IHE News & Announcements April 2011
- What's Mine is Yours: 4 Resources for Sharing, Swapping & Saving
- Rethinking Systems: Collaborative Consumption
- 3 Must-Read Books: Half the Sky, Eating Animals, Zeitoun
- A Matter of Choice: We Can't Just Legislate Each Other to a Better World
WHAT'S MINE IS YOURS: 4 RESOURCES FOR SHARING, SWAPPING & SAVING
by Marsha Rakestraw, Director of Online Communications & Education Resources
I LOVE sharing! I love sharing food, sharing woes and joys, sharing tools and equipment, sharing my views, sharing books, sharing hikes, sharing knowledge. There are so many opportunities for sharing and so many reasons to share. I share out of financial necessity, to reduce my collection of stuff, out of respect for the Earth’s resources and for others’ right to have their own sustaining piece of the world. Sharing is empowering and esteem-building; it creates friendships, tolerance, common ground, opportunities to learn and grow, and a whole stock of goodwill and familiarity. It’s fun, it’s fulfilling, and it’s essential to the well-being of people and the planet. And now sharing -– or “collaborative consumption” as some are calling it -- is becoming the new way of doing business and getting our needs met. Sharing cooperatives, collectives and corporations are blossoming by the dozens to help us find new and creative ways to get food, housing, transportation, stuff we need, and stuff we want. Here are 4 great resources to help you expand your sharing, swapping and saving opportunities:
- "The Gen Y Guide to Collaborative Consumption" is a recent blog post that’s relevant for every generation. Author Beth Buczynski has created a quick guide to sharing and swapping that includes resources for everything from housing to gardening to media to travel.
- Shareable is an online magazine that covers all things shareable: who’s doing what where and how. It covers trends, news & ideas in life, work, home, design, art & more, and includes a nice section of how-tos.
- What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers is the book that has helped launch collaborative consumption and sharing into the mainstream conversation. It outlines the growing popularity of sharing networks and provides examples of how entrepreneurs and business are creating new systems.
- The Sharing Solution: How to Save Money, Simplify Your Life and Build Community by attorneys Janelle Orsi and Emily Doskow is a legal guide to creating successful sharing arrangements. Though sharing is built on trust, there are some legal issues that often need to be addressed, and this book can help.
Image courtesy of janelleorsi via Creative Commons.
RETHINKING SYSTEMS: COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTION
What do you do with all the stuff that you’ve used, but no longer want, like books or DVDs? What if you want to garden but don’t own land? What if you only need a car occasionally? Why does everyone need a power drill? These are the kinds of issues that collaborative consumption addresses. New networks and systems of sharing and swapping goods and services are arising as a counterpoint to our decades of hyperconsumerism and hyperindividualism. People are getting their needs met in ways that are better for themselves, their pocketbooks, the planet, and other people. Rachel Botsman, co-author of the book, What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption, outlines the case for these sharing networks in a recent TEDx talk.
3 MUST-READ BOOKS: HALF THE SKY, EATING ANIMALS, ZEITOUN
As part of refining and developing the curriculum for our graduate programs, IHE's president, Zoe Weil, reads a lot of books. A LOT. Of the many that she has devoured this year, three have caught her attention as must reads for everyone. Check out her blog posts about each one:
Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
A MATTER OF CHOICE WE CAN'T JUST LEGISLATE EACH OTHER TO A BETTER WORLD
by Marsha Rakestraw, Director of Online Communications & Education Resources
I was at an animal protection conference a few months ago, in which one of the speakers, director of a grassroots group in his community, mentioned that his group had ceased to lobby restaurants to stop serving foie gras. One restaurant (usually after months of campaigning), would agree to stop serving it, only to quietly put it back on the menu a few months later. It was too much work for little or no positive progress. In 2008, the Chicago city council announced that the ban on foie gras that had been enacted in 2006 was overturned. Animal protection advocates banged their heads against the wall in frustration, while foie gras fans cheered and happily renewed serving the “delicacy.” Why did the restaurants go back on their word? Why didn’t the Chicago ban stick? Simply, because people don’t like to be told what to do.
One of the first phrases we learn to utter at the top of our voices as kids (after “No!”) is “You can’t tell me what to do!” Especially in the U.S., our culture cultivates an almost-religious fervor for individualism and the freedom to believe and do and choose pretty much as we want. Go diversity! Go freedom!
People want to feel like they have a choice, and they don’t want that freedom of choice (whether illusion or reality) to be taken away. That’s one reason laws are so complicated and tricky. As tempting as it might be to think that we can just legislate everyone into making humane choices, we can’t create a humane world by forcing people to comply with something they haven’t freely chosen. We have daily evidence that compelled obedience doesn’t work: murder, rape, pollution, discrimination, child abuse, slave labor, corruption, speeding in a school zone –- we have laws in the U.S. that prohibit all of these actions, yet they are still daily occurrences. If we ask everyone whether these behaviors are wrong, most people will say yes; that hasn’t stopped people from committing these acts anyway.
There is definitely a place for legislation. Legislation has brought about the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the right for people who are gay to marry in certain states, the banning of some of the cruelest farmed animal confinement practices in a few states, and more. But laws can also lull people into a false sense of security (Oh, that’s against the law now. Good. Nothing more needs to be done. I don’t need to take any action.). And, they don’t stop the actions of those who don’t care about the law.
Creating a humane world can only happen by increasing the number of people who choose to live humanely of their own free will. So, yes, let’s continue to work on legislation for a more humane world. But, more importantly, let’s work to educate, inspire and empower people to make daily choices that do the most good and least harm for all people, animals and the planet.
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del.icio.usWatch and share IHE President, Zoe Weil's TEDx talk -- an inspiring vision of how to create a just, compassionate, healthy world for all through solutionary education.
July 14, 2012 - 8:30 am to July 14, 2012 - 5:00 pm | Location: Institute for Humane Education
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