Nor'easter

After the shock of Detroit, the grit of Chicago, and the Big-Ag monocultures of Indiana, I was ready to say goodbye to the troubled Midwest. Good thing, because I was headed straight for New York!

Here, I took a little mental break and enjoyed the rainiest summer ever with some help from Quiet Earp, his friends and family. Meatballs were eaten. Fish were caught. I got plenty of sleep and learned how to stand up on a boat.

i got a new portrait too!

When I wasn’t being lazy and selfishly happy, I thought a bit about social and environmental responsibility. So far on this journey, I’d seen plenty of people who were working toward sustainability—and plenty more who weren’t. The fact is, we all accept that changes need to be made; those changes, however, often seem pretty big.

It’s one thing to switch all the lightbulbs in your house to fluorescents, but actually reducing your energy usage seems like a major sacrifice. And how about buying local food? Most people don’t have a lot of free time to go to farmer’s markets, especially when you can get organic mangoes at Whole Foods.

Green housing? Forget it. Most houses in America are wooden boxes with bad lighting, and the energy-efficient stuff is too new and expensive. And carpooling means sharing your morning drive—that precious half hour where it’s just you and your coffee and the radio—with a potentially talkative stranger.

That’s the thought process, anyway. That’s how most Americans (including me) perceive the many issues of sustainable living.

And so I was troubled. My little project is a lot of fun for me, because I’m having the adventures that go along with learning-by-doing. But how can I convince people who aren’t on this journey that change is possible, let alone enjoyable? All the people who’ve worked hard to build their lives, who like the way they live and don’t really want to change—how can I help them find choices they’ll actually want to make?

…Somewhere along the road, I adopted a pretty strict When-In-Rome policy. When I stay with someone, I try to live the way they do. It’s more comfortable that way, and it’s fun to experience the small differences from home to home. It’s also helped me to see how people really live:

More people compost and recycle than I expected, but few shop at secondhand stores. Everyone likes to drive a long distance to go on a hike, but very few walk out their back door and go exploring. Some people commute via bike, but nobody carpools or takes the bus. A few of us use CSAs and shop at farmer’s markets; quite a few grow tomatoes, peppers and basil; and lots of us eat at restaurants that advertise locally-sourced food.

And everybody shops at Target.

In the Northeast, I tried to find more ways that normal people can make sustainable choices without disrupting their lives. Sustainability is a process that we’ve all got to get started on if we’re going to save this planet, but humans are pretty complacent—so I worked at finding little things, positive things, real changes made by real people.

That’s what’s coming up. Welcome to the Northeast!