Author: John Ivanko

State of the World 2010 is on book stands, just in time for President Obama’s State of the Union address, though I’m not sure he’s read it given his talk of economic growth to create more jobs in businesses that require more stimulus spending and more government oversight.

I’ve regularly blogged on our state of the economy, an economy inexorably based on the same life support systems that sustain every creature on Earth. At its root, the economy should be about caring for our planet in much the same way that Pope Benedict has recently proclaimed that we must care for Creation. “The different phenomena of environmental degradation and natural catastrophes, which unfortunately occur all too often, remind us of the urgency of dutiful respect toward nature, recovering and valuing a correct relationship with the environment each day,” said Pope Benedict (as quoted by the Catholic News Agency).

Our economy should be about sustainability and restoration of our fragile planet, not greed and never-ending growth. Our sense of fulfillment or happiness is rarely found at America’s Mecca (the mall). Nor will we be able to charge it on our credit card. When it comes down to it, we can buy what’s no longer available: clean water and air, healthy soil, a vibrant local community, a safe place to raise a family.

Pope Benedict’s message is along the same lines as the perspectives shared in Worldwatch Institute’s latest, authoritative flagship book, State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability (W.W. Norton). Without an intentional cultural shift – one that values sustainability not consumerism — no pledges from government or advances in technology will be enough to prevent the preventable calamity of climate change and ecological collapse, destined to forever change how we live on this planet. We must rediscover a story of living and working, quite different from the present consumption and material wealth-driven one that often defines meaning, satisfaction and acceptance for so many of us, with dire consequences for ecological systems and the billions of people who have been called the “have-nots” in the so-called developing world.

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Leading the way for the green evolution for the Hilton Garden Inn franchise, the Hilton Garden Inn Gatlinburg, drawing inspiration at the doorstep of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, has embarked on the fast-track to bring this upscale hotel into the green business movement. Opening in May, 2009, this 118-room hotel is nestled across the street from the rumbling Little Pigeon River in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and offers a spectacular view of Mount LeConte in the distance, often sculpted by clouds and mist.

The Hilton Garden Inn Gatlinburg offers more than window dressing in terms of their green efforts. That’s why, when the final points are tallied, it will likely earn Silver LEED certification.

A few of their eco-innovations include:

• Rainwater retention on site with parking lot pavers, capable of absorbing 100 percent of the rainwater. The pavers were acquired within 500 miles of the site and are non-reflective, reducing the heat island effect.

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We arrived just as the sun was setting over the rolling, snow-covered hills of southwestern Wisconsin, an auburn glow fading as the sun became masked by clouds rolling in from the west. My family, including my mom, passed through the doors of the red, 5,500 square foot, barn-like Farwell Hall of the Folklore Village, located just outside Dodgeville. We were here to usher in the holidays by celebrating Saint Lucia’s Day one day early (in Sweden, it’s held on December 13).

Greeted by Melissa Leef, our convivial host and guide for the afternoon’s Swedish Sankta Lucia program, my family planned on staying for their community potluck, a St. Lucia candlelight ceremony with a singing performance by costumed children, and an evening of dance (with the guidance of a dance instructor-caller) later that evening. The evening program turned out to be a blend of the traditional rural Wisconsin “house party” – for which we host at least once a year at our Inn Serendipity – and small town community gatherings common among church or other social groups.

With all the talk of sales, black Friday, Cyber Monday, and such, the program offered by the Folklore Village harkened to a time where the holidays we’re less about stuff and more about love, sharing, and community.

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Whether you’ve been forced to take unpaid furloughs, reductions in pay (or increases in insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical expenses) or find only one person in your household with a job instead of two, you’re not alone in having to rediscover how to live on as much as 50 percent less in household income.

According to Kenneth Couch, a University of Connecticut economics professor who studies worker pay issues, displaced workers who eventually find a job may experience pay cuts as much as 40 percent. It’s no surprise the latest productivity numbers nationally are as high as they are; corporate America is getting more work out of their employees for the same or less amount of hours and, of course, paying those who do have a job less.

What thousands of Americans have discovered is that you can actually thrive by getting by with less, a large part due to adopting a more sustainable approach to living and working, often, for yourself.

Here’s a few approaches I’ve discovered while writing ECOpreneuring, Rural Renaissance, and Edible Earth:

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So who doesn’t love this planet?

Unless you have a few screws loose (or living in extreme poverty or managing to survive in a war zone or some similar predicament), at some basic level, you gotta love living on Earth – for its beauty, sustenance, and mystery. But how are we taking the responsibility to protect, preserve or restore our increasingly degraded planet?

That’s what Dr. Helen Caldicott sets out for her readers of If You Love This Planet: A plan to save the Earth (a revised and updated second edition from W.W. Norton). Climate change, ecological collapse and the damage wrought by the ever expanding global, economic system dominated by big corporations and big government demanded an update of her first edition in 1992.

If You Love This Planet sounds a compelling alarm to the damage one species has managed to cause to the fundamental life-sustaining biological processes on Earth – along with our placid, if not direct, exploitation of our own species for economic gain, power grab, or as a result of omitted (or outright deceptive) information. That species is, of course, homo sapiens. Caldicott’s hard-hitting book dives into the diagnosis and causes, followed by a practical prescription and offers a few simply stated cures.

Dr. Caldicott, a pediatrician, knows her stuff, as the founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a widely recognized champion for nuclear disarmament. She explains how the planet, like a human body, is an organism with “a natural system of interacting homeostatic mechanisms.” If one is diseased, others start to fail.

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The only thing I could easily find in the whole place — with a “Made in the USA” label — was underwear. What I didn’t expect to find, was a mall heated by the sun (and body heat).

Forget the “conservative right” or “liberal left.” If America has a religion, it’s that of the consumption culture that has become the centerpiece for our economy. Now 70 percent of our GNP is based on its citizens purchasing stuff, on credit cards or otherwise.

This religion of consumption has its Mecca, too, called the Mall of America. A concept designed and constructed by the Triple Five Group — a privately held corporation owned by the Ghermezian brothers of Canada — Mall of America attracts more than 42 million visitors a year with their retail stores, restaurants, Nickelodeon Universe amusement park and Underwater Adventures Aquarium. While Mall of America is the most visited mall in the world, Triple Five Group also owns the biggest shopping mall in North America, the West Edmonton Mall.

Just for fun, I set out to find something that was made in America (and, ideally, without negatively impacting the environment). No, I didn’t think this was an insane goose chase. After all, more and more ecopreneurs I write about in ECOpreneuring are seeking to sell their “green products” through more conventional retail outlets – even big box stores and chains. That’s why Seventh Generation toilet paper can be now found at your local supermarket and nearly everyone, it seems, sells compact fluorescent bulbs these days. Perhaps one or two products might be here, in America’s megamall composed of 520 stores and 50 restaurants – housed under 4.2 million square feet of enclosed roof space. My odds should be good.

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