Life finally slowed down enough for me in September to sort through the mound of receipts, reports, bank statements and envelopes that comprise the Green Caravan tour paperwork. I have such a highly organized, scientifically engineered system of accounting, it’d make any CPA proud. Really. That’s why it took me three months to gather the courage to look at it. Then another two to make sense of its numbers.
I finally entered all our donations to Habitat For Humanity local affiliates into Network For Good‘s excellently designed site, as well as contributions to Tzu Chi, Earth Pledge and Environmental Defense. All in all it’s about three thousand dollars, not shabby for the first try with an operation of our size. Every one of you who bought merch on the spring tour, this is your money going out. Thanks so much!
We also offset the 24 tons of carbon emitted by our van, flights and taxis on the tour through Native Energy. It’s a surprisingly affordable thing to do, and Native Energy is one of the pricier options, too. It helped that we only flew a few times, as one flight can emit more than a year’s worth of driving. Not getting the biodiesel-capable van this time was disappointing, but next time it makes sense to rent a Dodge Sprinter, I’m reserving it well, well in advance.
Lately I’ve been reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, articles on green building and alternative fuel, and a great deal of literature about the carbon credit/offset market—all of which underscores the big lesson of our tour experiment this spring: doing the right thing is damn complicated. First there’s the matter of identifying what the right thing is, a whole endeavor unto itself; then there’s the calculation of how to accomplish it in a way that’s financially and psychologically feasible. Thorough planning is essential; so are a lot of knowledgeable people helping out. Otherwise a lot of the well-intentioned stuff ends up falling by the wayside. When you’re running late for soundcheck and no one’s looked up where the nearest co-op grocery is, all you’ve got is fifteen minutes at the gas station Kwiki-Mart. Which, as one would expect, doesn’t have recycle bins. So: no more band tours without a road manager. I have fired myself from that job.
Pollan’s book devotes a chapter to the phenomenon of “industrial organic”: purveyors of products that meet organic certifications, but still use conventional production and distribution methods. (Whole Foods, for example, ships produce in from all over the world, consuming a lot of petrodiesel and jet fuel to do so. As for its suppliers, some of its organic lettuce is grown in fields right alongside fields of pesticide-sprayed lettuce, and some of its “free-range” chickens didn’t even know there was a yard outside their coops.*) He poses the question, reasonably enough, of whether partial solutions to environmental problems are really solutions at all, especially when consumers are led to believe that the issue is solved. It’s a tough question, especially for a touring artist. If reducing our environmental impact were paramount, I wouldn’t tour at all. I wouldn’t sell products that needed to be manufactured and shipped. But this is paralysis, and unacceptable; so I settle for partial answers, actions that fall within my bounds of practicality, and hope that someday the world will be structured in such a way that doing the right thing will also be the practical thing to do.
Buying carbon offsets and industrial organic food is a halfway point—demonstrably better than doing nothing, but nowhere near a long-term solution, and dangerous if you decide to congratulate yourself and stop there. Fortunately we seem to be in the midst of a genuine shift in mainstream thinking. Here’s hoping that this Green Caravan idea, this modest but continuing experiment, is one symptom of wider change.
* If you’re interested, here’s a fascinating webcast featuring Michael Pollan and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who’s taking steps to address Pollan’s critique of industrial organic.