This is a very silly video from Improv Everywhere, a group that does, well, improv everywhere. Though this piece isn’t exactly improvised ... Basically these people set up some cameras in a grocery store produce section in Queens, wrote a goofy song about fruit and peace, and performed it in the middle of the day for lots of confused and bemused customers.

What I love about this is how it breaks up normal expected everyday reality. Stuff like this puts a grin on our faces and interrupts our regularly scheduled programs. It causes, as author Jonathan Fields said in a recent post, “a momentary awakening to the utter lunacy of the patterns we’ve adopted. And, though it’s taken years to wear those patterns into existence, in a heartbeat, we become unusually open to the notion that we can choose to respond differently. To create a new pattern.”

Have a wonderful weekend! And if you decide to burst into song at the farmers’ market, let us know what happens ...

Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, appeared on The Colbert Report last night to talk about his year-long project to live without having any harmful impact on the environment, documented in his new book and movie. Colbert, expectedly, goofs on him—he chastises Beavan for the fact that, since they don’t have a TV at home, his daughter had to hear about Scooby-Doo at school. But it’s pretty good natured overall, and Beavan gets an opportunity to talk about the No Impact Week that his is co-sponsoring with the Huffington Post.

I have to admit that I’m of two minds about Beavan’s project. On one hand, it’s marvelous that he and his family were able to explore living in a new way, and even better that they found their new lifestyle to be healthier, more fun, and far more rewarding than their previous mode of heavy consumerism. On the other hand, lifestyle changes are a poor substitute for the full-scale soup-to-nuts transformation that we have to bring about in our culture in the next several years. On yet another hand (who’s counting?), Beavan’s project has made a great impact on a great many people, getting them to think about the way they live in new ways.

What I love about his message is that seems to be pushing these small lifestyle changes as a gateway drug to considering larger and larger ramifications of what we are here for, and how we can reinvent our culture to support human health, wealth, and security instead of mere consumerism.

Here’s the video of his short appearance on the Colbert report, as well as a link to a recent critical New Yorker article about his and other similar projects called “What’s Wrong With Eco-Stunts?” and Beavan’s response to that article. Both writers make excellent points, and rather than choosing sides, I’m inclined to think that the most important thing is that this discussion is even going on. What do you think? Let us know below ...

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YERT is “an environmental anti-depressant in film form.” Mark Dixon, Ben Evans, and Julie Dingman Evans drove around to every state in the US for a year, covering ideas to move us toward sustainability and the people who are working on them—from the Solar Roadways guy to the guy who lives in a cave.

Right now they are hard at work putting the film together and trying to get it exposure (Sundance!). Check out the trailer below—this is going to be a blast, and I wish them all the best. So much so that I just gave them some cash to help them finish it up. You can, too, at this link.

Alex Steffen is one of my heroes. His work on Worldchanging (the book and the website) is some of the most important work being done today, so I was stoked to find this hour-long video of a talk he gave at Yale this past spring. In it, he shares many of the ideas—already in play—that can create the bright green future we want to live in.

Right now, he says, there are 2 choices for the billions of mostly young people in the developing world: they can either stay poor and frugal, which no one wants to do, or they can become rich and wasteful like us, which would be an environmental catastrophe. What we need is a third choice—a new kind of prosperity that raises standards of living without trashing the planet. And those of us in the developed world have the resources to create this third choice, which makes it our responsibility.

In this talk, we learn how we are getting there, piece by piece. Dense and vital cities, smart power grid technology, economic and political power for women, thoughtful consumerism, and transparency in industry and government are all on the rise. And they interact in subtle, powerful ways to create new waves of innovation and freedom.

The G20 is meeting today in Pittsburgh, and I can’t help but wish they’d watch and discuss this talk. But part of building a bright green future is each of us taking on responsibility, here and now, to educate ourselves and bring these fresh ideas into our own circles of influence and care. I hope you will take the time this weekend to learn about what’s possible and, indeed, what is already happening, so that you can be part of it.

Today’s video is from author and speaker John Marshall Roberts, who covers terrain familiar to The Sunny Way—how to use the ideas of personal and cultural development to create change in the world. He uses the work of Clare Graves (which we’ve discussed before) to show the many ways human beings think about life, and to break down what works when communicating with people with these different worldviews.

I have to admit it was a little rough for me to get past the New Age-y graphics—I have a pet peeve about them!—but I’m glad I did. Roberts has a deep understanding of how change works and is able to share it really effectively. I’m definitely going to grab his book.

In this TED Talk, science writer and founder of AskNature Janine Benyus explains Biomimicry—the process of looking to nature for sustainable solutions to design problems. As she says, “We live in a competent universe. We are part of a brilliant planet, and we are surrounded by genius.”

During the talk, she reveals dozens of new products that take their cue from nature with spectacular results. Take a look: 

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I grew up in a very strict Catholic background, and I loved many things about my Catholic faith—the community, the music, the beauty of Christ’s teachings. But I couldn’t reconcile my growing knowledge and ideas about the world with the dogma, and so when I left home, I left my Catholic upbringing behind in favor of science-based speculation about the way the universe works. At family get-togethers, I argued with my aunts and uncles late into the night, railing against their faith’s rigidity and oppressiveness.

Of course, my rants didn’t convince anyone of anything, and in fact I experienced some great losses taking this stance. Not only did it separate me from millions of people—including much of my family!—who do gain strength and perspective from their religious faiths; I also lost my sense of a Great Story I could believe in and learn from. If, as much of science tells us, we ended up here by accident, and our being here doesn’t particularly mean anything, then why even bother getting out of bed in the morning?

This story is pretty common, I think, and I know that lots of us feel the loss of a higher perspective. The proof is in our culture (insert your favorite example about how shallow we’ve become here).

But what if, instead of setting ourselves against each other, we could instead see from a higher perspective that makes it possible to embrace and integrate both religious and scientific revelations?

That’s the task to which Reverend Michael Dowd has dedicated his life. I’m currently reading his book “Thank God for Evolution” and it is truly awesome. In this interview, he explains how he got started in Evolutionary Evangelism and why every new fact science learns is good news. The interview gets really juicy right at the end; I wish they could have continued ...

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is a huge, controversial book which tells the story of a group of creative people who go on strike to protest their treatment by the rest of society. Widely regarded as a right-wing screed, it’s spawned millions of college libertarians and inspired countless debates about the proper relationship between individuals, business, and government.

Those on the political left generally disdain it for the harsh attitude it takes toward the poor—that they are mostly lazy, easily manipulated, and not all that bright—and toward the intellectual elite, who Rand characterizes as bitterly hell-bent on bringing down any great achievements. And it’s true that Rand’s philosophy goes a bit far in many ways, especially in her descriptions of “the masses” and her idolization of industry. But there’s a great deal of truth and beauty in this book as well, and that’s what I’d like to explore.

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Over the last month, I’ve been reading Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants by Wolfgang Schivelbusch.  It sat in my bookcase for a while, unread, and then last fall I listened to a webcast about enlightened communication where the organizer began the program connecting enlightened communication to the conversations that arose in coffeehouses in 17th century England and France. I decided to see what this book had to say.

In Tastes of Paradise, Schivelbusch writes about the links between new foods brought to Europe through trade with the Middle East, the Far East and the Americas.  He covers the effects that pepper, coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco, beer, hard liquor and opium had on European culture from the 17th through 19th centuries.

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No Impact Man tells the story of Colin Beavan and his family’s attempt to live for one year without negatively impacting the environment. Starting with a firm conviction that this is a worthwhile pursuit, meaningful to the culture at large, Colin’s vision is both challenged and developed over the course of the year-long experiment.

The film makes parallel points. As much as it illustrates concrete actions toward no-impact, it also demonstrates, sometimes just by virtue of taking place in New York, just how inhospitable dominant American culture is to a “no-impact” lifestyle. As Colin and family cruise on bikes through Times Square, their smiles cannot obliterate the sea of cabs and huge flashing lights that surround them. Though at the end of the film Colin may be changed, the viewer is also forced to reckon with the fact that his changes don’t begin to touch the existing super-structure in which the well-meaning individual toils to evolve.

In one of the best moments of the film, 60’s anti-war activist Mayer Vishner, who shares his vegetable garden with Colin, points out to Colin that his wife Michelle works for Business Week which promotes the American corporate capitalist system (a blatant wrinkle in their family’s new virtue). Vishner says that if Colin thinks his individual efforts are going to do anything to knock out that system, he’s delusional. However, as a film about the individual’s challenge to live in tune with his or her evolving values, No Impact Man provides a whole lot to like, question and ponder.

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I got my hands on this massive, awesome tome the other day—the result of a decade-long research and analysis effort by Sean Esbjorn-Hargens and Michael Zimmerman into how to integrate all the different forms of ecology—and have been slowly working my way through it. This book feels very important so I’m taking my time, making sure to understand each paragraph rather than racing through the way I sometimes do.

I’m catching a lot of gems this way. Here’s one from the introduction, where the authors are laying out their goal for this book: to put together all the various ideas formed by the more than 200 movements within environmentalism to reveal a fuller, multi-layered, and more complete understanding of our home and how best to live in it.

“We do not assert that all perspectives are equal. Some truths are more comprehensive than others. Partial worldviews and partial perspectives reveal partial truths, which are accurate and essential but must be integrated int a larger, more comprehensive picture.”

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This week was all about learning.

• Monday, Victoria wrote about her experiences with giving up perfectionism for the much more fulfilling experience of progress.
• Tuesday, I described what I saw at last weekend’s Evolver Town Fair—lots of energy, tons of potential, and scads of stuff I need to work on.
• Wednesday I wrote about the odd juxtaposition of idealism and realism that was my Tuesday night.
• Thursday, I shared the thoughts sparked by one of my favorite books, Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.

This week, I also discovered an amazing site, The Art of Non-Conformity, guide to living unconventionally and worldchangingly (hmm, I just changed the world by inventing a word)! Yesterday he put up a video that captures a lot of my thinking this week.

Like many of us, when I’m confronted with something new, my first tendency is to look at it critically. Where does it differ from my point of view? What’s missing? What’s wrong? But Chris proposes a different approach that strikes me as much healthier and productive: looking at every experience, reading, and conversation as an opportunity to learn something new. “All around us are an abundance of opportunities for learning,” he says, “and that’s what I’m trying to focus on.” Me too, Chris!

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When I saw that Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars was available as a free Kindle download, I snapped it up (it’s still available, btw). I’d read this book several years back, and it amazed me. Reading it again now, in the context of what we’re trying to do on this website, is an even richer experience. Much of what the Mars pioneers face parallels what we Earthlings are facing right now: how do we handle ecological, political, and economic complexity? What stars do we navigate by?

Set in the near future, Red Mars tells the story of the first hundred colonists’ arrival on Mars, and the first half century or so of history to happen there. As the colonists spend time on the planet, their ideas on where it should go diverge. Some—the Reds, led by Ann—want to treat Mars as a park, studying it with minimal alteration to the landscape. But most others want to terraform the planet to make it more hospitable to life—partially for the scientific challenge of transforming the planet, and partially so that at least some of humanity can escape an increasingly tapped-out Earth. Over the first few years of Martian settlement, the argument grows in ferocity, and it finally comes to a head in an epic showdown between Ann and Sax after dinner one night.

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image by rachaelvoorhees

For several months I’ve been noodling over the idea of holding a “Salon of Possibilities” at my house—a chance for people to get together and talk about some bigger-picture stuff that doesn’t often come up in day-to-day conversation. Last night we had the first one; together we read and discussed this interview with Susan Neiman, author of Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists.

This article appealed to me because I’ve been called an idealist in a semi-disparaging way for many years now, as if being idealistic—holding the belief that things can be better than they are now, and that we can make them that way—is a sign of naivete or simple misunderstanding of “the way things work.” But, Neiman says, when people are “realistic,” even if they present their point of view (“humans are violent and greedy and we just need to deal with it”) as common sense, in actuality, underneath that view of humankind is a metaphysical framework that they are imposing on reality. Neiman argues that a truly realistic point of view, being what she calls a “grown-up idealist,” means holding both visions—of the way things are and of the way they ought to be—at the same time, and operating from an understanding of both.

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Happy Friday! This week on The Sunny Way:

• Tuesday I wrote about a powerful realization—that humans and our activities are not separate from nature.
• Wednesday, Victoria wrote about her garden, and seeing how it’s as much about her efforts as the beauty of nature itself.
• Thursday, we let you know about the NY Loves Mountains festival happening this weekend.

Today I’d like to share with you this incredible video of the Milky Way rising in the sky. Amazing to stop and contemplate the wonders swirling all around us, isn’t it? Enjoy and have a great weekend!

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