Top Worldchanging Headlines
March 21 – April 18th, 2008

Neighborliness, Innovation and Sustainability
ALEX STEFFEN | 07 APRIL 08

Two approaches have tended to define the debate about sustainable prosperity in recent years. The first is conscious consumption, which manifests at the shallow end as green shopping (even greenwashing) but can prove out at a deeper level as strategic consumption. The second is green technology, which is a topic that we tend to cover here in great depth, and which covers everything from energy to transportation, housing to product design. Sometimes that technology is trivial, sometimes it is profound.

These approaches are complimentary, and both have a lot to offer as we try to negotiate our way to a bright green future. But there is a danger in thinking that all we have to do is design better substitutes for the products we already consume, and then convince people to buy them.

I call this idea "the Swap." It's sort of a middle stage on the road to a better future, where people have accepted that something must change, but have not really gotten their heads around the idea that everything must change. Therefore, the Swap is a form of denial. MORE

How Affordable is that Subdivision, Really?
ALEX STEFFEN | 14 APRIL 08

How much of your monthly budget you pay for transportation is largely influenced by where you live.

Live in a compact community, and your mere choice of residence vaporizes trips, because the things you need are close-by, and we all know that the most sustainable form of transportation is not having to go anywhere in the first place. But should you have to travel some distance, you're more likely to be able to car share or take transit (since density makes transit cost-effective).

Live out in McMansion Land, though, are your choices are basically drive or spend hours and hours in inconvenient transit, if it can be found at all. So auto dependent are most new suburbs that they're hazardous to the health of the people who live there.   MORE

Worldchanging Book for Earth Day
WORLDCHANGING TEAM | 17 APRIL 08

We've always had our issues with Earth Day, but now there's an Earth Day present we just can't argue with.

The paperback of our first book, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century, is now available for purchase on Amazon at a bargain price and at quality booksellers throughout North America.

If you've been waiting for a less expensive edition to give to your friends, co-workers or retrograde uncle, now's your chance!

But don't take our word for it: Worldchanging has been a best-seller in both the U.S. and Canada, and our French edition has won a strong audience as well (translations into several other languages are under way). We won a Green Prize and garnered a ton of critical acclaim…  MORE

Zerofootprint Cities
WORLDCHANGING TEAM | 14 APRIL 08

Imagine a tool that could link the citizens of large world cities around issues involving climate change. Imagine further that these citizens could be mobilized to reduce their environmental footprint and their collective actions could be measured and celebrated.

To give an example, imagine mobilizing the citizens of the C40 cities (a group of large cities committed to fighting climate change). These cities, which include Mumbai, Toronto, New York, Sydney, London, have a combined citizenry in the hundreds of millions and they form, what we refer to as a “Country Without Borders”. It is larger than the United States and much less encumbered when it comes to taking action. Actually, if one chose the right 5 cities in Canada, they would encompass over 85% of Canada’s GNP. Similar relatively small groups of cities would essentially represent geographically bound countries….MORE

What’s No Longer Impossible?
SARAH KUCK | 14 APRIL 08

With new ideas about sustainability and responsibility rapidly moving to the forefront of the discussion, things that once seemed implausible are quickly becoming a reality.

We caught up with some Worldchangers at the Seattle Green Festival to ask them about what's possible now that they once thought impossible.

So, what's possible now that you once thought impossible? 

Hear from Worldchangers like Annie Leonard from the Story of Stuff, Francis Moore Lappe, founder of the Small P***t Institute, Madeline Ostrander from Yes! Magazine, and Richard Conlin, Council President of the City of Seattle and  MORE.

Offests Done Right
ALEX STEFFEN | 07 APRIL 08

I like offsets: there, I've gone and said it. Other than genetic engineering and biofuels, there may be at the moment no solution more controversial among eco-activists than offsets. That's a shame, because they make good sense.

Much of the criticism centers around two objections: that they don't work, or that they're just wrong.

The evidence critics most frequently that they don't work is that some people have set up completely ineffective offsetting systems, even faux offsetting. The moral argument seems to be based mostly on the idea that paying money for good things to happen in order to make up for doing other harm is wrong, a contention many disagree with…MORE

Worldchanging a 2008 Webby Honoree!

WORLDCHANGING TEAM | 10 APRIL 08

We're, well, honored to have gotten the news that Worldchanging is an official 2008 Webby Honoree for Cultural/ Personal Blog. This follows previous nominations in the Best Blog (2005) and Best Magazine (2007) categories. Thanks, Webby judges, and thanks to all of you who read what we write here for continuing to make this site such a joy to work on.

WorldChanging Team

The Politics of Optimism
ALEX STEFFEN | 25 MARCH 08

Optimism is a political act.

Entrenched interests use despair, confusion and apathy to prevent change. They encourage modes of thinking which lead us to believe that problems are insolvable, that nothing we do can matter, that the issue is too complex to present even the opportunity for change. It is a long-standing political art to sow the seeds of mistrust between those you would rule over: as Machiavelli said, tyrants do not care if they are hated, so long as those under them do not love one another. Cynicism is often seen as a rebellious attitude in Western popular culture, but, in reality, cynicism in average people is the attitude exactly most likely to conform to the desires of the powerful – cynicism is obedience.

Optimism, by contrast, especially optimism which is neither foolish nor silent, can be revolutionary….MORE

What Does Climate Change Do

 to Our Heads?
WORLDCHANGING TEAM | 21 MARCH 08

A small yet growing body of evidence suggests that how people think and feel is being influenced strongly by ecosystem transformation related to climate change and industry-related displacement from the land. These powerful stressors are occurring more frequently around the world.

A case in point: When researchers from the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health at the University of Newcastle in Australia conducted interviews in drought-affected communities in New South Wales in 2005, the responses suggested some of their subjects may have been suffering from a recently described psychological condition called solastalgia (pronounced so-la-stal-juh).

Solastalgia describes a palpable sense of dislocation and loss that people feel when they perceive changes to their local environment as harmful….MORE

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