William Powers

I'm on the road in Arizona this week, meeting with people to talk about Twelve by Twelve. But like everywhere else, we're also talking about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The over half-million gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf each day is terrible, but not terribly surprising. After all, we’re also losing several thousand acres of rainforest every day, heating the climate by a fraction of a degree each day, and losing an indigenous culture every two weeks as jungle homelands become cattle clear-cuts.

Welcome to the Environmental Era, where the biosphere’s limits are overstretched in every direction. What in the world are we to do?

Some good news biked up to me today, here in Tucson, Arizona. Joy, a forty-something graphic designer who lives in an urban 10’ by 12’ house here, biked 24 miles to attend the Twelve by Twelve launch here. She’s got her carbon footprint way down, to almost nothing. Even in this car-intensive state, she doesn’t own one. She grows much of her food, and is part of a city-wide permaculture group that meets twice a month to share ideas and inspiration, and form sustainable community.
I’ve been amazed at the people I’ve been meeting on the Twelve by Twelve Arizona tour swing. After my talk in Phoenix at Changing Hands Bookstore, I met two retirees who are building off-grid; two thirty-something male friends who have just moved a mobile home onto a piece of land where they are to grow their own food; and a young single woman who simply said, “I’ve had enough. I’m going off grid.”

Beyond these Americans who are reclaiming our Jeffersonian tradition of independent freeholding, are several dozens of others I’ve met at readings who are living mainstream urban lives but who long for a deeper connection to nature, others, and self. We’ve discussed practical ways of doing this, including: deepening one’s meditation, prayer, or yoga practice to go beyond having and doing, to simply being; vowing to buy nothing new (besides food, of course) for a month; planting a spring backyard or windowsill garden; using those tax-breaks and putting a solar panel or two on the roof; or composting kitchen waste.

For more ideas, please see the Resources section of my website.
There’s a softer world beneath the flat. I’m thrilled to be seeing it in Arizona. Thank you for sharing your stories and inspiration.