ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
Choosing a Sustainable Future
Most of us want to be part of the solution. Thank you, Liz Walker and Ithaca, for showing us how with verve, clarity, and just enough detail to make it all real. Choosing a Sustainable Future proves that we dont have to give in to fear. We can use todays horrific threats to propel us into common action, creating communities that are more beautiful in every way. Let Ithacas story be spread far and wide.
FRANCES MOORE LAPP, author of Diet for a Small Planet
and Getting a Grip2: Clarity, Creativity and Courage
for the World We Really Want
An economy based on ingenuity, thrift, competence, full-cost accounting, and grounded in its place! What an idea! Choosing a SustainableFuture is radical in the right sense of the word but practical. Liz Walker and her colleagues are demonstrating in Ithaca a blueprint for economic resilience, fairness, and honest prosperity everywhere.
DAVID W. ORR, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor and
Senior adviser to the President, Oberlin College,
author of Hope is an Imperative: the Essential David Orr
Ithaca is one of those places showing the way towards a workable future, and Liz Walker is a key guide on that tour. Pay attention!
BILL MCKIBBEN, founder 350.org
Buckminster Fuller is famous for saying The best way to predict the future is to design it. Liz Walker shows us how the citizens of Ithaca, NY and Tompkins County have taken that message to heart, and for the past 20 years have been creating a fair, equitable and sustainable future.
KEN ROTHER, President and COO of Treehugger.com
As we awaken to the many trends and injustices that threaten our environmental and social future, and enter this era of reinvention, we need models and mentors of strategies that work, so that we can re-imagine how we might structure our food, water and energy systems, and appreciate indigenous ecological wisdom. Choosing a SustainableFuture offers practical and visionary solutions that have been proven and work, to re-orient our children, ourselves and our communities toward just and regenerative life ways. This is a vital resource for anyone seeking to engage with neighbors and community members to co-create a healthy, resilient, peaceful and just future.
NINA SIMONS, Cofounder, Bioneers and editor,
Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart
In this fascinating description of one communitys efforts to design and implement more sustainable living, learning and work environments, Liz Walker strikes just the right balance between successes achieved and the challenges that remain. I highly recommend the book to all who are interested in this urgent issue.
DAVID J. SKORTON, President, Cornell University
Liz Walkers voice should resonate all over the world. Ithaca is no longer a utopia, but an outstanding achievement of sustainable living in the US, and a great model and inspiration for change anywhere in this planet.
CARLOS FRESNEDA, author of La Vida Simple,
and US correspondent with El Mundo
Liz Walker chronicles the stories of those struggling happily (for the most part) to make our cities healthy and sustainable into the deep future. This is an adventure with dozens of real peoples experiences, and in the first person of the explorer.
RICHARD REGISTER, author, Ecocities: Rebuilding Cities
in Balance with Nature, President of Ecocity Builders and
founder of the International Ecocity Conferences series
Choosing a Sustainable Future
Choosing a
Sustainable Future
IDEAS AND INSPIRATION FROM ITHACA, NY
Liz Walker
Copyright 2010 by Liz Walker. All rights reserved.
Cover design by Diane McIntosh.
Cover images: Water image: Harmony Helena Cooper, www.helenaart.com
Top inset photos: Jim Bosjolie / iStock Plainview (stamp)
David Schrader (handmade paper).
Printed in Canada. First printing September 2010.
Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Choosing a Sustainable Future should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below.
To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America)
1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com
Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:
New Society Publishers
P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada
(250) 247-9737
New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision. We are committed to doing this not just through education, but through action. Our printed, bound books are printed on Forest Stewardship Council-certified acid-free paper that is 100% post-consumer recycled (100% old growth forest-free), processed chlorine free, and printed with vegetable-based, low-VOC inks, with covers produced using FSC-certified stock. New Society also works to reduce its carbon footprint, and purchases carbon offsets based on an annual audit to ensure a carbon neutral footprint. For further information, or to browse our full list of books and purchase securely, visit our website at: www.newsociety.com
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Walker, Liz
Choosing a sustainable future : ideas and inspiration from Ithaca, NY / Liz Walker.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-86571-675-9
eISBN: 978-1-55092-464-0
1. Sustainable developmentNew York (State)Ithaca. 2. Community developmentNew York (State)Ithaca. 3. Environmental managementNew York (State)Ithaca. 4. Sustainable livingNew York (State)Ithaca. I. Title.
HC79.E5W2678 2010 333.7 C2010-905766-X
www.newsociety.com
Contents
It is a rare occurrence to observe the unfolding of a powerful social movement from within, and a privilege to take part in both helping to catalyze the growth of that movement and to document its rapid evolution. I have been deeply inspired by the hundreds of creative, dedicated individuals and dozens of local organizations that together are working to bring about a remarkable cultural shift towards social justice and long-term sustainability.
I want to thank my colleagues in this movement, particularly those who offered support, granted interviews, joined in focus groups, edited drafts or organized the events mentioned in these pages. I hope this book will help your collective work to reach an even broader audience. And for those whose work is not mentioned, please understand that while it is still deeply appreciated there has been simply too much to capture in one book.
Special thanks go to my friends Joanna Green, Arthur Godin, Larry Hershberger and Saoirse McClory for encouraging me to take the necessary leap of faith to write Choosing a Sustainable Future, to the EcoVillage at Ithaca board of directors for granting me a six-month sabbatical to write (and for their patience when it took a year), to the Park Foundation for assisting with a grant, to Kurt Pipa for helping to organize focus groups and to Teal Arcadi, a high school student who provided me with a much-needed personal clipping service. Thanks to members of my family for their encouragement and review of chapters, especially Margery Walker, Daniel Katz and Rachel Cogbill. Thanks also to the following friends and colleagues who reviewed one or more chapters: Sharon Anderson, Peter Bardaglio, Katie Borgella, Marian Brown, Kirby Edmonds, Marcia Fort, Dick Franke, Jeff Gilmore, Bill Goodman, Joanna Green, Brooke Hansen, David Kay, Kat McCarthy, Steve Nicholson, Tina Nilsen-Hodges, Jan Norman, Krishna Ramanujan, Dan Roth, Monica Roth, Elan Shapiro, Fred Shoeps, Bethany Schroeder, Jeanne Shenandoah and Sara Silverstone. Your comments were invaluable. Any mistakes are entirely my responsibility.
