Rethinking Assumptions: Roman Sablin and Russian Eco-Consciousness

Posted on November 5, 2012 by zoeweil
Screenshot copyright Sustainable Ukraine.

I was in Krasnodar, Russia, this summer for a couple of days. As a foreign traveler, I was advised to drink bottled water, but it was frustrating to have to throw the bottles in the trash because I couldn’t find any place to recycle them. I was disappointed in the apparent lack of concern for the environment. So I was surprised to read an article on Roman Sablin in the Aeroflot magazine on the Russian airline on my way home.

In all my years of traveling on U.S. airlines, I’ve never read such an in-depth article on eco-consciousness. Roman Sablin is a philologist and artist who grew disturbed by the waste he and his friends were generating and launched an eco movement that would rival the most committed environmentalist anywhere in the world. He went beyond replacing his light bulbs and began shaving his hair to reduce water consumption when showering and became a vegetarian (in a country where vegetarianism is quite uncommon). He leads eco-seminars and has become “something of a celebrity” according to the profile. In fact, all the Russian TV stations have been to his eco-loft, as have the major newspapers and magazines.

Reading the article reminded me that things are sometimes not as they seem. Movements take different trajectories in different countries. Certain norms – like ubiquitous recycling bins in the U.S. – may mask a complacency, while a lack of such norms may potentially spur a more rapid, inventive movement.

While I don’t know how a restorative, healthy, and sustainable world will unfold; where it will take root most deeply and spread; or whose ideas will generate the largest shifts in systems, consciousness, and actions, it was good to see my own assumptions challenged by Aeroflot’s profile of Roman Sablin.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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3 Alternatives to Wildlife-Killing Balloons

Posted on September 17, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy Zoe Weil.

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I were bushwhacking through a wilderness area in Maine. We were far from any town, deep in thick woods, in an area where we’ve never seen another human being. How surprising then to come upon this Mylar balloon.

This balloon, with its congratulatory message, had once been filled with helium. It had escaped its confines and floated up to the sky far from its place of origin. When the helium was gone, the balloon floated back down to earth and landed in these woods. It is now trash.

Fortunately, this balloon landed in a forest where it was unlikely to cause much harm. Had it landed in the ocean close by, it could easily have been mistaken for a jellyfish, swallowed by a marine mammal.

Balloons are festive and fun, but they can be deadly and destructive to other species. Even those that aren’t filled with helium quickly become landfill. After all, balloons aren’t meant to last. There are many festive ways to celebrate birthdays, graduations, and other special occasions, that don’t include balloons and that invite our creativity. Here are 3 ideas:

  1. Make congratulatory collages from old magazines – these offer you the chance to say and show what you want in an imaginative, beautiful way – far more welcome than a store-bought balloon.
  2. Decorate with branches, grasses, pretty weeds and wildflowers and other found objects.
  3. Write a poem, share a story, craft a Haiku, sing a song to celebrate a loved one’s special day or event – your effort will be vastly more appreciated than a bunch of balloons.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Get tickets now for the October 13 NYC debut of my 1-woman show — My Ongoing Problems with Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl – at United Solo, the world’s largest solo theatre festival.

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Refuse Revisited

Posted on September 29, 2010 by zoeweil

My husband and I recently kayaked out to Long Island in Blue Hill Bay. This 4.7 mile long island is uninhabited by humans, and we had the beach to ourselves the night we spent there. After landing on the island, we decided to explore the interior. We found an old trail and several piles of moose poop reminded us that while there may have been no humans on the island, there were certainly large mammals! But moments later, we discovered the unfortunate evidence of humans – a beer can. I found myself feeling that not only was the landscape marred, our very trip was marred by this act of careless littering.

A few minutes later, my husband pointed out another beer can, and I felt my ire grow. Ten minutes later he noticed another. This time, I just asked him not to point them out. We didn’t have a trash bag with us, and I didn’t want to be ceaselessly reminded of humanity’s less thoughtful side.

But it became harder and harder to ignore them, especially the many that hung from tree branches. By then, we were both thinking of the Blair Witch Project and wondered what creeps had decided to turn these magnificent woods into a den of freaky, hanging beer cans.

Long into the hike, we took a side trail, although trail is a strong word for what was quite challenging to follow. The beer cans gave way to what at first seemed like graffiti on trees. The letters LA had been deeply etched into a big section of one tree, followed by several trees with vertical X’s. Were these marking a path? Seemingly so.

The next morning we decided to take a another hike, although we didn’t plan to return to the beer can trail, preferring to find some other areas to explore. And what we found was magnificent. Ancient oaks, once cut at the trunk had grown sprawling and enormous. Sweet huckleberries and blueberries still clung to their stems, providing breakfast. And within 5 minutes of each other, my husband and I both found deer antlers, mine shed within the year, his quite old and gnawed by rodents.

We realized that we were getting somewhat lost, and my husband’s iPhone with its GPS was just about out of batteries. We’d forgotten a compass, and the sky had clouded up, obscuring the sun, which would have enabled us to know what direction we were heading. So we did our best to navigate back a bit uneasily. And soon enough we found one of the trails. This time, however, the beer cans were strangely reassuring, marking the trail as they did.

I can’t say I came to like the beer cans, but I did appreciate them. Hanging from branches, they stood as beacons – albeit trash beacons – and I was glad not to be lost on this large island. When we return, I will be bringing a big trash bag to gather up the refuse, but it was strange how over the course of 24 hours my response to the beer cans could go from rage to relief.

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and The Power and Promise of Humane Education

Image courtesy of racineur via Creative Commons.

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