Tomorrow, January 31, there will be a combo celebration/education event promoting sunny solar power!! The Brooklyn Green Team will celebrate, “One year of Action” at Bar Reis in Brooklyn.  Other environmental organizations will be present including Solar One which will be set up to educate guests on why NYC is a prime candidate for building a solar power system with Photovoltaics (PV).  They will be explaining their legislative initiative to make NY the region’s solar capital and will be set up for you to write letters to your legislators straightaway.

Last week, I attended an event about Solar Power organized by the Metro NYC Environmental Meetup group.  It was held at Solar One where Chris Neidl presented a thorough investigation of the reasons why NYC is a prime location for generating solar power.  NYC uses more energy than some developed countries.  We also use energy intensely and creatively for all kinds of artistic, innovative endeavors.  So, we need a better type of electricity to power our urban culture.  There are so many characteristics that make NYC a good candidate for going solar.  Here’s a list of a few of them:

• New York is 65% sunnier than Germany; currently the # 1 producer of solar power from PVs. If they can do it so can we.
• NYC has an abundance of flat surfaces— roofs! for installing PV panels
• Generating our own energy within the city limits could greatly reduce our drain on the regional energy grid during times of peak use-the summer, and so decrease blackouts.
• We use the greatest amount of energy (in summer) when the sun is shining brightest.  By installing PV panels on our rooftops we could be generating power right when we need it most—creating synergistic events!
• The price of PV technology continues to decrease with increased acceptance.  Part of the price includes labor costs and this decreases as installers become more efficient and knowledgeable with each installation.
• PV technology would displace building generators (kick in during times of peak energy demand) which create lots of particulate matter, contributing to smog, which exacerbates asthma.  Going solar would clean up our air and our children’s health.

In this video, a group of tenants share their story of how they went about putting solar panels on their Manhattan apartment building.  It’s a great example of a group working with NY State legislators to expand government incentives for solar power to a greater section of the population.  For more information on the New York Solar Initiative, click here.

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For the next several Thursdays, we will be discussing Rob Brezsny’s Pronoia is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. Click here to read all the Pronoia posts.

What is pronoia? Well, obviously it’s the opposite of paranoia—instead of thinking everyone’s out to get you, you think that the world is conspiring on your behalf. And, the funny thing is that it’s true!

“Glory in the Highest” (page 4) starts with the sentence “Thousands of things go right of you every day, beginning the moment you wake up.” Brezsny then goes through dozens of examples of things that go right before you even leave for work in the morning—you wake up still alive! the sun is shining! the toilet works!—and asks of each wonder, how does that happen? How does your body know to keep breathing and pumping blood even as you sleep? How did your hands come to be such “astounding creations that allow you to carry out hundreds of tasks with great force and intricate grace”? Who sewed the clothes in your closet, baked the bread in your cupboard, and engineered the miraculous feat of hot and cold water flowing at your command?

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It’s time for another Sunny Way Book Club! This time we will be discussing Rob Brezsny’s Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. This book first caught my eye a few months ago, when I read about it in a comment thread on Worldchanging.

I was intrigued by the title—how often do we look at the world through a lens of suspicion, when the fact is that we are custom made for this planet, and millions of events go off without a hitch every single second? On this site, we talk a lot about reframing our view of the world to be creative and positive, so I thought Pronoia would be a perfect fit for us. And I was right!

Leafing through Pronoia, I catch myself alternately laughing and closing my eyes to ponder certain ideas. This book is not only an introduction to the concept of pronoia—it’s also a manual/workbook through which we can learn how to live pronoiacally, with our eyes on sacred creation and silliness instead of doom and gloom.

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The Concert for Peace has been an annual New Year’s Eve event at St John the Divine Church for 26 years.  The concert was started by Leonard Bernstein in 1983. This year, to commemorate his ninetieth birthday, three excerpts of pieces from West Side Story were chosen to be performed.  My friend and I sat behind the orchestra in old wooden pews carved for individual sitters.

The concert was a beautiful combination of musical performances and spoken word to reflect on for 2009.  Religious leaders from all different faiths spoke briefly on themes of peace, trust, and truth. Harry Smith, one of the Cathedral’s trustees, emphasized that we evaluate our values. He suggested that in these financially difficult times ahead, it would be wise to turn away from trust in things to trust in each other.

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Whenever I try to change myself for the better, I start out all super excited. An example: On January 5th, I started eating as prescribed by Dr. Joel Fuhrman in his book Eat to Live. I’m basically living on vegetables, fruit, beans, nuts, and seeds. The first week, I was off-the-charts gung-ho. Since Thanksgiving, I had basically been stuffing myself with as much yummy, unhealthy crap as I could fit in my mouth, and suddenly switching to the cleanest diet I’ve ever eaten felt great both physically and mentally. Not only did my extra holiday pounds start falling off my body, I also felt ridiculously proud of myself.

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This week we focused on how we can move from where we are to where we want to be, an integral worldview that allows us to harvest the wisdom of culture and history.

• Monday we talked about what that integral worldview is about, and how we can embrace it.
• Tuesday we celebrated our new President’s inauguration and launched 11 Questions, a new feature in which you, gentle reader, tell us about the worldchanging projects you’re working on, and we share your story on the site.
• Wednesday we looked at Microserfs, and how, out of the detrius of pop culture, its characters managed to construct family and purpose.
• Thursday we dove into some good news on the environmental and activism fronts.

Today I’d like to share this video on Kiva, the microlending network which allows folks like you and me to lend money to entrepreneurs in developing countries. This video follows one $25 loan from where it’s lent in London to where it is used and repaid in Cambodia. Kiva’s huge success comes from empowering lenders to help in small chunks that add up to big change in the lendees’ lives.

A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.

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Now that we have a new president, it feels as though the 21st century has finally started. Of course, I’m still waiting on my jetpack and my robot maid, but in the meantime, there’s lots of amazing stuff being done in every quarter to get the new world jumpstarted.

First off, the incredible organization that helped President Obama win the election is now being transformed into a network of service to renew America. For a long time, the movements for change in this country and around the world have operated largely independently of each other, focused on their own missions without being organized on a larger level. Efforts have been made to connect these autonomous groups, but without massive funding and public awareness, each network only contains a small piece of the puzzle. I’m hoping that USAService.org grows into a nationwide, widely publicized umbrella for everyone who wants to change the world so that we can be aware of what’s going on and work together intelligently.

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I first read Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs in 2000 in the midst of the high-tech boom—of which my company was a small part. After almost a year of 12+ hour days, I was burnt out and in need of a serious break. My boss had responded to my burnt-ness by agreeing to send me overseas for a few months to help get our European operations underway. On the way there, I unwound my hunched shoulders and devoured Microserfs in one sitting—it was the first book I’d had time to read in a looong time.

I had expected a light-hearted book all about the trails and travails of computer programmers in the 1990s, and Microserfs surely delivered that. But I was surprised by the book’s huge heart and love for its geeky, awkward, somewhat inscrutable characters. This book asks some really big questions, as relevant to our post-tech boom lives as they were to life in the first flush of internet fast money. How do we find meaning in a world made up of tidbits of information? When there are no rules or models for relationship, no overarching theme to life? When we’re not even sure how to reach out to each other in the flesh? In this hilarious, sweet, unassuming story, Coupland’s characters find a way.

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Happy Inauguration Day! I’m getting ready to head over to watch Obama be sworn in with my grandmother, who seems both stunned and thrilled by the change she has witnessed in her 85 years. Last summer, when she told me she was voting for Barack Obama, I was surprised—she was raised in West Virginia in the 1920s and 30s, and of course she has some attitudes leftover from that upbringing. But she told me that Obama struck her as a good and genuine man, something she hadn’t seen in presidential politics in a long time, and she was excited to see what he could do given the chance.

Of course, what inspires me most about an Obama presidency is his insistence that we all take responsibility for creating America’s future. The truth is that the future has yet to be written, and the choices we make today will determine what is possible tomorrow. That means there are no small potatoes—everything we do counts! If our problems are to be solved, we must be the ones to do it. I am the one, and so are you.

In line with the tone of service and teamwork that Obama is setting, today we are unveiling a new feature on the site: 11 Questions about what you are doing to change the world. Whether you’re working as part of an organization to restore waterways in your area, trying to connect with your politically-opposite family in a respectful way, or mentoring a kid from a rough neighbhorhood, we want to know all about it—what’s working, what’s not, how are you getting things done, and how can we support your efforts?

We also want to share your story with our readers. When you fill out the 11 Questions survey, we will publish your response. If you need help, we want to help you get it. And, over time, we expect to build up a big list of future-creating projects which visitors to the site can browse through for ideas and inspiration. So many people are doing so many great things—let’s connect and see how we can work together.

So please fill out the survey and let us know what you’re up to! And I hope you enjoy this wonderful, historic day.

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Last week we looked at change in culture and in individuals as a developmental process, where the problems created by one stage lead directly into the next stage. Modernity brought great material wealth into the world, but caused pain and oppression by excluding and devaluing cultures with different values. Postmodernism evened this playing field, re-examining modernity’s achievements and validating the knowledge and worth of other worldviews, but has also brought with it a sense of nihilism and moral relativism.

In response to these problems, another worldview is now arising—integralism. And those of us who are serious about creating a new world must seek to understand and embody this new way of thinking.

Put simply, integralism is about looking at reality as an integrated whole, seeing patterns and changes in a larger context. An integral doctor treats the entire patient, not just the part that’s hurting, and an integral culture embraces all factions within that culture as beloved, valuable pieces of a complex and connected puzzle.

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This week we focused on development—how does it happen and what does it mean. We also focused on a business project that is bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

• Monday we discussed the mechanism by which development happens, when we step back from how we think we are and look at our characteristics clearly—when the subject becomes the object.
• Tuesday and Wednesday we looked into the stages of modernism and postmodernism and all the positive and negative things they’ve brought into the world.
• Thursday Victoria profiled Greendisks, a very cool company which embodies its mission of reducing waste and reusing existing networks as it recycles electronic waste.

Today I’d like to share with you this short video, where spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen and Integral theorist Ken Wilber talk about “the adventure of waking up.” Wilber talks about how every time we choose a higher thought or action than what we’re used to, we actually create new structures in consciousness. In this way, as we develop, so does consciousness itself. Cohen picks up this thread, discussing our awesome responsibility at this point in history: “We have to be willing to bridge the gap between our capacity to cognitively appreciate that these things are true, and actually become that realization and that recognition ourselves.”

What both men are saying is that it is up to each of us as individuals to push the boundaries of what we think we are, and, in doing this, we move the playing field as a whole.

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What began as a simple question—Hmm…I wonder if Greendisk would recycle my spent lithium ion laptop battery?—led to a nearly two-hour phone conversation with Greendisk’s enthusiastic and visionary CEO, David Beschen. I found out much more than I had anticipated. Greendisk is organized in a way that cooperates with existing businesses and non-profits to make electronic waste recycling a seamless last step in the life cycle of techno trash—computers, VCR’s, laptops, cell phones, CD’s, peripherals, VHS tapes, batteries, etc.

Besides answering my question, David explained to me how Greendisk puts the spotlight on the first “R” of the Waste Hierarchy (Reduce), and has created a structure to handle discarded electronic waste while not creating anything material. Greendisk accepts a large variety of techno trash, the most extensive list of any e-waste recycler in the US.  They are skilled at directing this trash from individual and commercial sources to be sorted and consolidated into component parts.

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Before we can understand where we’re going, we have to see where we are, so let’s start by talking a bit about modernism and postmodernism.

Modernism began with the Greeks, then disappeared until Europeans picked up the thread in the Renaissance, discovering that reason could improve their lives at least as much as the religions which had previously governed them. Pre-moderns looked to God for answers, but moderns began to look toward science.

It took a long time for people to disembed their religious beliefs from their identities and take up the new tools of rationality, but eventually modernism came to rule the world, and it still does today. In terms of population, more than half the world exists at the traditional, pre-modern stage. But moderns hold almost all of the world’s wealth, and more than half the people in the Western world have their center of gravity in modernism.

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Yesterday we talked about the process by which development occurs—allowing the subject to become the object. Put another way, when we disidentify with what we think we are, we can examine it objectively and make decisions rather than following patterns.

Today and tomorrow, I’d like to spend a little time exploring some of the current stages of cultural development we mentioned in yesterday’s piece, because understanding where we are and where we are headed will help us make the next great leap.

Before I get too far into this, I will say that although the stages of the spiral are real, they are not hard and fast.  Development is a fluid and messy process. The line between levels is never clearly marked, and there is no initiation ceremony for a person moving from one stage to another.

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Last week we talked about meditation, and how learning to witness one’s thoughts without getting wrapped up in them leads to development. But how? What is the mechanism? When we do succeed in overcoming our individual and collective habits and assumptions to get to the new, how does that happen?

Time to go back to my old friend Ken Wilber, who defines the process of development as this: The subject of one stage becomes the object of another.

That’s a pretty abstract statement, so let me break it down. In this context (and in sentence diagrams, too, remember those?), the subject is the actor. The object is what I’m looking at or interacting with. If I say, “I saw a lovely pair of boots,” I am the subject, and the boots are the object.

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