feeling humbled by all the love & support. (ie vermont resilience lab thinks i’m kinda smart)

so it turns out that i am not the only one that cares about what i’m writing.

just last week i ran into two folks – one i’ve known for almost 15 years and one more recent in my life – that were like “hey thanks for writing stuff on your blog. keep it up! i really like what you have to say.”

which for me is essentially a giant sparkly sequined high-five from the universe and a sign that i am not just blah-blah-blah-ing into the ether. i mean, it’s a blog, so i am just blah-ing into the ether.

(side note: there is a bumper-sticker in the world that says “nobody cares about your blog.” i want it! it’s true. nobody cares. most days i don’t even care about my own blog. i just think it’s funny, and true, is all.)

ok, so also, all i want to do is post this link to AN INTERVIEW WITH ME from Vermont Resilience Lab (yes, another bloggity blog blog). because, apparently Amy Kirschner thinks i’m smart enough to (a) interview me and then (b) post it on the internet!

so that’s all. check it out. i have some smart and not so smart things to say.

 

oh, and also, if you need to get inspired about your life, have someone interview you! it was an amazing experience to tell some stranger about everything i’m doing and remember that i’m doing a lot of really amazing stuff and that i pretty much love my life. and hopefully you do too. and, it helps that VRL is also doing a lot of exciting stuff. so maybe it was a mutual remembering of all the amazing things we are all doing.

 

confessions of a corporate crush

Ok I have a confession. I think I am experiencing my first corporate crush. And I’m having a hard time coming to terms with it.

Let me give some quick background. I love crushing. I think it’s healthy and awesome and admitting crushes is the first step to removing them from some self-created pedestal. Over the years, I have used a multitude of crush categories to help me with this. They are pretty self-explanatory and look like this:

–  Friend Crush: I am excited to become better friends with you.
–  Classic-Make-Out Crush: I want to smooch & maybe date you.
–  Organizer/Political Crush: You have amazing politics and I admire your organizing skills.
–  Organizational Crush: You are a kick-ass organization doing incredible work in the world.
–  I-Want-To-Be-You Crush: You are all-around awesome and I want to be around you and emulate your ways (borderline creepy).
–  Housemate Crush: I want to live with you. Forever.
–  Dog-Owner Crush: I want your dog. Careful, I might steal your dog.
–  Career-Crush: Your job is awesome. I want it or something like it.

In a grand public gesture, I shall now add to the list:

Corporate Crush: You are a large corporation that proves to be so fucking awesome & non-traditional in the world of capitalist business that it gives me a glimmer of hope as to effectively enact change from within. You are not perfect. Neither am I.

Who is the lucky recipient of my affections? Patagonia. Yup, that endearing hippie-powered nature-loving company of outdoor gear you can’t afford for hobbies you didn’t know existed.

I used to have this struggle with my mom about how I needed to buy new clothes. I grew up in a wealthy New Jersey suburb where status was a serious thing. Self included. Until I went to college, got all radicalized and had a bit of an anarcha-crusty-hippie-jock-queer style. Which mostly meant I had a lot of clothes with holes in them & refused to by anything new. When I would come home for weekends, my mom would manage to throw out the most offensive (read: my favorite) clothing items. It finally came down to buying new underwear and I had to admit she was right. So we went to Patagonia. If I was going to buy new clothing I wanted it to be organic cotton, fair trade and cooperatively manufactured. Nearly seven years later, my mom would still approve of their condition! Way to go underwear options. Oh yeah, the flip side is that it is expensive. And I probably would not have chosen to spend my own money on ethically produced underwear at the time. Wealth privilege hypocrisy in action.

Flash forward to my first post-college job at Title IX Sports Apparel. They are a pretty awesome women’s sports apparel company headquartered in the Bay Area known mostly for their kick-ass sports bras. It was my first full-time job out of college – working in their warehouse – and I became good friends with Krystal, the COO at the time. Chief of Operations. Krystal is awesome and to this day a good friend. She worked at Patagonia for a long time in the past. In fact, I learned from Krystal that Patagonia was one of the leaders in making the move towards organic cotton. They worked directly with farmers to create a transitional program so that Patagonia wouldn’t dump their current supply chain for a new one (common “sustainable business” practice) and create mayhem and worse conditions for their suppliers.  Also, Patagonia worked with other major clothing corporations (I want to say Levi’s?) to create enough demand so as to actually create a viable market for organic cotton. Organic cotton equals healthier conditions for workers and the land.

And now I am in business school. Where I hate everything and everyone. Just kidding. Where lots of major businesses are applauded for single-focused activities that ignore the entirety of the business. Like how Wal-Mart is the number one supplier of organic food despite their detrimental economic impact on the local level. And no farmer I know has benefitted from their supply chain changes. You know what I mean.

 

  One of the books I am reading for my Human Resource class is Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation  of  Business Will Win by Jeffrey Hollender, the dude that founded 7^th Generation (yay Vermont). What    will they win? I  have  no idea. And who’s culture will they appropriate in the meantime? The Iroquois Nation who    consider their impacts  on  seven generations out. Whatever. Digression. Criticism abounds.

So I am reading this book and its talking about Patagonia this and Patagonia that. Like how the company hires  folks from their target community. Meaning the sales rep you are talking to about your high-altitude backpack  zipper that just broke might actually be a high-altitude climber. Stuff like that.

The straw that really tipped it for me was Patagonia’s take on sustainability. Which is that no business is ever  going to be truly sustainable. A big business like Patagonia is always going to have a negative impact on the  earth because it is dependent on extracting resources from the earth. In their own words:

We know that our business activity – from lighting stores to dyeing shirts – creates pollution as a by-product. So we work steadily to reduce those harms. We use recycled polyester in many of our clothes and only organic, rather than pesticide-intensive, cotton.

Patagonia takes a harm-reduction approach that involves some radical honesty.  In fact, Patagonia’s mission statement looks like this:

Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

In a world of corporate green washing, where the terms “sustainable” or “sustainability” mean very little, it is refreshing to see a company that is completely honest with what they are doing and their impacts on the environment and communities in which it operates. So while they have some pretty awesome HR policies, are not a publicly owned company that is beholden to shareholders, it is the simple characteristic of honesty that has won over this little anti-capitalist heart.

There you have it. The first admission of a corporate crush. What about you? Do you have any corporate crushes you care to share?

the myth of sustainable investment

There is a good chance someone out there is going to disagree with everything I’m about to say. In fact, I know it’s true because I’m reading a whole book for my Corporate Finance class about how investing in sustainable businesses is going to solve a lot of our problems.

Except for what I think is one of the most foundational problems we face today: growing wealth disparities. There are so many reasons why we need to focus on addressing issues of economic justice. I never really understood the phrase “you can eat your cake and icing too.” I really think of it more as “I can eat my cake and so can you!” At least that’s how I envision a sustainable world: where we can all share and have similar access to resources in order to make decisions about our own lives.

One of the major new learnings that I’ve stumbled across in the past year that to me clearly indicates a need for some major economic systemic shake up is the reality that the wealthiest folks in the world consume an absurd amount of resources as compared to the poorest folks in the world.

Here are some shocking UN facts & figures (If you have non-UN resources about these sorts of things, please please please share them with me.):

Inequalities in consumption are stark. Globally, the 20% of the world’s people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures – the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%.

More specifically, the richest fifth:

• Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%.
• Consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%
• Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%.
• Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%.
• Own 87% of the world’s vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1%.”

— Human Development Report 1998 Overview, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 

Perhaps you are thinking: Cool, great, fuck the rich. And maybe what does this have to do with sustainable investing? Could you please stay on topic for once.

My answers are yes, a lot and it’s all connected so stay with me.

Sustainable investing, in my understanding, is a way for folks with wealth to invest and support the operations (and usually growth; see this post about economic growth) of big businesses that are doing good (often defined as neutral) things for people and the environment while still turning a hefty profit and excellent returns to their shareholders.

On the one hand I’m all, “Yay, support businesses even pretending to talk about this stuff. That is a concrete change we can make now. Stepping stones to a radically different economic structure.”

But really, I’m mostly all, “That’s a really awesome way to not address some fundamental issues of global sustainability. Like class divides and global wealth inequities. I want a sustainability revolution that has access points for folks across class and wealth divides.”

This is what I wrote about it for class:

I still see investment – and especially sustainable investment – as a way for wealthy folks with a conscience to give themselves a big pat on the back without looking at the ways their own individual & institutional privileges are based on the backs of those with less. We can do a lot to change *how* people acquire their wealth. But to me, the question still remains how much wealth is enough & how do we go about changing that?

Sustainable investment is an awesome strategy to maintain class divides, keep the wealth where it has remained and once again think that capitalism has its positive potential, it just needs to be greened up a bit. It totally follows that if you believe in green capitalism, sustainable investments are the way to go. I say, it’s still capitalism.

I just can’t get behind any conversation or solution that sees (any form of) capitalism as an end goal. I’m all for talking about and strategizing about stepping stones towards a more just and equitable world. As long as we’re talking about the same long-term vision. (Look, I even wrote out some concise thoughts here.) From what I’ve seen thus far, the sustainable investment industry is not talking long term systemic change.

Sustainability – in my understanding – is based on a notion of flourishing for all. Investment is a strategy and tool accessible by the rich for the rich to stay rich. Nothing sustainable in that.

“sustainable living:” so many airquotes

Hey. So I’m back. After a whopping month of summer vacation, it’s back to the books. I’m in the middle of reading about some sustainable investing and wanted to get something off the proverbial chest. Don’t worry, there will be plenty of writing on the hypocrisy and classist foundations of sustainable investing.

(Sneak preview: creating systems where those with money get to make more money by simply having money only perpetuates social ills because nobody is actually spreading the love, alleviating poverty or changing anything. There, I said it.)

I was just reading in this absolutely un-fabulous and utterly upsetting book* about the “sustainable living” industry: you know where folks go out and buy eco-friendly stuff like bamboo flooring, organic wool sweaters and worker-owned garments. If it helps, picture me using air-quotes every time you read “sustainable living.”

Also, let’s be honest, I’m totally a part of that world. Are you?

Only, I don’t buy a lot of stuff. I don’t really buy much stuff. I found my desk, bookshelves, dresser, and filing cabinet on the side of the road. Half of my clothes came from a free box or were given to me. Everything else I have I bought used. I’m not a god or a genius or anything sacred and holy. I am just wicked cheap and think you should use things until they break, fix them and keep using them.

There is this really big and important idea that some really smart, really big companies have recently adopted: using less resources is cheaper. For real, I can’t believe it has taken the business world over a hundred years to fully acknowledge what most folks have known for a real long time. And, that we call it a business revelation. It honestly blows my mind how much credit we give big business for some very basic concepts.

Back to the “sustainable living industry.” The small point I am trying to make is that the “sustainable living” industry is quite hypocritical. Two quick reasons:

(1) Any industry needs to have consumers. Consumers need to buy things. Things need to be made in order to be bought. “Sustainable Living” industry is therefore creating more stuff to buy, just with a brighter, greener smile. What is sustainable in creating more stuff?

(2) Who is able to partake in this “sustainable living” industry? I know that for myself and other farmers in my life, we can barely afford to buy the same organic food we grow. Are the factory workers who make solar panels in China able to put those same solar panels on their own houses? Do they even own their own housing? As in much of the sustainability rhetoric, there is little to no attention given to the ways changes in the business world actually affect the lives of poor and working class folks around the world. The “sustainable living” industry continues to maintain – if not further – a class divide between those that create and those that consume.

I don’t know about you, but when I think about a sustainable world, I think about equity & accessibility. I don’t want something that’s awesome and good for the planet to be bad and inaccessible to the majority of people. And I don’t want what’s affordable for most people to be trashing the earth. It’s not an either/or. Not the way I think of “sustainable living” or sustainability.

 

 

* I think I am heretofore adopting a policy of at least not naming the books I am going to trash talk. I will only name the books that I like or find value in reading. Something about respecting other people’s values, beliefs and ideas.

anti-capitalism insight #1

Over the last two semesters, I have been taking a Systems Analysis class. I think it’s an incredibly awesome and useful way to look at problems. Maybe because one of its founders, Donella Meadows, was a farmer? Just saying. Systems thinking offers a specific lens to understand the way specific systems operate within the context of larger systems and paradigms, as well as offer insights into the strongest leverage points for enacting change. Well duh, of course I love anything that is focused on creating systemic change!

Also, let’s be clear here, systems thinking is not any different than a lot of thinking folks already engage in/do. It does have some great and useful tools for understanding systems. And I think for folks that already understand the world as a complicated interconnected web of systems – the prison system, non-profit system, healthcare system, decision-making systems, etc. – it is not necessarily teaching utterly new information. It does, I think, provide some really great guiding questions for better understanding systems we operate within (consensually or not) and thinking through our approaches to creating lasting change.

Two of the best questions I think I’ve learned to ask are: what are the goals of this system and what paradigm does this system fall under? To find these answers, Meadows and others encourage you to step back and just watch what happens in the system: what actions take place, what tangible things occur in the system. In other words, figure out what the system actually does, not what it claims to do, thinks it does, or wants to be doing. Everything that happens in a system falls in line with the systems goals and the larger paradigm that the system operates under. That will give you the system’s goals.

For example, one of my project groups looked at the School to Prison Pipeline –an interconnected subsystem of both the Prison System and the Educational System. If we listen to what those in charge tell us, the goal of the system is to Create Safe Learning Environments for Students. However, by looking at what is actually happening in the system – mostly black and brown students and students from poor neighborhoods being taken out of schools and pushed towards the prison system – we can see that the goal of the system has nothing to do with learning environments.

(I am still learning this and working on honing these skills, so this analysis may be a little shaky.)

a quick digression….

Last weekend in Finance class we went over a case study. Here is a brief overview: there is a Canadian jewelry company that is doing great in Canada and looking to expand into the US market. They can either do it by going to trade shows or by hiring sales rep. Presented with a whole bunch of numbers and costs and expected sales, what should they do?

After going through all sorts of financial calculations – break even time, return on investments, sensitivity analyses, blah blah blah – it occurred to me that a basic question was not asked: If they are doing so well in the Canadian market, why do they need to expand into the US market?

Ok, so what does Systems Thinking, the School to Prison Pipeline and a Canadian jewelry company have to do with each other?

One of the major issues we talk about at school is the Economic Growth Paradigm! Everything about economics says Grow! Grow! Grow! Expand your company! Increase market share! Increase GDP! Bigger is better! If you’re making a profit, make more of a profit! Don’t be satisfied, ever!

Which leads me to my biggest – and maybe most obvious – insight around what anti-capitalist alternatives might look like: NOT GROWING! HAVING LIMITS! This might look like being satisfied with what you have. Meeting your needs (or maybe just a little more) and then calling it quits. Creating a business that is locally based and leave it at that. Creating products that are useful and last a long time (I’m looking at you planned obsolescence).

There are so many implications it blows my mind. And yet, we are bombarded with the message of Grow! Grow! Grow! So what would it look like if companies stopped growing? If the economy stopped growing? What would it looked like if people were satisfied with what they had?

For me, as a business owner, I am trying to figure out if its possible to act in accordance with this tangible piece of what anti-capitalism might be. And especially if it’s possible to do so within the current capitalist structure. I’m looking at what it means to create a new paradigm. I’m thinking about what it would mean to create an alternative mindset and if that would actually tangibly do anything to change the material conditions of those who get screwed over day in and day out by capitalism.

blaming the victim & consumer purchasing

I’m gonna make this post short. As a test for myself and also because I think it’s pretty succinct.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about this book Ecological Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. (Check out that rambly bit here.) We got to read more of the book and, unsurprisingly, I am yet to be impressed with the man. Again, I don’t disagree with him. I just don’t see a lot of brilliance or Aha moments in this book. Also, again, I am not his target audience and I am a little cranky when theories boil down to “change the world by individual choice.”

So he writes a bunch about this notion of radical transparency. That people would make better decisions about their purchases if only they had access to the information, or if the information was given to them about the products they buy. I think he is basically trying to say that if only people knew how bad certain products were than certainly they would use their market power to buy better products, and thus change industry. Hoorah capitalism at its finest.

Let’s put aside for another time that this theory supports a most basic principle of capitalism that makes my skin crawl: your personal worth and the strength of your voice in the world is determined by how much you buy.

What I am curious about is his focus on the various ways consumers can get corporations to create better products. Mainly, he focuses on the responsibility of consumers to buy better goods.

Now, this may be somewhat of a stretch – and please let me know if it is – to connect this framework to that of a culture of blaming the victim. There was a photograph that went around the internet sometime in the last year of a teenage girl holding a sign that said something along the lines of: We are taught Don’t Get Raped instead of Don’t Rape. It was a really powerful statement for me in terms of rape culture, how the issue is framed and blaming the victim.

Let me be extremely clear here, I am not equating greener shopping to rape. I am just saying one brought up thoughts of systemic messaging happening in the other.

What I am curious about, though, is the focus on blaming the consumer for their individual choices, which are limited to begin with. The issue has been framed as “don’t buy unsustainable products (consumer)” instead of “don’t make unsustainable products (corporations).” It might be a stretch to link this with blaming the victim. I see it as a result of a dominant culture focused on individual choices. Society blames the poor for being poor – because obviously it’s their choice to not get out of poverty. Society blames women for getting raped – because she was wearing provocative clothing. Society blames queers for getting bashed – because you shouldn’t have flaunted your gayness by making out with your sweetie. (I am leaving out so many other obvious ones, I’m sure.)

There is clearly a cultural epidemic that links a belief in the power of individual choices and blaming the victim. I’m wondering, then, does this linkage apply to things like changing consumption patterns?

It was an interesting connection that I though I’d share. What do you think? Where else does the blaming the victim mentality crop up? What paradigms and strategies do you invoke to counter and even change this mentality?

consumerism, choice and classism

There are two resources I want to reference in this post and I thought it might be best to give a quick synopsis of them before just plowing on through.

1) A 12 minute TED Talk by Van Jones called “The Economic Injustice of Plastics.” As you can imagine, it’s about environmental and economic impacts of the plastic industry on poor folks, specifically poor folks of color. He has a great closing argument (yes, spoiler, no alert): “If we trash people, we trash the planet; if we don’t trash people we don’t trash the planet.” Basically, in my opinion, he’s like hey all y’all white rich environmentalists who love TED talks, plastics suck the most for poor folks of color, so start factoring in poor folks of color into your “green” movement. Ok, maybe that’s not totally what he’s saying, but I do think there’s an important element of that. Also, he states the not-so-popular-but-incredibly-important point that poor folks don’t have the luxury to choose, especially when it comes to consumer choices. More on that later, for now, check out the video if you’ve got 12 minutes and wanna hear Van Jones speak for himself instead of me paraphrasing: http://www.ted.com/talks/van_jones_the_economic_injustice_of_plastic.html

2) Secondly, we are reading a book for the class about Sustainable Consumption (see previous post if you are all what is that oxymoron?). EcoLOGICAL Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. I’ve only read about 1/3 of it. Which is fine, I think I get his main point: let’s make and buy “greener” shit and then we’ll harm the world less and we can all feel better about ourselves. (I’ve got my biases, you’ve got yours.) There is this term – Life Cycle Analysis, or LCA – which refers to understanding everything that goes into and comes out of the process of creating a product from the very beginning stages of extracting resources to the very end of its life, in a landfill, being recycled, etc. Some folks, like Goleman, are advocating that there needs to be a focus on creating greener products all the way through the cycle and that people should be making more conscientious decisions about what they buy based on that new information. Yes, I totally agree. And… that is such a small piece.

So there are two interesting connection points that I want to focus on for a minute between Van Jones’ talk and Daniel Goleman’s book. First, they are both addressing fairly affluent-to-very-affluent Americans. Neither one is saying it completely outright. Van Jones is at a TED Talk. And by the way he is talking and making his points, it is fairly clear that is his audience. Goleman, however, seems to be addressing the whole world in his book. Except that what he is suggesting – that we better the world through better consumerism – assumes that his audience has the material ability to make better and greener decisions regarding their consumption habits. This is not the main point I want to make, but I did find it interesting so hopefully you do too.

Secondly, and most interestingly to me, is that they are both talking about disposability of the plane. Van Jones comes at it from a social justice perspective, claiming that the best way to take care of the planet is to take care of people. He claims – and I see no reason to disagree – that if we are good to people all over the planet, we are good to the planet itself. Goleman cuts straight past the people aspect (one might say the Environmental Justice aspect, but I’m only 1/3 of the way there so maybe he mentions it later on in a footnote or something…) and goes straight towards the planet.

That’s sort of just setting the stage. Here is what I am interested in and the question that drives me mad reading about green capitalism: are the people that created and maintain and profit from this system of capitalism really the ones we are looking at to get us out of it? are we seriously considering some other form of consumption is in any way part of the answer?

(And then I remember I am working within an incredibly different paradigm. I am thinking about taking down capitalism. They are thinking about changing it so it’s more friendly.)

So what does this have to do with choice and classism? Let’s just get down to it. Goleman – and others that advocate for a green economy – want us to make better choices around what we buy. And the choices we make will create consumer demand for businesses to change their practices in order to be better and greener businesses. Again, I don’t disagree. I just think he’s only speaking to a very small percentage of the world. Because a large percentage of the world is incredibly poor (thank you, capitalism) and doesn’t have the luxury to buy a greener toothbrush or cleaning product or organic clothing. I am not saying that poor folks don’t have choice or that all poor folks always buy the cheapest goods. What I am saying is that poor folks do not have the same sort of luxury as folks with access to material resources have when making purchasing decisions. So to propose a solution that is inaccessible to a large percentage of the world is not well thought out. Not to mention it opens the door for scapegoating and later blaming poor folks for not jumping on the green consumer wagon.

The other important piece is that poor folks deserve to have choice. A few years ago there was a big to-do about whether or not soda should be purchased through food stamps. Lotsa folks were saying that they didn’t want their tax-payer dollars going towards supporting unhealthy consumer choices. Which is racist/classist code for “Folks on food stamps don’t know how to take care of themselves or their bodies.” Which is also code for “Let me tell you what decisions you need to make.” The point is that what people do or do not buy on food stamps shouldn’t be anyone’s concern except the people buying those products. Unless you are going to ban everyone from buying soda, you cannot just ban poor folks because they are in an economic situation where you can control their purchases. That’s called classism.

What’s interesting to me is that the conversation around sustainable consumption focuses at the individual level. If we all just recycled… if we all just bought greener toilet paper… if we all just kept our electronics longer. What it doesn’t look at is the industry level. What about the resources that go into creating the Prison Industrial Complex? the pollution that comes out of it? the energy needed to sustain it? What if we actually took down entire industries that are harmful to both people and the planet and replaced them with healthier alternatives?  How would that affect our consumption? How would that limit or create new possibilities for choice?

moving through the fog

One of the courses in my program is Exploring Sustainability that everyone takes for 6 trimesters. It is pretty awesome and delves into a lot of different aspects of sustainability. Right now, we are focusing on sustainable consumption, with the underlying question of “is there a way to sustainably consume?”

The book we are reading posed the schools of thought around this topic as “consume less” and “consume differently (ie more eco-friendly products). To which many of us thought BOTH/AND!! BOTH/AND!! There needs to be a move towards BOTH consuming less AND consuming differently. Neither camp has the answer. There seems, actually, not to be one right answer, a certain path to go down towards sustainable consumption. Especially when the question is added: sustainable consumption for who? (or is it whom?)

It got me thinking about this way I understand prison abolition that was helpful to a co-student/friend so I thought I’d share it here. When I think about prison abolition, I don’t have a single path or vision of exactly what that looks like. I only know that from where I stand in my places of privilege and my socialization in a society so deeply invested in – and dependent upon – the PIC (prison industrial complex), that I stand in a place of immense fog. A fog so dense that I cannot see a world without prisons. Not from where I stand today. And yet, I know it’s out there. Every time I unlearn just a little piece about prison culture and every time I learn just a little piece about transformative justice alternatives, I move through that fog. I move one step towards a place where I can see the world I envision. And so every step lifts the fog just a little. Every step brings me just a little bit out of the thick of it to where I can start to envision what I want. It brings me closer to a place where I can see and understand and know – not just hope – that prison abolition is real.

So an underlying piece of this analogy, this moving through the fog, is this hope piece: that there actually is a place out there that I/that we are moving towards. That the dream and goal of a world without prisons is not only possible, that it is happening. And yet, from where I am right now, I can also say that I don’t know how to get there. I don’t need to know how to get there. Maybe some other folks elsewhere know. And maybe nobody does. The point is that there is a foundation of hope underlying this journey out of the fog. And the steps I take towards that goal are what clear the fog just a little bit at a time until the path becomes clear.

I thought about this a lot this past weekend in terms of sustainable consumption. I don’t know the answer to the question “is there a sustainable way to consume?” And if there is, I don’t know if there’s one universal answer for everyone. That’s actually not true. I am pretty confident that there isn’t one universal way to consume. And yet that ‘s not the point. The point is that once again, I find myself in a fog.

I will admit that I find this fog a lot thicker than that of prison abolition. And that is because I think I have a much further journey ahead of me. I have not spent a lot of time thinking about this question. And especially not a lot of time answering this question. And yet it is so basic and fundamental: can human consumption come to a place of sustainable consumption? What does that look like? And how do we get there?

It was a bold and beautiful invitation to think about these questions. And so I invite you to think about them, as well as some other questions that have come up since: who are we to be having these conversations? What places of privilege do I or don’t I hold that allow me to even think about changing my consumption behaviors? What are the different ways people consume unsustainably? In what areas do I over-consume? In what ways do I under-consume?

What questions about consumption have inspired you?