1. Build a Home

Bats like warm, dry, tight spaces. A bat house provides them with an alternative to your attic, and reduces the chance of human/bat contact. Advice on what to look for in a ready-made bat house, along with plans for building one yourself, are available from Bat Conservation International at batcon.org. 

That’s where you’ll also find a state-by-state guide to the needs of different bat species. For example, the hollows of dead trees provide a roosting site for bats in many areas, but the Western Yellow Bat roosts in living palm trees. So bat lovers in Southern California leave palms untrimmed, particularly during nesting season, when bat babies may be clinging to the fronds.

2. Watch Your Water

Bats need drinking water and are attracted by ponds and birdbaths. They may miscalculate a swooping approach and become stranded in steep-sided swimming pools. Provide an escape route by making or buying a small floating ramp like the “Frog Log”: froglog.us

3. Plant a Night Garden

Bats are the primary predator of agricultural pests—one bat eats 2,000 to 6,000 insects each night. Plant afternoon-blooming or night-scented flowers to attract moths, and the voracious bats that follow will help control your local mosquito population. Evening primrose, phlox, night-flowering catchfly, fleabane, goldenrod, four o’clock,  salvia, nicotiana, and moonflower are all good choices. 

4. Adopt a Bat

This is the year of the bat, according to a United Nations declaration that recognizes their importance to the world’s ecosystems. You can support research, conservation, and protective legislation by adopting a bat through Bat Conservation International. Someone you know might love the (symbolic) gift of a bat. 

1. The Perfectly Sustainable Pet

Whether kept on a farm or a city rooftop, chickens are the most sustainable pets. They love hunting for garden slugs, and they’re walking composters that will transform kitchen scraps into glorious fertilizer—and a bounty of eggs. If you buy young chicks, make sure they’re hens—unless you want roosters crowing at dawn and irate neighbors. To raise a tame chicken, get it used to human contact by keeping your hand near the feed while it eats, and holding it regularly. You might end up with a friendly lap chicken rather than a lap dog. 

2. Low-Cost Vet Care

The Humane Society recommends a pet insurance plan to help meet the cost of unexpected veterinary treatment. The website also lists organizations in all 50 states that offer free or low-cost animal health services, including spay/neuter clinics. Local vet schools may also offer low-cost clinics. Go to humanesociety.org, avma.org.

3. Adopt a Mutt

Puppy farms aren’t green, and neither is the fact that 4 ­million stray cats and dogs are put down each year. Why not adopt a lovable mutt instead of buying a purebred?

Exotic pets that escape or are released into a foreign habitat can wreak havoc on native species. For example, efforts to restore the Florida Everglades are undermined by a population of 150,000 Burmese pythons—the result of owners releasing pet snakes into the wild. Florida wildlife officials hold amnesty days where owners can drop off exotic creatures, no questions asked.

4. Flea-Free Home

A flea infestation is misery, but commercial “bug bombs” fill your home with potentially hazardous organophosphates. Try controlling the local flea population by using a combination of non-toxic methods. Grooming your dog, cat, or rabbit regularly with a flea comb is a good start. As the fleas are caught in the comb, deposit them in soapy water to prevent them jumping back onto your pet.

Fleas lay their eggs in the environment rather than on the animal, so cleaning up dust, debris, and pet hair will also help. Wash pet bedding and vacuum every five days, and get the vacuum bag out of the house before those tiny flea eggs hatch. You can freeze or burn the bag contents to destroy the eggs. Using a wet vac with slightly soapy water is an efficient way to capture both stray fleas and eggs. “Natural” or “food grade” diatomaceous earth (not the kind used in swimming pool filters) is safe to use in areas that can’t be reached by a mop or vacuum—the fine powder dehydrates fleas.

5. Toys and Treats

Give small wildlife a break—keep your cat indoors at dusk and dawn, when cats are most likely to hunt, and channel some of that hunting instinct into active play. The recycling bin can be a source of cat amusement. Twisted paper bags are good for a game of pounce, and a cardboard box can be an alluring hiding place. Recycle when your cat becomes bored.

6. Waste Not

Leaving dog or cat waste where pets drop it might seem like a natural alternative to putting it in a plastic bag and dumping it in a landfill, but harmful bacteria from pet waste may seep into local groundwater, be swept away in rainwater runoff or, if flushed, survive sewage treatment and eventually contaminate streams, lakes, or bays. Some pet owners compost pet waste in a miniature outdoor septic tank. For cats, make sure you’re using  litter made from materials that can be easily composted—such as corn, wheat, or recycled newspaper, rather than unsustainable clay.

In Alaska, where dog sledding is the official state sport, owners are advised to compost dog waste from their kennels for the least environmental impact. An excellent guide published by the USDA gives clear instructions on building simple pet waste compost bins, and the conditions to create high temperatures for efficient composting—even in the cold Alaskan climate. Find it at ak.nrcs.usda.gov/compost.html.

Jennifer Kaye and Lindsay Kucera wrote this article for 9 Strategies to End Corporate Rule, the Spring 2012 issue of YES! Magazine. Jennifer and Lindsay are interns at YES!

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A baker’s oven, a backhoe, a well drilling rig. According to social entrepreneur Marcin Jakubowski, these are a few of the 50 machines essential for any society to sustain a modern, comfortable lifestyle.

But these machines are not only essential, explains Leifur Thor, they’re also expensive, hard to repair and designed to be obsolete in a few years. Thor volunteers with Open Source Ecology, a non-profit Jakubowski founded to develop the Global Village Construction Set. The set will comprise durable, modular machines that people can build and maintain themselves with sustainable, locally available materials—often scrap metal. OSE will give the plans away to anyone who wants them. The money a farmer would have sent to a large corporation to buy a hay cutter will stay in the community. The environmental impact of shipping heavy equipment long distances will disappear. These machines are designed to cost roughly a fifth of what factory-produced models do.

"We’re obsessed with the idea that whatever we’re creating is going to have the maximum benefit, for the lowest cost, for the longest time," says Thor.

Preliminary drawings for a steam engine recently went up on the group’s website. Comments are welcome. “We’re involving the entire world in research and development,” says Thor. Though the Global Village Construction Set is still being designed, enthusiasts are already thinking about how to use it. Through OSE’s web forum, people interested in creating sustainable communities are reaching out to others in their geographical areas. A California company plans on using OSE’s modular tractor to build sustainable pressed earth buildings.

OSE is a reaction to the “tremendous inefficiency” of mass production, Thor says. “This is a natural evolution of technology. If we didn’t come along, someone else would have.”

Marcin Jakubowski explains the origins of OSE:

Colleen Shaddox wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions.

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I left Yale during the fall semester of my junior year fully intending to come back. Seven years later, even though I was technically still “on leave,” I arrived at my 5-year college reunion as a party crasher. But I didn’t feel sheepish coming back. I was just excited to have a good time with some old friends. I was pained to discover just how miserable many of them were. Many of my classmates had defaulted to law school, some were living at home. A few people had cleared the high bar to get low-level jobs in the Obama administration, and they were deeply frustrated at how powerless they felt in such powerful positions.

I’d heard of the “quarterlife crisis,” but what was going on with these people seemed like a more permanent problem. My friends had had all this crazy ambition and talent in college, this freewheeling ability to invent and imagine. But it seemed like they hadn’t found anywhere to use it, and so for most of them, it was as if they had spent their life building and learning to fly a plane and, now that they were in the air, they didn’t quite now where to land.

According to the International Labor Organization, as of 2010, 211 million people around the world were officially out of work. When we factor in the underemployed and those who have given up looking for a job, the number climbs much higher. In the U.S., only 54 percent of 18-24 year-olds have a job. And if there isn’t a radical shift in the direction of our economy, there will be no relief: According to some estimates, in the next 10 years, only 300 million new jobs will appear to greet the billion young people entering the workforce all around the world.

In this desperate landscape, millions of us are resigning ourselves to work that hurts us, hurts others, and damages the planet. We’re wasting our greatest assets. We have a deep, dim sense there’s something else we’re meant for, but we don’t know exactly where the opportunities are or how to access them.

Figuring out what to do with your life isn’t just about self-examination—it’s about examination of the world you live in. Theologian Frederick Buechner puts it this way: “Your vocation is where your greatest passion meets the world’s greatest need.” It takes a conscious act of imagining beyond what you see, connecting what you read and what you understand about the world to the actual life you lead.

We need to genuinely believe that things can change, that what once seemed impossible is now within reach. Arriving at that perspective is largely a matter of seeking and claiming our options, from the tiniest task-related choice, to the sweeping global choices we make as a culture. Do we really have to trade our time for money for something we don’t believe? Do we have to settle for being unhappy at work just because we have the pressure of bills to pay?

There’s another path—one that doesn’t always impart a specific job title, where meaning can become a method to achieve financial stability, where our instinctive emotional response to the injustices in our world lay the foundation for a long-term career. In analyzing the stories of people who have successfully re-directed their lives (we call them Rebuilders), Dev Aujla and I identified four stages their paths share in common:

Stage 1: The Wilderness

The first stage of every path to Making Good is recognizing and acknowledging a problem. In our hundreds of interviews with people sorting through the complex emotions this stage brings up, self-doubt was one of the most significant barriers to moving forward. They had identified a problem (or 20), but they just weren’t sure what they could do about it, where they could start. It was a combination stemming from a lack of direction and that feeling of being stuck.

It’s tempting to cling to our barriers and obstacles when we feel like giving up. There’s a distinct comfort in victimhood—you don’t have to risk anything, people extend you sympathy, and you get to feel the private satisfaction of being right when someone does you wrong. It’s like shutting off the alarm on a cold morning and drifting back to sleep. Except all our options shut down. We surrender our power. Some of our excitement, our spark, our capacity to do something meaningful in our short time on earth slips away.

We don’t control the broader economy, and we often don’t control the facts of our lives, but we can always control our response to them. That response is where our power lies, and to leverage it, we need to be conscious of our perspective. Our perspective on the world has immense power over our state of mind, just as the media’s perspective has a profound impact on society. Both are creations of our mind, and the gap between how we see ourselves today and how we want to see ourselves is the path we need to travel to build a meaningful career.

The path that Rebuilders are on is a nonlinear track that introduces career freedom, variety, and opportunity custom-cut to your abilities. On the mapless road, each episode offers new skills, challenges, and contacts that will contain a clue to the next episode.

We can rarely feel the connection of one moment to another while we’re living it, but with a little perspective, we come to see the inspiration and causation that propel us forward. The truth is you don’t begin your career at one particular time. Everything that you have done to get to this point—what you have learned, the people you have met, your time off, your work experience—has brought you here. Even people in the most traditional fields will credit their success to unplanned turns, to ideas that surprised them. You have to trust that doing good work and doing it earnestly will carry you from one sustaining project to the next, that just because there’s no corporate ladder to ascend doesn’t mean there’s no future work for you. The skills and experiences you pick up along the way only make you more prepared for the next challenge you’ll face, and the path that evolves to carry you through will indeed be a path—a nonlinear career path. It’s about the constantly evolving now.

Stage 2: Finding Your Special Powers

Magazine profiles of the most creative, the most powerful, the most up-and-coming movers and shakers can give us the impression that life just feels different for really successful people. Sometimes what we read about them seems to suggest that they’ve always had a clear path, one step after another, all stemming from some grand epiphany where they felt chosen for their work. It was as if they were clueless and then one morning they had this experience and, boom, there it was, their life’s purpose clear as daylight, driving them straight toward the magazine on the kitchen table.

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Thinking this way can make us feel like if we haven’t been discovered, then we probably aren’t worthy of great things. But when you talk to people who have achieved a level of success, you find out they, too, are caught up in that long, unfolding process of figuring out who they are, what they know and don’t know, and how to get paid. The truth is that neat epiphanies rarely occur.

The path to success isn’t as clear-cut as it may sound in the magazines. When a story is written about what you’re working on one day, it will be abbreviated, summarized, and centered around a point from where it all began—even though your work will be a much more gradual process.

The second stage is about finding your edge, the special power that we all possess. We start the search by looking back at the experiences that have gotten us here today. By looking back, you can begin to uncover a story, your story, and find out that you actually do have a unique edge, in spite of a nagging insecurity about not being good enough, not being ready enough. But what we need to understand is that in spite of that feeling, we are already in the middle of the work that we need to do. We are already living our “real” lives.

We have been making choices for our whole lives— whether we are aware of it or not. In fact, all of the choices that you have made up until this point have brought you to this point. You aren’t at the beginning—you are already in the middle. You are the perfect person to make the next move. If you are waiting for a moment to start, if you are waiting for some sort of signal to tell you that you can begin, you are missing out on what is happening right now.

Stage 3: The Kin

Study after study shows that we’re happier when we’re together, but sometimes it can be hard to find your people, your tribe, your community. Maybe your family and the community you grew up in don’t seem to support the values or passion you hold dear. Schools and work environments are too often designed for competition, not connection and collaboration, breeding a cliquish and alienating environment.

Most of us start off into the Wilderness with just one or a few friends who understand what we’re going through. We have late-night conversations and long walks to make sense of all the confusing things. We become stronger as we accumulate more friends. So the question is: How do we find our people?

There are hundreds of ways to find larger groups of people with shared values and purpose. Here’s a starter list of two quick ways to get you into your community:

1. Take the online offline. There are online networks and organizations for almost every interest. It’s great to be involved in these sites and networks, but look for opportunities to take the online networking offline as fast as you can. Go to bar nights, potlucks, film screenings, conferences, community association meetings, or open houses of these networks with the goal of finding just one other simpatico person to come to future events with you.
2. Bring it to your town. Look for events that are going on in other towns or cities that attract the people that you want to be hanging out with. Contact the organizer or host organization and sign up to be a local organizer or part of the team that is bringing it to your community. You now have permission to get in touch with as many people as you can and have an organization offering you some support to get started. Whether it is a TEDx event, ChangeCamp, or a Meetup event, there are great opportunities to get to know people.

When you do find true community, it can feel like a homecoming, like the discovery of a new family you didn’t know but was there all along. In these communities, you will find friendship, comradeship, and a kind of unity of purpose. These are the people who will drop everything to help when you’re in need, with whom you can share some laughs and commiseration when choices seem unknown. Your community is made up of those who will help you land a job when you’re broke, partner with you when you want to launch a new company, or at least have a drink with you on a patio.

Before long, if you’re not there already, you’ll end up being a part of multiple communities based around workplaces, conferences, Listservs, and who knows what else. For now, consider that you are already part of a broad movement of Rebuilders, and you aren’t doing it alone. Your community is actually everywhere. There’s a growing acceptance of this trackless track and more and more people that can help you bridge between the different steps on our nonlinear paths.

Stage 4: The Tests

As we find our edge, discover our communities, and accept the path we have begun to walk down, we need to stop and look around. You are figuring out how to live your purpose and living it at the same time. Stage 4 is about finding yourself in those moments when things feel like they are in chaos and learning to take a deep breath and find that personal power inside to get up, get out, and carry on.

Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money, and Community in a Changing World

By Billy Parish and Dev Aujla
Rodale Books 2012, 304 pages, $15.99

Support Yes! when you buy here from an independent bookstore.

These are our moments of truth—a time to conquer our fears and find the power within us to overcome the obstacles we face, regardless of how overwhelming they may feel. At certain moments in all of our lives, we are called to lead.

When the dreams we have for ourselves match the reality of our experience, we’re living our purpose. These moments of leadership aren’t always about being in the spotlight. They aren’t always about presenting to thousands or asking for millions of dollars. They are often quiet moments as we are getting dressed to leave or are making notes in preparation for a call. We know that what we are doing is right, but it feels so uncomfortable that all we want is for someone to come down from above to answer our hesitant wondering about whether we’re doing the right thing with a confident Yes.

Change starts with the simple belief in progress. And to participate in progress, we have to take hold of the millions of choices that come together to create the arrow of change. The world needs your best self. You need your best self right now.

Billy Parish adapted this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions, from his book Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money, and Community in a Changing World, co-written with Dev Aujla. Billy is the co-founder of the Energy Action Coalition and the co-founder and president of Solar Mosaic.

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For holidays tainted by commercialism, Valentine's Day gives Christmas a run for the money—big money. The National Retail Federation estimates Americans will spend $17.6 billion on Valentine's gifts this year, including $4.1 billion on jewelry, $1.8 billion on flowers and $1.5 billion on candy. But for consumers with a conscience, the very things Madison Avenue markets as expressions of love are some of the worst stuff you can buy.

Chocolate

A heart-shaped box of truffles may be a sweet dream for chocolate lovers, but it's a nightmare for many workers. Most of the world's cocoa beans come from plantations in Ghana and Ivory Coast, where a 2010 BBC investigation exposed the widespread use of child labor, human trafficking and even slavery to harvest cocoa.

Flowers

Most roses and other flowers sold in the United States are imported from Colombia, where the cut flower industry is also known to use child workers and forced labor. Because the flowers have to look perfect, they're treated with immense amounts of toxic pesticides, which contributes to high rates of lung and nerve disease in a workforce dominated by women and children.

Jewelry

Child labor, forced labor and dangerous conditions are well-documented in the mining industry. Gold mining uses mercury and cyanide to separate the metal from ore, and leaves behind mountains of toxic waste—more than 20 tons of waste to make one gold ring. The film Blood Diamond dramatized the role that diamond mining plays in fueling and funding brutal wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola and other African nations that have killed and displaced millions of people.

So should you boycott Valentine's Day? I'm not. I'm all for showing my loved ones how much I care, on Valentine's Day, tomorrow, and every day. A hand-crafted card, a heartfelt note, a home-cooked meal or (ahem) a special favor are all ways to express your love.

And for a gift that keeps on giving you can get involved in efforts to change the way these destructive industries do business. Joining a campaign not only amplifies your voice but brings you together with others who share your concerns.

Last February, Change.org mounted a petition drive that persuaded 1-800-Flowers to add Fair Trade-certified bouquets to its collection and create a code of conduct that prohibits its suppliers from using forced and child labor. Now the Fairness in Flowers campaign is asking consumers to write other major florists urging them to ensure their flowers are not grown and processed with the use of exploited labor or child labor.

More than 100,000 consumers have joined the No Dirty Gold campaign, which works to get jewelers to promise to use only gold mined responsibly. To date, 80 leading jewelry retailers worldwide have signed the pledge. Global Witness, a human rights group that helped bring attention to the bloody truth about the diamond trade, recently pulled out of a flawed United Nations-backed program to certify conflict-free diamonds, but remains active in the campaign to reform the industry.

OK, here's the toughest one to pass by (at least for me)—chocolate. Global Exchange is among the groups working with schools, churches and community groups to get leading chocolate companies to promise that their sweet treats don't exploit or endanger workers on African cocoa plantations.

Real love doesn't trash the planet or force children to work in dangerous mines or pesticide-drenched fields. There's no reason that jewelry, chocolates and flowers have to take such a heavy toll. This Valentine's Day, let's show our love not only to our sweethearts, friends and family, but to the Earth and people around the world.

Annie Leonard is a contributing editor to YES! Magazine. She is the creator of The Story of Stuff, The Story of Cap & Trade, The Story of Cosmetics, The Story of Bottled Water, and The Story of Electronics. This piece first appeared in The Huffington Post.

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Bank Transfer Day is gaining some serious steam. Although it's not technically affiliated with Occupy, it's being embraced by the movement and is the first specific call to action since the Occupy protests began.

The description and goal of Bank Transfer Day is straightforward: If you currently have checking and savings accounts (deposit accounts) with a big bank, the organizers encourage you to remove all of your funds, close your accounts, and place your money in a new deposit account with a not-for-profit credit union. The organizers ask that you do this by November 5. And since November 5 is a Saturday, you should definitely do it before November 5 since many big banks aren't open on weekends.

Move Your Money and Save
Big banks don't just
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Bank Transfer Day can significantly impact the way banks are able to make a profit. In simplest terms, banks rely on our deposit account balances to make loans that net substantial profits. Without our deposits, banks can't make loans. And if banks can't make loans, they're going to take notice. And they're surely going to freak out.

So if you currently have a deposit account with a big bank and you want to participate in Bank Transfer Day, read the following steps. It's a field guide that will help you accomplish this meaningful task of shifting your money from corporations that serve the 1% and put it with an organization that cares about the remaining 99%.

What You Need To Do Before Walking Into Your Big Bank Branch

1. Go through previous big bank statements to see exactly which accounts you have. Be sure to check the names on each account. If you are closing a joint account with two holders, it makes a difference whether the word joining your names is "and" or "or." If the account in your name is in your name and someone else's, you will both need to go in and close the account. If the account is in your name or someone else's, either of you can close the account. Some big banks may vary on this policy, so it's best to call your big bank to find out exactly what you need to do prior to walking into your local branch.
2. If you have any loans with a big bank, look closely at your statements and paperwork you signed at the time of closing. There very well might be penalties that will trigger a higher interest rate if you close your checking account. Big banks excel at offering customers lower interest rates on mortgage and auto loans if you open a checking account and maintain a minimum balance. A primary checking account is a bank's ultimate goal to securing your, ahem, loyalty. A primary checking account also leads to, on average, the opening of three additional accounts with that financial institution. Decide whether or not you can or have the willingness to pay off the outstanding loan balance. If you do not pay off the loan balance, call your bank to ask about escalating fees or rate increases by closing your checking account before walking into your local branch to close the checking account.
3. Stop using your deposit accounts ASAP. You need to allow everything to clear the accounts completely before you close them. This clearing process takes about two weeks to complete. Keep close tabs online to see which transactions are still outstanding.
4. Research non-profit credit unions. You will need a place to deposit your money, so perform this research before closing your big bank accounts. A good resource for finding credit unions is Find A Credit Union. Make your decision on which non-profit credit union you will join before walking in to the big bank branch to close your deposit accounts.

What To Do When You Walk Into Your Big Bank Branch

1. Approach a branch teller and tell him/her that you would like to close your accounts. The teller might hand you off to a customer service representative due to the bank's account opening and closing protocol. Or the teller might hand you off because they don't want to tie up customers' wait time in the teller line.
2. If the bank employee asks why you are closing your account, decide in advance the reason you're going to provide. You can tell them you're unhappy with big banks. You can tell them you're a part of the 99%. Or you can decline to give them a reason. The most important thing is to remain focused and not do anything imprudent that will keep you from accomplishing your goal of closing your deposit accounts and walking out of the big bank branch with your money.
3. Once the account closing process begins, ask the bank employee if you have any cash reserve accounts tied to your deposit accounts. It doesn't make sense to keep a line of credit open that was tied to your soon-to-be closed account.  
4. The bank employee will ask if you would like to receive your money in the form of a check or cash. If you want to make it rain outside of the big bank branch, request to receive cash. If you don't want to make it rain, we advise you to request a check.
5. The bank employee will either give you a confirmation letter of your accounts being closed or they will mail it to you. Once you receive the letter, keep it on file for up to five years.
6. Walk out of the big bank branch.
   

What To Do After You Have Closed Your Big Bank Deposit Accounts

1. Shred all remaining checks and debit cards. This is an essential step. If you mistakenly use the checks or debit cards, you will be going back to the big bank branch—except this time it will be to clean up your mess.
2. Go to the non-for-profit credit union you selected prior to closing your deposit accounts at the big bank. Open the accounts, get a new checkbook and debit card, and shake the employee's hand, or even give him/her a hug.

3. Sync up your new deposit account information (ABA routing number and account number for checks, card number, expiration date, 3-digit security code for debit card) to any relevant accounts that require automatic payments. For example, if you automatically pay your car insurance on a monthly basis with your checking account, be sure to sync up your checking account with your car insurance company. You may also want provide your new account information for online products such as iTunes, eBay, and PayPal.

4. Stand in front of a full-length mirror. Admire yourself. You've earned it.

That's all there is to it. Sounds like a lot, and perhaps it is. After all, big banks played a role in making this process difficult because it acts as a deterrent for people to withdraw their money and close their accounts. But if you stick to this guide and remain focused on your goal, you can impact meaningful and measurable change by participating in Bank Transfer Day.

This article originally appeared in FearLess Revolution.

More resources for Bank Transfer Day:
Facebook: http://facebook.com/nov.fifth
Twitter: http://twitter.com/banktransferday
Twitter Hashtag: #louderthanwords
Email: info@banktransferday.org

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TAKE A PEEK INSIDE THE FALL 2011 ISSUE OF YES! MAGAZINE

1. Recipe for a Start-up

While food businesses have traditionally gotten started in personal kitchens, most states now require any food sold commercially to be prepared in a kitchen monitored by a health inspector.

That requirement is too costly for many would-be entrepreneurs. People who want to start a food business in Cambridge, Mass., can rent professional kitchen space on an hourly basis from CropCircle, a nonprofit “kitchen incubator” that provides technical assistance and access to equipment like convection ovens and blast freezers. Starting a food business through Crop-
Circle, or one of the other kitchen incubators that have opened around the country, helps keep costs manageable, and entrepreneurs can quickly scale up production when they’re ready.

Hot Bread Kitchen in Queens, N.Y.: A training program and kitchen incubator that helps people from low-income communities get started in the food business.

Photo by Kristin Gladney.

CropCircle members can take a food safety class that prepares them for the state certification they’ll need to go out on their own. Operations Manager Darnell Adams cites the logistical challenges confronting food entrepreneurs, and says there’s room in the market for more kitchen incubators and the help they provide.

Some kitchen incubators focus on a specific population, such as immigrants or organic food producers, but Adams says CropCircle is “here for anyone who has an idea that is viable,” which is why a day on the job might have her sampling kimchi, carob peppermint cookies, or
baba ghanoush. —Colleen Shaddox

2. Free Computers

Computers are vital for almost any business, but not everyone can afford to buy one. Free Geek in Portland, Ore., can help. Volunteers donate 24 hours of their time to deconstruct and rebuild donated computers in exchange for one of their own. Free Geek’s build program guides
them through the process of constructing five computers, so they can take home the sixth. A grants program allows nonprofits to apply for computer donations.

Free Geek in Portland, Ore.: Rebuilt computers in exchange for labor.

Free Geek also offers computer classes, tech support, and a thrift store that sells desktop computers and peripherals at a fraction of retail prices. This keeps computer equipment out of the landfill, working for the local economy, and connecting people to jobs, work, and the world.

For those not living near Portland, Free Geek has numerous affiliates across the country. These affiliates must follow guidelines that include: disposing of equipment in ethical and environmentally responsible ways, using free and open-source software when possible, providing affordable or free tech training, using democratic and transparent governing policies, and being a nonprofit business. —Krista Vogel

3. Quality Child Care

Working parents with young children need quality, affordable child care, while many parents staying at home with their children need a way to earn a living. Nicole Richardson
got assistance from an organization that addresses both these needs.

Richardson came from a big family and always wanted to run a child care business. But realizing that dream required her to navigate complex regulations and make renovations to her home, where the business would be based. She turned to All Our Kin (AOK), a nonprofit in New Haven, Conn. All Our Kin prepared her for certification as a child development associate, helped her apply for her license, and provided technical assistance, including one-on-one mentorship from a master teacher. AOK clients get boxes of free materials that range from smoke detectors to art supplies, and Richardson even got a low-interest loan to fence her yard.

“I don’t feel like I’m babysitting kids,” she says. “I feel like I’m an educator.” Today she is certified as an Early Head Start provider and employs an assistant to help care for five infants and toddlers.

AOK opened in reaction to welfare reform, which pushed mothers into low-paying jobs that didn’t cover the cost of child care. Founders Jessica Sager and Janna Wagner began training women to provide outstanding child care in their homes. They expanded AOK’s work when many existing child care providers in Connecticut started going under. They believed that with good training and support these businesses could be sustainable and extend high quality care to neighborhoods where it was scarce. Their strategy worked: The number of providers is actually increasing in New Haven.

With the right skills, child care can be a great career, according to Richardson. “If you have the love for the kids, I recommend it,” she says. —C.S.

4. Ignite! Local Business

Training and mutual support go a long way in making small enterprises viable. That’s no secret to the graduates of Urban FIRE (Financial Intelligence, Responsible Entrepreneurship), a nonprofit in Oakland, Calif., that provides an affordable “crash course” for would-be entrepreneurs in the inner city.

The resulting new businesses are launched every year at the Ignite! New Business Expo, a showcase to encourage community support.

Teamwork extends beyond the classroom for Urban FIRE graduates. The founder of Our Cuban Kitchen in Oakland, for example, buys the restaurant’s desserts and marketing services from fellow graduates. It’s just the sort of collaboration that Urban FIRE founder Boku Kodama
envisions as the basis of a local economy. “What Ignite! and Urban FIRE attempt to do is create intra-dependent villages within their communities so that they can be more self-sustainable without relying on so-called social service programs,” he says. —Lily Hicks

5. Instant Office

Photo by Josh Hallett.

Independent workers may need a ready-made office for just a few hours, or all day, every day, and that’s just what’s provided by Citizen Space in San Francisco, Calif. Freelancers can pay a small fee to drop in occasionally, or a monthly membership for dedicated desk space, 24/7 building access, conference rooms, and office amenities. But this is more than just an office. It’s one of the growing number of coworking spaces that has sprouted throughout Europe and North America in the past five years as collaborative alternatives to working from home.

Citizen Space gives members access to a computer clinic on efficient use of technology—vital to independents whose computers serve as business hubs. It’s just one of the classes and events offered to promote good business practices and encourage social interaction. The networking opportunities are endless, and the atmosphere—somewhere between an office and a coffee shop—proves that people don’t need to work for the same company to be colleagues. —Krista Vogel

6. Factory at Your Fingertips

What would you make if you could run a factory from your laptop? It’s a real option, at least if you live near a Fab Lab. Developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fab Labs are a suite of industrial fabrication tools controlled by a personal computer.

The first Fab Lab outside MIT, at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio, has allowed entrepreneurs to start microbusinesses producing everything from knitting tools to circuit boards. Fab Labs currently support small businesses in scattered sites around the United States and even more so in the developing world.

Some of these products may find their way back to the States. A wireless network that helped Afghan farmers keep track of their sheep was repurposed in Kenya as a way to provide Internet access. Now people in Detroit are talking about adopting the system to provide low-cost wireless service. —C.S.

7. Organizing Freelancers

Offering your services on a temporary basis is one way to find work at a time when employers are reluctant to create permanent jobs. Contract workers make up 30 percent of the American workforce, and their numbers are increasing. The Freelancers Union offers “solidarity, benefits, community, and a political voice” to these consultants, independent contractors, temps, part-timers, and contingent employees. The 156,000-member organization is not actually a union in that it offers no collective bargaining. But it advocates for the rights of independent workers, and provides support in the form of group benefits such as 401K plans, health insurance (in certain states), disability insurance, and member discounts.

Need a Job? Create Your Own
Meet five entrepreneurs
who said no to corporate jobs.

Increasingly, universities and colleges employ part-time, contingent, and adjunct instructors, who are sometimes paid less than the cleaning staff, and work without benefits or job security. The American Federation of Teachers is a trade union that now includes workers throughout education, health care, and public service, as well as adjunct professors. The American Association of University Professors and the New Faculty Majority are not unions but do fight for adjunct rights.

The United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE) of America describes itself as an member-run, independent union. UE has a growing membership that includes a range of occupations and represents approximately 35,000 workers in more than 140 autonomous locals around the country.

Whether these and other newer professional unions grow to have the political and economic clout of the Teamsters or SEIU remains to be seen. But in the age of social networking there are new avenues for organizing from the ground up.—Larry Buhl

• More articles from New Livelihoods, the Fall 2011 issue of YES! Magazine.

• Who's Building the Do-It-Ourselves Economy?
  Corporations aren’t hiring, and Washington is gridlocked. Here’s how we take charge of our own livelihoods.
• Less Work, More Living
  Working fewer hours could save our economy, save our sanity, and help save our planet.
  
• How State Banks Bring the Money Home
  Big banks freeze out small business, but North Dakota’s state bank supports local jobs. The idea is catching on.
  

2. Real-Life Benefits for Women

Ana Sanchez has worked with Southwest Creations Collaborative in Albuquerque, N.M., for the past 12 years. The business offers living-wage jobs to immigrant women who do handwork, contract sewing, packing, and labeling. “Since we run a ‘communal shop,’ women who take side jobs that they find on their own or that SCC passes up because they are too small can use all of the organization’s machinery,” says Program Director Jessica Aranda. SCC provides on-site child care for working mothers; GED, English as a Second Language, computer literacy, and citizenship classes; and reproductive and preventive health care programs. Moms even get paid time off to visit with their children’s teachers and set academic and behavioral goals. southwestcreations.com —Laura Paskus

Photo by Susan Seubert.

3. Pedaling Sustainability
As Jed Lazar pedals his bike and big, blue trailer around town, people often flag him down to ask about his business, SoupCycle. And it’s exactly what it sounds like—soup on bicycles. “That’s so Portland,” they sometimes say.

While the business credits some of its success to the city’s bicycle culture, it’s the tasty soup that keeps customers coming back. Lazar uses local and organic produce whenever possible and has a rotation of more than 50 traditional and exotic recipes. Each week, “soupscribers” sign up for the vegan, vegetarian, or meaty option. Lazar buys the necessary ingredients, and his team transforms them into soups. Then, Lazar’s bicyclists deliver to Portland, Ore., neighborhoods on scheduled days. “Biking is a wonderful way to connect to the community,” he said, “and to run your business.”

Three years ago, Lazar and his business partner Shauna Lambert planned SoupCycle as an MBA project at Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Washington state. They pooled enough of their savings to last six months. If the business didn’t have at least 100 weekly deliveries by then, they’d have to call it quits.

They first served the soup to friends and used their feedback to refine the recipes. They started out cooking in a borrowed church kitchen. Lazar did all the deliveries using an electric-assist bike and was putting in 60 to 80 hours a week. A year and a half in, they hired a professional chef, and the SoupCycle staff now comprises seven workers who put in 10 to 40 hours a week in Portland and nearby Corvallis. Lazar is down to a more manageable 50 hours a week and can comfortably take vacation time. Most of the staff do deliveries, but Lazar makes sure they have a hand in soup production and ordering, too. “I want them to be able to say, ‘I helped make that soup, and it’s incredible,’” he said. “Then the customer also feels more connected to the product.”

It’s that customer connection that’s most fulfilling to Lazar. “We’re spreading hope for a more sustainable world and a thriving local economy,” he said. “We’re living that every day delivering soup.” —Krista Vogel 

Photo by Susan Seubert.

4. Urban Farmers for Hire
Donna Smith works with Patricia and Andrew Nimelman at their home in Portland, Ore., where they receive monthly installments of plant starts, seeds, and instructions. Working just 30 hours a week, Smith earns a living doing what she likes best—farming. Smith and her business partner, Robyn Streeter, run Your Backyard Farmer, which helps its clients plant, tend, and harvest organic gardens in their yards. Families design a menu of veggies to grow, then sit back and wait for their harvest. Smith and Streeter currently tend or consult with 57 farms and have helped farmers around the world start similar programs. —Krista Vogel

Photo by Paul Dunn.

She began making one-of-a-kind children’s clothes from pieces of adult clothes from thrift stores and consignment shops. With her sewing machine tucked into her kitchen, she carefully deconstructs pounds of clothing that would otherwise end up in a landfill and reassembles them into unique kids’ clothes, artful and fun. Adult long sleeves become kids’ pant legs. A mock turtleneck collar becomes the waistband of a flared skirt. Using local suppliers—often the surplus clothing is donated to her—and selling to small shops, she’s built riciclikids.com into a solid local business. She’ll be hiring soon and expanding her operation out of her kitchen.

Another reason for leaving the corporate world behind was quality of life. “I wanted to be more ‘there’ for my family,” said Collins-Pezzner, who has a husband, 15-year-old son, and a merely-days-old baby girl. Although she admits she works full days, they’re hours spent at home where she can be flexible to the needs of her family. She even talked her husband into leaving his corporate job, too. “We’re both believers in doing our dream.”

More articles from New Livelihoods, the Fall 2011 issue of YES! Magazine.

Interested?

• Less Work, More Living
  Working fewer hours could save our economy, save our sanity, and help save our planet.
• Living Right on the "Wrong" Side of Town
  When Corbyn Hightower's financial world fell apart, a ragtag community came together to show how lively neighborhoods create new livelihoods.
  

A few years ago, my husband and I decided that we wanted a better world for our two boys, now 10 and 11 years old. We embarked on a journey to do our part for the environment: My husband quit his job to join a sustainability start-up; I tackled the home.

I started by adopting reusable water bottles and shopping totes, but slowly took it further by replacing disposables with reusables (toilet paper excluded), shopping in bulk with cloth bags, bringing glass containers to the store for wet items (meat, deli, fish, cheese, oil...), and even testing more extreme ideas, like shampooing with baking soda and vinegar for 6 months. A year's worth of our household solid waste now fits in a quart size jar.

What we discovered along the way is that the benefits of the zero-waste lifestyle go well beyond the obvious environmental impact. It has not only made us healthier (since the healthiest foods do not come packaged), but it has also saved us a great deal of money. Most importantly, we now have more time to do the things that matter most to us, like spending it with our kids.

We find that we have become a closer and happier family in the process. We have found balance without compromising our goals, aesthetics, or sanity. Zero-waste living is on auto-pilot.

The zero in "zero waste" makes it sound scary and hard to achieve. It is actually not as as hard as it seems, and it is as simple as following these five R's, in order:

• Refuse what you do not need.
• Reduce what you do need.
  
• Reuse by using reusables.
• Recycle what you cannot refuse, reduce, or reuse.
• Rot (compost) the rest.
  

Refuse
1. Fight junk mail. It's not just a waste of resources, but also of time. Register to receive less at dmachoice.org, optoutprescreen.org and catalogchoice.org.

2. Turn down freebies from conferences, fairs, and parties. Every time you take one, you create a demand to make more. Do you really need another "free" pen?

Reduce
3. Declutter your home, and donate to your local thrift shop. You'll lighten your load and make precious resources available to those looking to buy secondhand.

4. Reduce your shopping trips and keep a shopping list. The less you bring home, the less waste you'll have to deal with.

Reuse
5. Swap disposables for reusables (start using handkerchiefs, refillable bottles, shopping totes, cloth napkins, rags, etc.). You might find that you don't miss your paper towels, but rather enjoy the savings.

7 Ways to Cook Up
a Sustainable Diet
No Impact Week: Helpful tips
for planet-friendly eating.

6. Avoid grocery shopping waste: Bring reusable totes, cloth bags (for bulk aisles), and jars (for wet items like cheese and deli foods) to the store and farmers market.

Recycle
7. Know your city's recycling policies and locations—but think of recycling as a last resort. Have you refused, reduced, or reused first? Question the need and life-cycle of your purchases. Shopping is voting.

8. Buy primarily in bulk or secondhand, but if you must buy new, choose glass, metal, or cardboard. Avoid plastic: Much of it gets shipped across the world for recycling and often ends up in the landfill (or worse yet, the ocean).

Rot
9. Find a compost system that works for your home and get to know what it will digest (dryer lint, hair, and nails are all compostable).

10. Turn your home kitchen trash can into one large compost receptacle. The bigger the compost receptacle, the more likely you'll be to use it freely.

An attempt at going zero waste starts with small changes. It's within anyone's reach, and change starts at home. As you embark on No Impact Week, remember—you're not alone in the challenge.

Bea Johnson wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions for a just and sustainable world. Bea blogs at The Zero Waste Home, where she shares personal stories and waste-reducing tips with a growing community of people are taking a stance on needless waste.

Interested?

• Register for No Impact Week.
  End the summer right! Join YES! for a one-week carbon cleanse that could change your life, your community, and even the planet.
  
• Jump In Together: An Invitation to No Impact Week
  Sometimes the hardest part of changing our lives and world is believing that it’s possible. Colin Beavan on finding a place to start.
• Small Steps for Growing a No Impact Family
  Since trying the No Impact Week experiment, our family has learned to be mindful of our habits, and live with more joy.
  

A year ago, I undertook a month-long experiment in making the "idea" of eating local a daily practice: For one month, I ate only food that was produced within a 10-mile radius of my home on Whidbey Island, Washington.

I allowed myself four "exotics"—foods from afar—because living without them would make the experiment a prison I'd never want to visit again. My exotics were olive oil, salt, caffeine and limes (and I discovered while researching my book in progress, Blessing the Hands That Feed Us, that these exceptions—plus chocolate—tend to be everyone's exotics).

The diet forced me to confront my habits, preferences, and obsessions. I had to learn to cook from only what's at hand, and understand my unique place on the earth—with its land and farmers and food—as never before.

Sign up for No Impact Week—
an 8-day carbon cleanse that could lead to a happier, healthier, and more sustainable way of life.

I'm a learner, and what I learned nourished me as much as the food did. Now, as hundreds of you take on the challenge of a sustainable diet for No Impact Week, here are seven tips for happier (and healthier) eating, wherever you are planted.

1. Savor your food without distractions. Chew it not for "good digestion" but to enjoy the flavors. Don't read or write emails or watch a movie. You may actually notice when you are full and stop. Savoring alone could lead us to eat, spend, and waste less.

2. Cook with what's at hand. If it is in your fridge or on your shelves, count it as local. How much food do we waste simply because we forget we have it?

3. Become competent in your kitchen. Using hand tools rather than a food processor saves energy and sharpens new skills.

My 10-Mile Diet
When Tricia Beckner asked me to only eat for a month what she can produce on her CSA farm-ette,
I was game. We’ve widened the circle a little to include food produced within 10 miles of my home on Whidbey Island.

4. Adopt one farmer and stock up. Local food means that specific human beings did a lot of hard work with much love to bring good food to their communities. Pick someone who sells at the farmers market or to your local co-op or grocer. Go to their farm and buy food for your No Impact Week experiment. It's fun.

Want to go more native? Buy winter storage food to live local in the cold months.

5. Invite someone to dinner. When we eat alone, we tend to wolf down our food. And families are so busy and distracted they often don't think to invite someone over for a meal. I learned that eating is an act of belonging, and we are not meant to be as anti-social as many of us have become. Cook a nice meal from your local supplies and enjoy conviviality.

6. Read the labels at your grocery store. Where do the 25 foods you most often buy originate? Is your olive oil simply distributed in California, or are those California-grown olives? Is your Napa wine really made with Napa grapes, or is it a blend? Is there information about the people who grew the food, packaged, or shipped it?

7. Start some alfalfa seed sprouts on your windowsill on day one. By the last day of the week, eat them.

Local tools, local farmers, local company, local sprouts—it's all part of your local food system.

Here's to No Impact Week showing you how good food can be—for your body, soul, and sense of belonging.

Vicki Robin wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions for a just and sustainable world. The coauthor of Your Money or Your Life, Vicki teaches classes about frugal, creative, and self-sufficient living.

Interested?

• Jump In Together: An Invitation to No Impact Week
  Sometimes the hardest part of changing our lives and world is believing that it’s possible. Colin Beavan on finding a place to start.
• Small Steps for Growing a No Impact Family
  Since trying the No Impact Week experiment, our family has learned to be mindful of our habits, and live with more joy.
• Food For Everyone
  Imagine a food system that delivers fresh, organic food to everybody. Can't be done in a world of industrial food? We say it can, and it must, especially in these economic hard times. We bring together the best ideas for a new food system, tell the inspiring stories of people revolutionizing food production, and show how you too can join a growing local food movement.
  

The United States is entering the fourth year of its deepest downturn since the Great Depression. The official unemployment rate is rising again, and labor force participation among many groups has plummeted to historic lows. A stillborn economic “recovery” has distributed 88 percent of its benefits to corporate profits and one percent to wages and salaries. The financial press is full of warnings that we have forgotten the causes of the collapse and are doomed to repeat it. Ordinary Americans, pollsters tell us, have little faith that the economy will improve, and attribute hard times to the misdeeds of capitalists.

If ever there was a time to challenge economic orthodoxy, this would be it. Yet there has been no effective movement in the United States to ease the suffering of millions, shift patterns of growth and investment, and make job creation a priority. Handed opportunity on a silver platter, progressives have failed to seize it. Understanding that failure is the key to reversing it.

Why no jobs movement?

The most immediate explanation is that there has been no mass protest by the jobless. Since the beginning of the recession, none of the pillars of the progressive community—organized labor, community organizations, civil rights groups, youth and student groups—have invested deeply in organizing the unemployed. Some online jobless networks have emerged, particularly around the extension of unemployment benefits, but they’ve acquired little focus, mass, or momentum.

To be fair, the challenges of organizing the jobless are formidable. In contrast to past recessions, today’s unemployed are widely dispersed rather than concentrated in particular industries, constituencies, or communities. They often hold themselves responsible for their condition and feel a strong sense of shame and powerlessness. Three decades of conservative politics have legitimated a radically individualistic ethos and eroded the once widespread belief that unemployment is a collective problem that society is responsible for fixing.

Moreover, the solutions to large-scale unemployment aren’t obvious. There is no shortage of thoughtful and creative ideas for job creation: infrastructure banks, work-sharing, community jobs, “on-bill” financing of energy projects, worker-owned businesses, lowering (not raising) the normal retirement age. But none of these has captured the imagination of progressives, much less the public at large. Without a compelling solution to point to, it is difficult to sustain protest.

Behind this policy conundrum is a more fundamental political obstacle. Progressives generally assume that public concern about unemployment translates into support for aggressive government intervention. But the majority of Americans believe that only business –not the public sector – can create “real” jobs. A fundamental skepticism about government has led many to conclude that cutting public spending is the best way to create jobs, or to accept high unemployment as “the new normal.” Winning policy change in this climate requires more than good ideas; it requires mass political education.

All of these problems are mutually reinforcing.  In the absence of a mass movement, ideas for change have little weight. In the absence of strong, compelling ideas, people lack the confidence to challenge ideological orthodoxy. Without the reality of people in motion, it is hard to generate a sense of hope and potential for collective action.

In sum, progressive efforts to promote job creation face a classic threshold problem. Incremental strategies—whether in the form of policy analysis, public education, community organizing, or local economic development projects—have a hard time getting lift off. The issue is simply too big, too baked into our economic and political structure. Only something on the order of a social movement can achieve the scale and intensity required to shake up the status quo and create space for a serious effort at job creation.

Pre-conditions 

Social movements, by nature, cannot be programmed, but neither are they entirely spontaneous. As the right has demonstrated in recent years, certain activities and investments can foster the conditions from which movements emerge. These activities include:  

Relentless outreach and recruitment: The current base of progressive activists is simply not large enough or broad enough to support an effective movement for jobs. We need to bring in lots of new people—hundreds of thousands if not millions—who are jobless themselves or passionately concerned about the impact of unemployment on their communities.

Creating space for authentic conversations: Movement-building requires opportunities for people to make sense of their personal experience, in reflection and conversation with others.  Some of this must be in person, in small groups that offer diverse perspectives with sufficient intimacy to build trust. Online and social media are great tools for exchange of ideas and mobilization of people, but they do not substitute for face-to-face conversation.

Identifying and nurturing grassroots leadership: Social movements rely on a deep stratum of leaders with the capacity for autonomous action and close alignment on values, principles, and goals. These leaders often seem to appear out of nowhere, but they are usually the product of an active cultivation process that includes information, training, and political education.  Like authentic conversations, leadership can be facilitated through online tools but almost always requires some “face time” and one-on-one relationships to thrive.

Developing a clear story: Ask a progressive why so many Americans are unemployed, and the answers one might get include Wall Street, free trade, corporate criminality, lack of public investment, structural inequality, bad schools, a flawed growth model, and much more. There is truth to all of these explanations, but they don’t add up to a cogent story. Creating a coherent economic narrative means choosing some elements to highlight and subordinating others. The same goes for policy solutions—if the list is too long, no one will remember it, much less fight for it.

Building strategic alliances: Movement-building is not well served by a progressive ecosystem dominated by short-term, transactional relationships. Even when progressive organizations play well together at the tactical level there is too little strategic coordination to take on really big, ambitious projects—like full employment. We need to create deep institutional partnerships that build on the complementary strengths of organizations and focus talent and resources on the hardest challenges.

Putting it into practice

These are the guiding aims of a new project on jobs and the economy by the Center for Community Change and its affiliate, Change Nation. Through conscious experimentation, we seek to build a robust network of community-led “action pods” that can simultaneously pursue local job creation strategies and unite around a common national agenda.

Want Jobs? Reclaim the Dream
Van Jones is leading a national mobilization to rebuild the middle class—through decent work, fair taxes, and opportunities for all.

At present, for example, we are using a movement-building model originally developed by the National Organizing Institute to train thousands of grassroots leaders in how to connect their own personal story to a broader economic narrative. We are collaborating with Van Jones and a host of national groups to develop a working message on the economy and a short list of demands for change. And in partnership with MoveOn.org and other groups, we conducted more than 1,000 house meetings on July 16-17 where Americans could meet with their neighbors to make sense of their experience with the economy.

It is too early to predict what will come of these experiments. What we have learned for certain is that Americans have an intense hunger for authentic conversation about what is happening to their country, and a strong desire to work with others in their community to create jobs and renew the economy.

Portia Bougler was amazed when 21 neighbors—ranging from age 16 to 85—showed up at her house meeting in Chillicothe, Ohio. “We had to keep grabbing chairs, but I was thrilled by what people said, their passion and commitment for change. Everyone signed up to volunteer.” Similar reports came from meetings in living rooms, urban cafes, suburban diners, homeless shelters, and hundreds of other venues across the country. If this energy can be captured and sustained, we can create a national jobs movement, a movement of scale with soul.    

Seth Borgos wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas and practical actions. Seth is director of research and program development at the Center for Community Change. He has also worked for the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support, an alliance of more than 100 grassroots organizations, the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program, and ACORN. He is the co-author of This Mighty Dream, a pictorial history of social change movements in the United States.

Interested?

• Who's building the DIY economy? Check out New Livelihoods, the Fall 2011 issue of YES! Magazine.
• The American Dream, Reloaded:
  It's happening: The movement to rebuild the dream means owning our stories about how it went wrong—and finding our own ways to make it right.
  
• Making Time:
  How to take back your time—and share it, too.
  

Organic cotton production systems replenish and maintain soil fertility, reduce the use of toxic and persistent pesticides and fertilizers, and build biologically diverse agriculture. Organic cotton represents 1.2 percent of global cotton production, according to the Textile Exchange Farm and Fiber Report 2010.

1. Organic and Fair

Much of the clothing we purchase every year carries hidden environmental and social costs. Growing non-organic cotton, for example, uses copious amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and water. That’s one concern for people who want to make low-impact, ethical choices as consumers. Another issue is that clothing sold in the United States is often produced in the developing world, in factories with poor wages and working conditions. To ensure that you’re buying fair labor clothing, look for companies that are transparent about their production process. Green America’s National Green Pages is a good source of information if you’re looking to buy the most sustainable and fairly produced clothing available.­—K.V.

• Interested? Visit greenamerica.org
  

2. Swap Some

Before you toss your old clothes into the nearest charity drop box and go shopping for new ones, consider a clothing swap. You can arrange one yourself with friends in your living room or take part in a clothing exchange with a difference. Swap-O-Rama-Rama is a community clothes-swap party that also raises funds for nonprofits.

The cost? A bag of old clothes and a donation of no more than $10. Once you pull your finds from the communal heap, volunteers at sewing and silkscreen stations help you decorate and mend your “new” clothes. Artist Wendy Tremayne founded Swap-O-Rama-Rama with a “no mirrors” rule. Swappers give each other face-to-face feedback instead.

Clothes swaps are an attractive alternative to buying, given that the average American household spends $1,725 every year on apparel. But even more attractive is the assurance that

The EPA estimates that each person in the United States throws out 10 pounds of clothing every year.

your new outfit won’t support sweatshop manufacture or farming with harmful pesticides.­—L.H.

• Interested? Find a wap or start your own by visiting swaporama.org.

3. Recycle to Insulate

You can wear recycled cotton—or use it to insulate your home. Home insulation is available that is made from 90 percent post-consumer recycled denim and cotton fibers, uses less energy to manufacture than traditional insulation, contains no fiberglass or formaldehyde, and doesn’t off-gas.

The cotton industry’s “From Blue to Green” campaign showed that consumers are eager to recycle when it collected more than 40,000 pairs of old jeans in 2010. These were used to make insulation that was then donated to community housing projects.—K.V.

4. Make It With Old Jeans

Reuse your old jeans to create a tool belt or gardening apron. Cut the legs off as if you were making a pair of cutoffs. Cut along the seams of the inner legs, and cut out the front fly. Trim the back into an apron shape, leaving the pockets intact. If the waistband is too small, cut off the front button and use an old belt to hold your tool belt in place. Sew on strips of leftover denim to hold hammers, etc.

You can leave the cut edges raw, finish them on the sewing machine, or apply some leftover latex paint on the edges to prevent unraveling. ­—K.V.

5. Wear Local

We’re more likely to find evidence of the “buy local” movement in our refrigerators than in our closets. A pair of organic cotton jeans leaves an 85-pound carbon footprint after its 10,000-mile journey from the field in India to the store in North America. That’s no walk to the farmers’ market.

That’s why Rebecca Burgess’ challenge—a year of wearing only clothes made from materials sourced within 150 miles of her front door—is especially innovative. Of the 20 pieces in Burgess’ wardrobe, her favorite is what she calls the “Golden Pants,” made of local, organic, color-grown, undyed cotton.

Burgess started the Fibershed Project to show what really sustainable clothing production looks like. She and other textile artists produce stylish, eco-friendly clothing from local materials.

The results shown on the Fibershed blog are so desirable that you’ll be tempted to try a sustainable clothing project yourself, like dyeing wool using homemade natural plant dyes.

Burgess is raising funds through the project to build a solar-powered fabric mill in Northern California. That would make wearing local easier—and show what can be done elsewhere. —L.H,

Krista Vogel and Lily Hicks wrote this article for New Livelihoods, the Fall 2011 issue of YES! Magazine. Krista and Lily are editorial interns at YES!

Interested?

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• My 10-Mile Diet
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Standard water-based sewage systems account for about 30 percent of household water use: Even low-flow toilets use 1.6 gallons of water with each flush.

Composting toilets don’t use water and are odor-free and sanitary if maintained properly. In a matter of months, they break human waste down into unobjectionable compost. Municipal planning authorities across the country are coming around to the idea that composting toilets are not only better for the environment, but safe for public health, too.

One example comes from a private elementary school in Seattle with 233 students. The Bertschi School’s new science wing is designed to be completely self-sufficient, which includes composting human waste. A vacuum flushes the toilet into two composting tanks, which can hold a total of six months’ worth of waste. Janitors dump bark dust into the tanks to add carbon to the mixture, and slide a handle in and out to aerate.

Composting toilets can cost more than $1,000 at home stores, but the Humanure Handbook says you can do it yourself. Mount a toilet seat atop a 5-gallon bucket. Use sawdust to cover your “business,” eliminate odor, and encourage the composting process. Use undyed, unscented toilet paper. Add the results to the rest of your compost, making sure it’s safe from flies, rodents, and the like. Some people empty the bucket into a container like a 55-gallon drum.

This only works with a well-tended compost pile that gets hot enough to kill any pathogens. Experts recommend composting for a year to add a margin of safety, since common germs and parasites don’t survive that long in soil.

The result will make great compost for trees, flowers, fruits, and fruiting vegetables, although cautious gardeners avoid using it on root crops. Contact your County Health Department to find out the regulations about composting toilets in your area.

Oliver Lazenby wrote this article for Beyond Prisons, the Summer 2011 issue of YES! Magazine. Oliver is an editorial intern at YES!

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• The Humanure Handbook, now in its 3rd edition, is a detailed source on the biology of composting human manure.
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Imagine a neighborhood with clean air, safe places for children to play, and abundant green spaces—all the attributes of a healthy community. Many people lack these basic amenities and I ask myself, why? Are these fundamental needs not the rights of all people?

Majora Carter has spent a large part of her life fighting for environmental justice and promoting the idea that "you don't have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one." As a child growing up in the South Bronx, she watched her once thriving neighborhood disintegrate under the weight of poverty, industrial waste, and the worst kind of urban planning. Subsequently, pollution rose, health rates declined, and the economy weakened. Carter began fighting for the revitalization of the South Bronx and secured a $1.25 million federal grant to redevelop the south Bronx waterfront to bring environmental improvements to her community. 

 To continue this fight, Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx), a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming underserved urban communities into sustainable places to live. Her work at SSBx boosted the creation of environmental education programs, green job training, and community projects. Carter now serves as the President of the Majora Carter Group, where she concentrates her efforts on environmental remediation with clients.

People like Majora Carter make me believe that a healthy and sustainable community is indeed attainable for all people. Her work promotes the idea that a collaborative model where government, developers (business and industry), and community unite to create environmental justice is possible. A clean green economy can exist where all people can thrive and live healthy sustainable lives.

Joanna Gangi: There is a major social equity gap in the environmental movement. Why do you think that has been the case? What can we do to make our movement more inclusive?

Majora Carter: Most real social change in societies comes from the advancement of equality. The American Revolution, the Suffrage movement, Labor Rights, Civil Rights, even the Internet. 

The environmental movement has traditionally left people behind in environmental sacrifice zones, which are almost always populated by poor people—usually non-white, but not always.

So, for instance, while the environmental movement may have had past successes in getting land preserved or making automobile emissions cleaner, it has not worked as hard to ensure that working-class people living near preserved land can make a living through sustainable stewardship of the area; nor have the oil refineries near where poor people live become any less toxic.

If we had located our power, waste, transport, and mega-agriculture infrastructure near wealthy people like we have with poor people, we would have had a clean, green economy decades ago. Instead, the environmental movement turned its back on the point sources of greenhouse gases and pollution in favor of their own backyards and favorite animal species. The public health stats illustrate this phenomenon quite clearly.

If we can turn the "environmental" movement into an "environmental equality" movement, I believe new allies will come on board with more passion and tenacity than we've seen before. Clean air, water, and land is not evenly distributed. Poor people are more likely to breathe dirtier air, drink dirtier water, and live, work, or go to school on toxic soils.

The hunger for equality will always be greater than support for Cap and Trade or some other effort that's not directly tied to the lives of people. If we bring everyone together for environmental equality, many of the traditional environmentalists' goals will surely be met as well.

Joanna Gangi: As you have said, economic degradation begets environmental degradation, which begets social degradation. What do you see as the key leverage points for breaking that cycle?

Majora Carter: I think comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the long term consequences of environmental management is the best place to start. For example, look at coal country in West Virginia: You have a traditionally poor rural area, so you can assume the people there have little to no political power. Mountain top removal strip mining moves in and destroys their water table and their air quality while producing very few jobs. So now they have no cheap clean water supply, dirty air, and continuing unemployment. It adds up to hopelessness, which leads to drug and alcohol abuse, domestic abuse, poor school performance among kids, increased teen pregnancy, etc. 

Mountain Memories: Interview with Judy Bonds
Before she died, West Virginia activist Judy Bonds gave this interview about fighting to save her home from mountaintop removal coal mining.

These problems all cost a lot to combat, but the company pulling the coal out of the area does not pay; taxpayers do. If we look at the two to four years' worth of coal energy produced in such an operation, against all the social and environmental services costs in the context of quality, it's not economic development in any rational sense of the word.

I think this template can be applied to everything from shopping malls to feed lots. Positive alternatives to bad projects will make better economic sense when we first look at the fallout from inequalities among our fellow Americans that a given proposal might produce.

Joanna Gangi: What is your message to people living in underserved neighborhoods who want to make a difference, but may not know where to start or have the appropriate resources?

Majora Carter: Your local elected officials and your fire, police, and parks departments are there for you and most of them really do care—but you have to engage them in a constructive manner. Start by talking among your friends about what you would like to see different in your area. This is not just for "underserved" neighborhoods—all communities can benefit from some intelligent discussion.

So, if it's a traffic light that doesn't give enough time to cross a dangerous intersection, a truck route near residences, not enough green space, or locating a landfill, power plant, or other noxious infrastructure near people, it all matters.

Start with the people responsible for your area and see what you can accomplish. Not everyone will respond, but that might mean your approach is not appropriate for what they can do. Make sure you ask, they will probably say yes. Positive momentum can go a long way.

When I wrote a $1.25 million federal transportation planning grant, I had no idea what I was doing. But I kept the conversation alive in various settings and asked for help. People came out of the bureaucratic woodwork to guide the process and help shape the language for the system. It worked, and today the project has secured over $20 million in local funds and another $30 million in Federal Stimulus funding (shovel ready). This is more money for a project designed with positive community impacts in mind than the South Bronx has seen in almost a century.

But it all started with regular people talking constructively to one another.

Joanna Gangi: You've said that the economic and environmental injustices inflicted on the South Bronx were a direct product of urban planning. When you look at large scale urban planning projects going on now, do you see signs of improvement?

Majora Carter: Not really. I think the use of eminent domain to promote purely private development is a disturbing national trend. Government-subsidized stadium construction is often lurking in the shadows of these undemocratic land deals. In my hometown, we watched with disbelief as New York City's Mayor Bloomberg and our former borough president, Adolfo Carrion, supported a new Yankee stadium to be built on an 18-acre public park with trees over 100 years old—all gone now. This is the richest baseball team in a part of the city with the lowest parks-to-people ratio. And now both of these characters are running around the country promoting themselves as "green." I can't think of any current large scale projects that are going to bring about more equality.

The real intelligent planning and execution is happening on a community/neighborhood level. This is where the real heroes are, but they remain largely unsung. I am currently putting together a new TV series with Sundance Channel to highlight these innovative attempts.

Joanna Gangi: You've identified the players involved in making the triple bottom line work for development projects: developer, community, government. Can you think of an example when these three entities have really come together for the greater good?

Majora Carter: Yes, of course. My favorite is Bogotá, Colombia. In the late '90s while Enrique Peñalosa was mayor, he took a hard look at how much money was going into transport infrastructure and who was benefiting. He didn't have much money to work with, so he looked for low cost investments that would produce the highest quality of life impact. 

How to Build a Happy City:
Interview with Enrique Peñalosa
The former Bogotá mayor is convincing city planners from Beijing to Mexico City to create lively public spaces that center around people and community, not cars.

His administration purchased large tracts of suburban land, beyond the slums that ringed the city. The DOT connected the land via bike and pedestrian routes to local shopping areas and mass transit hubs—but no automobile access except for emergency and delivery vehicles.

In a short time, developers were putting private investments into housing along these non-auto routes. Simple, resident-generated community improvements were implemented in the existing poor neighborhoods, while relatively higher income Bogotaños occupied most of the new housing.

Bike repair and juice stands opened along the route—owned and operated by previously unemployed people. Police spent less time on car theft and more time on community. Public health improved. Everybody gained, and I hear it's gotten even better since I was there in 2005.

Joanna Gangi: The International Living Building Institute is hosting the Living City Design Competition. The competition calls on designers, students, and activists from around the world to create inspiring but realistic visions for the future of civilization. Competition teams will conceptually retrofit existing cities, demonstrating how real communities might transform their relationship with the resources that sustain them. What do you think the most important consideration should be for teams working on this competition? Do you think communities like yours in the South Bronx would be interested in this kind of visioning process?

Majora Carter: I think that people in communities across America, who currently experience environmental inequality, would be interested in seeing the teams demonstrate how to transform the relationship with resources that sustain others. How do we remove the unequal environmental burdens that currently befall some people disproportionately? 

Beyond that, locally maintained horticultural infrastructure should be integrated into all new and renovated buildings and landscape design. The technology is there to utilize greywater, manage stormwater runoff, incorporate high-yield agricultural systems, reduce the urban heat island effect, and more.

The effects of smart policies that incorporate those environmental services' cost savings would be a great thing to see—what would the government savings over the typical 20-year municipal bond issue be?

Joanna Gangi: Your personal story is a major source of inspiration to many people who have felt marginalized by the green movement. What have you learned along the way that surprised you the most?

Majora Carter: I learned that my message plays just as well in "red" states as they do in "blue" states, based on the heartfelt personal reactions I get. I come from the most urban place in the U.S., but I have directly comparable experiences to people in rural areas and places in between. The solutions are often based in shared experience, too. I am so happy to see that an idea like "you don't have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one" is gaining ground everywhere!

Joanna Gangi is Communications Coordinator for Cascadia Green Building Council and managing editor of Trim Tab. This article was originally printed in the Fall 2010 issue of Trim Tab, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council’s magazine for transformational people and design.  To see this and other issues of Trim Tab, go to www.cascadiagbc.org/trimtab.

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Video from Earthjustice on YouTube.

When Jen Slotterback found a well pad stake in a local park, she realized the forest would soon be taken over by a natural gas drilling—and the controversial process hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—unless she did something to stop it. Jen and her husband Jim had never organized a campaign before, and they only had 11 days before the vote on whether to allow fracking in the park. In that short amount of time and with the help of the Responsible Drilling Alliance (RDA), the Slotterbacks mobilized their community to save Rider Park. The board unanimously voted against the drilling.

Now the Slotterbacks and RDA are campaigning to save more than 700,000 acres of forest throughout Pennsylvania from fracking.

To learn more and sign the petition, click here.

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