Kick-off Dinner to the Kick-off Lunch
August 31, 2010 
5 Comments
Spend five minutes chewing the fat with Dr. Kevin Danaher and it’s anyone’s guess where the conversation will lead you. I just returned from breaking bread with the Executive Director of Global Exchange and the keynote speaker for tomorrow’s Sustainable September Kick-off Luncheon at the Masonic Temple. If tonight was the appetizer, I can’t wait for the main course!
Over the past few months we have quietly linked to the Sustainable September website over twelve times. Wait, make that thirteen. Fourteen… You get the point, get ready to loose count! As of tonight the stage is literally set and Sustainable September is ready to blossom all around us, even in surprising and unexpected places.
Ecowell kiosk screen at the lower level of City Hall.
So hold on to your napkins (you have to bring your own to this event) while we get a taste of tomorrow. With all the overwhelming problems we face today, Kevin encourages people to focus on what we can do, getting beyond the finger pointing and criticism stage to offer desirable courses of action and viable alternatives. In short, to think of ourselves as “solutionists.”
Too often we experience what Kevin calls “tactical sectarianism.” This is the age old phenomena where specialized interest groups fail to work together on the larger picture. People have a tendency to retreat into a mindset of scarcity where they forget how trust and collaboration can create abundance.
In addition to all the fascinating sustainability shop talk, Kevin broke up the business with a few politically incorrect one liners. Some are not to be repeated here, but two of my favorites were “Chairman Mao reminds us that effective revolutionaries are never ten steps ahead of the people, they are always one step ahead.” And then there was the observation, “You know how things can work like a melting pot? Sometimes the bottom gets burned and the scum seems to rise to the top.” They say people laugh at things that make them nervous. In this case it wouldn’t be as funny if it didn’t ring so true.
Coming to a table near you!
Spokane was home to one of the first “green expos” in the world, and now with Sustainable September we will do well to learn from Green Festival, a nation wide program that celebrates what’s working in our communities for people, business and the environment. Kevin also told us about the Emerald Cities Collaborative, an alliance that focuses on developing the green economy, workforce and investment environment. Are you ready for this wild ride through a feast of possible positive futures (to mix metaphors)? I know I sure am. I can’t wait to see you there!
- Face Time: Nonprofit employee talks about sustainability, Tom Sowa on S-R
- Sustainable September Kicks off Wednesday, Paul Haeder on DTE
- For the Future, Brian Sayrs on Planning Spokane
About the Author
This luncheon was great. I wasn’t planning on going but happened to catch the Spovangelist blog that morning (Thank U MM) and knew I had to go. I’ve seen Kevin at the Green Fest, and he is not to be missed. Positive energy is hard to find these days, but that’s what he’s about. I am so glad I went.
As he said “There is no us versus them. There is just us, (justice).”
I think this Sustainable September stuff is beyond cool, and it looks like you are even more involved in the community than I expected. I think that’s ridiculously cool in its intention (I will work on my vocabulary to describe things better). I’m also gonna try and make as many of the community events this month as I can (I was seriously bummed I missed the International Dinner due to flag football practice last night – it sounded SO cool.)
Keep up the awesomeness and hopefully I’ll run into you in the community soon. Take care!
Good news I wanted to share with you since you were my main inspiration for becoming so inclined toward eating locally, and living as green as possible (as with the worm compost bin)–I’ve been put in charge of the green initiative at my new job. I work for the City University of New York’s Citizenship and Immigration Project- you can read more about it here, if you’re interested: http://www.cuny.edu/about/resources/citizenship.html.
Basically, I act as one of their event planners for the citizenship events that they host for New York politicians a couple of times a month. Anyways, I’m really excited about this new project and for the challenge. It’s crazy to me how no one seems to care about recycling over here! NYC is so wasteful, it’s quite repulsive, especially coming from the INW
I am currently working on ways to get the staff excited about wanting to recycle/conserve resources within the office. The majority don’t care and don’t think it’s important which is sad to think about. I hope I can change their minds!
How is everything going with Sustainable September? I saw Mingle at the Market is coming up soon, I’m sad I’m going to miss that–it’s much harder to find that sense of community over here (not to mention the great local buffet for the price Main Market offers!).
i’ve been really excited to see the good work you’re doing via community-minded — and love, especially, the activist/witness room you’re making for spokane’s emerging creative culture.
i don’t want to blur your work’s focus, but would love to talk about how the same creative crowd might include the issues of class and war resistance as key components of their work to build a healthy, sustainable spokane.