Climate Change

Election Protection For National Resurrection

July 22, 2020 by John Abrams 8 Comments

Disclaimer: This post may not reflect the views of all the 36 employees/22 owners of South Mountain. It is not the formal position of the company; these words are my own.

I’ll keep it short.

In just over three months the 2020 election will sweep across this pandemic-laced land for one fateful day.

But the ballots open even sooner – some states allow early voting as many as 45 days prior. That’s September 19th, just around the corner.

With our country crippled and enraged by the “social arsonist” (as commentator Mike Barnicle calls him) in the White House, we need to assure an absolute full pivot to a new day by convincingly banishing Trump. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says, “we need to beat Trump by such an enormous margin that his entire toxic approach to politics is discredited forever”.

The electoral turning of our political fortunes that began in 2018 must become a tidal wave of support for Democrats – up and down the ballot – to replace Republicans who have fully abdicated their responsibility to govern. We need to maintain Democratic control of the House, achieve Democratic control of the Senate, and make more state legislatures Democratic to overturn the re-districting travesties which have occurred in recent years.

This is a transcendent moment – Black Lives Matter has inspired a worldwide consciousness-raising. Can it be sustained? Maybe, if we can provoke a political tailwind to augment and institutionalize our anti-racist awakening.

Can we overcome the Covid-19 pandemic? Yes, with federal leadership which can only come from a compassionate White House whose occupants believe in science. (As author John Barry says, “When you mix politics and science, you get politics.”)

And can we, once and for all, tackle climate change for real? (Columnist Tom Friedman recently said “And remember, as bad as this pandemic is, it’s just training wheels for the big, irreversible atmospheric pandemic: climate change.) We can, but not without three branches of government all on the same page, or at least the two that we can bring home on November 3rd.

We need to protect the election in two ways: by maximizing the new voters who are registered to vote and getting them out, and by exercising vigilance to guarantee that those who are hell-bent on election disruption and manipulation are not given the chance.

Joe Biden was never the Democratic candidate I hoped for, but I am heartened by the steps he has taken to include diverse views in his campaign. His commitment to choose a woman for vice-president was a good start. Now the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force has developed a strong progressive agenda. His $2 trillion climate change plan is the first significant plan ever by a major party presidential nominee. We can expect that he will surround himself with a cast of characters who could effectively govern in a way that we have become unaccustomed to.

My support for his candidacy has solidified. Those who are raising their voices need him to win and win big. Those who have no voice – or have not yet found it – need him to win and win big. This matters. A Biden presidency and democratic congress will not end structural racism or reverse climate change, but they can help.

But what can we do to aid this effort? Many wonder. I’ve been wondering too. Friends have led me to three organizations that appear to be doing a stellar job working to get out the vote and ensure a fair election: Movement Voter Project, Swing Left, and Adopt-a-State.

I have donated to all three. I encourage you to do the same. Next I will commit time. I encourage you to do the same. In Adopt-a-state I have chosen Arizona, because it’s a swing state that also has an essential tight senate race.

I remember saying, when George W. Bush was running for re-election, “This is the most important election of my lifetime.” I was so wrong. There has never been an electoral moment like this one, with an incumbent president who might lose the election and refuse to surrender power. Let’s never say that again. Let’s summon a landslide. A national resurrection is at stake. The clock ticks. The time is now.

Donate. Work. Vote.

Silver Linings

May 26, 2020 by John Abrams 5 Comments

Photo by Timothy Dewitt for the Vineyard Gazette.

Several years ago, I read an article in The New Yorker called “Estonia: The Digital Republic”. It named the small Eastern European country “most digitized government in the world”. In Estonia, government services – like legislation, voting, education, justice, health care, banking, taxes, policing, driver’s licenses and registrations – transact online in a fast, easy, secure, reliable, and effective system available to everyone. I remember thinking at the time, “This wired-up nation is providing a glimpse of what a more rational and inclusive future could look like.”

I was reminded of this last week when Joe Tierney, who runs our local building department, notified us that building permits are now available online. No more driving to town hall hoping to find Joe or his assistant Jeff. No more paper to copy, collate and deliver. One silver lining of our pandemic-hammered newly shuttered socially-distanced society. No way that’s going back to normal when this is all over. Yes, some personal contact will be lost. But more will be gained. Progress never comes without consequences.

We are no longer at the beginning of this pandemic. We are nowhere near the end. With many lives lost, others threatened, and all of ours fundamentally different than they were a few months ago, it might seem too early to be looking for the silver linings.

But it’s never too soon for that.

In many ways, our lives today are more stressful than ever: Widespread illness and death. Massive job losses and economic disruption. Deficient federal leadership (the silver lining here is that Trump is clearly taking himself down and all the way out.) Those who are already poverty-stricken endure even more hardship. The curtailment of freedoms we treasure. The confinement. The constant veil of uncertainty. Walking around in masks like it’s Halloween (you can’t even recognize friends and neighbors in the grocery store aisles).

But in other ways, you could say our new life has picnic-like qualities (although it does seem a bit like a dog came by and swiped all the sandwiches when nobody was looking).

In mid-April, I scribbled a note to myself: “I love the Vineyard roads during these shelter-in-place times. Mostly empty. Like the winter of 1975 – nearly half a century ago – when we would drive from home in Chilmark to Vineyard Haven. Often, we wouldn’t pass a single car during the 20 minute trip. It’s kind of like that now. Instead of staring at the car in front of me, I can watch the road ahead and look left and right as I drive. I appreciate the signs of gratitude for the grocery and hospital workers. The cherry tree in front of Edu-Comp is in full bloom, at one of the busiest intersections on the island, now quiet. As I head up-island, I enjoy the living tree canopies that reach out over the road – for light – and join with their counterparts on the other side.”

Silver linings.

Here at South Mountain, as in so many other companies and households, we spend our time gathering and collaborating on Zoom. We’re getting used to it. And better at it. So much so that the idea of meeting in a room sitting around a table is starting to seem old fashioned, like making a call standing in a phone booth after putting a dime in the slot. You’re right. . . it’s not that good of a replacement, but virtual meeting comfort and competence will surely serve us well, far beyond this pandemic. And when the time comes that it makes sense for certain meetings to be face-to-face, it will be all the sweeter.

Silver linings.

Here are a few witnessed on MV, from the mundane but poetic, to the lifesaving and essential:

• Kim’s puzzle exchange at the end of our road. She and Livey do puzzles. They ran out. She said, “Let’s make a puzzle exchange.” I sketched a crude drawing and got some old lumber from the SMCo yard. Our friend Rob built a sweet little shed. Kim and Livey made signage and instructions for use. When Kim announced it on the “Islanders Talk” Facebook group, 200 people responded with likes and comments. Countless puzzles came and went.

• Civil engineer Chris Alley waking up the morning after his office closed with nothing to do and deciding to walk Barnes Road, every day, bit by bit, picking up trash, including 400 discarded nips bottles in one stretch.

• Parents faced with their childrens’ at-home education discovering new ways to relate to their kids and new respect for the teachers they sometimes criticized. By the way, March of this year was the first month without a U.S. school shooting since March 2002. Eighteen years.

• Breaking free from the traditional political handcuffs caused by six different towns co- existing on one small island. One town wants this, another wants that. Regionalization used to be rejected by parochialism. But now, like never before, the towns are collaborating and acting in concert. Selectpersons, health agents, hospital – all on the same page. One island, one town at last.

• An outpouring of support for essential community institutions – non-profits that serve those most in need and iconic local businesses in trouble.

Silver linings galore.

More than anything, maybe, this time is a rest for the planet – a vivid testimony to the importance of consigning the sacred growth-at-all-cost economy to the dustbin of history. Overcoming the pandemic foreshadows the real work ahead: the long and hard but fully negotiable road to an absolute reckoning with climate change. According to the New York Times, the United States is on track to produce more electricity from renewable power than from coal for the first year on record, a milestone that seemed all but unthinkable a decade ago. Accelerating the transition to renewable energy is the sure path to restoration of the economy (that has been ransacked by the pandemic) and healing the planet (that has been ravaged by our insatiable appetites). Maybe, just maybe, we will look back on this as a hinge point that straightened our crooked path.

We may be developing a new sense that we are truly all in this together – that what I do, affects you, and what you do, affects me. And that each choice made affects the home we share. Columnist David Brooks calls this “a hidden solidarity, which I, at least, did not know was there.”

To assert that there is good news could seem insensitive to our current collective troubles. But there’s a door opening. And if it’s possible to walk through that door and use the good news to inspire transformation, it would be a terrible mistake to overlook it.

Our resilience is remarkable, as is our transcendent ability to create joy in the face of tragedy. The strength of our collective will to work together is tangible and unshakeable. Maybe it leads to renewal.

Yes, every cloud truly does have a silver lining, even this tragic and frightening pandemic cloud. Especially this one.

Local Sustainable Economies…And Way More Than That

July 17, 2017 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

My colleagues and fellow owners Deirdre, Rob, Siobhán and I just returned from a conference in Boston called Local Sustainable Economies. It was a national gathering, hosted by the Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts, of people and organizations working to localize economic activity and encourage the long haul shift from the extractive economy of the present to a generative economy of the future.

Earth Day SunPower & SMCo Series Conclusion

April 25, 2017 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

SunPower’s final blog post about its collaboration with SMCo is focused on our commercial and affordable housing solar projects.

That’s it for this series, just in time for Earth Day 2017, which comes just in time for the planet. In “How The Active Many Can Overcome the Ruthless Few,” Bill McKibben says “We’ll either save or doom the planet during the Trump administration.” Today scientists will march on the National Mall. A week later, on Trump’s 100th day, there will be another major Climate Change march in Washington. Scientists are angry. People are angry. McKibben says, “Trump has pissed people off, and pissed-off people don’t ask for small and easy progress. They demand the shifts that reality requires.”

Now is the time. As the SunPower series demonstrates, we can effectively do what we have been unable to do in the past. The shift to renewables is underway, un-stoppable and irreversible, but time is the big variable. How fast, how soon, how much?

Link to the SunPower blog post here. Onward.

SunPower Features South Mountain & Vineyard for Earth Day

April 25, 2017 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

To honor Earth day this year, SunPower, the manufacturer of the solar panels we install, decided to do a campaign about South Mountain here on the Vineyard. They put a ton of effort into this. They spent time here with us last Fall, did several videos and photo shoots, and wrote extensively about our company and our work. We’re honored by their decision to feature us, and we appreciate their beautiful work. We also appreciate our relationship with SunPower, an American company that makes the best solar panels in the world. If you’d like to see what they’re up to with this, click here.

Clearing a Path to Energy Independence

February 25, 2015 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

The Vineyard remains uncommonly chilly. Snow on the ground since late January, more last night. The other morning it was 6 below zero, the coldest since we arrived 40 years ago. Mal Jones told me the last time it was colder than that was in 1961. Quite a winter. But if we’re going to live in Vermont, I think we oughta get to have some mountains!! No such luck.

Recently Julie Wells, the editor of the Vineyard Gazette, asked me to write an article about the demise of Cape Wind. Reasonable request, but I declined. What I could do, I suggested, is include a few thoughts about Cape Wind in a larger context. She agreed to that, and here’s the piece that emerged, published in the Gazette on February 5, 2015.

On the Gazette website there were many comments about the article, both positive and negative. My favorite, from someone in Oak Bluffs, who called himself (or herself) BS: “I’m tired of shoveling all this global warming from my driveway.”

That was the only one I responded to. I said: “Hah, BS, I’m tired of it too – you shovel mine and I’ll shovel yours. But you’re not shoveling Global Warming, it’s Climate Change you’re shoveling, which brings, over time, greater weather extremes – more precipitation, more drought, colder temps, warmer temps. Some even call it Global Wilding.”

Onward.

Tracking our Carbon Footprint

July 1, 2014 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

The piece below was written for and posted on the Green Building Advisor. I thought I’d share it here too.

We like to measure how we’re doing in as many ways as possible. Like other businesses, we have a collection of metrics for financial tracking: profit and loss, budget projections and actuals, job costing of each project, value of our several funds (pension, equity, and reserves) and more.

We also measure social factors: employee education costs, compensation ratio top to bottom, length of employee tenure, average employee age, charitable contributions, and community service.

We consistently track (measure) our work backlog to help us plan for our immediate future.

We try to predict our longer-term future, too – through strategic planning, creating five year plans, projecting organizational charts, and making succession plans.

In design and project planning, we do extensive measuring (space planning, engineering) to ensure good building performance, structure, and utility. On our completed projects, we monitor energy use and other factors (like relative humidity) to help us learn what works and what doesn’t.

Read More about Tracking our Carbon Footprint

Vineyard Controversies

May 7, 2014 by John Abrams 2 Comments

Most of the time, there are one or two raging controversies on the Vineyard. The last few years, however, have been quiet. The only polarizing conflict was a roundabout in the center of the island. I never understood that one; it really didn’t matter much either way. I thought it would be fine to have a roundabout, but I thought it would be fine not to, as well. What’s the big difference?

Now it’s built. It’s fine. I like it. Nobody really cares that much, as far as I can tell. So be it.

But now there are two big controversies, and both seem important to me. One is the Squibnocket Beach parking and access re-design in Chilmark. The beach and its parking lot, and an adjacent roadway that is the only access to a number of valuable properties, are threatened by coastal erosion.

The town selectmen, together with the property owners, a land conservation non-profit, and coastal biology and geology experts, have fashioned a unique partnership and plan. The plan has generated intense controversy. I don’t know if it’s a good plan, or the best plan, but it makes sense to me.

Nobody knows what the precise outcome will be, but something is going to happen, because it must – it’s in everybody’s interest to solve this problem. I’m particularly interested in the outcome because it foreshadows many such efforts to come. This is about climate change adaptation and mitigation. It is the future, right now.

The other big controversy is the efforts of Stop and Shop and its parent company, Ahold, to significantly expand their shabby downtown supermarket in Tisbury. There are many issues – scale, congestion, community character, the need to raise the building to stay above the flood zone now and in the future – and the debate has become highly emotional. My knowledge about this plan is limited too, and I haven’t been inclined to wade into the sea of accusations, wild inaccuracies, and finger pointing.

But then I read a letter in the paper from Henry Stephenson, the co-chair of the Tisbury planning board, a good thinker with a broad design background. He quietly suggested important ways to make it a much better project. His solutions rang true, and I had also been noticing something missing from the debate, so I wrote the following to our regional planning agency, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission, which is the primary regulatory decision-maker for the project, and to the local papers:

It’s hard to imagine anyone who cares more about Tisbury than planning board co-chairman Henry Stephenson. He thinks deeply about the town and he has a nuanced and practical sense of design. His Stop and Shop letter several weeks ago was right on the mark, in my view.

No hyperbole, no careless inaccuracies – just the most cogent and thoughtful alternative plan to date.

I hope the Martha’s Vineyard Commission will heed his specific suggestions about decreasing building size, increasing setbacks, re-designing the municipal parking lot, Water Street congestion, Union Street traffic flow, and added transportation services. I hope the MVC will condition the project in the realistic ways he suggests.

I also want to call attention to something that has been sadly absent from the Stop and Shop discussion. The Martha’s Vineyard Commission has a responsibility to promote appropriate economic development. I hope the MVC will add to its conditions – if and when it approves a better, scaled down version of the plan that is before it – that Stop and Shop will be required to provide full time jobs with full benefits at Living Wages.

We need good jobs. Part-time jobs at low wages are harmful and unprincipled. Stop and Shop and its parent, Ahold, can afford decency. It is within the powers of the MVC to require such decency. And we cannot afford to accept less. Thank you.

I hope this letter brings support to Henry’s excellent suggestions and, at the same time, opens up a new – and very important – topic of discussion.

But aside from the particulars of these controversies, there are two things I particularly like about both of them.

First, it’s the passion.

The downside of passion is that it can bring out hostility – people attack, personalize, demonize, distort, and falsify. But that’s part of the deal, part of the inherent messiness of democracy.

The upside of passion is that it brings people out. People put themselves on the line. I recently watched a good talk called Why Your Critics Aren’t the Ones Who Count, by Brene Brown, a researcher and author who studies vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. She is the author of The Gifts of Imperfection (2010) and Daring Greatly (2012).

In it she says, in part, “Show up. Be seen. Be brave. If you do show up, in the arena, there’s one guarantee: You will get your ass kicked. That’s the only certainty. “ My experience over decades bears that out. Brown goes on to say that “if you’re not in the arena, getting your ass kicked like I am, then I’m really not interested in your feedback.”

Along with “showing up”, she honors the importance of vulnerability. She points out that vulnerability is the gateway to love, belonging, joy, trust, empathy, innovation, and creativity. Without vulnerability, she says, you can’t create. We need to enter the arena, and we need not hide our vulnerability.

I like seeing so many entering the arena, warts and all.

The other thing that interests me is the essential importance of the issues at stake. In the scheme of things, these are minor controversies in small towns. But they both have elements of two of the great issues of our time – climate change and income inequality.

Climate change is certain to test our democracy in ways we can’t foresee. Nobody will be un-affected, nobody will be able to stand on the sidelines. That much is clear, and here are two examples of the issues, in a nutshell, in our small outpost. Such examples, close to home, may promote greater engagement in the larger arena of public policy that our future depends on.

And two sides of the income inequality issue are visible in these controversies. At Squibnocket, land owners are showing what’s possible when it serves all interests for the wealthy to enter into public-private partnerships. At Stop and Shop, we see a major multi-national affecting a small community in ways that corporations do, and the community exercising its will to make sure that local benefits come first.

In her book The Sixth Extinction, author Elizabeth Kolbert says, “Chimps are smart, and can do all kinds of clever things, but they don’t have collective problem solving ability. You’ll never see two chimps carrying something together. Only humans do that stuff.”

Whatever the outcomes, Squibnocket and Stop and Shop are vibrant examples of humans fully engaged in collective problem solving. Doing that stuff. Good stuff.

Victory at Hand

May 2, 2013 by John Abrams 1 Comment

Spring has sprung. It’s a good time for good news.

When Paul Gilding’s book The Great Disruption was published in 2011 it had a profound impact on me. In September of that year I wrote that it was, for me, the most accessible and full-bodied treatment to date of the effects of climate change on our planet, our economies, our lives.

Still is – although Gus Speth’s superb new book America the Possible is a knock-out that in many ways expands the vision further.

Gilding has a blog called “The Cockatoo Chronicles.” It has been inactive for some months, but recently he made up for lost time when he posted a 2500 word essay that argues for a new reality: the economy is now aligned with the environment and there is evidence that we can – and will – win the climate change battle.

That’s a big thing to say.

Milestone for Mike… and SMCo

October 12, 2012 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

Last week we had our first official retirement party. Mike Drezner became the first SMCo employee to reach retirement age (and actually retire!). He came to work as a carpenter in 1985 and stayed for 27 years.

I can tell you one thing: when he first came he sure wasn’t a carpenter. He wasn’t even very handy (if you know what I mean) and he wasn’t young to be just starting out – pushing 40. He had been a teacher – a damn good one I’ll bet – and had traveled a lot. But carpentry? None.

So why did we hire him?

I don’t know. Just a feeling. He asked, or maybe his wife Liz did, I can’t really remember. I do remember that I was still on the fence about being in business, and I hadn’t really learned much about saying no. So I said yes. It was about who he was not what he was.

He didn’t exactly take to carpentry, not right away anyways. What size nails did you say for this decking? he would ask, over and over. 8 penny nails Mike, same as last week. He was dogged and determined, but it came slowly. He made up for it in so many ways they’re hard to count.

He was as reliable as the tide. He cared about people. He was steady. He was a great member of every crew he worked on. He was a calming influence for all. He was a student of the world, and how it works. Still is. And he became an excellent carpenter, but so much more as well.

He was an important part of our Personnel Committee. Later, he was a charter member of our Management Committee. A closet stock market maven, he stepped up and shouldered the stewardship of our pension fund and our equity fund. This was huge.

Both funds have prospered under his steady hand. They dipped in 2008 (like everything else in our madhouse economy) but came back strong (like us). There is now over $3.5 Million in the two funds, and we are beginning to look at ways to gradually shift from socially responsible investing to socially responsible local investing.

At the party we gave him a beautiful bowl turned by shopper Ken.

And Deirdre produced a beautiful book signed by each of us called The Drezner Years, with photos of people he worked with, projects he worked on, and a brief tribute.

And he doesn’t know it yet but the ratty old nail apron he wore for years is off getting bronzed at this very moment.

Mike could not have been a better co-owner. As much as anyone he embraced the concept that we are a group of individuals, all of whom matter, but we are also another entity, The Company, which matters even more. He gets the true meaning of workplace democracy, through and through.

For me, his counsel was invaluable. We often disagreed, and still do, but the disagreements are most remarkable and noticeable because we share so many points of view and have so much in common. I always come away from the resolution of our disagreements wiser than before. You can’t always say that about people you disagree with, right?

I treasure the work that we did together and I will always honor his influence and value his friendship.

I hope his retirement is just what he wishes it to be and I’m thrilled that he will stay on the SMCo board to continue the work we began so long ago. He will also continue to manage our two funds as he gradually passes that baton to Ryan Bushey (an architect managing a money fund? Uh oh).

Mike’s retirement is also a reminder that the gradual transition to SMCo’s second generation that we refer to so often isn’t just talk – it’s what’s happening, here and now. It’s like climate change – not an abstract thing that’s going to happen in some distant future but a set of changes we are living with right now. I like thinking about SMCo’s next generation more than I like thinking about climate change, but the point is that both are becoming more and more a part of our present.

As for Mike, he’s irreplaceable, and he will not be replaced, because he’ll be staying with us in so many ways.

BE 12 Meets TED Talks

March 21, 2012 by John Abrams Leave a Comment

Two weeks ago several of my SMCo colleagues and I spent two days at Building Energy 12, the annual conference of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA). My involvement in NESEA goes back 30 years. For me this annual meeting is truly a tribal gathering.

This year’s conference was particularly thrilling. The highlight for me was experiencing the emerging youth contingent which has brought great new vitality into the organization the past few years. It makes me feel like we have greater capacity than ever before. I feel this at NESEA, and at South Mountain too. I like us. I like who we are now. While we are more empowered as individuals than ever before, we are people who know, with conviction, that all of us are smarter than any of us.

Catching With A Summer Gone By

September 28, 2011 by John Abrams 2 Comments

I’ve been neglecting to write. Time to get back to it.

Interesting summer. July was all sunshine. Hammock weather.

Lying in mine I read a provocative new book about our future — The Great Disruption by Paul Gilding, an Australian who is the former head of Greenpeace International and more recently sustainability advisor to corporations and NGOs. He is now on the faculty at Cambridge University’s Program for Sustainable Leadership. As I read this book I came to see it as the most accessible and full-bodied treatment to date of the effects of climate change on our planet, our economies, our lives.