Is the Wall Street Journal at war with itself? We’ve recently given the paper some credit for its evolving coverage of all things ‘green.’ In March of this year, Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder debunked “conventional wisdom” that might suggest a company’s costs rise as its environmental impact falls, explaining that going green can be highly cost effective. Earlier this month, WSJ editors chose to lead with this headline: “It’s Time To Cool The Planet.” In the article, Jamais Cascio proclaims, “if we’re going to avoid climate disaster, we’re going to have start getting a lot more direct. We’re going to have to think about cooling the planet.”

But in an opinion piece offered last week by WSJ columnist Kimberly Strassel, the skeptics were once again given full voice. Strassel points to a climate-change bill in the Australian Parliament that may get killed due to what she calls the “growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens [that] once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.”

“Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress,” Strassel writes, “is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.”

She continues,

“The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers.”

Granted, this is an opinion column, and therefore not a work of journalism, but Strassel’s suggestion that Inhofe- of all people- is uncovering “the collapse of the ‘consensus’” strains credulity. The WSJ seems in conflict with itself, as its journalists begin to report on the reality that, as this global trend towards green innovation and sustainable business continues, the U.S. will either be buying it or selling it. Meanwhile, opinion columnists like Strassel insist that this “unconvincing green science” will do nothing for us but risk job losses. Which side prevails?

I’m still mulling over Jennifer Boulden’s piece in the Huffington Post, considering that balance between advocating “green tweaks” or “green leaps.” As I mentioned in the last piece, Boulden is the co-founder of Ideal Bite. For those of you who haven’t read Ideal Bite- what’s wrong with you?- it’s a site that provides daily tips for living green, promoting the positive and empowering value of “incremental environmentalism.” In her piece for the HuffPo, though, Boulden reveals a more ambitious philosophy emerging, a call for bolder action and bigger leaps forward. Will baby steps get us to where we need to be?

At LTT, we think about this a lot. Are “greener products” only “less bad,” rather than actually “good?” Should we be moving with a greater sense of urgency towards a “sustainable future?” To a point, and yes. But while we don’t believe in half measures, we do believe in the efficacy of realistic alternatives. But maybe Boulden is right, maybe we now have the necessary ingredients for creating a new framework. Maybe we’re reaching that tipping point, where individuals, governments and corporations are absorbing the message.

Every major brand is addressing this in some way or another- there are a lot of innovative companies out there that get it and others that are starting to get it. But whether it’s the size of the slow-moving ship, the nature of their industry or the state of the economy, “going bold” sometimes gets watered down to simply “taking action.”

But, still, we look to those big fish to reshape the priorities of their own industry. PepsiCo , a company we admire (we’ve covered a number of their initiatives), is an interesting contradiction. On the one hand, it produces a staggering amount of plastic bottle waste, and, because of its global distribution, produces waste (in the form of emissions and landfill fodder) everywhere you can imagine. On the other hand, PepsiCo is among the most progressive Fortune 50 companies in terms of corporate social responsibility, recycling (check out Aquafina’s partnership with Keep America Beautiful), industry-changing innovation (Frito Lay’s compostable bag) and so on, and that global reach can bring a message of sustainability to unlikely places. Other examples, companies like Timberland, Green Mountain Coffee and Whole Foods, have shown the broad appeal of integrating responsibility into a company’s core identity.

Whole Foods is adopting some innovative practices, from exploring renewable energies at stores, banning the use of plastic bags, or pushing the entire industry towards responsible aquaculture guidelines. Their Mid-Atlantic region recently established a commitment to diverting 90% of its waste from landfills by 2009. We had a chance to speak with Mark Smallwood, Whole Foods’ Green Mission specialist, who says the company is well on its way. To achieve this remarkable goal, Whole Foods is working to minimize packaging, enhance its composting programs and further develop its recycling. After a recent garbage audit, Smallwood says, “we found roughly 60% of our waste going to compost, 25% was being reused or recycled (including pallets, totes, milk jugs and so on) and 15% was going to landfill, mostly packaging.”

Boulden’s right, it does seem as if the pieces are positioned to fall into place for a new (sustainable) economy. But it takes a confluence of understanding, energy and innovation. It takes not just consumers demanding greener products but companies anticipating (like Honda and Toyota did a decade ago with hybrid/EV technology) how their industry needs to evolve. Baby steps or big leaps, the scene is set for us to “cook up a new type of economy.”

For more on Boulden, check out her piece on the Huffington Post.

I’ve enjoyed a recent exchange of emails with Jennifer Boulden, co-founder of Ideal Bite. Like LTT, Ideal Bite was founded on the belief that “if we all knew what we could do in the day to day to impact the planet and our communities in a positive way, we’d do it.” The idea of “guilting people into going green” or shocking them in action by grim reports of a climate catastrophe doesn’t seem particularly effective.

In that sense, Al Gore was preaching to the choir in “An Inconvenient Truth.” However necessary and affecting that film was, I wonder how many people walked out of the theater scared but largely unchanged. And how many people who should have seen it didn’t because of the loaded political associations?  As the Ideal Bite folks explain, “we don’t want someone to tell us what’s wrong…unless we understand how we can help.” That serves as the basis for Ideal Bite’s brand of “incremental environmentalism,” and the site offers “ideas for real people who lead busy lives and want to make small changes that up to big results.”

In a recent article published on the Huffington Post, Boulden proposed a more ambitious brand of green thinking. In “You Gotta Break A Few Eggs To Make An Omlette,” she writes about her experience at the Fortune Green Business Conference in Laguna Nigual, CA, reflecting on that “fine (nagging) line” that one treads when one chooses green products; “greener options are definitely better, but at the same time, they are only just less bad,” she writes. “The fact is we need a big, dramatic departure from the core structure of our economy. Why? Because it only works when we buy more and more things.”

Just when I was considering packing my bags for New Zealand to live a life of blissful ignorance, Van Jones spoke. Obama appointed this social change leader into a Green Collar Job position to make sure that the $20B - $40B allotment to stimulate green economic activity actually did just that, and that it the cash infusion benefited all of people in this country. His battle cry was, “Be Bold,” and I dig it.

I am no economist (even though I slogged my way through an Econ major at William & Mary), and I am no business pundit (although I hid from the economic downturn of 2001 by receiving a ‘green MBA’ from George Washington U). I am, however, someone who thinks that we need to rethink some core tenants under which we are surprisingly comfortable operating.

She continues,

Ask yourself, “why not be bold?” — and let me know what you come up with. Luckily I got my inspiration to fight the good-n-green fight for the next year from the conference. Not because anyone was spouting off warm-fuzzy platitudes that glossed over the abysmal state of the environment, but because I realized that we may just have the right ingredients for cooking up a new type of economy. Very intelligent, passionate people are shaping a new framework. Yes, there will be some short term costs and some temporary pain and discomfort. But remember, you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet.

Tomorrow, I’ll delve deeper into that question that we all seem to be wrestling with- are baby steps enough?

For more, check out Ideal Bite. For Boulden’s full article on HuffPo click here.

For those of us who work towards a more sustainable future- and, thankfully, that’s a quickly growing demographic- the challenge is in opening our eyes to the gravity of our situation while maintaining a healthy dose of optimism. With all the doomsday reports, it’s sometimes difficult to see our way out of the mess we’ve created.

I once asked Roger Lang, a remarkable conservationist and entrepreneur out in Montana, whether he thought of optimism as a vital component of the environmental movement.  “I don’t think so,” he replied. “I have dark days when I’m convinced developers will pave all these beautiful open spaces. But I think these bouts of pessimism actually keep me engaged- pure optimism is synonymous with naivete. I think to be dedicated to conservation means you better have a good appreciation of the challenges, or else you’ll be blind-sided by them.”

A new study by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies provides, perhaps, the right balance of realism and optimism. An analysis of 240 independent studies, it found that most polluted or damaged ecosystems worldwide can recover within as little as 5 to 10 years “if societies commit to their cleanup or restoration.”

The Yale researchers studied seven ecosystem types and their recovery from man-made disturbances (logging, mining, oil spills, overfishing, industrial pollution…) and natural disasters (hurricanes, cyclones…). They found, for example, that forest ecosystems recovered in 42 years on average, while ocean bottoms recovered in less than 10 years. While the damages to these ecosystemss are serious, the researchers see the results as an indication that “if societies choose to become sustainable, ecosystems will recover. It isn’t hopeless.”

The study does conclude that about 15% of damaged ecosystems are beyond recovery. But the researchers suggest that, as bad as things are,  “speculation that it will take centuries or millennia for degraded ecosystems to recover” is, in general, wrong. Holly Jones, one of the study’s co-authors added, “we recognize that humankind has and will continue to actively domesticate nature to meet its own needs. The message of our paper is that recovery is possible and can be rapid for many ecosystems, giving much hope for a transition to sustainable management of global ecosystems.”

[Sources: Yale University, Jeff Kart- Clean Technica]

Here’s a clip (via Ecorazzi) of Roland Saekow who, like millions of other graduating college students, is entering the “real world,” with its battered economy and fragile environment (or is it fragile economy and battered environment?). But with people like Saekow bringing their ideas and energy, the future is looking bright (green).  We thought it was time to tip our caps to this new wave of thinkers.

Saekow built this solar powered graduation cap for his big day at UC Berkeley. The mini “green world,” with a model house, functioning solar panel and wind turbine and a remote-controlled sun that rises, is a pretty good representation of the future this generation of minds expects to cultivate. While a student at Cal, Saekow helped pass the Green Initiative Fund legislation on campus, “which generates $200,000 annually for green projects at Berkeley.” As he writes on his website. “I also taught the Joy of Garbage DeCal course for six semesters. This course explored the impact of our waste on the past, present and future. Finally I was the Waste Reduction Manger (WRM) at my housing cooperative for four semesters.”

We’re looking forward to seeing what he does next!

[source: Ecorazzi)

Microphone check. One. Two. [Ahem] Allow me to vent for a minute about buttheads and poop. There are possibly only three types of people in this world 1) people who think it’s okay to drop a (still smoldering) cigarette on the ground, where, by the way, my one year old may crawl by and pick it up and, as with everything he touches, put it in his mouth. 2) people who don’t pick up after their dogs. [these people are sometimes the same people]  3) people who would run for office in city hall if only to pass some ordinance that required the first two groups of people to serve 100 hours of cigarette and poop cleanup duty.

Admittedly, the issue of “not scooping the poop” is not necessarily an environmental one- someone prone to doing it might argue that ultimately it’s good for the soil, or it’ll be gone in a week so what’s the big deal, or “hey, I’m not using a plastic bag to pick that up because it’ll just end up in a landfill.” That person would be an idiot, but the argument could at least be made. But the larger point is, of course, it flies in the face of the type of self-responsibility we all expect from one another. The plastic bag argument, I suppose, raises an interesting dilemma for people who have, otherwise, successfully avoided using disposable plastic bags in their daily lives. For those people I recommend something like FlushEze, the flushable, biodegradable poop bag. And cigarettes… - smoke, don’t smoke, I don’t care, but would a person who recycles at home, is conscious of not being wasteful, etc…drop a cigarette butt into the gutter? And if he/she did, why that disconnect? Incidentally, a cigarette butt takes up to five years to biodegrade. On a walk recently, I saw a woman who, no joke, was wearing a shirt that said “Hug Your Mother Earth,” who in the span of two minutes, tossed her cigarette butt into the bushes and watched idly as her bulldog had a morning constitutional on the side of the bike path. It was the perfect trifecta of douchebaggery. I knew it was time for a post about buttheads and poop. Now…, back to our normal fare.

It’s not hard to find evidence to support Tom Friedman’s ‘Flat Earth‘ theory, especially these days. The U.S. subprime meltdown went through the global economic bloodstream like a virus, infecting economies big and small- poor Iceland is still in intensive care. Speaking of viruses, the World Heath Organization says the Swine Flu pandemic is imminent, classifying it as a Phase 5 outbreak. Chrysler announced yesterday it would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and merge with European carmaker Fiat. The pitfalls of globalization are everywhere you look, but they also stand as a reminder of the speed at which change can arrive- for worse, clearly, but also for the better.

When it comes to green innovation, we’re often left daunted by the challenges. Can we act fast enough to stave off climate disasters? Won’t it take years to integrate these new green products/technologies into the mainstream? And as long as China is building coal plants at a rate of once a week, aren’t we putting our own economic interests at risk by setting strict emissions standards?

While it’s true we lag behind on a lot of green thinking, the US is still the flagship in the fleet of trends. If we can go green, the world will follow. If we can invest in cost-effective, energy-efficient smart grids, plug-in hybrid technologies, electric vehicle infrastructure like the kind Shai Agassi at Better Place is developing, the world will buy it.

Am I suggesting the current world crises could have been avoided with a little more “green thinking?” Pretty much, yeah. Chrysler? I’m sure there are lots of factors (labor costs, stiff foreign competition, yadda yadda), but, c’mon, have you seen these cars? Do they look like the cars of tomorrow? Is the Sebring exciting you? The Chrysler Aspen Hybrid? Really? That’s what you’ve got?

Some are already seeing the Swine Flu outbreak as a result of factory farming. “When the CDC and the USDA conduct their investigation in Mexico,” writes Sarah Fobes, “they will start with the industrial scale pig farms that have been growing in numbers over the last decade…[noting that many] American pig companies have been opening up pig factories in Mexico, where the outbreak started.”

And, while it was probably greed and a lack of oversight and personal responsibility that helped create the conditions for the subprime meltdown, green innovation might help create the conditions for recovery. Just yesterday, the Metropolitan Transit Authority said it will save $200,000 annually just from having changed to compact fluorescent lightbulbs at Grand Central Terminal.

With our tongue firmly in our cheeks, we say, yes, of course “going green” will solve the world’s problems!

It’s that time again. Time to celebrate the planet, to think about ways to live greener, for television networks and our favorite shows to highlight their green initiatives. But is it as important as ever, as some have suggested? If, as Rick Bass argues in his piece for Grist, “carbon dioxide concentrations are nearing the point-of-no-return of 360 parts-per-million—at some point beyond that, the eggshell of a globe we call home might ignite into a giant ball of flame, simply from the belch of one more cow,” don’t we need more than one day a year?

Since it’s inception in 1970, Earth Day has been an important springboard for activism. But that conversation is no longer confined to the activist fringes. “Going green” has gone mainstream, and thankfully so. Of course, a lot of work is left to be done. Celebrants of the first Earth Day must have imagined a cleaner world in 2009 than the one in which we find ourselves today. But there are many fewer corners of the world where green thinking hasn’t taken root, to some degree or another.

We’ve seen companies like Seventh Generation, Patagonia, Whole Foods, Wal-Mart even, help set their industries on a course towards greater sustainability. Every major brand is addressing its environmental message- some more authentically than others, admittedly. In less than a second, a Google search of the word “sustainability” produces nearly 30 million results. Green blogs abound, and green design has become more about economics and aesthetics than about preaching.

Are we through the tunnel? No, of course not. But haven’t we reached the tipping point where we’re ready to engage on this issue every single day, not just on April 22nd? So, we’ll happily celebrate Earth Day today, but just as sex shouldn’t be reserved for Valentine’s Day, turkey for Thanksgiving, Harry Potter costumes for Halloween- ok, maybe that’s ok- we think it’s worth having this conversation every day!

In his recent column, Nicholas Kristof asks whether the Web, flooded with information and ideas as it is, can actually trigger new ways of thinking or whether it will only serve as a tool for filtering out dissenting view points. “There’s pretty good evidence,” he writes, “that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber.”

Innovation, though, relies on diversity of thought. It needs the free-wheeling optimist and the brow-furrowed pragmatist, the pie-in-the-sky dreamer and the devil’s advocate. A multitude of voices. Piers Fawkes, of the always-compelling PSFK, reminded us recently of Linus Pauling’s great quote: “The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.” And it’s especially true in a conversation such as the one on sustainable design and green thinking, where political rhetoric and biases are everyday hurdles.

Activism too often devolves into a monologue, rather than a healthy and open dialogue. The driving philosophy of Love Tomorrow Today is the belief in the efficacy of ‘one degree of change.’ That’s not to say that we strive for half measures or that we turn away from bold thinking, just that we understand that real, lasting change is inclusive rather than exclusive.

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This was supposed to be another step towards a new era of NASA missions, turning the focus from the cosmos and back towards our own planet. The exciting new NASA satellite designed to track carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere failed to reach orbit on its launch yesterday morning. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (pictured above in an artist rendering) never separated from the Taurus XL rocket and took a quick (and unexpected) dip in the Pacific Ocean near Antarctica. A $278 million goof.

As Kenneth Chang explains in his NY Times piece, “scientists had hoped the new data, covering the entire planet, would help them improve climate models and better understand the ‘carbon sinks’ like oceans and forests and that absorb much of the carbon dioxide.” Annual variations in levels have confounded experts, and understanding these ‘carbon sinks’ is seen as a key in explaining why “in some years, all of the excess carbon dioxide disappears; in some years, all of it stays in the air.”

For anyone who sees the abstract value of an agency like NASA, it’s hard not to be disappointed. You can hear the doubters gaining steam: What was the point of going to moon? What’s the  real value in aiming for Mars? These aren’t unreasonable questions, especially when our economy is pulling a Titanic (minus the Leo-Kate love story and the gagillion $ box office). C’mon, NASA, no more $278 million “my bads,” please!

You read us- thanks, by the way- but who do we read? Quick answer- everyone! Perhaps a few grains of sand slip through our fingers, but we track hundreds of industry sites, press releases, trend watchers, blogs and newspapers, with a goal of aggregating a broad and interesting range of examples of how companies and individuals are activating simple and sustainable change. We follow the ways in which big brands are incorporating eco-thinking in their core business (from companies you’d expect, like Whole Foods, Patagonia and REI, to ones you might not, like Wal-Mart, Pepsi, even Pepperidge Farm) and how newer players (like Better Place and GEM) are pushing that innovation.

As a company, Love Tomorrow Today looks to develop products and ideas that make it easier to activate simple change in our daily lives. As a blog, we try to stay out in front of the tsunami, tracking the swells of exciting innovation and the changing landscape of sustainability. We value your feedback and your efforts to spread the word!

Here’s a widget of this blog that you can grab (for your iGoogle page, your blog…).

Today, the entire world tunes in to see Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th President. As comedian Chris Rock recently joked, “I’ve never watched an inauguration…It was never like, “I can’t wait till tomorrow. Oh my god! They’re going to swear in Jimmy Carter!” Expectations are high, and so too are the stakes. Pundits predict Obama’s inaugural address will focus on the theme of ‘responsibility,’ and, fittingly, his speech will be set against the backdrop of the greenest inaugural celebration in history.

Critics will argue that with more than four million people expected to arrive in DC this week (including celebrities flying in on private jets), claims of a “green event” are empty. But the culture of responsibility will be on display, thanks to an impressive array of eco-friendly initiatives. Some of them include: EPA officials advising event organizers on ways to reduce waste and maximize efficiency, bike riders being treated to valet parking, public restrooms featuring air dryers instead of paper towels, and caterers who compost and recycle. That, as they say, is change we can believe in.

It’s an interesting dilemma when the things designed to keep us safer are also the things that make us less safe. I’m talking, in this case, about road salt. According to the EPA, around 11 million tons of road salt are sprinkled (dropped? placed?) on US roads each winter. Road salt not only helps cars find better traction in snowy conditions, but the chemical compound of the salt lowers the freezing temperature on the ground, limiting the build up of ice. But the EPA (along with other environmental advocacy groups) has identified ways in which road salt can contaminate rivers, lakes and other public water supplies.

This is not necessarily a new finding- the Department of Transportation sent an internal memorandum in 2003 acknowledging the risks but deferring action to future policymakers- and, since no one questions the need to make our roads safer, road salt is seen as a necessary evil.

But is it?

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Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Last week, I put the scooter (our Kymco People Mover 150 cc) away for the winter. For anyone who hasn’t ridden a scooter, I highly recommend it! Emasculating? Slightly. Dangerous? A tad. Fun? Definitely! And a great choice for an environmentally-friendly commute.

I’ll admit, it had gotten a little ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong- with the full ski suit, gloves, two scarves, full helmet, I was perfectly comfortable, but the snow/black ice was starting worry me a little.

My wife’s family introduced me to the virtues of scooters- no trouble finding parking, fill up your tank for well under $5 and, here’s the real bonus, at 85-170 miles per gallon, it’s a great way to lower your footprint. My father-in-law  (a former fighter pilot and all-around thrill seeker) only turned to scooters after he crashed his BMW motorcycle into a deer at 50 mph (could’ve been faster than that, he says with a wink). We’ve had Hondas, Vespas, Kymcos and others. My wife stopped riding on back when she was pregnant with our son and her belly got too big- and, for some reason, she didn’t like my suggestion that she should just turn around and ride backwards. 

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We try to avoid being political on this blog- no single party holds a monopoly on individual responsibility, and, besides, there’s a healthy diversity of views around here. That said, it’s impossible not to feel optimistic that the in-coming administration ‘gets it,’ that it understands both the urgency of climate change and the opportunities that a ‘Green Economy’ might present us. In Obama’s proposed agenda, and specifically in his choice of nominees (from Stephen Chu as Energy Secretary to Carol M. Browner as EPA administrator), there seems to be a refreshing respect for science.

The out-going administration, in contrast, has subjugated science and abdicated leadership when it comes to the environment. As a House of Representatives committee on global warming recently wrote, “the first 100 days of the Bush administration initiated perhaps the worst period of environmental deregulation in American history, [and] the last 100 days of a Bush presidency could be even worse.”

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Quick answer…doubt it! As Op-Ed pieces and lawmakers debate the virtues of a government bailout of the American auto industry, General Motors is pointing to its plug-in hybrid vehicle, the Volt, as a sign that the car maker is on the right course. Not due to hit showrooms until 2010, the Volt is being touted by GM as the car that will change the industry (and save the ailing company’s hide).

But, it’s been a long time since Detroit’s innovation inspired the world. At the height of the Big Three’s prestige and influence, the decade following WWII, US automakers enjoyed a 95% market share. Now, as John Tamny writes in Forbes, General Motors market value is less than that of Bed, Bath and Beyond, with less than 25% market share of overall car sales in the US. As others have noted, if GM fails, it will do so under the weight of its pension and healthcare commitments, yes, but also because of its misplaced emphasis on that most American of ideals, ‘bigger means better.’

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This time next week, we’ll be emerging from our turkey comas. Ah tryptophan! My favorite of the essential amino acids! Thanksgiving is, for my money, the best holiday of the year. It’s one we all share- as Americans- and, without the stress of having to find the right presents, the focus is food, family and gratitude. But the holidays can also present certain challenges to sustainable living. For starters, Thanksgiving is the busiest time of the year for US travelers. With all that travel, shopping, cooking and eating…it’s a holiday that produces a lot of waste.

With a few tweaks to your normal routine, it’s possible to save time, money and waste this Thanksgiving. Often, simply being conscious of your consumption guides you towards responsible decisions. According to the Nature Conservancy, an estimated 96 billion pounds of food are discarded nationally every year, 5 million tons of trash during the holiday season alone. So, maybe if no one really finished your homemade pumpkin pie last year, make less this time around! I know, I know, you mistakenly put in a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar, but, seriously, back away from the stove…!

What’s our point? Well, while some green sites might suggest things like a vegan menu, we know, in reality, you’d probably get expelled from all future family events for a stunt like that. And why drastically change one of the greatest days of the year? As you’re thinking about Thanksgiving, consider all the little decisions that go into the day, and then consider tweaking them. Carpool to your Aunt Barb’s house, or, if you’re flying somewhere, consider offsetting the carbon (roughly $12 for a cross-country flight), where possible buy products with less packaging, and don’t forget the best part of Thanksgiving…leftovers!

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone.” -John F. Kennedy, 1961

At Love Tomorrow Today, we’re interested in exploring simple, realistic change, achieved on an individual level. But if that individual commitment to realistic change can be viewed in the context of a wider, more ambitious movement, led by government and the private sector, we can set our sights on the ‘impossible.’ Imagine an ‘Energy Race,’ like the ‘Space Race’ of the 1960s, spurred on by national pride and global concern. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy announced before a joint session of Congress an extraordinary and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. At the time of this declaration, the technology required to achieve this goal, quite literally, did not exist. Like the Manhattan Project before it, the race to the moon mobilized an entire generation of the best and brightest minds to focus its energy and skill towards a single and common purpose. Bi-partisan support in Congress and strong leadership in the White House focused the nation’s determination to achieve what many felt was impossible. When, in July of 1969, Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong stepped off the lunar module and onto the Moon’s surface, it capped a remarkable period of innovation and commitment to progress. 

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A crucial component of any environmental philosophy has to be optimism. At Love Tomorrow Today, our optimism is informed by an understanding of the real challenges we face and shaped by our belief that people everywhere want to, somehow , make a difference. A lot has been written/said about how Wall Street’s meltdown is trickling down to Main Street. Unemployment is up, along with foreclosures, while confidence in the US economy is down. What does it mean for the environment? During such an economic crisis, does caring about the environment seem frivolous? If the Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers of the world can falter and fail, can businesses really afford to invest in green initiatives? With a proposed $700 billion bailout, can the government afford to extend tax incentives to businesses that go green? Aghhhh…I’m starting to hear R.E.M.’s “it’s the end of the world as we know it” swirl around my head. What was that thing I mentioned? Oh yeah, optimism. What am I, crazy? I don’t think so. The drive towards greater sustainability will continue because, well, it needs to.

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