My Beginnings

in

One afternoon, I am not exactly sure when—but in mid 2006, I began looking for a way to drive a car that would not require typical, fossil fuel derived, gasoline. This led me to BioDiesel and WVO and some people in Minneapolis running a company called Sundays Energy (at the time it was still BioDiesel Blue). This was not my first attempt at being “green”—a term I hate, and hope to change (along with blog)—but it was an important step to where I am today. Anyway, I ended up attending several workshops on making biodiesel and running a diesel on vegetable oil, and was hooked. I thought, why weren’t more people onto/into this?

Promptly after that I watched a three movies in a week long period and they changed my view on what I could do from that point forward (the films were Thank you for Smoking, An Inconvenient Truth, and Who killed the Electric Car). That was November of 2006, and I immediately started riding my bike around Minneapolis instead, even though winter was just starting. I could not fathom using my car after seeing those films, I just felt so guilty and led astray.

I never did switch over to a biodiesel car, though I helped convince some others to do it, and helped with a WVO installation, but I have been 99% Bicycle, Bus / Light-Rail / Metro since.

I always sort of knew this stuff before, but it really was not until then that it sunk in, and I started doing anything about it. Now most days I just feel like a hypocrite, asking myself if I am doing enough, shouldn’t i be doing more? can I make enough change myself?

This malaise is brought out frequently working as a graphic designer and seeing the amazing amount of waste that I myself, and my fellow designers produce. We work in a field based on creating waste. Sure every once in a while you get to design a book cover or Album sleeve, and hopefully it gets kept or passed along. Most of the time our work is of a fleeting nature... annual reports, marketing materials, newspaper and magazine spreads. Things that serve a temporary purpose, but are quickly replaced with the next piece.

How does one rectify this with the principles of sustainability?