{"id":3606,"date":"2010-09-28T13:32:54","date_gmt":"2010-09-28T20:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thedudeabides\/?p=3606"},"modified":"2010-09-28T13:32:54","modified_gmt":"2010-09-28T20:32:54","slug":"godstuff-why-be-less-bad-when-we-can-be-100-percent-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thedudeabides\/2010\/09\/28\/godstuff-why-be-less-bad-when-we-can-be-100-percent-good\/","title":{"rendered":"GODSTUFF: Why be less bad when we can be 100 percent good?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

While I\u2019m no militant environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination (I recycle; I don\u2019t compost), I do considered myself something of a tree-hugger.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s even a sticker on my car that says, \u201cGod is Green.\u201d It\u2019s a statement of faith.<\/p>\n

Still, when talk turns toward carbon footprints and global warming<\/a>, lately a certain melancholy \u2014 almost a vague acedia \u2014 has begun to shadow my heart.<\/p>\n

It all seems so \u2026 Sisyphean.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve abused Mother Earth<\/a> and she\u2019s not happy about it and it may be too late to fix the fakakta<\/em> mess we\u2019ve made of our ecology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sure, in recent years a light bulb has gone on over the heads of religious<\/a> leaders \u2013 \u201cAha! We should probably do something about this whole Earth-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket-and-we-don\u2019t-mean-spiritually thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such attention from people of faith \u2014 Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and a host of other religious traditions \u2014 is a good thing. Nevertheless, none of the spiritually leaning environmental message I\u2019ve listened to has grabbed my soul and given it a good shake.<\/p>\n

That is, until a few weeks ago when I heard a humble prophet named Bill McDonough <\/a>speak in Laguna Beach, Calif., my new hometown.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know much about McDonough<\/a> other than he did something in the business world, and expected little from the evening apart from supporting a friend\u2019s effort to bring world-class speakers to our sleepy surf town and sipping a glass of free Chardonnay.<\/p>\n

I certainly didn\u2019t expect to have an epiphany.<\/p>\n

McDonough is an internationally renowned architect and chief proponent of what some have christened the \u201cNext Industrial Revolution<\/a>.\u201d For 25-plus years he has led the development of cutting-edge sustainable (i.e. \u201cgreen\u201d) architecture and, moreover, a philosophy of design that turns dominant design, business and environmental paradigms on their heads.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power \u2014 economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed,\u201d McDonough and his partner, chemist Michael Braungart<\/a>, say of their \u201cCradle to Cradle\u201d design philosophy. \u201cHow can we support and perpetuate the rights of all living things to share in a world of abundance? How can we love the children of all species \u2014 not just our own \u2014 for all time?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cradle to Cradle (or C2C) is McDonough and Braungart\u2019s answer to the \u201ccradle<\/a> to grave\u201d model upon which so much of the world\u2019s design, consumption and commerce is based. We have designed products and industry that are made to be disposed.<\/p>\n

In landfills. In the ocean. On the scrap heap of outmoded ideas and thinking.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where McDonough\u2019s message gave my soul a good jostling: The Earth is designed \u2014 beautifully, elegantly \u2014\u00a0to work and work well. It\u2019s meant to be self-renewing. It is intended for abundance, not scarcity.<\/p>\n

As a believer, such ideas should have been self-evident to me, I suppose, but they were not or maybe they\u2019d become obscured by years of hearing the message that we had to conserve before everything runs out (next year if not sooner.)<\/p>\n

McDonough argues that the idea of, for instance, reducing our carbon footprint<\/a> is essentially an effort to be \u201cless bad.\u201d It\u2019s akin to beating your dog three days a week rather than five and praising it as progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be less bad is to accept things as they are, to believe that poorly designed, dishonorable, destructive systems are the best humans can do,\u201d McDonough and Braungart wrote in their book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things<\/a>.<\/em> \u201cThis is the ultimate failure of the \u2018be less bad\u2019 approach: a failure of the imagination. From our perspective, this is a depressing vision of our species\u2019 role in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, McDonough asks, \u201cWhat would it mean to be 100 percent good?\u201d<\/p>\n

Buildings can be designed to act like trees, McDonough explained to us. He has designed and constructed buildings that filter water, harness the sun\u2019s power, clean the air, are lit with natural light and with \u201cgreen\u201d (literally) roofs where native plants, grasses and birds flourish (even in the middle of downtown Chicago<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In McDonough\u2019s buildings, waste becomes food. Materials are recycled and reused. Next to nothing winds up in a landfill. By choosing designs and materials that are not only non-toxic (or the closest to it available at this point) but also healthful we can change the world in tangible, lasting ways.<\/p>\n

McDonough\u2019s latest effort is creating an organization that will certify products as C2C approved <\/a>so that consumers will know that what they are buying and using is part of a regenerative system. The C2C certification is \u201ca multi-attribute eco-label that assesses a product\u2019s safety to humans and the environment and design for future life cycles. The program provides guidelines to help businesses implement the Cradle to Cradle framework, which focuses on using safe materials that can be disassembled and recycled as technical nutrients or composted as biological nutrients.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the C2C logo is on the packaging (or lack thereof \u2014 natch!) you can be sure it has been designed with cradle-to-cradle and not cradle-to-grave in mind. By requesting and buying products that do the same, we can move the market to demand clean, healthful, restorative goods and services. By making conscious choices to invest our money in products, designs and commerce that are healthful and positive for our planet, we reward inventors, manufacturers and businesses that produce, transport and sell them.<\/p>\n

Baby blankets that give our children nutrition rather than Alzheimers later in life. Doornobs that deposit positive doses of needed minerals on our hands rather than toxic discharges. Factories where the water that comes out is even cleaner than the water that goes in.<\/p>\n

\u201cDesign is the first signal of human intentions, so what are our intentions?\u201d McDonough says. \u201cModern culture appears to have adopted a strategy of tragedy. If we come here and say that we didn\u2019t intend to close global warming, it\u2019s not part of our plan \u2026 well, \u00a0it\u2019s part of our de facto plan because it\u2019s the thing that\u2019s happening because we have no other plan\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took us 5,000 years to put wheels on our luggage. \u2026 So there is no end game. There is an infinite game and we\u2019re playing in that game,\u201d he says. \u201cThe good news is the news of abundance and not the news of limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Recently McDonough has agreed to take those ideas and try to implement them at the WalMart corporation \u2014 the nation\u2019s largest employer and a behemoth on the world market \u2014\u00a0to try to transform it into a leader globally in ecological improvement. He\u2019s a visionary, one with seemingly unending preserves of energy, ingenuity and chuzpah.<\/p>\n

Using our imagination, intelligence and buying power, we can set the Earth on a path to healing and also ensure that future generations of all God\u2019s creatures (great and small) rest \u2014 nourished and cared for \u2014 in its loving, ample, natural embrace.<\/p>\n

As a person of faith, how do you disagree with that? \u00a0[Watch video of McDonough\u2019s C2C talk at the TED convention HERE<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

Well, perhaps you could if you believe that the Earth is a cosmic rental car to which God has loaned us the keys to drive recklessly, strewn with fast-food wrappers, dent, ding, scratch and then leave by the side of the road when it runs out of gas.<\/p>\n

McDonough\u2019s vision was refreshingly clear, intelligent and overwhelmingly hopeful. It spoke to our creativity, imagination and (divine) call to be caretakers, rather than dominators, of this garden of ours.<\/p>\n

While he never spoke in explicitly religious terms, it was one of the most spiritually powerful messages I\u2019ve heard in ages.<\/p>\n

The Creator designed Earth to work seamlessly, a great cycle of life.<\/p>\n

We just need to get out of our own way and start working with that design rather than against it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I\u2019m no militant environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination (I recycle; I don\u2019t compost), I do considered myself something of a tree-hugger. There\u2019s even a sticker on my car that says, \u201cGod is Green.\u201d It\u2019s a statement of faith. Still, when talk turns toward carbon footprints and global warming, lately a certain melancholy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[593,594,595,596,597,598,599,600],"class_list":["post-3606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-godstuff-2","tag-c2c","tag-cradle-to-cradle","tag-cradle-to-grave","tag-ecology","tag-environment","tag-green","tag-the-next-industrial-revolution","tag-william-mcdonough"],"yoast_head":"\nGODSTUFF: Why be less bad when we can be 100 percent good?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While I\u2019m no militant environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination (I recycle; I don\u2019t compost), I do considered myself something of a tree-hugger.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thedudeabides\/2010\/09\/28\/godstuff-why-be-less-bad-when-we-can-be-100-percent-good\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"GODSTUFF: Why be less bad when we can be 100 percent good?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While I\u2019m no militant environmentalist by any stretch of the imagination (I recycle; 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