Q&A: Chip Giller
The founder of Grist.org talks $250 ecojeans, Arnold Schwarzenegger's green cred, and why we're not "necessarily screwed."
Mother Jones: Do personal efforts even matter in the grand scheme of things?
Chip Giller: I think personal actions definitely matter. I think collectively they can make a big difference. But I also think that people don't live in a vacuum. You've got to start with personal behavior; it's almost a form of education. And then one becomes more engaged and hopefully will then participate in your community and then encourage change at the federal level. I think it's kind of a ladder of engagement. I definitely think, collectively, personal actions do matter.
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MJ: If people could make one change, what would be the best?
CG: What I try to encourage individuals to do is don't sweat the small stuff, sweat the big stuff. By that I mean when you're making a purchasing decision around an appliance or a car or a home, that's when to take the environment into mind, but don't dwell so much on paper versus plastic. But if I had to choose a single action I guess I would say stop driving.
MJ: What about green consumerism? Is buying stuff inherently unsustainable?
CG: You shouldn't buy green for the sake of consuming. There are $250 ecojeans you can buy right now. If you have several pairs of jeans already, just use those. Out of necessity, one needs to occasionally consume, but I'm a little concerned right now that there's a little bit of a myth arising that we can buy our way to a sustainable future, and I don't think that's the case.
MJ: Do you think there's a green bubble? Is sustainability something that is affordable?
CG: I think it's definitely something that's become hip and trendy. When you see the New York Times Style section write about this topic multiple times a month, you know it's definitely something that's taken hold with the Hamptons set. But it's not just about sourcing things green. We need to create a more fair and just society. So often it's impoverished communities or disadvantaged communities that are most affected by environmental problems. To some extent the victims of Katrina were the first climate refugees that this country's seen. Green consumerism is happening a little bit within a bubble. But if we're going to get to a sustainable future, that can't be the case.
MJ: How soon do we need to make big changes?
CG: I think really within the next 10 years there needs to be really remarkable progress toward a carbon-free economy and almost a new type of industrial revolution, more toward a Cradle to Cradle model, where what are waste outputs in some products become positive inputs in other products—there's just much less waste created. I think we have about 10 years to take some big strides. Really in 10 years we need to be somewhere toward car-free cities, but in the meantime there are just a lot of small individual steps that folks can be taking.
MJ: I don't know if you're familiar with James Hansen's 350 parts per million number for carbon—do you think that's too high, too low, too soon?
CG: I'm not a scientist, so I look to people like James Hansen, and he has a pretty damn good track record, so when he says jump...
I hold him in great admiration, likewise Bill McKibben. I think that's a reasonable target to be aiming for. The changes are happening so much more quickly on the ground than had been anticipated.
MJ: Do you think we've passed the point of no return?
CG: I don't think we're necessarily screwed, but definitely the clock's ticking. And the type of change needed is very significant. But who would have thought two years ago we'd be at the point where we are now? Sustainability is becoming so much more part of the mainstream discussion. That's very heartening to me.
MJ: What's your opinion on offsets? Could they ever work, or do they just make people feel good?
CG: I think offsets are a first step. It almost indicated a willingness to be taxed on these issues. People are sort of self-imposing a tax. So to me it just suggests there's a body of people willing to pay extra for a cleaner environment. It's not really significant progress, and it's such a small subset of people doing this. And then you do have to sort of scrutinize the claims of the place with which you're working to offset travel, because different places have different standards.
MJ: What else is it going to take to have a sustainable economy besides reducing carbon emissions?
CG: I think overall, industry needs to be incented to make the right choices. So whether that's shifting some of the things around in the tax structure, incentives to be treating employees decently—there's a whole swath of green stuff. It often appears that the Bush administration is using neither the carrot nor the stick to bring industry along on these issues. I think both could be used more effectively.
MJ: Does anyone in politics get it?
CG: I think we're seeing these issues come up more in this campaign than in any previous ones, though in 2006 some Republicans lost their seats arguably because of their poor environmental records. That's been a real change for those of use who've been tracking these issues for years. To some extent what is the maximum that is possible currently within the political system is so much less than the minimum necessary to address these issues that you know it's a little bit of a catch-22, i.e., Dennis Kucinich's campaign didn't really catch fire this year. That said, we're seeing people like Gov. Schwarzenegger really taking a stand on these issues and making significant progress. I think AB 32 is some real progress. Our mayor in Seattle has gotten, I think, 500 cities on board with the Kyoto protocol goals and blue-state cities and cities in red states. We have the mayor of Salt Lake City making remarkable progress on these issues. There's a representative up here from Washington state—his name is Jay Inslee—who put out a recent book on the topic of renewable energy and energy revolution. I think it's becoming more acceptable to be talking about significant solutions, but you don't see politicians embracing the goals that Al Gore came out with two weeks ago, which is to be effectively carbon neutral within the next 10 years.
MJ: If you were president, what would be your first move?
CG: I think I would buy some ecojeans. No. I think I would model, using the White House as a kind of laboratory, just how easy it is to make some of these changes around energy. One of the first things that Ronald Reagan did when he took over the White House was to take down the solar panels that Jimmy Carter had had installed up there. And I think now the technology has advanced so much since then. I would just try to model with my own behavior, for example, really making a point that video conferencing rather than flying everywhere is a possibility. On the policy side of things, to try to appoint something like a secretary of climate to indicate that I was really elevating this issue. I would try to give that person a bunch of autonomy to come forth with some really significant recommendations. DC could make some strides to becoming a car-free city. I'd probably need to sleep on it, too.
MJ: Is there somebody we should be listening to but aren't?
CG: The majority of our audience members are in their 20s and 30s. I really feel like these folks and obviously folks still younger, folks that are going to be most affected by the type of changes we'll undergo, I don't really yet hear their voices adequately represented in a lot of the discussions going on. So it's sort of a grouping of people.
MJ: Is the green-jobs movement overhyped?
CG: I think the work that Van Jones has done is amazing, and it's so inspiring, and it's really brought a lot of new people into the discussion. You had Clinton and Obama talking about the stuff. I think it's not an easy thing to do, and honestly I don't know if it's really a net increase of jobs across the country or if it's more just kind of the type of transformation that the economy just needs to go through and will net out the same number of jobs with more people focused on clean energy. What Van has done is really expand the whole conversation around green, and I think the idea definitely has some legs.
MJ: What does Grist do to be more environmentally friendly?
CG: We, organizationally, within the office, even though our whole office building doesn't do these things, we compost, we up the notch on recycling, we go out of our way to have a policy for people to unplug their computers, use compact fluorescents in the office, etc. And then by some necessity there is some air travel that happens, but we try to teleconference as much as possible. Some of our employees telecommute. We offset our carbon.
MJ: What do you think it's going to take to get people to act?
CG: I think to get society to act as a whole, people need inspiration. I also think things like the Katrina tragedy are definitely a wake-up call. To be fully honest, I think it probably will take some more disasters to really get people to understand the urgency behind these issues. But the other really important ingredient is inspiration. It's almost like leadership and inspiration from the top, and there needs to be individual initiative from the bottom up.
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Sustainable Cities and The Liquidity Trap 2008
By Walter Libby
No doubt, we are in recession. And our prospects for recovery look grim. Already we’ve seen nine straight months of jobs loses. And it seems likely that they will continue, and get worse. We are caught in what economists call a liquidity trap. Here, despite the Fed driving interest rates ever closer to rock bottom, the infusion of new blood into the financial system, the recession forces consumers to cut back on spending forcing businesses to cut back on production, investments and workers perpetuating the cycle. So as the economy continues to freefall the demand for loans decline and the liquidity pumped into our banks goes unused—ergo the trap.
So, the question now is how do we get out of the trap? We can’t look to a turn around in the housing industry—as the economy worsens more people are going to move in with family or friends, rent rooms, or move into tent cities. But we can look to a turn around in our thinking as we shift from unsustainable urban sprawl and invest in the development of new cities designed along sustainable lines. So together with investments in renewable energy and infrastructure, they will begin to pull us out of the trap.
The idea of building new cities is not unprecedented. In the late 1960s there was a movement to build hundreds of new cities to counter the inefficiencies of sprawl and its negative impact on the environment. Led by The National Committee on Urban Growth Policy—a private association funded by the Ford Foundation, made up politicians and civic-minded individuals, sponsored by prestigious organizations such as the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the U.S. Conference of Mayors—it published a book entitled The New City. Here, as they saw it, “If we allocate one-half of the coming 100 million [increase in population] to existing peripheral growth around existing cities and 10 per cent to small towns and farms, the remaining 40 million would require the building of 20 cities of one million each and 200 new towns of 100,000 each.
The U.S. Congress, a supporter of the new city movement, affirmed it again by passing The Urban Growth and New Community Act of 1970. Its purpose was to underwrite part of the huge startup costs of new towns and so “encourage the rational, orderly, efficient… development and redevelopment of our cities… And to so in a manner which will rely to the maximum extent on private enterprise.”
Major corporations were investing in and backing up the original developers. Gulf Oil, Westinghouse, U.S. Gypsum, and Sears Roebuck to name a few. And others such as Chrysler, Ford, Phillip Morris and Ralston Purina were poised to jump on the bandwagon.
The problem is that movement ran into stagflation—rising oil prices and interest rates—that effectively knocked off the wheels. The movement ended as developers sold off what they could or ended in bankruptcy. In 1983, Congress repealed the act.
Today’s developers are going to have to be the ones with mega-bucks: Gates, Buffet, Allen, the Waltons along with Turner (the largest landowner in the U.S.), Trump, and Soros—all those concerned with turning our economy into a sustainable direction. And corporations as well as Congress, are going to have to get behind the movement again—corporations because they need more consumers and Congress because we desperately need new jobs both in the construction industry and the industrial sector.
That said, as the world moves by necessity to sustainable cities and so a sustainable global economy (re: The Triangle of Peace program), new plans, new models are going to be proposed. Here I don’t propose building new cities adjacent to small towns—they may not want them in their backyards. As to existing cities—they are already surrounded by suburbs and edge cities, a conurbation that stretches out, in some cases, for hundreds of miles—their challenge is to continue the trend to sustainable practices: turning brown fields, and perhaps dilapidated neighborhoods, into high-density mixed-used communities (providing those displaced with low-interest loans, moving them into foreclosed homes), further developing public transportation and rapid transit systems, car pooling, reduced driving and more walking and biking.
And while people are moving into cities to get closer to their jobs because of rising gas prices (the drop in oil prices reflect the concerns over a faltering global economy. When it comes back, so will higher gas prices), the best sustainable cities in the United States are some of most expensive places to live. Nonetheless, with new jobs in the manufacturing and the industrial sector, jobs in the service sector will be secured. So people can afford to stay in their homes, qualify for loans to buy existing homes as well clear the market of new homes. And while demand will raise the prices of both, that doesn’t mean that homebuilders should build more. It means that they should join the movement and become part of the solution.
So here’s how I see cities of tomorrow (with a nod to Ebenezer Howard the author of Garden Cities of Tomorrow)—cities powered by renewable energy: Clusters of neighborhoods—linked by elevated transportation arteries, shared by electric vehicles public transport, bikes and pedestrians—will form the city. These neighborhoods are large terraced multi-story structures sheltering thousands. Here the terraces are reserved for homes and greenhouses and their lower levels for recycling centers, cisterns, food processing plants and controlled-environment farms (re: Discover magazine December 1988, The Green Machine: Indoor Farming).
So as you walk out into your neighborhood you encounter not hallways, but wide breezeways lined with trees, plants and shrubs. From here you enter pedestrian boulevards (lit by skylights) that crisscross the neighborhood. Here you find second story apartments looking down on restaurants, businesses, theaters, banks, post offices, and the various shops—everything that makes up for a lively street encounter.
Make a turn and you’ll find supermarkets, playgrounds, basketball and tennis courts, ice rinks, schools, hospitals and libraries. And when you go down to the first floor, at ground level, you find barns (for pigs, beef, dairy cows, fish farms, and chickens that are harvested next door) opening onto natural habitant mixed with organic gardens and orchards, parks and gold courses.
Here, instead of sending our table scraps, our unwanted leftovers, dry bread, spoiled fruit to landfills, we recycle them to barnyards, indoor farms, or to community orchards and gardens.
Once there is a sufficient population, a larger central city is built. This is the cultural center of the whole. Here you have colleges, the larger hospitals, museums, aquariums, zoos, sport stadiums, theaters for the performing arts, large central parks, plazas, street performers, and so on.
These cities are not variation of urban sprawl. They are sustainable cities that do not grow beyond the constraints of their regions where they have nestled. If we need more cities we find other sustainable niches.
New cities, however designed (it’s the idea itself that is being pitched), as an alternative to sprawl, are a good selling point. Add to that greater efficiency, lower taxes (since the infrastructure is fixed, so too are taxes) and mix of town and country. But its best pitch to the people, the developers, the captains of industry and Congress is that their economic stimulus is necessary for our national security and confidence in general—for Wall Street, Main Street, and for those who doubt that America can resolve its economic crisis, our ability to bootstrap our economy.
Granted, the idea is unlikely to gain immediate traction—it’s akin to when all else fails, read the instructions. In the coming months, jobs losses are going to progressively increase—given the vulnerability of a consumer economy.
People are already angry, scared, stressed out and concerned with the lack of any substantive ideas put forward by the candidates. They are becoming increasingly mad as hell, and aren’t going put up anymore with empty promises. So, I ask, in the quest for new ideas that will promote a sustainable recovery, what else is out there?
Walter Libby
Practical Idealist
looking for a home on a voucher to start a business to open up the products for all religions. just like in the olden days when you lived where you worked are there any out there for rent to buy on a voucher. i have like 1 week left on a 2 week hold of an venture to find a new home. i have cement statues and a bench and gondo all cement statues that i do not want to loose. my family went into foreclosure. i have tried to open this type of store for years since i was younger and saw one in mpls or st paul. but the store went into foreclosure itself. it interfered in the way that the world proceded. to open up every religion to all is a problem i guess. i am 51 and would like to start up again it saves i dating and problems in marraiges when the relationship is open to all that each has to offer. i am trying to start an open world and my statues are part of me as is my family. we are grandparents now. looking to free you all from the burdens of hiding really who you are to bring everyone out in the open to the world the only time i see reality is at festivals and never in any city. confuses a lot of kids as to who they want to be. my children want different ideas for thier families but the world is closed off. opening it up will free everyone. please mail any good efforts of the search to the new open world so that we all do not have to be closed off to all states and cities. we hide it seems like and it is confusing to all the people and they can use anything against anyone for anything. when we try to open up as to who we are we are taken in. were is everyone. must not be festival time or i hate to say this customn time. that is how the world sees everyone as a costumn criminal. to open the world up to read and exam like they do anyways they have nothing on me or us. we are making enough noise for all religions aren't you. is there a store out there that we can expand on. the biggest no no i have seen is a big holed earing. and i thought oh my god a human.....that is how plastic the world is. to anyone the photos you may have posted may look porno. what is her religion to say she is abiding by her book. unless it is than disregard this note i am looking for real people to open up the world so that people can not take us wrongly when we express the books ourselves. they don't it must be in a porno only world again.
be careful people they acuse us of......that's what i am trying to figure out. do they you. i have asked for this store to open since i was 3 and a half and i haven't seen any just pipes and things which is a religion but looks like a drug. i am not asking anyone to join in anything either. just a speaking person who shows the world and people except at an open air festival that they have to be plastic out here. is that the world everyone wants again? i guess that's why dating is a no no and the picture on this site may be her religion which it is does she know which one again? the store business i want to open would protect the skin and the photos would be more open to all and it would be art not porno as everyone in the cities and states would provide you to think. any one have any place for my family or just me and then my family to start at. i have a voucher and would like it to go into a business which is legal if i can find a human right that does not insult all people......
vhris
please mail to the building information to me 3241 jersey ave south
st louis park, mn 55426
i am trying to buy by building to building to save a building and the builder . that is legal. it takes the building out of the cities taxes and starts saving history for history not money making people who tear down our buildings to create trash. although i like some of the new buildings the idea is that some people who are allergic like to latex may not be able to live in a latex world. which saves the older buildings for healing the people in the new world. there is no ego trip for us i a a new grandmother and i have boys and men need more healing than woman or has that changed? the buildings oldness saves most men from diseases and then can heal thier families. the store may have more i haven't found the right warehouse to order all the reading materials i need for people to buy. i am not saying you may never need a doctor or a surgeon but the older medicines may be able to be made at home and to be used on you and your family and the ingredients can be bought or grown in your own houses or homes or bought at a grocery store. we are in a depression economy not a poverty stricken one yet if the world so they say will end in 2012 or so we have to make and stop.
anyone have any ideas besides that one. i would like to go back to a medical that was used by use before to save the people and then decide what buildings can no longer heal the people. cities do the opposite for money.............have any ideas. research is not completed yet. my home went into foreclosure and my family is seperate now with diseases that some got here in the city and others when the house left. grandma trying to save all. i have new children. i want to see them grow up and smile. it is like no one had one laughing party outside in the summer. i must have had the happin ess bug for them. do you see people just sitting outside anymore cause it is a nice day or are they all where. it is just like the only time i here who people really are in thier own religion is at an open air festival and no one is anywhere else. are you all in bat caves? bring out the real people we shine and bring out the real healing world and works of your own selfs. you have to be careful of what pictures you use again. people may get turned on by them but use you and it against you and yours in every way that they can now or later. it is a beautiful relgion....but don't sy that it isn
please mail anything about a true building that i can star6t my business. looking for a true sponsor who may be can't be open. that is ok. we can look at the building in secret like everyone in thier own ways.
such a plastic unopen criminalising world like a carnival for every one to abuse again. it goes with you article but i don't see anything that has changed except my age and life and my kids growing up. but words to sight then. what is different in your writing to the 1960's same photos almost. memory may fail me. i am 51 and lived through a lot of times. we had such a learning world. in a way i feel sorry for the young. you are so closed off to the world of learning. open learning. i sound like a mother and i am training to just watch and learn. but it hasn't changed just the medical we put in the world by the buildings we use to live in. we treated diseases by homes. do you? each home in the 60's that we lived in healed up or down by disease. that's what has changed. to start again the homes are being torn down one healing home at a time. they are people the homes we lived in for our healing. have you younger ones done the same? that is the picture of her above. it is a beautiful picture and a beautiful healing is it not.
trying to open up medical one building at a time. it may not be possible the builders haven't thought of that in time like the cities spending habits. anyone allergic to anything in the enviroment that the cities have decided to build. the picture is wonderful. is she by the religion ready for all of that. well that was in the past. at least in my lifetime. good luck.
the store i want to open is reading material and all for woman and men so that the older ones can not take advantage like most people to when they are trained. the world has to be open to everyone. so does the crosses of everyones religion and dating. i don't date yet. the world is not open enough for this grandmother to be fooled by
please mail any building that may be suitable for a store that i plan on opening up so that no beautiful photo may be used for any purpose but a beautiful woman....compliment be careful.......experience.......please mail to the buildings not you o 3241 jersey ave south minneapolis mn 55426 i am trying to stop bad relationships and create a true cupid world with no divorces for my grand daughters and sons and the others when they are created and born.
a safe world for all woman to have the relationship that they belong in not run from for all. makes every man happier in the end.
if there is nothing open as far as buildings i will continue for my medical business. it is a book research of dating company but we would sell only truth of every i repeat every religion. which corrects the picture of the young woman above. boys i still remember ......cant grandma's and mothers every have just plain fun?////
Re: Q&A: Chip Giller
Submitted by Keanu (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 2:44 AM PDT.
This is so wonderful. And while we are talking about wonderful shots, have you already heard the good news about the comedian Jim Parsons? Jim Parsons might not be a household name at this point, but he might be on his way. Jim Parsons was among the names for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series in the 2009 Emmy Awards, for his role on The Big Bang Theory as Sheldon Cooper. Born in 1973, he pursued acting as a career but didn't land a role of note until 2002, a guest spot on the sitcom Ed, a role on Judging Amy a few years later, and then Big Bang Theory. He has appeared in several films, most notably Garden State in 2004. If the series is stays successful, Jim Parsons could cash check after check.
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