When my then teen-aged son dabbled in anarchy, many of our conversations had me playing the role of capitalist defender. You know the arguments: capitalism and democracy are constructive partners that provide consumers with goods and allow hard-working entrepreneurs to thrive.  I consider myself a social democrat, but clearly my acceptance of business as usual hadn’t changed since high school. The result of our debates? My son has matured into an upstanding and productive citizen actively improving society, and I have gotten an education.

The pandemic has changed the way we use the built environment. Millions of us have had to jury-rig corners of our houses and apartments to create space for work and schooling for ourselves and our families. As a result, many articles and programs with advice for video conferencing and day-planning have popped up to help us.

There has been little discussion, though, of how these changes to how we live, work, and learn will alter the way we use and the way we should design the spaces we call home.

The last blog I published was a year ago!

At the time I was feeling hopeful because renewable energy was challenging fossil fuels, and climate justice was newsworthy. Despite political frustrations, communities seemed to have the wind behind their backs. Myriad articles, books and podcasts were published that addressed consumerism and gratuitous growth. I stopped writing because I was listening, learning and trying to synthesize the encouraging information and stories about changemakers and change

appearing from all directions.

And then we fell headfirst into the pandemic and, as we know, life changed.

Let’s be honest, climate change has hovered in our thoughts for a while now. For over a decade, the topic has confronted us in the media, in advertising, and in conversation. We wonder whether there is something we can do or should be doing. But all potential solutions seem like too little, and too late. Doing nothing doesn’t seem like an option, but deciding on an approach takes too much energy, and it takes the joy out of things we want to do.

This post has been long in writing, as I’ve been drawn away by other priorities, but also drawn to good stories. I had assumed this blog would report straightforward discoveries, instead I have found that compelling stories about our attitudes towards resource use, global warming and social change come in many forms. They are written and reported, but also conveyed through every day actions and activities. How I acquire a story can just as important as the story itself.

We spend large parts of our lives inside buildings. We expect them to stay warm or cool. We expect them to be equipped with all the lighting and gadgets we need to live well and work efficiently. Energy-use is often an afterthought, until we get our utility bills.  But how would you rate the buildings you live and work in?

 Amid the noisy teeming streets and crowded sidewalks that form the gray and brick grid of lower Manhattan lie a surprising number of lush green spaces that harbor winding garden paths and leafy amphitheaters. These are the Neighborhood Gardens of the ‘Loisada’ in the Lower East Side. Started by local initiatives, often decades ago, they have been supported since 1978 by the city’s Green Thumb Project.

I am an urban animal, but part of me relishes getting my hands dirty. Houseplants in my care are doomed, but anything edible in our tiny garden has sacred status. The harvest makes the effort worth it. Gardening for most of my friends here in Switzerland is limited to balconies, but next to the required geraniums is a jungle of herbs, tomatoes and peppers. We have lost so much control over where our food comes from and these small utopias connect us to agrarian self-reliance.

 Urban traffic across the United States continues to increase apace. But it is not just motor vehicle traffic anymore. More and more cyclists are demanding their share of the road, and cities, towns and communities are giving them just that. Cycling is the fastest growing mode of transportation in the United States, with cyclists and motorists benefiting from the numerous new bike lanes and bike share programs rolling out across the country.

In his prescient 1973 treatise Small is Beautiful, E. F. Schumacher challenged society to reconsider its quest for a global, industry-driven economy. He presented the case for small-scale, locally meaningful economies, writing that “...the specific danger inherent in large-scale organization is that its natural bias and tendency favor order, at the expense of creative freedom.”

 My childhood in the semi-rural fringes of suburbia was far removed from the plagues of industrialization. While uncontrolled runoff from agriculture, industry and sewers was wreaking damage to the rivers and lakes of the Northeastern United States, I was playing in our backwoods and frolicking on the broad South Jersey beaches. The oil refineries we passed on our way to the city were more fascinating than demonic. But water pollution crept slowly into my awareness.

In a recent conversation about finding positive energy stories in unexpected places, a good friend asked if I knew about Greensburg, Kansas. I didn’t, but it is a town we should all know about. Greensburg presents a compelling example of resilience, sustainability and successful community building in the face of disaster.

Every couple of months there seems to be a new label here in Switzerland, for clothing and food, for appliances and buildings, even for cities. When I go shopping I find a veritable alphabet soup of so-called “ecolabels.” Building industry journals can be even more confusing. Each country seems to have its own building label and sustainability certification in addition to individual product label.

It was on June 23^rd in 1988 that the then head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen, first informed a congressional hearing in Washington DC that there was a global warming trend that could be pinned to human activities. He advised that immediate action needed to be taken to halt the certain dangerous slide towards a changed world.

Every once in a while I come across an idea that makes me wonder why no one thought of it before. We were talking about the idea of “smart sharing” in a discussion group I belong to, and a friend asked, "have you heard about the mailbox stickers in Zurich?

How can we influence the larger energy market when we, as consumers, have no say over where our electricity comes from? Most communities in the United States draw their energy from large regional utilities; 70% of electricity comes from investor-owned suppliers.

With the start of spring, I start to think about gardens and garbage, or rather compost. We live in an apartment, but we do have a small patch of garden out our terrace door. It is about 10 square yards (10m2), but since we’ve lived here, I have planted herbs, tomatoes, lettuce and kale and chilies (the latter two are hard to find in Switzerland). For a good garden you need compost.

Switzerland has one of the best public transport systems in the world. I can get pretty much anywhere via an incredible network of trains, trams, buses and cable cars, often faster that I could by car (including time to find parking) with the added luxury of being able to read, work or socialize at the same time. Public transport is definitely a perk of living here.

Over the past year or so, changes have occurred in the climate conversation. One can almost see the layers of hype and denial rolling away to reveal a rather startled but visibly relieved public hastening to not just agree with the weary experts, but to actively start questioning the role energy plays in their lives and how it squares with their core values.

Government leaders, policy specialists and climate change experts gathered recently in Paris for the COP21 - the “Conference of the Parties” to the United Nations initiative on climate change that began 21 years ago.