most of us know there are lots of other options, including being a half-baked copy of someone we IMAGINE that society, friends, family, or some other admired figure wants us to be.)

#AuthenticityMakesADifference

There are many different ways to deal with naysayers. You can let them have their say, and then offer your viewpoint and leave it at that. Sometimes you can avoid them entirely, but that isn’t always the case. Oftentimes just ignoring them and getting on with your work is your best bet.

Sometimes the naysayer is your very own self, impeding the good works of others; there are ways to deal with that also and I’ll get to that in a bit.

Avoidance: With this blog and my book, I avoid naysayers simply by not having them as the target audience. This blog is designed to provide resources to people who believe we are in an ecological emergency, and believe in the power of personal action to make a difference. It doesn’t set out to provoke or convince people who don’t share that belief.

Ignore, or Speak Up: On social media, I most often just ignore people who think that some effort I’m involved in is stupid, naive, not enough, or whatever. There are simply not enough hours in the day. But sometimes I will speak up to share an alternative viewpoint. I try to just do this once and then back off, rather than engage in multiple go-rounds in an effort to persuade someone or have the last word.

When the Naysayer is Me: Sometimes I’ve gotten involved with some well-intentioned project, and realized I didn’t agree with the direction it was taking, or the methods being used. In a couple of those cases, when I realized I was the fly in the ointment, I gently withdrew my participation and got out of the way. The projects ended up being successful. And the groups didn’t have to contend with the friction of having a lukewarm or outright rebellious member in their midst. I was happy to end up being a naysayer who turned out to be wrong.

I have more to share on this subject but will leave you with this for now.

Can you think of any situations in your life where any of the above might apply?

At my church (Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ormond Beach, FL, USA), we have had some sort of composting program in place for awhile now. It sort of ebbs and flows depending on various factors (such as how many of the more green-minded members are in town — we have a significant percentage of “snowbirds” in our congregation).

One problem we run into is lack of understanding about the benefits of composting. Another is the perception that the compost container smells and attracts bugs (which it doesn’t; if anything, throwing food scraps and partially consumed cups of beverages into the open kitchen trash can attracts bugs).

Although not all of our members support the composting program or even know we do it, we have found ways to keep the program going. Right now it seems to be on the upswing. In fact, some members ask us to save the coffee grounds for them to take home for their gardens.

But not everyone loves the compost. Some people are absolutely convinced it’s dirty and attracts bugs.

To address the naysaying component, one of the more longtime members, who is very green-minded, suggested I write a short article in our newsletter to increase awareness and understanding. I was asked to keep it short. Here’s what I submitted; feel free to take what I wrote and adapt it to your church or other organization.

(Note: I apologize for the weird large font size below; I am trying but have so far been unable to figure out how to fix it. I may have to just retype it manually but I would really like to know once and for all how to manage font size because it is an ongoing problem with this blog, especially with text that has been cut and pasted from emails, articles, etc. I try “rinsing” it through text apps but nothing seems to help get rid of extraneous formatting that creeps in. OK, right now this ugly giant-sized mutant font is just bugging the crap out of me so I’m just gonna bite the bullet and retype it for you. Curse my techno-stupid brain but at least I can type! Just one example of how, when technology gets too fancy for our own good, good old-fashioned elbow-grease often saves the day. Update: I think I just figured out a robust “rinse” to get rid of that persistent pesky hidden formatting that wreaks havoc on my blog type sizes: Copy the text I want from an article, etc., and paste it into a phone text message to myself. Copy it from there and paste it into WordPress blog post. I tested it and it seems to work!)

Composting at Our UU: Small Simple Action Makes a Big Difference

You may have notice a small green box in the kitchen next to the recycling bin. That’s a compost collection box. We use it to collect our food scraps and other compostable items, and carry them to the compost bin in the garden. As this organic matter decomposes, rich soil is produced.

By composting, we embody UU values in several ways:

Care for the environment: Radically reduce the volume of trash we send to landfill.

Honor the interconnectedness of all life: Composting feeds the soil microorganisms, on which all life depends.

Respect our fellow human beings: By eliminating food scraps and other compostables, we reduce the weight of our UU kitchen trash by 50% or more. And the trash is much less messy to deal with.

The compost collection box has a snug-fitting lid; it does not smell or attract bugs. The kitchen staff handles composting. You can support our efforts by not putting liquids or food scraps into the trash.

To learn more about composting and its many benefits, ask Jenny or another green team member.

“… [W]e can expect the status quo of consume-and-pollute to continue on for some time. Most likely it will be pursued until it simply proves too painful than the remaining alternatives. By which time our other options are likely to be materially worse than they are today. That’s the bad news.

“The good news is that conscientious, critically-thinking individuals like you can choose to get busy living.

“There is much you can do during this time lag to invest in resilience and install regenerative models before the next systemic crisis is upon us.

“Whatever time we have left, and it may very not be much, is a gift. Use it.

“Many of the best defenses — like fitness, community, and valuable skills — require time to acquire. You can’t simply buy them off the shelf the way you can, say, a water filter or a backup generator. Once time has run out, you either already have them in place or you don’t.”

— From “Living On Borrowed Time,” by Adam Taggart in PeakProsperity.com

Also check out TransitionASAP.org, a website dedicated to spreading the grassroots resilience movement known as Transition; Transition Towns. On this page of their site you can download two adorable, practical, and uplifting mini-zines that explain “Transition in a Nutshell.” One of the zines is titled Transition Towns: Working for Smaller Footprints and Stronger Communities; the other is Habits of the Heart: A Primer for Embracing Lifestyle Practices.

Stay tuned for more posts on resilience. It’s a big topic!

Greetings & Salutations DEEP GREEN troops! My “Green Daytona” radio show tomorrow will be focused on a hot topic: RESILIENCE. Tune in from noon to 1 EST on WJOY 106.3 FM Daytona Beach, or via Facebook Live on the City of Daytona Beach Government Facebook page.

Resilience: What does it mean for governments and the public? On this week’s Daytona Beach Radio program, tune in to hear about how Florida and regional leadership are preparing the state for the environmental, physical and social impacts of sea level rise and other manifestations of climate change. You’ll also hear about grassroots initiatives, and get some tips on how you can boost your own resilience at the household and neighborhood level. #CityDaytonaBeach.

Update: In case you missed it in realtime, here is the Facebook Live recording.

Further Reading:

Climate Change: How Lucky Do You Feel? (article in Reason.com)

You’ve probably heard the expression “peddling influence” … Well, I just heard a happy story from a friend of mine who pedals influence.

My friend Ms. S., age in her late 60s (guesstimate), is a gardener and grandmother who rides her bicycle to the Y five days a week for yoga and other activities.

We had a mini “visit” by text today. After catching me up on the latest with her sons and new grandbaby, she continued:

“… can’t help mentally shaking my head as I pedal past <local middle school> – especially on a chilly day where car after car idle with parents bringing their kiddos to school…and almost all in the car have their heads bowed to their cellphones…and here I go bundled up with my yoga mat in the back basket whizzing past standing traffic breathing fresh crisp air and lavishing the sun on my face.”

I responded, “You are setting a wonderful, beautiful example! So perfect that your route takes you past the school … you never know who you might influence!”

To which she replied: “Actually had not thought about planting seeds as I pedal..going to start throwing those thoughts out…with smiles…as I pedal…oops…time to don my helmet and go about my mission.”

And then a little later:

“Kids were already in school but as I was pedaling on the sidewalk one car stopped and waited a good while before turning into the entrance so I could go on by…rolled down her window to call out Merry Christmas 😊👏😊 We have so much power in our thoughts!”

Yes indeed we do. Our thoughts and our actions are contagious! For better or for worse! Keep on “pedaling” that influence! Whether your pedal is an actual pedal, or a microphone, or a keyboard, or a shovel, or …