You Can Go Home Again: What I’d Like To Have Been Able to Say to New York Times Readers
Sharon October 23rd, 2008
Just for one moment, I’m going to pretend that instead of a silly article diagnosing a pretend disease in the New York Times, I was given a chance to speak on the Op Ed Pages of the Times, that this is my one shot at the huge audience that the Sunday Times has. Ignoring, for a moment, how unlikely that is, here’s what I would have said.
Last weekend my family and I appeared in the New York Times as victims (or perhaps purveyors) of a new mental illness, “carborexia.” Apparently this is the pathological inability to produce sufficicient carbon, an environmental mania so extreme that it transforms ordinary lives into obsessive madness.
The article began with the fact that my son Simon is deprived of the great American pasttime because it is a half-hour drive to a league that doesn’t have games on the Jewish Sabbath (poor kid, he has to play catch with his parents and pick up games with his friends and brothers – in fact, he and one of his friends actually broke one of our front windows yesterday with a particularly nice hit). The language of the article included the term “huddle together for warmth” to describe the fact that my young kids sleep together in both warm and cold weather. All of this operated to implicitly imply that I’m abusing my kids in my pursuit of a lower energy life. And since even implied accusations of child abuse and mental illness are a potent weapon in this society, I wouldn’t be shocked if you did think I was crazy and a bad Mom.
My first inclination was to fire back with the accusation that instead, most Americans may be suffering from a pathology called “carbulimia” in which they gorge themselves on energy – twice as much as Europeans, who often have a similar or higher standard of living and level of happiness – and then effectively vomit up the excess, deriving no benefit and often actual harm to their health and hope for the future. But this doesn’t quite get at the issue either – it just continues the Times’s trivializing of real eating disorders and their sufferers, and adds another dumb and uneuphonious faux-disease to the cultural lexicon. Definitely not what is most needed. Moreover, most of us don’t take in huge quantities of energy for its own sake, we use it because that’s how our society is structured, and how we’ve been taught to meet our needs. We use most of our energy because we’re not sure how to do anything else.
Debating which extreme is pathological doesn’t help us find a functional way of life. And that is what is desperately needed. And quickly. NASA’s chief climate scientist James Hansen has argued that we need to reach 350ppm very rapidly – within a decade. We’re already past at nearly 390ppm - the arctic ice is already in the danger zone, Greenland is showing increasing melting signs and most disturbing, methane is being released from upper levels of arctic permafrost. Meanwhile, there are signs that we may have passed the world peak in crude oil production, and the volatile price of energy has helped drive us into a recession.
Meanwhile, the governments of China, India and Russia have all announced that they have no intention of taking major steps to reduce their climate impact while wealthy Americans, Canadians and Australians consume all they want. They argue that they are trying to bring their populace out of poverty, and that we who produce the largest per capita emissions need to make our reductions first. We argue with them that we won’t reduce our standard of living, that “the American way of life is non-negotiable,” in part because we are frightened by the idea of changing our way of life into something unfamiliar. And thus we enter a global game of chicken – they won’t change until we do, and we won’t change because we don’t want to be like poorer people. Never mind that we are condemning our own children – and theirs - to greater poverty as larger and larger parts of their income will be required to mitigate unfettered climate change. This is known as “cutting off your nose to spite your face” and it is pretty much our climate policy.
The only hope we have to make rapid changes, on the scale necessary to achieve the 350 goal, is to put every tool we have on the table. We need to invest as much as we can in things like massive reinsulation, renewable energy and public resources. We need to use sustainable agriculture, reforestation and the preservation of existing rainforests forests to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. But these will not be enough – we cannot make this sort of shift in 8-10 years on renewable energy development alone. It would be nice if we could – or if we had 50 years to do this, but we don’t have the time and resources, and there is no point in mourning the time we wasted. We have better things to do.
What is going to be needed is a rapid shift in the American dream and the American way of life. Without that shift, there is no hope that China, India and Russia will forswear coal or make other changes. Unless we can look poorer nations in the eye and say we’ve met our targets, we’ll all pay the price together. Without a model for a good, sustainable and happy American life that produces 50-90% less carbon, not from costly technologies that simply can’t be put in place in time, but from ordinary practices of daily life that can – we’re doomed. If we believe that living a sustainable life makes us crazy, or forces us to live in misery and poverty, we face misery and poverty for future generations all over the world.
The good thing is that the good American life isn’t so very far away. In 1945 we used 80% less energy per household than we do now. Your parents and grandparents lived that way – they heated the rooms they used most often and closed off the other ones, wore sweaters and walked more than they drove. They took the bus. They ate less meat. They grew Victory gardens and ate food grown near them. They shared with their neighbors more and they worked together on what was then the greatest challenge facing the world – the rise of fascism. What is most needed isn’t a move to the third world – it is a return to a familiar past.
There are plenty of Americans living right now who grew up like my kids do – instead of being driven to ball practice, they played baseball with other kids in their yard, and helped their parents weed the Victory garden. They wore warm clothes in the winter and slept outside in the yard in a tent when it got too hot inside instead of clicking on the a/c. Many grew up like my kids on farms, or spent their afternoons playing outside on the sidewalk or among the trees, rather than inside watching tv or playing video games. They walked or biked places. They mostly ate food from their family gardens or from local truck farms near their homes rather than processed foods and take out. Maybe a few of you even remember that kind of childhood.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not a perfect Mom, and my kids don’t live in fairy land. We too struggle to find balance between the good in our energy use and the things we can afford to discard without doing harm. We don’t always get everything right. But we’re trying. The reason I agreed to allow a photographer to come to our farm was that I believe that the very first step to going forward to a sustainable life is being able to imagine ways of getting there without the fear that this means unimaginable hardship. I hoped that they might even show that we’re having fun – and we are.
We’ve come so far away from our lower energy life that we now think that the past is uninhabitable, that we can’t go home again. And it certainly isn’t as simple as flipping on the way-back machine. It requires thought and practice and time, small steps and failures, experiments and discussions with friends who care about the same things. It requires an investment of time and energy. But the past isn’t so very far way, either. It would be a mistake to think that a life with less energy is so distant, so unimaginable that we cannot conceive of inhabiting that space. Instead, it is something we can get to with a bit of commitment ane energy, with allies and imagination and creativity.
Maybe my way isn’t right, I don’t know. I know doing it exactly my way isn’t for everyone- we need city models of the sustainable life, and suburban ons as much as we need me and my garden and our goats. We need versions that adapted to different ethnicities, faiths and cultures. But we need all of these, and we need them badly. Because as much of our future depends on our creating renewable energies or reinsulating homes, it depends at least as much on ordinary people transforming their lives into something that the whole world can live with. It is a pity that we’ve heard so much about one half of the equation (the electric cars and renewable grid) and so little about this very basic question – how will we live? How will we go on in a way that sustains us and creates a sustainable future for our posterity? How will we find a way home to our past and our future simultaneously? How will we (and here I mean all of us, across the world) find an equitable way out of our terrible dilemma?
I don’t claim to have all the answers – heck maybe I am crazy, because I truly think that this could be accomplished, and I’m enjoying the process of making it happen. I do think that there are some available here for those (and I think there are many out there) who care enough to try: www.riot4austerity.org and www.350.org.
Shalom,
Sharon
- future , global warming
- Comments(73)
I hope you have submitted it to the times.
Good luck,
MEA
Please consider submitting this to the NYT, or other newspaper of your choice, as a guest editorial, so that more people can have the opportunity to hear your own words.
Wonderful piece, Sharon, and so great to have the abstractions of the science of 350 brought down to a family size idea of the needed change and grounded in your work and lifestyle. Thanks, and thanks for sharing.
I hope you can submit this for publication in a paper, NYT or another one.
good job!
cheers,
Shamba
By all means, DO submit this to the NYT – and the Washington Post – and USA Today – and the Boston Globe – and every other major paper in the US! Heck, submit it to Canadian and British papers, too – let them see that not *all* of us are total carbon gluttons. (I almost said ‘pigs’, but decided that was unfair to the poor pigs) Send it to People Magazine, send it to Oprah… don’t be shy – get the word out there! We’ll all be singing along with you.
What?!? They said WHAT!?!
Are you serious?! What the hell is “pathological inability to produce sufficicient carbon”???
What the hell…?
we’re doomed
What a shame – instead of using the space and its access to millions of readers to profile good, green thinking in action, she got snotty. People don’t realize how empowering it is to inch your way towards freedom from the ‘carbon chains’. I wouldn’t live any other way. You go, Sharon!
Too little. Too late. Too bad. These are the three “T”s of the Times.
We could have built a wonderful planet and a grand new world, but noooooooooooo….everyone had to make a profit.
“Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life. Teach a man to sell the fish, and you destroy the planet.”
Great article Sharon. I agree it needs to be submitted. Lots of great words in there that people need to hear. I had some really good friends, who had many kids, who decided to get off grid and live the kind of lives we are all trying to live. They were turned in by their neighbors for child neglect because they had no running water in the house they were building (they had a well). Then they were turned in because they had no heat (they had a wood stove). Then they were turned in because they had no car (they had one and the dad used it to get to work, leaving the rest of the kids at home, where the mom was doing a beautiful job of homeschooling them). They were never taken away. Thank goodness someone saw what they were trying to do. It just goes to show, however, how SCARED people are of what’s happening and how hard change is going to be. Your words will help, Sharon, never doubt that.
sigh. It’s an uphill battle, of course. Remember the SUV. All the lucid arguments in the world did not help the huge number of owners to understand. Most of them will STILL argue that they needed them; and deserved them, and have a right to them.
Just don’t let it drive you crazy- or waste your time.
This should be submitted to the NYT.
Just the other day, I was joking with
myself. I was wondering it it was
child abuse to leave the heat off when
the temp dips down into the upper 30’s.
Wow. Who knew folks were such idiots.
Michelle
I don’t think it’s a waste of time…I think it’s
important to send TO nyt editorial.
And…did I miss it?…I didn’t see any direct
reference to Casaubon’s Book or to Depletion and Abundance…..with the crummy article.
back to wasting time….I just watched the
Slow Food Nation closing on FORA.tv. There
was Wendell Berry. Woud we be inclined to say
that HE has wasted his life?
grace, New Mexico
Really beautifully written, Sharon. I will put my lot in with the others–you should submit this. Given that the Times just did a piece on your life, you might even get in via the “timeliness” of it (yes, pun intended). And submitting it to other venues–especially competitors to the NYT that would like to see an Op-Ed complaining (just a bit) about it–well, that’s just good strategy. I don’t know how submitting Op-Eds works though, if you can submit them to multiple venues or not… But good luck nonetheless.
Oh, and I am deeply loving your book.
Sharon, you sound a little too hurt and defensive at the beginning, and then do a great job of explaining and taking the high ground. If you do send this in, tweak the tone at the beginning a little. Still excellent piece. (BTW its OK to be a little hurt and defensive when unfavorably presented in the press, but don’t sound that way when replying.)
Excellently written – absolutely submit this to the Times, and any other paper that may strike your fancy (unless you really just don’t wanna!). It manages to do what the best of your writing always seems to – make the global crises that we’re facing seem like ones we can successfully take on, if we all work together.
I know I’ve sort of come out of nowhere with the comments lately, but I’d like you (and any newcomers or doubters) to know that what you’ve written here exemplifies why I love both your blog and your book as much as I do. Most other writes on peak oil and climate change are concerned with the abstract. That sort of thing definitely has its place, but at some point you’re going to realize that the government and corporations aren’t going to fix this in time, and that they’re not wholly responsible for the mess we’re in anyway. If we care about the planet, and our communities, and our kids, and people halfway around the world whom we don’t know and will never know, we have to start taking concrete steps ourselves. We’ll be living with massive changes even if we don’t, so we have a lot more to gain by assuming them now, rather than later.
And those changes can seem so incredibly overwhelming – you don’t have any conception of how much energy and other natural resources you use until you start looking at seriously reducing them. But this blog, and your book, make it look doable. In the last month alone, my husband and I have turned down our heat (or rather, kept it low instead of turning it up), started taking 7-minute showers, are brushing our teeth with the water off, use less lighting, have started using rags instead of paper towel, have canned some of our own food, started growing herbs indoors, have begun making our own bread, are drying our clothes on racks instead of in the dryer, got started on emergency food storage, begun weatherizing our (rented) home as much as we can, made a plan for the holidays that is more focused on spending time together and less on giving gifts, are driving significantly less often, and are doing the majority of our food shopping at our big local farmer’s market. I’m planning on knitting needed winter clothing such as scarves and hats by hand this year as well, and am hoping to learn soapmaking over the winter months. And I know are other things we’re doing that were either inspired or helped along by your writings that I’m spacing out on right now, but I think this gets the basic idea across! You made it possible for us to move from angst to action, and we are immensely grateful to you for that.
I also appreciate that you are open about your Jewishness here. A lot of people writing about simple living come from a Christian background, which is not a bad thing – but we do need a variety of voices from different faith traditions, as you say, since this will affect all of us. Thanks for being one of them.
(And actually, I do remember the kind of childhood you describe in your ninth paragraph – and I’m your age. My parents lived a fairly low-energy lifestyle, and though I resented it when I was a teenager, boy am I ever glad of it now!)
Trying to raise mindful kids in this crazy world is never easy. Just wanted to write and say there are many many people on the same path of you and no, we don’t counselling!! We are part of an ever increasing ground swell of environmentally aware people. Keep up the good fight Sharon. It is kind of like mice, for every one that you see, there are hundreds more out of the lime light, just plugging along doing our thing. Thanks for being out there and taking the heat!
EJ
Brian – I definitely would rewrite it were I to submit it. I figure I can whine a little here
, but not only can I not do that in the Times, but it would have to be a lot shorter. I did know that, but I appreciate the clarification.
I will say I’m not so much hurt, as genuinely a little frightened. It was not at all implausible that CPS could have come callling after this – in fact, the article seemed designed to generate that response. That’s such a potent weapon in our society, one where the burden of proof of a negative – that you aren’t abusive – is upon the respondent, and all it takes is one social worker with a bug up his butt. I grew up around social services – my mother was a social worker for MA DSS for years, and we had foster kids, and I know both the good and bad ends of that power, and I find the implied danger of it being used on me to be a genuinely effective way of making me want to shut up. Frankly, it scared the hell out of me.
I don’t like being scared, however, and I’ve decided to get over myself (ok, clearly I’m not done whining – but I’m trying to get over myself
) and get a pair of well…balls. I know that if CPS comes, they won’t find anything, and that I have a choice – either don’t expose myself to this kind of risk, or accept the risk and deal with it. I’m still not quite sure how to balance the desire to engage people with these issues and my fear of public participation and its consequences. I’m not necessarily making as smooth or graceful a transition to dealing with that fear as is ideal.
Rest assured, I’ll get rid of most of the whiny stuff if I do send it out.
.
Sharon
Yes, Sharon, I agree with Brian M. What matters most is that the NYT article missed the incredibly important point of >why< you’ve made these choices. Defending your honor and sanity muddies those waters, and you shouldn’t even have to stoop to that. Please, yes, DO submit this, but after you’ve made it bullet-proof. And I also agree you should put in your by-line the books you have in press and published, as well as links to R4Austerity and your blog. Keep us posted!
Sharon, I didn’t think there was that much whining in that writing!
cheers,
shamba
This might be the best thing you’ve ever written. Absolutely beautiful, convincing, persuasive, eloquent. You ought to send a version to the Times, for sure. And hang in there! Last year on Grist some right-wing troll was yammering that bicycling with your kids was child abuse (only an SUV is safe enough for Amurrican kids, don’t you know) but there are still plenty of people doing it without harassment.
Sharon – I think you should send this in…..Maybe sit on it a day – reread and revise but definately send it in. I agree with the others too – Send it on to OPRAH!!! While I’m not a huge fan of her show – She does get the viewers….and you are not abusing your kids by living more simply….you are teaching them valuable skills – to be self suffiecient and to be happy with what they have.
Sharon I applaud your lack of naivety in realizing that the response to your article by CPS is a very real threat from a newspaper that depends on consumerism for it’s very profits. As another article stated (that I cannot recall where I read) you are brown, not green and therefore not contributing to the economy by purchasing plastic pumpkins. That is the true threat that you and all of the people who you inspire are becoming. Non-purchasing, non-spending, non-economy drivers.
I do believe you were obliquely threatened and I had a conversation with my husband that very day about how far you and others can actually go by publicly being active in being carbon neutral. For those of us like Chile and I without children it becomes less of an issue but for you and Sascha with children it is a very real conundrum. No one is going to come and take my dogs away if I keep my house cool or don’t use a washer, dryer or refrigerator. No one is going to complain when Agatha, Taffy and Smoky (different species, shocking!!!) all cuddle together. However, for those with children, its an entire different ballgame.
I wish it wasn’t so but if wishes were goats I’d have free milk.
I liked the peakoilblues column written in response to that horrible NYT article. NYT is not interested in real environmentalism – reducing consumption and energy usage – just greenwashing – pretending that buying “green” will make all the scary bad problems go away.
Thanks for being our beacon, Sharon!
Sharon,
I agree with your suspicion regarding “a genuinely effective way of making me want to shut up.”
May I suggest not to ever again invite a mainstream media reporter into your home/farm or make your home address public. This could endanger you or your family. Although what you do I and many others find noble and courageous, some see it as subversive. We are living in an increasingly fascist regime.
As someone who has been in your shoes, this is something I felt compelled to share.
Paz!
Wonderful piece, Sharon. I would like to encourage you to send it not only to the Times, but maybe even to the local papers–The T-U and the Gazette. (Ignore the reactionary Troy Record. Might as well call it mini-New York Post-North!)
FYI, I showed it to my partner, and he said he thought it was a positive article. He’s a mite biased toward the Times, I know. And I pointed it out to him that it was in the “Fashion & Styles” section, which, because he has a blind spot, he did recognize as odd. Though it wasn’t worthy of more comment. I mentioned the title of your response blog entry and he rolled his eyes. Guh! Sometimes I get really frustrated!
Also, FYI, I’m going to have a short piece performed a couple of times on, unfortunately for you, a shabbos night. Art Night Schenectady happens on the 3rd Friday of every month, and the one for November (11/21) will feature my company’s Pop-Up Plays and New Play Festival. I will have one with the tentative title “This Is All Going to Go Away. And That’s a Good Thing!” I decided to put a character onstage that more or less represents MY point of view, and set it at a restaurant which just happens to be suffering through one of those strange dislocations that sometimes happens because everything is related to everything else. In the play a train derailment in Ohio causes the restaurant’s menu to shrink to just a few items, that aren’t really that filling. Henry and his partner Blizzard continue their argument while their husband-and-wife friends Marlon and Sara try to parry Henry’s observations even though Marlon has been downsized from his job that very day. (I’ve posted a version of it as a page on my blog troyalbanytrance.wordpress.com)
As serious as it sounds, I am hoping that the comedy will come through. And if not, whatever. At least I’m making an attempt.
Also, I liked Kathy McMahon’s take on your article at peakoilblues.com. I’m sure you’ve seen it though. I’m definitely more of a “Brown” than a “Green.” This is more than a fashion choice. (But it wouldn’t be all bad to have Buffy the vEmpire Slayer as an ally!)
Frostwolf
[...] responds eloquently in what should be published as letter to the editor in next Sunday’s NYT: You Can Go Home Again: What I’d Like To Have Been Able to Say to New York Times Readers. Come on, NYT…let’s see this in print, [...]
Sharon, can you do a pre-emptive strke with CPS — find out who there would see things your way and get them out to the house?
MEA
Great article Sharon!
Don’t stop at the border. Submit it to the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian to.
Regards, Paul
I just read the piece on peak oil blues and was blown away. I shouldn’t be surprised that Sharon is considered a real danger to the pushers of consumerism, but I just hadn’t thought of it. I’ll bet Sharon hadn’t either–although she’s so far ahead of the rest of us that it probably had occurred to her and she just bravely went ahead anyway.
Sharon, please don’t stop what you are doing–you are about the only voice for a sane approach to surviving the world that’s staring us in the face. You do enormous good in the world, helping people deal with their fears in a constructive way. But do be careful and remember that, the more influential you become, the more urgent it will become to destroy you.
Remember, you have an army of supporters who know and value you.
Hi MEA – I don’t think I want to go there, but I’ll keep it in the back of my mind as a potential response.
Ok, anyone out there with serious journalist experience know how I would go about submitting this anywhere? This is outside my range of experience. Suggestions for where and how welcome!
Sharon
Go for it, Sharon! I don’t have the expertise you need, but somebody out here must,and will show up to help you do it.
Yes, Hummingbird, great article at:
http://www.peakoilblues.com/blog/
I guess I’m brown — my favorite color.
Fucking great article Sharon. (sorry for swearing). I’m going to post it everywhere I can – blog, facebook etc. Sorry I don’t know how to get it in the Times. Maybe if it goes viral, they’ll post it?
I’ll add one more voice to the chorus urging you to submit this to many media.
Your article reminds me of the many Amish in my area. They too are Americans, even if they are sixth sigma Americans on the carbon footprint bell curve. I am glad to have them in close proximity. It seems not at all unlikely to me that one day soon we will eagerly ask them to teach us the many things they still know that the rest of this country has forgotten, and the other things they’ve figured out that the rest of us never knew.
Sharon, try sending your great article to the NY Times editor of the section where your article appeared. Clearly, you’re considered subversive and an enemy of the system because the brown lifestyle is anti-growth. Not good for the imploding predatory capitalist system.
I agree that you should trim the defensive parts about carborexia and carbolemia, and that you should propose this to Oprah.
I’d go for more detail about how your greenery adds pleasure and reduces anxiety. The idea of reducing anxiety should be very interesting right now.
Anyone have connections to Michael Pollan? He’s in the Times rather often. If he hasn’t already heard of Sharon, I’m sure he’d be very supportive once he did hear about her.
Kerri in AK
When I read that piece in the Times, I lost a lot of respect for them. Good for you for your answer here.
Interesting concept that- of wondering if we who are being vocal about our attempts to live differently are exposing ourselves to perhaps some sort of censure…. I admit that when I read the part about the boys huddled together I was shocked at how judgmental that appeared and the image that it would create in a reader who didn’t know Sharon or what she was like-or even one who had not been reading her blog….
Sort of off-topic but actually not-
Today in my state one of the top “local” stories is how a teacher who works with sex-offender youths has last his position and been “reasigned” to another with a lot less pay, etc- he was terminated due to speaking out at a hearing on sex-offenders. After an awful kidnap/rape/murder of a local child by her uncle, a sex-offender, there has been a lot of focus on how to prevent this in the future. This teacher who testified evidently has not been speaking the “party line” and expressed his belief that records for offending youth should not be wiped clean among other things due to the nature of their offenses. He spoke based on his long years of working with these young men and his experience with them in terms of re-offending over time. This was NOT what the folks in charge wanted to portray despite reality, and so the order came to remove him from his position. So now it has become clear that if you testify as to what you perceive to be the truth you risk your job……
So perhaps this should be construed as a veiled threat to all of us that when we chose to live the way we do we are bucking the system and those in charge are not always comfortable with that?
In terms of CPS though Sharon- I really wouldn’t get too worried about it- one would think they have more urgent matters to attend to in New York…..
I do wonder if perhaps part of why the article was written as it was, besides the entertainment factor, was a level of intimidiation. It gets you on the defense; sort of how you, and many of us felt, when poster Noah was accusing you of being abusive based on his reading of the article. Accusations like that can leave someone feeling off-balance,cautious and prone to feeling like they need to re-examine everything they do and justify their actions- which takes time and energy away from more useful endeavors. So-don’t go there…….
Hi all,
I lurk and haven’t posted here before, but just wanted to note… some of us right wing trolls are fairly sympathetic to the message (I garden, keep the house cold, use cloth diapers, and walk everywhere too– I have to, I’m poor
), until you call us right-wing trolls. Be inclusive!
BTW, to the point, I thought the article in the NYT was absurd and your response eloquent, Sharon. It’s not like you’re asking people to do anything that wouldn’t make their lives better even if peak oil didn’t come to pass. Hang in.
Sharon–this is my first time to post. This was a truly beautiful and heartfelt piece that moved me deeply. In fact, it brought tears to my eyes. I have been reading your blog very regularly for a few months now. I have to say, I am so grateful that you are out there doing this work, you have inspired me to look for ways to make big changes in my life. It is a slow process, and now that I’ve moved beyond panic and into thoughtful and protracted action, I feel much better. But without you, I probably would not have thought of many of the solutions you have suggested, even though I have been studying permaculture and know about peak oil (I went to New College and Richard Heinberg was our professor). Basically, what I mean to say is that you have given me a million concrete ways to make change in my life, instead of vacillating between fear and just blocking it all out to maintain my sense of equilibrium. This is a rambly response, not very eloquent at all, but I really mean it when I say I appreciate your work so much, Sharon, and I am so glad you are continuing to inspire more people and PLEASE submit this for publication.
Lydia
I completely agree with “D”, “Raven”, and “Lydia”. You said exactly what I was thinking. I consider myself to be a “crunchy con” (read Rod Dreher). Sharon-this is also my first post. I have been reading your blog for about a month now. Thank you, thank you. You are a huge help and thanks to you and your “community” I don’t feel like I’m out there all alone. We’re not crazy, just different. And the US has never been one to approve of being different. Just look at our history.
Sharon, I raised my kids in a jungle, had electricity, but no phone {no phones on that mountain, pre-cell phone era}, frequently no water service, but it was a rain forest so we could carry water, the kids would have naked rain dances in the downpours, the most exciting thing we did was boogie boarding down the raging streams. I have to skip over a lot of other stuff since even though it is now twenty years later, I am still in the same country and might get arrested yet. Clearly we knowingly carried on many highly illegal activities which shall have to remain unexplained. Your life, other than the low temperature thing, seems very wholesome and middle class, if rustic. I would call you out on having a TV and letting the kids watch that thing, I never did that, we never had one. But really, I know my kids watched at their friends’ houses, so what’s the difference?
We were also completely vegetarian and we had the good fortune of living in a country where that was considered OK. This was in the eighties. None of us are any longer vegetarians, incidentally. It was something we were doing then. We don’t anymore live in the Rain Forest, but my ex wife and adult son do live near it.
Sharon, the kids grow up very fast, as you know. Looking at the little I know of your adventurous life, they are experiencing a much more authentic childhood than most US citizens.
I still would not live in a cold place {I have hated the cold my whole life} and not ask my kids to do that, and I genuinely dislike TV on principal {I worked in that field when I was much younger}, but beyond those nits, I can’t understand why you would ever have anything to fear about child services.
In about another year, conditions will be so desperate in the US {see today’s article on the newly homeless families in the Times} that your living arrangement will be seen for what it is — an Eden, a cold Eden, but a very desirable one compared to the coming norm.
I hope you forgive my obsession with not being cold. I did address that problem early in my life.
I can appreciate that others don’t feel as I do. I am in fact appreciative that so many humans like it cold and colder, otherwise the tropics would be too crowded.
Sharon, to be frank, I think if CPS went after you, it’d blow up in their faces. You are a public figure now (yes, with all the ups and downs that entails, eh?), and one that’s widely liked and looked up to. There have been other cases of large, powerful entities trying to go after a blogger or other seemingly defenseless private citizen, bringing a bad-publicity storm down on their heads, and having to back off (I’m thinking specifically of this incident: http://thelactivist.blogspot.com/2007/02/well-done-pork.html). I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I am fiercely protective of my right–and therefore yours as well–to parent my children in accordance with my beliefs, and would stand with you. And believe me, there are a LOT of women out there who, though they may not read your blog (yet), lie awake in the middle of the night wondering if a vengeful neighbor or ignorant schoolteacher or the like will someday make an issue of unconventional parenting choices. You would not be alone.
Sharon,
This is a kind, intense and moving response to a mind bogglingly petty article. It’s clear that you are light years ahead of the curve (and evidently that makes some people nervous). I for one am grateful for your lead here and think it is extremely important that you are doing what you do with children. I personally found it easier pre- children than with-kids to live a simple low energy life. It is important to have examples such as yours of happy, well adjusted families, wearing sweaters J. I know a couple of good, out of the box families who had DCF called to their homes (one by a doctor for having their baby at home and one by their neighbor cuz the kids were playing outside “too much“) and when the workers arrived, before even coming in they said sorry, they didn’t know why they were there. Most of them are smart and can tell when a child is well cared for by involved, intelligent parents. So try not to worry. And keep telling the world why we should
Riot for Austerity.
Warm Wishes
As a fellow jewish simple-living (well, attempting anyways) mama with a son named Eli as well, I emerge from lurker-dom to say thank you for your site, and your book which I love! I’m pretty sure there’s a “letters to the editor” section, plus you can cc the editor of the style section and the “journalist” who wrote the article. And ditto to all of the other suggestions folks have made about other places to submit your writing. Man, what a stupid article that was. Wow- biodiesel! Reusing ziplocks! How wacky and new! The reporter comes across as an idiot.
Regarding the CPS thing, as a Marriage Family Therapist intern, albeit out in CA, there is nothing there that anyone there would be interested in. They have tons to do, and require multiple reports (in some cases, very sadly) of rather serious things in order to actually take any action. Plus, they’re obviously not hungry and neglected- you still let them eat sugar and cheerios and watch tv, right?
sharon, i too mostly lurk here, but i just want to chime in to the chorus. please submit your very well written and appropriate response to the twisted and poorly presented if not intentionally harmful nytimes article about you and your family. you are right on target if you felt offended or threatened. perhaps all of US should write our OWN letters to the editor expressing our own outrage. when the nytimes had a beautiful opportunity to illustrate an alternative living style which not only makes for a happier, healthier family but also illuminates the path for all of us to change the prognosis for a dying planet, they blew it. they should be ashamed. also, i must say, all those poorly written words could not stand up against that one photo of your beautiful boys in their shared bed. one look at the radiance and healthy glow on their beautiful faces left no doubt about the benefits of the choices your family has made.
Here is the letter I sent them:
To the Editor,
I was offended and disappointed by your article on October 17th entitled “Completely Unplugged, Fully Green”. The individuals and families you describe in your article are frugal and thrifty, avoiding waste in the same way my grandparents did. They are doing their best to use the earth’s resources carefully, and in doing so are leaving more for the considerable portion of the world’s population who are not blessed with an overabundance of energy, food, and possessions as we are in America. Hanging laundry to dry, driving less, turning the heat down and gardening are admirable choices that are hard to make. Those of us who are choosing to save energy and resources, or forced to do these things to pay the bills at the end of the month, are doing so for our children and all of the children who will have to live on and share this planet. Comparing such choices to anorexia is in bad taste and completely out of touch. Frankly, I was appalled at the attitude of the article.
Sincerely,
Megan XXXXXX
Sharon, Nullus non carborundum- don’t let the bastards at NYT grind you down- you offer good advice.
I’m back to worm composting in the city in my basement for kitchen waste and plan to put in food plants instead of annuals in flower beds with my herbs etc. I also store up to three- six months of foods for two . Just as long as you FiFO your inventory you are safe.
Frankly, if NYcity went south, few of them would survive in the real world.
Posted on my blog hoping to make this viral
Hang in there.
Sharon,
Although I’ve never posted before, I’ve been reading your blog for a long time.
I have an extensive 31 page world wide media list that I would like to send to you. It is a ms word file and I’m not sure how to do that on this blog. But here are the address for NY Times. letters@nytimes.com, abelson@nytimes.com, abramson@nytimes.com,
ambrose@nytimes.com,
frandrew@nytimes.com, apcar@nytimes.com, peappl@nytimes.com, randya@nytimes.com,
barbanel@nytimes.com, dabarry@nytimes.com, barstow@nytimes.com,
goldbehr@nytimes.com, belluck@nytimes.com, jabenn@nytimes.com,
berenson@nytimes.com,
miblum@nytimes.com, tbodkin@nytimes.com, gboyd@nytimes.com, brinkley@nytimes.com,
brooke@nytimes.com, charney@nytimes.com, fclines@nytimes.com, adclym@nytimes.com,
magazine@nytimes.com, gcollins@nytimes.com, ancron@nytimes.com,
bcrosset@nytimes.com, cushman@nytimes.com, daley@nytimes.com, dewan@nytimes.com,
dicke@nytimes.com, suedge@nytimes.com, stenge@nytimes.com, fass@nytimes.com,
fstone@nytimes.com, fisheri@nytimes.com, jwesley@nytimes.com,
nickfox@nytimes.com,
frantz@nytimes.com, french@nytimes.com, gearyd@nytimes.com, gefter@nytimes.com,
glabe@nytimes.com, ligree@nytimes.com, hardenb@nytimes.com, harland@nytimes.com,
jonhicks@nytimes.com, stholm@nytimes.com, davidk@nytimes.com,
slabaton@nytimes.com,
lewin@nytimes.com, markoff@nytimes.com, massey@nytimes.com,
onishi@nytimes.com, orme@nytimes.com, rpear@nytimes.com, raines@nytimes.com,
reissc@nytimes.com, darose@nytimes.com, andyr@nytimes.com, dasang@nytimes.com,
kseeley@nytimes.com, sommer@nytimes.com, stanley@nytimes.com,
jothomas@nytimes.com,
rotone@nytimes.com, vtoy@nytimes.com, vannatta@nytimes.com, hevero@nytimes.com,
mattwald@nytimes.com, tiwein@nytimes.com, thecity@nytimes.com,
Perhaps finding out who is the Editorial page editor would be a good place to start, in addition to the letters@ address. And then to the managing editor, publisher, etc.
Please email me and I will send the rest if you would like it.
I look forward to the information and wisdom included in your posts. Thank you.
Granny K
Thanks, Sharon, for such a lovely response to that piece of nastiness in the Times. (I have to say I cringed at imagining the NYT coming to my place.) I would agree with most of the comments here that it needs a rebuttal.
AND
I think we should take the route of Becky and Megan, and write to the NY Times ourselves. Numbers make a difference in the attention the NYT will give to an article and the more they hear against this type of reporting the more likely they are to change. It also may give Sharon’s editorial/reply more consideration if she decides to send it.
Anyway, please keep writing! I’m off to inventory my soap before our next coop order.
Karen
Most newspapers explain how to submit op-ed pieces on their websites, or in the paper. Look in the editorial section.
Reporters are just people, not members of some vast conspiracy. Some are jackasses, some are clueless idiots, some are smart, informed and concerned. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle, like the vast majority of the rest of humanity.
I’m sorry you got one of the idiots.
Hi Sharon,
The New York Times is from New York, of course, and we know that what matters in New York is appearances.
For some reason, living “ecologically” has come to mean privation. Look at many college students who go through a “green” phase for example. It’s all about the hardship. Whether the hardship actually produces any results is almost irrelevant. Using one sheet of toilet paper when you poop, for example. Does this achieve anything except diaper rash? Yes, you can brag to your friends that you only use one sheet of toilet paper (Sheryl Crow). This is good for New York cocktail party conversation.
After all, something that is earth-friendly but doesn’t create any hardship, like not having an air conditioner, is not much to talk about.
I think you and I have a different view. It’s about living well, without the vastly wasteful systems that most people use. Walking to work is living well — sure beats 90 minutes of commuting — AND it is also earth-friendly. It’s win-win. Likewise, having local, traditionally-grown vegetables (let’s not call them organic) is also living well AND earth friendly. No hardship there.
However, the mainstream “those green freaks are weird” people are not yet accustomed to this thought process. They are looking for the “eco-hardship” story because this is what they have become accustomed to.
Sharon,
Thanks for your posts and insights. I wrote about this story in my blog (www.bcandbeyond.wordpress.com) because I found the portrayal of the “carborexic” so horrifying. Interestingly, the piece I read said your son was wanting to play hockey, not baseball…..perhaps a Canadianized version for my land to the north? What a farce the mainsteam media is.
All the best – I hope this piece makes it to the Times!
TM
Sharon, when I read the bit about your kids “huddling for warmth,” I knew that would send you ballistic. Twice I have let the press into my home and yard to see what I’m doing, and both times, even with Portland’s progressive media, they have proven themselves utterly clueless at comprehending a permacultural approach to community, and to mask their ignorance they hide behind mockery and contempt. (They wrote that a free workshop to teach an innovative building technique was hijacking community energy for personal gain, among other idiocy). So although I will still do interviews, where at least they must quote me, I won’t again let them into my home to do their interpretive dance on my personal life. When you see what the MSM does to the subjects you know about first hand, it makes you realize that almost everything they write is spin and lies. Great reply–gotta reverse spin their spin!
I’ve put a link to this post on my blog encouraging others to read it here in Washington, DC. You make an excellent point about the American Dream and being an example to the rest of the world. Do as I say, not as I do just doesn’t work.
I grew up simply and neglected, I know what that looks like. What has come through in your writing is that your children live simply, cherished, healthy and well educated. How anyone could look at the photo in the Times article and think otherwise is beyond me.
Sharon,
The article has spread. My parents read it this morning in the Sunday edition of the Tacoma News Tribune. I was talking to my mom on the phone and she mentioned an article about a woman in NY who was too extreme about her carbon footprint. I knew immediately what it was and jumped to your defense. I explained how the article misrepresented you and that I had taken a class from you and you were not crazy like my mom had assumed from the article. I am considered the eco-nazi in my family and I’ve got nothing on you. My mom did make sure to tell me that when I move in with them, I am not allowed to turn the heat down to 52 degrees. I hope that if you do print your rebuttal it spreads to the other papers. I’ve been enjoying your book and I plan on giving a copy to my dad (more open-minded than mom) for Christmas.
Beth
Sharon,
We have to remember that the purpose of the New York Times, like any corporate-owned media, is to sell newspapers (or online ads). It is not to inform, educate, to seek out the truth and report it. Real journalism has been pushed out of the corporate media. Their allegiance is to their advertisers, not their readers.
And since the corporates and The Powers That Be (think Money) are totally invested in the continuation of Business as Usual — the infinite-growth economy — anything that counters that must be positioned as weird, radical and to-be-marginalized. As they attempted with you.
As a counter — I look forward to videotaping a Peak Moment Conversation with you and tour of your place. We’ll focus on what matters to you, what you’re doing and thinking, and show the incredible and inspiring model that you and your family are. I think you’ll find that the Peak Moment audience, like your readers, will be in whole-hearted support. As am I.
Janaia (host, peakmoment.tv)
any vietnam vet who saw the truth of what was happening in vietnam was processed by mental health workers whose sole aim was to convince him he was crazy.
welcome home from vietnam.
Sharon,
Excellent to get an Op-ed on you in the NYT. Better than being ignored for sure. That shows you are above radar level. Of course they are starting up as offensive twats first time around but the point is you are getting media attention for your stand and for our PO community. It is especially good that they are against you. This means you are real. Don’t trust people who are quick and easy friends. Slowly these ideas of yours will catch on. When the crisis comes the alternative ideas of Heinberg and yourself and others will be waiting in the wings to be taken on by others as the new norm.
Mahatma Ghandi
“First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.”
You are now at stage 2-3. Expect the fight then win it.
Unfortunately things that fall outside of average behaviour as defined statistically are considered a sign of mental illness which is then utilized politically to silence one(straitjackets, electroshock and meidcation). Since NYT are just average folks in general terms their attitude simply shows what people the average guy at this point in time thinks (not left or right wing politics but lifestylewise). The shift to energy and financial frugality will be as rapid as the PO plateau falls off of the cliff. Then you will be a prescient leader ofthe community and not a dysfunctional nut-case.
Studs Terkels approach to oral history for survivors of Great Depression in terms of sustainability would be an idea, to expand on your personal experience as in your book with a collection of anecdotes from survivors of last time round as a support of your position in historical terms. since NYT are erudite this sort of thing could pull weight with the chief editors against the airheads in lifestye sections who did this hatchet job on you.
Send free copies of your book to the various editors of the national papers and magazines for review with a copy of the NYT article and your response when it gets publishes as a rebuttal. Maybe Oprah could get you on her show or something.
Most important of all rember “No press is bad press”. Spin is the most important thing to remember. Send the ball back with maximum speed and perfect aim they just hit to you.
Yours
GS
Sharon,
One point you seemed to have missed: The NYT is in New York City. Have you ever been there? Do you know what the author was up against? Do you know that Wall Street and Madison Avenue are there? If sickos call you sick, you must be on to something. I guarantee that there are concerned, caring people there who heard your message. Otherwise the sickos wouldn’t have bothered with you.
I do not see why anybody even reads the New York Times! Especially outside of New York! I get all of the news that I need from my local paper and when I see people reading the Times I just think that they are trying to impress people. Hearing about this whole thing has inspired me to live more like Sharon so the Times failed if what they wanted to do was marginalize her and her mindset.
Sharon, a follow-up. I showed your piece to my partner and he suggested that even for an Op-Ed it should be 1/3 as long. “2/3rds too long” is how he put it.
Something to consider, but usually with newspapers, short-and-to-the-point is best.
I’m just catching up on my reading here, but wanted to offer this. Contrast how your New York Times writer wished to portray you as living in Wierdo Land and how she had to create a new disorder in order to make sure no one else took our side seriously, with this article about how people are selling sentimental objects at garage sales and riding bicycles to save on gasoline bills. The best part is the bit about how one dad has his kid sit on a towel on the handlebars which had it been a detail of your story would have nailed you on the child abuse thing for sure. Much sympathy underlies this garage sale article because these people were shafted from the American Dream doing what they were supposed to do.
This is the egregious thing about the media. They so transparently protect the mainstream idiocy, but if someone dares to project how we should be living because of a future that the mainstream refuses to accept they must be condemned to a mental ward. The curse of Cassandra again.
Hi, Sharon. I largely agree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’ve misunderstood James Hansen. As I noted in my essay “Climate On the Edge, Ordinary People Need to Get a Move On” at RethinkingtheWorld.net, Hansen was quoted as saying “we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change…no longer than a decade, at the most” a couple years ago. He also more recently wrote the following:
“Our conclusion is that, if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, CO2 must be reduced from its present 385 ppm (parts per million) to, at most, 350 ppm.”
To my knowledge, however, he’s never said that our goal needs to be to get CO2 down to 350 ppm within 10 years, which is why I think you’ve conflated the 2 recommendations into one. Yes, we need to make a serious start on reducing greenhouse gas emissions within the next several years, but getting atmospheric concentrations back down to 350 ppm is a longer-term goal.
Well done Sharon. You go girl!
You may recall a few years ago my family was featured in Money Magazine as searching for the simple life. The picture they painted of us was horrible. We “deprived” our children of numerous store purchased gifts (instead we made them – which was not mentioned), we closed off rooms to save heat (egads), and chose used clothing (heaven forbid). The article suggested us that we start spending more money and invest in the stock market. Some of the feedback that we received was devastating and made me wish that we had never agreed to do the article.
2 years later we look back and laugh. We did not take the advice and in fact became more frugal in our lives/choices. We are happy with our choices, and others seem to think that our lifestyle is wise. I am certainly happy that we did not purchase the stocks that were suggested.
So, what I am trying to say is, chin up. Someone has to be the leader and the inspiration. Seeing the number of people who have commented on your blog and read your book, you should be pleased. Although the NYT may not see the validity – nay – the necessity of your choices, but others do.
The pebble is becoming a wave.
Hi Sharon:
Been a reader of your blog for a while…I really enjoy it and find what you are doing,or perhaps more to the point, how you are living, to be inspiring stuff. The NYT article was not surprising…being green is cool but you’re too far past that concept for most folks’ comfort. Let’s face it, if you can’t register economic demand as a consumer, you have sort of ceased to exist. I think what mainstream culture fears is having your outlook catch on….it’s one thing if you can be marginalized as a fringe element but if lots of folks lived like you and your family…what would become of the economy as we know it? Interestingly, I think we’re a lot closer to finding out than most would like to think. As the financial system melts down, and we run huge deficits to buy a little time, many folks will be forced into a power-down mode of existence. What I’m not clear on is whether the benefits of a low consumption/ low energy lifestyle are as apparent/ appealing if you arrive there by necessity rather than conscious choice. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Keep up the great work.
Regards, Rob
[...] This post is for Sharon…. [...]
Hi, Sharon and all. Jim Hansen has just put out a press release for his upcoming paper titled ““Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?” and I think it makes clear he is not arguing that we need to get CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to 350 ppm atwithin a decade. Quoting:
“[The authors] find that a combination of these approaches could bring CO2 back to 350 ppm well before the end of the century.”
The full release is here.