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In my talk this past Sunday for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of New Smyrna Beach (love love LOVE that bunch of people), I pointed out that one of the hardest things about pursuing a low-footprint life is having to continuously go against the mainstream social norms. Most of us, even those who are seemingly bold renegades, care what people think of us. Ridicule, contempt, being labeled “weird” or worse, are painful for most of us and we tend to try to avoid provoking those reactions. We are social animals.

Fortunately, mainstream culture isn’t the only culture. And there are some very strong cells of green subculture. Some people even find that they have a little pocket of green-minded folks right in their own neighborhood. Or, can help create such a pocket. Even a simple post on NextDoor, or an announcement in your neighborhood meeting, can bring out likeminded people. (Posts on NextDoor offering to share native or edible plants, or asking if others have any to share, are great for that.)

Another things that helps is to remind ourselves that the norms of our consumerist culture are far from universal. Many other cultures from around the world and throughout history (including our own culture at an earlier time) have strong norms of thrift and resource-awareness. We can look to them for inspiration.

On the subject of green subculture, I’ve gathered a short list of some of the top online groups that I consider to be part of the grassroots green mobilization. turn to for tips, inspiration, and moral support. There are many many more than I’ve listed here or mentioned on this blog, but these are the ones I rely on most.

• Riot for Austerity (90 Percent Reduction): The movement that inspired my book and this blog. Community of people setting out to reduce their footprint to 10% of the USA average. This Facebook group is small and not very active, but there’s good info there.

• Zero Waste, Zero Judgement: 35k members worldwide. Use the search feature to find tips on any subject you can possibly imagine, from finding a previously used diamond ring to how to do laundry in an eco-friendly way, to eco-conscious investing, to pushing back against single-use plastic at your workplace or your kid’s school, and much more.

• The Non-Consumer Advocate: 81k members worldwide; another great source of tips and the assurance that “you are not alone.”

• Deep Adaptation: Emotional and spiritual support for facing up to the reality of worldwide climate devastation and the possible imminent demise of human civilization. 13k members worldwide. People respond differently to the shock of facing this reality (there are some posts and comments of the “escape to my own personal bunker” variety), but overall I have found this group helpful in a very deep way.

• End Toxic Yards: Our landscaping practices are a huge, huge leverage point for cutting our carbon footprint and restoring ecosystems to health. (Not coincidentally, our landscaping choices can transform our yards from endless sources of drudge work to mini oases. And what we do in our yards ripples out into the community.) The admin of this group is a real gem who posts graphics and memes that are super readable and easy to share.

• NextDoor (www.nextdoor.com): App for communicating online with your neighbors. Depending on your neighborhood, there can be a lot of privileged, me-centric posts and comments here (“I’m tired of seeing all these homeless people”; “that car with the broken window is bringing down property values!” etc.), but there are also a lot of posts about sharing and helping. And you can always start a thread! I actually used NextDoor to start a stitching group at one point (speaking of threads).

I hope these groups will be useful and inspiring to you, and give you the knowingness that “You are not alone!” If you know any other groups that belong on this short list, drop me a line!

I also recommend starting a group in your town or city if you can. (I myself have not done this yet but would like to. I’ll call it something like “Zombie Apocalypse Support Group,” or “Climate Club.” Meet in person if possible; otherwise use Zoom or other meeting app. If you meet in person, do it outdoors, not only because of the pandemic’s resurgence but also because spending time outdoors is just a good idea in general.

Community is key; we have to maintain our mental and spiritual health to keep doing the work of cultural transformation.

On recognizing white privilege as a factor in one’s ability to choose a simple low-footprint life. And how we (fellow white people and I) can use our privilege for the good.

Back in 2017 when I wrote my book, I pointed to USA mainstream consumerist culture as the main factor in planetary ecosystem degradation and worldwide human suffering. In the years since, as I’ve been educated by the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-racist courses and writers/speakers, I’ve come to refer to the culture I was born into as the Anglo-Euro USA-merican culture; and more recently, the white colonialist USA-merican culture.

In a recent post on her Facebook page, anti-racism educator Ally Henny mentioned a Hollywood couple who had talked publicly (in some media interview) about their family’s bathing habits. From what I gather (without having heard the interview), their mode or frequency of bathing is something less than the USA-merican mainstream social norm of daily showers with full-body soap-and-water scrubbing.

In other words, it sounds to me like the Hollywood couple are bathing themselves and their baby in a manner that’s familiar to many of us “low-footprint” folk. Many of us in the 90 Percent Reduction (Riot for Austerity), Zero Waste, Degrowth, Deep Adaptation, and related communities/movements bathe or shower only every few days (some of us even less often in winter); many of us don’t use soap on our whole bodies, at least not all the time; many of us opt for sponge-baths a certain percentage of the time rather than always doing full-body baths.

Over the years, dermatologists, other doctors, and scientists have come out saying that a more “casual” approach is actually better for our skin and immune systems. So, in addition to being better for the environment and easing our utility bills, a more relaxed approach to bathing is actually better for our health.

As to the Hollywood couple’s reasons for their relaxed approach to bathing themselves and their baby, I don’t know. Could be health; could be environmental; could be something else.

But regardless of what their reasons might be, the point Ally Henny is making in her post is that because this couple is white, they have the freedom to go against the social norms without being penalized. For example, they probably don’t have to worry about having their kids taken away by Child Protective Services. A fear that Black parents, Native American parents, and other parents of color face day in and day out.

In addition to being white, I’m sure this couple gets extra slack for being rich and Hollywood-famous.

After all, many a white but not-rich-and-famous “hippie parent” I know has been ostracized (with varying degrees of subtlety or not-so-subtlety) regarding their alternative practices on everything from child-rearing to lawn maintenance or just even how they dress, and threatened with consequences by their neighborhood association, their child’s school, and other self-appointed guardians of mainstream “respectable” social norms. Sharon Astyk, who co-founded the Riot for Austerity, even wrote about this topic in one of her books. How to live and raise one’s family in an “alternative” way without drawing unwanted attention from “authorities.” (If I find a post or article, I’ll share the link here.)

Ally Henny’s post is not about Black parents getting in trouble for going against white colonialist culture norms. Rather, the point she’s trying to make is that here’s this white couple going against the norms and not having to worry about consequences (other than maybe getting made fun of on social media), while Black parents are constantly having to be on guard to avoid getting in trouble, maybe having their kids taken away from them, for anything that’s perceived (in the twisted mind of “the system”) as being wrong or indicating neglect.

My takeaways right now as a climate activist:

• No matter how much grief we white people might get for our “alternative/green” lifestyle choices, it pales in comparison with what Black people and other people of color face who are just minding their own business, not even trying to be “alternative.” Therefore, to the extent that we believe in our “low-footprint lifestyles” as having the power to shift our toxic cultural norms and cushion humanity from the worst impacts of climate change, we have to muster up more courage and push back harder against the norms. We have an obligation to current and future generations to use our white privilege to make the difference. (By the way, the various low-footprint lifestyle communities/movements have attracted Black people, Native Americans, and other people of color, but these communities/movements are very predominantly white, and this post is addressed to my fellow white people. We need to step it up and use our privilege to shift our toxic culture.)

• In addition to having an obligation to all current and future humans, we also have an obligation to Mother Earth and all her creatures to clean up the mess our ancestors started when they (sometimes deliberately; sometimes not knowing better) created a “culture” characterized by the bleaching-out of culture. All of us originally (ancestrally) came from countries where the ways of life were more sustainable and closer to nature, more entwined with the natural rhythms of life, and not coincidentally more spiritual, than what we ended up co-creating with industrialized colonialist USA-merican “culture.” We may not be able to fix this mess overnight but that’s no excuse not to make it a full-on priority.

Further Exploration:

Over the past 2-3 years, my understanding of the many facets of racism has grown considerably, and I owe this evolution in large part to two educators, both Black women.

• Ally Henny, allyhenny.com (Facebook posts; podcasts; Patreon)

• Nicole Cardoza, Anti-Racism Daily (daily email newsletter; podcasts)

• “Unpack stereotypes on cleanliness” (Nicole Cardoza, in the August 23, 2021 edition of Anti-Racism Daily). “Recently (and why, I do not know), a series of white celebrities shared their bathing habits with the press. Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, and Kristen Bell said they only bathe their kids when they smell bad (People). Jake Gyllenhall noted that he finds bathing “less necessary” (Vanity Fair). Commenters were quick to note that these sentiments were shared by white celebrities, and non-white stars like Jason Momoa, Dwayne Johnson and Cardi B were quick to express their love for frequent showers and baths. These conversations seemed harmless and amusing, but historically, the cultural conversation on cleanliness hasn’t been this casual. The notion of cleanliness has been wielded against immigrants, communities of color, and other marginalized groups to justify oppression and ostracization. Everyone is welcome to bathe however they choose, but not everyone has the privilege to talk about not bathing without the weight of racial implications. … Stereotypes of cleanliness fuel other forms of discrimination: antisemitism, anti-fatness, and discrimination against disabled people, the unhoused, and those with HIV/AIDS. These tropes center whiteness — specifically the whiteness of, wealthy, able-bodied, skinny, cisgender, heterosexual people — as the definition of purity and cleanliness. To dismantle racism we have to deconstruct this narrative.”

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” — Francis Chan

“It’s interesting how there is a message not to panic and break down in grief or terror or rage upon witnessing the galloping collapse of the climate system and its terrestrial effects of floods, heat waves, drought, wildfires and superstorms. This message to ‘hold it together’ comes from deep within ourselves, where the instinct toward survival resides, and from the greater society, which operates on the unthinking imperative to maintain its current trajectory. Personally, I’m going to endeavor not to pressure myself to squelch grief or terror or rage at what is occurring, unless it threatens me with total dysfunction. The stifling of extreme emotion upon witnessing horrors and idiocies is part of what landed us in the soup in the first place. …”

Beautiful post by Dan Hanrahan; read the rest here.

• “More than a billion marine animals died in the heatwave that swept across the Western U.S. and Canada last month. The climate crisis doesn’t exist in some hypothetical future — it’s already here. … At the moment, climate disaster is most visible in the U.S. and Western Canada in the forms of mass die-offs, unprecedented conflagrations, and struggling farmers, and in Europe in the form of deadly flooding. But the climate crisis has more subtle and insidious effects, ones that tend to impact less industrialized countries, poor people, and people of color more acutely than anyone else. In the Republic of Palau … rising sea levels are salinating its agricultural land, making it impossible to grow crops that aren’t salt-tolerant. And in the U.S., decades of racist housing policy, known as redlining, have left Black neighborhoods in many of the nation’s cities sweltering in the summer heat … due to a lack of green spaces and an abundance of pavement and concrete. White neighborhoods, on the other hand, tend to be much cooler.” (“Climate Disaster Looks Like Thousands of Boiled-Alive Mussels on a Beach in Vancouver.” Terrence Doyle, eater.com, July 21, 2021.)

• “Some of Europe’s richest countries lay in disarray this weekend, as raging rivers burst through their banks in Germany and Belgium, submerging towns, slamming parked cars against trees and leaving Europeans shellshocked at the intensity of the destruction. Only days before in the Northwestern United States, a region famed for its cool, foggy weather, hundreds had died of heat. In Canada, wildfire had burned a village off the map. Moscow reeled from record temperatures. And this weekend the northern Rocky Mountains were bracing for yet another heat wave, as wildfires spread across 12 states in the American West. The extreme weather disasters across Europe and North America have driven home two essential facts of science and history: The world as a whole is neither prepared to slow down climate change, nor live with it.” (“No One is Safe: Extreme Weather Batters the Wealthy World.” Somini Sengupta, nytimes.com, July 17, 2021.)

• “Without the shade trees, it’s going to be a hot summer for those impacted by Hurricane Michael. … the areas where millions of trees fell during the Category 5 storm are heating up faster, and a little hotter, than the surrounding areas. ‘The trees reduce the sunshine absorbed in the ground … They keep it a few degrees cooler … we are noticing on the satellite imagery those areas where Michael knocked down a lot of trees are warmer.’ … In addition to the warmer temperatures, with an estimated 72 million tons of wood on the ground one of the major threats is fire. Officials have described the impacted swath as a tinderbox just waiting for a match. … Officials are also worried about the opposite end of the spectrum – flooding. The downed trees have created a two-pronged problem for water management. One, without them being there to absorb the water there is more of it that needs to be managed, and two, with the debris on the ground they have essentially created hundreds of thousands of little dams that obstruct flow, causing back ups.” (“Hurricane Michael destroyed huge swaths of trees. Now, those areas are heating up hotter and faster.” Katie Landeck, nwfdailynews.com, May 23, 2019.)

• “The season Americans thought we understood — of playtime and ease, of a sun we could trust, air we could breathe and a natural world that was, at worst, indifferent — has become something else, something ominous and immense. This is the summer we saw climate change merge from the abstract to the now, the summer we realized that every summer from now on will be more like this than any quaint memory of past summers. … America has known dreadful summers before. The summer of the Manson family murders in Los Angeles in 1969. New York’s Summer of Sam in 1977. The summer of 2019, when there were 26 mass shootings in 18 states, including one of the worst hate-driven massacres in modern American history at a Walmart in El Paso. What is different this time is the sheer volume of catastrophe, natural and man-made — and a sense that there is no turning back from it.” (“Is This the End of Summer as We’ve Known It?” Shawn Hubler, nytimes.com, July 28, 2021.)

Many of us think of Holland as a nation where people get around primarily by bicycle. That appears to be the case now, but apparently it was not always so; the Netherlands was car-dominated for a few decades before deliberately setting about promoting cycling as transportation for the masses.

In this little 3-minute video, the Netherlands correspondent of BBC.com talks with a representative of the Dutch Cycling Embassy (how great that such an organization exists!) to find out how they did it.

Tips include: Make sure there are pathways separated from the automotive traffic, and that riding is comfortable and safe for anyone whether age 8 or age 80. Provide plenty of parking. Give cyclists the right of way. And — a biggie here — write it into auto insurance policies that when motorists get into an accident with a bicyclist, the onus is on the motorist to prove they were not at fault.

Here in Florida, the main things needed, in my observation, are

1) shade trees along roads and sidewalks;

2) bike lanes or at least shoulders to ride on; and

3) education (for motorists – regarding the need to share the road; and for bicycle riders – regarding the need to obey the laws same as any other wheeled vehicle).

Awareness is key.

Bicycle and foot are my main modes of transport. I don’t own a car (though I have owned cars for periods of my life). I’d love to see a network of cycling lanes not only in every city, but linking all cities! The other day I read that in France, there’s a paved bicycle path from Paris to the Normandy coast. Over 200 miles! Imagine the low-footprint adventures a family or group of friends could have! And for people who often travel solo, like me, it would feel very safe and comfortable to travel this way.

How about you — What is your main mode of transport? Is there anything that would help or encourage you to get around primarily or entirely by walking, cycling, or other human-powered transport, if you don’t already?

Someone in the Deep Adaptation group posted a question that boils down to, Is it really possible to live in such a manner as to bring our net emissions down to zero? And if so, what would that look like?

I responded:

Thank you for starting this thread! Good questions you raise.

Around 2004, I got the idea to try to live in such a manner that, if everyone were living at a similar footprint, it would be “low enough” for human life on earth to be sustainable. I had no scientific background, no ecological training (other than spending a lot of time out in nature), had not yet studied the concepts of “embodied energy” and “energy return on energy invested” (would learn those later, in permaculture design classes).

But I just “knew” that solar panels, various techno fixes, etc, were not going to save us. I felt that the key was just … radically reduce!

I was totally operating on intuition. Just trying to have the smallest possible footprint. Since I never was into having a lot of stuff or living a typical USA lifestyle, it was a natural direction for me.

Around 2007 I “met” some fellow bloggers who had started a grassroots movement of people aiming to live at 10% of the average USA American’s footprint. They had actually figured out metrics and everything! And I found out that my low-footprint mode was pretty much in line w the metrics they had figured out.

(The metrics were/are in categories: water use, electricity use, gasoline consumption, consumer goods purchased, food footprint, volume of trash discarded, etc.)

This movement was (is) called the Riot for Austerity (also known as the 90 Percent Reduction Challenge), and it is still going on, although its online community is not as active as it was at one point.

BTW the metrics adopted by the people who started this movement were based on a book by George Monbiot called Heat: How To Stop the Planet from Burning. Monbiot, a climate activist and journalist who has studied the science in depth, says we need to reduce our per-capita footprint to 6 percent of the average USA resident’s. Now, Monbiot’s book was not suggesting household-level changes; it was more about what governments needed to do in the way of policy, infrastructure etc to bring this about.

It was the Riot folks who translated his concept into household-level metrics. (The Riot rounded it to 10 percent for simplicity’s sake.)

The vast majority of people on the planet are already living at a tiny fraction of the average USA resident’s footprint. The Riot for Austerity movement is a call to action for those of us living in the USA and other wealthy industrialized nations.

Although, as I mentioned, the online community is not as active as it was at one point, many of us have found good company, and even enjoyment and a sense of purpose and adventure, in this movement.

I sense that many fellow RIOTers are, like me, very much on a path of Deep Adaptation.

(To check out the discussion thread, join the Deep Adaptation group and do a search on “Riot for Austerity.” Lots of people are giving very thoughtful responses to this thread.)

Further Reading:

• “One Tonne of Carbon per Year – This is what net zero carbon looks like” (RosalindReadHead blog — suggested by one of the people commenting on the DA thread I mentioned). Another approach to right-sizing footprint. I will need to learn more — become more “carbon-literate” — in order to be able to calculate my footprint using this approach. The writer is running for Mayor of London on a platform that includes radical de-carbonization.

• How Bad Are Bananas: The Carbon Footprint of Everything (book and website), by Mike Berners-Lee. This book, mentioned by people in the DA thread and by RosalindReadHead on her blog, is now on my reading list. Berners-Lee is also author of other books, including There Is No Planet B.