9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rob: Hey everyone, thanks for being here and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thanks for having me. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Does this all sound good? Cool! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It's so awesome to be here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had met Urlinda in San Diego about two 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 years ago, and that's how ultimately I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ended up here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Tonight I am hoping to inspire you to make 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some positive changes when it comes to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the environment and to the human race as a[br]whole. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I will give you a little bit of a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 background on some of the things that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some of the projects that I have been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 working on and what I have been doing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I will give you a little bit of a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 disclaimer, although this room is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 probably pretty full of radical people, so 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it is less needed, but I do a lot of very 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 extreme things, and the idea is to catch 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people's attention, get them to stop and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 self reflect and think about things that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they maybe have never thought about. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The things that I do are often are very 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 extreme, but my message is actually one of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 moderation, of treating people with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 respect, treating the earth with respect, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I just go about it in attention-grabbing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ways of doing it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of my project sis the Food Waste [br]Fiasco. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We waste about a third of all the food we 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 produce around the world, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about half of the all the food we produce 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the United States where I live. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of my campaigns I have dived into 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about 2,000 dumpsters across the United 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 States in about 29 states, and a handfull 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in other countries, like the UK, but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 mostly the United States. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And the idea is to create a visual that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 helps people understand how much food is[br]being wasted. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is about 2 days of dumpster diving 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in Madison, Wisconsin. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You might have seen one of my videos, it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was called "People are Good", so I landed 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in Panama with just the clothes on my back 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and my passport, which was 7 countries 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 away from San Diego. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I landed there with the sandals on my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 feet, some shorts, a shirt, a jacket, a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hat, and my passport, and that is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 literally everything I had. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had to make it back to San Diego, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the idea was to put myself out there and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by doing that, show that actually there 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is an incredible number of good people out 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there, and that if you put yourself out 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there, people will help. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The mainstream media often portrays 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the world as this very dangerous, crime 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ridden place, but the reality is that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 generally, people are actually pretty [br]good. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So that was that, and that turned into a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 television show that was on the Discovery 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Channel, I think it played here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But with that one I flew to Brazil and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 had to travel to Panama. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of my most recent projects was[br]"Trash Me". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This one was inspired by Morgan Spurlock's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Super Size Me", where he ate just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 McDonalds for thirty days. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I tried to look at some of the successful 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 campaigns out there and how I could apply 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that to environmental activism, so I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thought "Okay, how can I do something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that will really get people thinking about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how much trash they are creating," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Here, you do not create nearly as much 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trash as we do in the United States, but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 still a fair amount, but no where near as[br]much. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the United States the average person 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 creates about 4.5 pounds of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trash per day, about 2 kilograms. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And we throw it in the garbage can and we 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 never think about it again, most people. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They never think about it again. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So I wanted to create a visual that shows 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people how much it really adds up to. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is me for thirty days just living 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like the average American. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I ate, shopped. and consumed just like the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 average American does. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had an specially designed suit to hold 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 every piece of trash that I created for[br]entire month. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This right here is actually about one 1/3 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 less trash than the average American 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 creates in a month, so that is the idea of[br]that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then for the last 13 months I have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 been traveling the United States and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 parts of the world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is every single possession that I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 own, so everything that I own is here with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 me tonight in the car. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Hopefully it is still there, because that[br]is everything. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Birth certificate, passport, all of that [br]stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Every possession I own... so the things I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 do are often pretty extreme, but the idea 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of this is that the average person in the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 United States and Europe has 10s of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 1,000s of possessions, most that we never[br]use. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 By owning just 110 possessions, it get 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people to stop and think about how much[br]they have. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Really, it is about getting people to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 think about "Am I happy? Am I healthy? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And are there things that I could do to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 change my life to be happier, healthier, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 more purposeful, more passionate, and live 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in a way that is better for the earth?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Those are a couple of my campaigns, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really my life is my campaign, just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 leading by example and showing ways of[br]doing things. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I definitely have not always been an 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 environmentalist, and environmentally- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 minded person, a conscious person. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If we rewind about ten years, this is me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here on the left. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was a pretty drunk dude, I know Belgians 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 get pretty drunk, but I rivaled everyone [br]in the room. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This was a typical night, drinking cheap, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cheap beer out of plastic cups. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 During College I was very passionate about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 drinking, women, material possessions,[br]money. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My goal was to be a millionaire by the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 time I was 30 years old. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was very focused on that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My car, I would shine it for two hours 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 every Sunday, spotless. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had a part-time job which was basically 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just going to the library and talking to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 every girl in my path, telling her to come 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to my parties. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That's what I was doing during college, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is another typical night. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is what you call a "duck bong", I do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not know if it has made its way to [br]Belgium. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 How it works is that it is like a beer 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bong, except you cut the beak, and the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 foot off of an ornamental lawn duck, which 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is hallow, and you fill it up with beer, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that thing can fit like maybe 5 or 6 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 beers, you fill it up with vodka as well 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 if you feel like it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That was another typical night. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And as I said, I spent, you know, 20 or 30 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hours a week pursuing women, and I was not[br]always successful. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 On this particular night this was a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Christmas tree that crossed my path when 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there was no women that wanted to come 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 home with me that night. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I have not always been very caring about[br]the environment. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I did go to school for biology, with a[br]chemistry minor. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Aquatic science was my concentration. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I actually always cared about the [br]environment. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When I was growing up fishing and out 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 playing in the ponds and things like [br]that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But the thing was, I always felt like I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was actually living an environmentally 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 friendly life during this time because my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 mom had taught me the basic things like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 recycling, shut off the water when you are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not using it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I would occasionally get in a fight with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my roommates about leaving the water 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 running or the lights on. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was doing some of those things, but what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 happened was that I realized in about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 2011 after I graduated from University and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it was about two years later, I started to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 watch a lot of documentaries and I would 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 read a lot of books and I realized that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for the most part my life was actually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 causing environmental and social [br]destruction. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was doing a couple of things that were 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sort of good for the environment, but the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reality was that I realized by watching 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these documentaries that the food I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 eating was coming from these factory 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 farms, the gasoline I was pumping into my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 car, all of the trash that I was creating, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 all of the cheap products that I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 buying at the big box markets, all of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this stuff was causing environmental 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 destruction both in my community, but also 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because of globalization, all the way on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the other side of the world, but also it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was causing social destruction by the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people working in really crappy condition 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so that I could have my $4 toaster and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things like that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So at that point I really decided that I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 wanted to change my life from drunk dude 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to someone that was living something[br]beyond myself. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A lot of people at this point feel at 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 total sense of doom and gloom, like "What 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can I do now?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 At that point I was 25 years old, I had 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 been doing this whole way of life for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 quite a while so it can be... you can have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that feeling of "Well what can I possibly [br]do?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But I actually at that point felt [br]extremely empowered. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The reason was that these documentaries 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I watched and these books that I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reading taught me how I could change my [br]life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What I did was just make a long list of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 all of the changes that I wanted to make, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I hung it up in my kitchen in a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really prominent place, and then I taped 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a pen next to it so that each week that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pen would be there and my goal was to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 check off 1 thing each week. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some examples of things that I did early 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on... I mean at that time I was shopping 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at Walmart, filling up my cart with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 everything, using plastic bags, all of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that sort of stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was doing very little. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the big changes that I made early 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on was going to local businesses. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is a farmers market, just buying my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 food locally from the local farmers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 market or going to the local tool shop 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rather than the big Lowes, or Home Depot, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Or Walmart, or things like that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I changed my... I realized the food I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 eating, changed my diet, started to eat 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 more whole foods, more unpackaged 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 processed stuff, I actually started to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 look at the ingredients on things and see 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Whoa, this is not even really food that I[br]am eating," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I started to eat actual food, switched to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a more plant-based diet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then the other thing when I really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 started to unravel my life, I started to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 realize that I had just been sold a whole 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 lot of things, sold this concept of what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the human body needs to exist, what we 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 need to be successful or happy or[br]healthy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "The Story of Stuff" was an early short 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 film that really inspired me. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They had another one called "The Story of [br]Cosmetics," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I learned that all of these things that I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was using, like all of the shampoo, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 conditioner, the face wash, the body wash, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the deodorant, the Listerine mouthwash, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the lip balm, all of these things, a lot 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 them were made with fossil fuel by- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 products, petroleum by-products. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was just putting all of this nasty stuff 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on to me and I just really started to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 think, "Wow, human beings have existed 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for millions of years without this stuff, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so it must be possible to live without [br]it," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So I put it all on my curb and for the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 most part stopped using most of those 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things but found natural alternatives for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the things that I did want to continue [br]to use. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I got rid of plastics and things like[br]that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I got rid of microwave so that I would 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually cook real food. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I just continued making positive changes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in my life for about two years, and what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 happened was the more positive changes I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 made, the more happy and healthy I became. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A lot of it was not something that I would 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 necessarily realize, but there were all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sorts of connections. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For example, when I got rid of my car and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I no longer had a trunk, I was no longer 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 able to fill it up with stuff, which meant 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I bought less stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There are all of these ways that I did not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 realize how one change would ripple into 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 other changes as well. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 After a year and a half or so of doing all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of that, I decided that I really wanted 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to take sustainable living and bring the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 message out to people, and do it in a way 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that was kind of fun and would get people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 excited and hopefully inspire people to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 make positive changes as well. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In 2013 I made my website for $100 online, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and made a Facebook page and decided that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was going to be an adventurer, doing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 adventures for the environment. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My first big adventure was called "Off the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Grid Across America", and I biked across 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the United States on a bamboo bicycle, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the idea was to bike from west coast to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 east coast having no environmental inpact 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 whatsoever, no negative environmental 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 impact, while deeply immersing in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sustainable living and learning myself. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because they say that it takes 21 days to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 form a habit so I thought if I do this for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 104 days, which was how long the ride was, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then I will really, deeply form this [br]habit. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I set rules for all of the basics of [br]sustainable living. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The key things of sustainable living that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we deal with every single day: food, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 water, energy, waste, transportation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 These are things that every single one of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 us in this room deals with basically every[br]day. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We eat everyday, we drink water every day, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 usually we have transportation wherever 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we are going, we create waste everyday 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 whether it is garbage or something out of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 our body, and then energy, we are using 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 electricity pretty much every day. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Diving into these key things that a lot 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of us... like for me in the past I never 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thought about in a given day. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For food the rule was that I could only 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 eat local, organic, unpackaged foods. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That meant food from whatever state I was[br]crossing through. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Organic just meant that I... it did not mean 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 necessarily that it was certified but that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it just came from the farmer and I had 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 talked to them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Then lastly unpacked, so nothing wrapped[br]in packaging. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I knew that this was going to be really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hard because a lot of places, that food 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just does not exist. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So I made one exception, and that was that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I could eat any food that was going to [br]waste. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The reason being is, of course if it is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 already in the garbage, the dumpster... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what do you call it over here? Bin. Yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Bins. Huh? WHAT WORD DID HE SAY 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I find your language quite funny. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So if it is in the garbage, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 environmental impact has already happened 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so if it is in the garbage I figured "that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sounds weird, but if it is in the garbage 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I might as well eat it," but that is what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was doing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I found the first dumpster that I ever 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 looked into, I was crossing the Sierra, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Nevada mountains, it was about 7 seven 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 days in, I looked in there, I was was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really nervous at this time because I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 still had a good sized ego at that time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and for someone to know that I was eating 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 out of the trash would have damaged that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ego, but I had come up with this trip and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had to do it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I looked inside the dumpster, and sure 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 enough it was filled with perfectly good [br]food. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In that particular dumpster, the first 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thing I ever ate was a still-frozen, half 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gallon of moose tracks icecream. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was just melted a little bit around the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 edges, I didn't have a spoon so I just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 used the edge of my sunglasses and they 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were quite sticky for a week or two. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Basically, for the rest of the trip 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 instead of going into the grocery store 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and asking "Do you have anything local?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because the answer was "what do you mean?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Most of the time they just had no clue 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 where the food was from. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I got tired of that, so instead 70% of my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 diet that summer ended up coming from the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 dumpster. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was about 3 pounds a day worth of food,[br]280 pounds. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For water, the rule was that I could only 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 use natural bodies of water. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For the entire summer I could not have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 turned on a faucet, used a flushed toilet, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 taken a shower, anyway that we use water 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in a given day in the house I was not able[br]to do. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Instead I had to use natural bodies of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 water like lakes and rivers, purify the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 water myself, go swimming, even in some 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pretty dirty ponds. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But the exception again with that was that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I could use water that was going to[br]waste. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is a fire hydrant in Brooklyn, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 leak is right here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I lived off of this fire hydrant for 5 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 days while I was in Brooklyn. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I bathed in it, that is what I am doing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here, I brushed.... I went over there to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 brush my teeth, did my laundry in it, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 used it for cooking, all of that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This one leak alone is... I timed it, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it was wasting two gallons of water a [br]minute. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That is about 8 liters per minute. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What that means is that it is 770 gallons 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of water per day, which is enough to meet 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the drinking needs of 1440 people, just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 out of this one fire hydrant alone. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Over the entire trip I only used 160 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gallons of water, which is what the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 average person in the United States uses 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in about 2 days. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For energy I could only use electricity 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I created myself for the entire [br]summer. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I would not have been able to give this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 presentation, I would not have been able 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to touch this, or use any of this stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I could not turn on a light switch, or 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 use someone's refrigerator, or open an 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 electric garage door. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Basically every say that electricity was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 involved in life I had to stop and think[br]about it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There was the challenging ones where for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 example if I wanted to go into a store, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and there was only automatic doors, I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 would have to wait there until someone 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 goes through the automatic door and then[br]go in. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Or if I was biking and it was night and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 an automatic light would go off, I would 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have to go over there and unscrew that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 light bulb and hope that they would figure 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it out the next day why it was not going [br]off. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was really deep immersion, and what I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 learned is that my life is totally 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 electrified at all points in my life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 basically I was consuming electricity. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 70% or more of electricity in the United 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 States is from fossil fuels, so I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 basically burning fossil fuels at most [br]times. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Only by really deeply immersing myself 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into this was I really able to start 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 understanding it more. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For example, my exception with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 electricity was that I had a computer and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had a cell phone, and they were both 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 charged by the solar panels. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My exception was that I could log on to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the internet, and I knew that by doing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I was probably using some 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 electricity via the router probably using 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a little more electricity. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But what I did not know and that I learned 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on that trip, I visited a business called 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Renewable Choice Energy" in Boulder, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Colorado, and their job is to get 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 companies like Facebook and Google to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 switch over their servers. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The servers are the places that host the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 computers, where all of the data is [br]stored. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So their job is to get them to switch over 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 solar and wind powered farms to produce 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the electricity for that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What they taught me was that when we are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 storing stuff on the cloud, what the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 cloud really is is just someone else's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 computer, somewhere else. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What I learned is that every single time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I uploaded a blog, or a youtube 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 video, or a picture or Facebook, that all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of that was being stored somewhere else, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so every second of my life, whether I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 asleep or I was awake, was actually[br]burning electricity. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Only by really deeply going into it was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 able to understand more deeply my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 interaction with the earth. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For waste, the rule was I had to carry 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 every piece of garbage that I created all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the way across the country with me. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If I had a candy bar in San Francisco, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that wrapper was coming all the way over 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to Vermont with me. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Anyone who bikes, which I am guessing a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 lot of you do, or if you have done long 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 distance hiking, you know that a little 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 weight really adds up. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I tried really hard to create as little 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trash as I could, and this is what I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 created in 104 days. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is 2 pounds, which is what the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 average American creates by about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one o'clock in the afternoon on any given[br]day. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then lastly, for transportation the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rule of course was that I could either 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bike or walk the entire way. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Even on my off days I could not use public[br]transportation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What I learned during this time, which is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a lesson that I am sure a lot of people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here in Belgium know, you are far a head 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of us when it comes to cycling, but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really I learned that cycling is for [br]everyone. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 On that trip I met 60 and 70 year old 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 women cycling all the way across the[br]United States. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I met 10 year-olds cycling to school. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I met people that were way larger than 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you ever would imagine would fit on a bike 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that were biking hundreds of miles, or 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 were biking 30 miles back and forward[br]between work. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I really learned on that trip that cycling 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is something that is accessible to so many[br]people. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 After that adventure, I went back to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 San Diego and I was in my apartment that I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 had still, and I still was... still at 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this time after a couple of years, still 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 picking up on ways that I was causing[br]environmental destruction. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For example, when I got back to San Diego, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had my money in a Chase bank account, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 JP Morgan Chase, and I realized "Wow, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what is going on with my money?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, they invest in... largely in fossil 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fuel infrastructure projects. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Here I am trying not to use fossil fuels, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but my money is being used to invest to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 make fossil fuels more accessible. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I had to take my money out of the big 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 banks, I had to take my money out of any[br]investments. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I learned that my mutual funds were 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 invested in cigarettes and fossil fuels 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 among other things, so taking my money 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 out of those. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 By this time I was creating so little 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trash that I was able to take the garbage 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can out of my house. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In 2015, in January, it was New Years Day, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I decided that I wanted to move out of my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 apartment and live in a tiny house so that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I could live off the grid and not have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 any bills or any debt to my name. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I went onto Craigslist on New Years Day 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I was going to buy myself a little 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 camper so that I could live in that while 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 building a tiny house. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I found this online, and it said it was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 $950 and I thought "surely that must be a[br]typo?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I mean, $950, that is like one months 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rent for a lot of people. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I put $950 in my pocket... well actually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a $1000 in my pocket, and I bike up to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this guy's house, it was about 6 miles 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 away, and I said I was not going to buy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it, but I do not know why I had the $1000 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in my pocket if I was not going to. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But I realized why it was only $950, it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as basically just a little wooden box on [br]wheels. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was 5 feet wide..... this is actually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 larger, this screen right here is larger 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 than the actual size of the house because 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 5 feet wide is substantially shorter than [br]this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was about 5 feet tall, so I could not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 quiet stand in it but I thought 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Okay, this is much smaller than I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 intending to live in," but I like to do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 extreme things and one of the things that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really stuck out to me is that in the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 United States and in many parts of Europe, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the average house size has actually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 doubled in the last couple of decades. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the States it has gone from 1,500 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 square feet, to 3,000 square feet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is where house sizes have been [br]going. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then at the same time, happiness and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 health is just crashing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Trying to show that correlation between 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 having a larger house and actually being 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 healthier and happier, a lot of the times 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I see an opposite correlation with that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Here, I practiced sustainable living, also 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to the extreme, to really, again, do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things that would catch people's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 attention, get the news to come out and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 report, and be able to bring this stuff to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people that maybe have never thought 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about any of these things before. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For food, I grew some of my own food. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You hear in Belgium have plenty of rain I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 am assuming, but San Diego was a desert 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and it was in a mega drought, so it was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not exactly easy living off of the grid 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and being completely dependent on rain 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 water and growing food. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One way that I was able to do that, is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there is something called "wicking bed 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gardens", and how it would work is you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fill... you create a little reservoir on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the bottom, and then you fill it through 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a pipe, and then the water wicks up 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 through the roots so that there is no 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 evaporation at the top. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 By using tricks like that I was able to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 grow more food with less water. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 While I was there, 100% came from 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 harvesting rain water. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The average American uses about 80 to 100 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gallons of water per day. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The average European uses about 50 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gallons of day, and the average African 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 uses about 2 to 5 gallons of water per [br]day. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was using 2 to 5 gallons of water, about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the same as the average person in Africa. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A lot of people would think that this... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 most Americans would thing that this is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really extreme using so little water, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one of the things that I really learned 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 over the last 5 years of really diving 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into sustainability is that everything is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 totally a matter of perspective. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In this scenario for example, an American 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 would see that using just 2 to 5 gallons 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of water per day to be a really extreme 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thing, but if you took someone from Africa 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that has been doing that their whole life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and you brought them to the United States, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and they saw that we were using 100 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gallons of water and are just pouring it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 down the drain, to them that would be [br]extreme. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The more that I looked at all of these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things, really everything is always a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 matter of perspective, and when you change 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your perspective you can totally change 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the world around you just simply by 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 changing your mindset. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was able to live on 2 to 5 gallons a day 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by using it really wisely and really just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not wasting any of it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For energy, the rule was... for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 energy I was living just completely off 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of solar there. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The reason I was able to do that was by 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 living pretty simply. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Another thing that I have really come 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 across a lot, is that a lot of people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 think that sustainable living, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 environmentally living is only something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you can do if you are wealthy or 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 privileged to be able to do that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There are elements of that where I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 understand where people are coming from, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and some truth to that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But what I have learned is that the more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that you simplify your life and live based 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on what you need rather than everything 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that you think you want, the more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 accessible it becomes to everyone. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 With solar, if I had a huge 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 refrigerator and a flat screened T.V. in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 every room, and a hair drier, and all of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these electrical items, then I would not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have been able to afford to live off the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 grid with just solar, because I would 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have needed a $10,000 or $15,000 system. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 By simplifying my needs I was able to live 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just off of solar. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This.... this is funny, we are talking 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about poop for the second time tonight 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 after the first documentary, that is [br]great. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Did you plan that? No? Okay. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is actually my favorite thing to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 talk about, and I feel actually very much 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the same with the short film we just [br]watched. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the things that I really learned 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is that anytime something is easy, I have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 learned to stop and think, "Why is this[br]easy?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Where is the ease... basically what I have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 learned is that every time something is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 easy, what that typically means is that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the burden is being placed elsewhere. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 An easy example, for example everyone 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here has probably driven a car, and you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 know that when you are driving a car, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 imagine that this is your ankle, you are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 going zero miles per hour, and you just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 move your ankle slightly forward and all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of a sudden you are going 60 miles an[br]hour. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Very easy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Where as biking or walking, you actually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have to use energy to do that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So where is the burden being placed? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In that scenario, it is being placed on [br]many things. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The extraction of fossil fuels causing oil 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 spills... there are 10,000 oil spills per 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 year as an example. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is climate change, it is the emissions 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of all if the green house gases. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is the people that are getting sick 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 working in those conditions, the animals 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that are dealing with those sorts of [br]things. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That is an example of how the burden is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually being placed elsewhere. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I started to think, "Flushing the toilet, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 okay, where does it really go once I am 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 done with it, what actually happens to my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 poop and pee?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The toilet is an example of one of those 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things that is really easy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You just hit that leaver, and then 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 (whoosh sound)[br]it is gone. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I started to think about what really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 happens to it and look into it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What I learned is that it is easy because 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the burden is being placed elsewhere. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the example of the flushed toilet, you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have all of the chemicals you have to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 clean the water before you poop in it, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then all of the chemicals that are used to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 clean the water again after you poop in [br]it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You have all of the electricity that is [br]used. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So 20% of all electricity is used just to[br]pump water. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You are actually using electricity 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 indirectly just to flush the toilet. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You have the pollution that happens from 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it because a lot of the time it overflows 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into our lakes and rivers and oceans. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 All of these things were happening, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then ultimately you have a waste product 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that you have to deal with, it is actually[br]a problem. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When I learned about what we call 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 humanure", as in human manure, I realized 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that instead of waste becoming a problem, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it actually is a resource. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the sayings in permaculture is that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Waste is just a resource out of place," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Rather than using 1.6 gallons of water 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 each time, which I obviously did not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have to flush, I was able to turn it into 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a valuable resource. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is the compost pile. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A lot of people would... who here has ever 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pooped in a 5 gallon bucket? A couple? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some back there? Yeah. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For me, this was sort of the holy grail of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sustainable living because it was taking 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 responsibility for all of my actions. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A lot of people have social media and so 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on, there are a lot of people who have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 said things like... well, first of all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they would assume that I was going to die, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and if I was not going to die then I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 going to kill the entire city of [br]San Diego. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the things about composting, how it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 works, is when you... a compost pile 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 whether it is human waste or not, what you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have is microorganisms like bacteria, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then you have macroorganisms like beetles 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and larvae and worms. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What they do is they are eating all of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 contents in there, and one of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 biproducts from all of that is heat. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A compost pile can heat up to 160 [br]degrees. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 All of the bacteria, and the pathogens 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that are in our body are designed to live 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 at about body temperature. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Once they are in the compost pile, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 heat that is created by all that movement 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the micro and macro organisms kills all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of that off, so it is really safe. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was at least able to tell people that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I am indeed not going to kill the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 city of San Diego, but the thing that I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 did not know at the time was that people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 still would say "Ew, this guy is eating 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 food grown off of poop!" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I was like "Yeah, but I do not have a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 good response because I am assuming that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you are not doing that," 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But then I read a book called "Wasteland" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When I was doing "Trash Me" this fall, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I finally really learned where our poop 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 goes as I looked into it deeper. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Take New York City for example where I was[br]at the time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What you have, is you have millions... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 well 8 million people are still there, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about 8 million poops a day, maybe more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 depending on how people are doing. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What is that? Anyway. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What happens is that all of that goes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 into the waste water treatment plants, but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what you have going along with that, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the average person in the United States 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 has 13 prescription meds total. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Some people have zero, some people have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 20, but it averages out to billions of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 prescription medications, so you have all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of that going along with it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But you also have all of the things like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bleach, and the Drano, and things like[br]that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So all of that is getting mixed together. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What you have is an extremely toxic 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "poop slurry", that ends up with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 millions of poops mixed with all of these[br]toxins. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But then you also have companies that are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 improperly disposing of things like motor 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 oil and things like that, that makes it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 even more toxic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That then is bio-digested in part, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then what is left was turned into[br]fertilizer. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Where that fertilizer went is it was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 shipped down to Texas on rail, so 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this very still toxic fertilizer, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then that was used to grow the food that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people that were commenting on Youtube 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and Facebook saying "Ew, this guy eats 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 food growing from poop" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Well, what I learned was that at least I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 was eating off of fairly clean... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one person is not 1 million New Yorkers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 toxic sludge poop. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Onto the next thing, done with poop now. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It might come up again though. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For trash, I created a little more trash 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 than I did on my bike ride. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This would be about a normal 2 to 4 weeks 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of trash, it was a couple pounds a month[br]usually. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And for transportation, one of the things 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I learned is that the average person 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the states, it is similar over here in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Europe, spends about $7,000 to $9,000 per 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 year on their vehicle. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What that means is that the normal, kind 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the median income is about $52,000[br]a year. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That means that the average person is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 working January and February every single 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 year just to own their car. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Imagine what you could do for January 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and February of every single year instead 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of owning a car, and that is the reason I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 got rid of my car because growing up I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thought that a car was freedom. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It was how to get away from the parents, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 be able to go wherever you wanted. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What I learned is that the car was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually the thing that was holding me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 back the most. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is what tied me to having to work to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pay the bills of the car. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Getting rid of the car was actually one of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the most freeing things I ever did. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In San Diego there is something called 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Car to Go", which is an electric car 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sharing program, that made it easier for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 me there, because when I did need a car, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I could get one. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But a lot of cities have things like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Zip Car" and things like that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 How "Car to Go" works is there is a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 little... you have your own little card 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here, and then you touch it up to the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 window here, and then you get in, it lets 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you in, and you put in a code, and you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 drive it away, and then when you are done 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you just park it in a parking spot and it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just bills you by the amount of time that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you are in there. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For the most part I would ride my bike, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the "Car to Go" was for mostly when I was[br]feeling lazy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The whole idea of a lot of this stuff is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to create visuals that help people to [br]understand things. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Talking about food waste, as I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 starting to dumpster dive, I had mentioned 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that early on I was pretty timid about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 talking about that, not knowing what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people would think about me and things 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 like that, but the thing was, the more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I did it, the more that I realized 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that this issue is far more important than[br]me. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I started to talk about it, and I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 amazed that after a short period of time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I realized that generally, when you are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 passionate about something and when you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are authentic about something, what I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 found is that you do not lose friends, you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually gain more friends. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The food waste ended up being something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I became really passionate about. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I did not realize going into it how 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 important of an issue that it is, but I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have learned that it is one of the most 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pressing environmental and social issues 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of our time. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Worldwide, we throw away one third of all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of the food that we produce, while over a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 billion people are in food poverty. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 We actually have enough food on earth to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 feed every single person. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Not all of it is healthy food, there is a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 lot of Cheetos and things like that, but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we have enough food to feed the entire[br]world. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the United States we produce enough 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 food to feed another entire American 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 population while 1 in 4 Americans are food[br]insecure. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is San Diego, California, I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trying to come up with a way to really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 help people understand how much food was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 going to waste. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the United States it is $165 billion of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 food per year. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To put that into perspective, that is more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 than the budget for every national park, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 every public library, all of veterans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 healthcare, all of the federal prisons, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the FBI, and the FDA combined. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is a massive number, but a lot of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 time it is still hard to wrap your head [br]around numbers. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This is two days worth of dumpster diving 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in San Diego, California, and I mentioned 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 early on that I was very timid at the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 idea of dumpster diving, and one of the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reasons was this girl here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 4 years ago, and this was in 2013, I was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 very much in love with her and she was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 very much "get away from me Rob, I am not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 interested in you right now". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 She was actually someone who told me "do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not tell anybody that you are dumpster[br]diving". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And I kind of listened to her advise. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This was us 4 years later, she obviously[br]came around. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And what I learned is that you can eat 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your trash and have the girlfriend too. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This project was called "Trash Me", 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 this is the one that I just finished up 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in September, and as I said, with so many 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of these things we just never think about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it because the infrastructure is there, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it takes things away and then we never 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have to think about it again. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The average America creates 4.5 pounds of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 trash a day, throws it in the garbage can, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then where does it really go? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The idea of this visual was to just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really help people to think about these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things on a daily basis. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You have the frozen pizza here. you have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the Starbucks cups, the red beer cups,and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the packaging from buying stuff, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 batteries, the plastic bottles. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The idea was to create that association in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people's minds and help people to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually think about that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The whole idea of all of this is to get 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people to self reflect and think about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what positive changes that they can make 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in their life, and so these are some of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the things that I have been making over 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the past 5 years that I have found to be[br]really beneficial. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 These are some of the suggestions for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 anyone who is inspired to make positive[br]changes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I broke these down into the basic aspects 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of sustainable living: food, water, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 energy. waste and transportation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Each one of these is on m y website, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 there is a guide for all of these, so food 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or example is robgreenfield.org/food, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it goes more in depth there. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So for food, some of the things are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 eating as much local food as possible, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 eating as much food that is grown in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Belgium, or if not Belgium, more like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Spain rather than New Zealand or Chile. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Eating as much organic, natural food as[br]possible. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Stuff that is not sprayed with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pesticides, unpackaged foods. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Are there any grocery stores here that[br]sell unpackaged? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Una? Una! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Going to stores like that where you can 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 buy foods where you bring your own 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 containers and full them up. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Whole foods, so not the grocery store but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 foods that look basically like they did 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when they came from the earth. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For example, apples rather than apple 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sauce, potatoes rather than potato chips. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Growing your own food. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is life changing, planting a seed and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually seeing it turn into food, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then eating it, it can be a very life-[br]changing experience. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Eating seasonal, so stuff that is growing [br]in season. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If it is in the middle of January and you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 see strawberries in the store, thinking 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "Where are these strawberries actually [br]from?" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the simplest things we can do with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 food is actually eat it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The average person wastes about 25% of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 all of their food. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Actually eating the food rather than 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 throwing it away. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Another big one is eating a lot more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 grains, and a lot less meat. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 This actually is the one that causes the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 most environmental impact, eating meat and[br]animal products. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That one actually should be more at the[br]top. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which leads into the next one, which is [br]water. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The average.... sorry, to create 1 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 hamburger takes about 660 gallons or about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 3,000 liters of water. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 To put that in perspective, on my bike 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ride across the country, I went 104 days[br]without showering. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Imagine 104 days without showering. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now image turning that into an entire 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 year, which is what I did, and 1 year of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not showering, that was the equivalency 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of 6 hamburgers worth of water. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 2 months of showering is the equivalent of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one hamburger, that is how much water it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 takes to produce meat, well, that is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 particularly beef that is the most water[br]intensive. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Other things you can do, is flush the [br]toilet less. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If it is yellow, let it mellow, if it is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 brown, flush it down. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Do you have that saying here? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is new? I brought it to Belgium! 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Take shower showers. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Every minute off of the shower is about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 2 gallons. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Grow food and not lawns. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That is really one of the most enjoyable 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things is rather than growing grass, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually just growing food instead. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Using that water to grow food instead of [br]grass. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Harvesting rain water, some people make 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these things really complicated. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One thing about all of these things that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I am naming off is they are all designed 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to decrease your environmental impact. but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the nice thing is that they do not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually cost you money, they are all 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 designed to save you money, which means 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you can work less and spend more time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 doing the things that you want. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then lastly, besides the fact that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 most of these make the earth healthier, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they also make you healthier, which is the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 nice thing about it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Harvesting rain water, some people make 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that really complicated and they get like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a $300 system, I did that when I first 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 started to harvest rain water. but then I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 realized, you literally just have to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 stick a bucket under your gutter, and [br] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 collect that water, it is as simple as [br]that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Installing efficient faucets, you can get 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 little faucet heads that cost about $3, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they use 75% less water, so switching 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 those things out takes a couple of minutes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then you are saving a gallon and a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 half for minute that you have it on. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Planting native, planting things that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 naturally grow in the area. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Installing greywater, another thing that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you can do really simple is for example 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 put a 5 gallon bucket under your sink and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 unscrew the thing so that it goes out to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the bucket, and then that goes out to the [br]garden. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That is the simplest form of gray water. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Switching to CFL or LED bulbs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 LED bulbs cost more, but after about 3 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 months to a year they already have paid 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for themselves in the amount of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 electricity that you are using. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Finding an electricity free alternatives, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for example getting a juice press that is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a hand juice press rather than an [br]electric one. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Or investing in alternative energy, you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can put solar panels on your roof or you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can just invest in a energy COOP that uses 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the COOP money from people to create... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 basically investing in an energy COOP. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then the last thing, nature, simply 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 put, the more time that you are out in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 nature, the less time that you are burning[br]energy. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then for waste, the 5 "Rs" are refuse, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reduce, reuse, repair, recycle. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the things that I never knew, even 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the 3 "Rs" are reduce, reuse, recycle, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are actually in that order for a reason. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 First it is reduce, then it is reduce, and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then lastly recycle. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 People like Bea Johnson or Lauren Singer, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 some of the leaders in the zero waste 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 movement and the people that are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 practicing zero waste, the idea is not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually recycle more, it is actually to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 recycle less, because recycling is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a very energy intensive process, that is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 why it is at the bottom. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Carrying a reusable water bottle, one of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the big ones is saying no to disposable [br]items. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Anything that you look at and you would 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 say "Will I use this just one time and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then throw it away", instead finding a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 reusable alternative, instead carrying 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your own plate or bowl or utensils rather[br]than disposables. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Buying unpackaged foods, buying used[br]stuff. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What kinds of websites do you have around 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 here for buying used stuff? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They have Gumtree, Freecycle, Freegle in [br]the UK. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Do you have those here as well? Yeah? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Buying used stuff, which means no virgin 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 materials are needed for you to have [br]something. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Repairing things, so when something is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 broken or slightly functioning, fixing it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 rather than throwing it away and getting a[br]new one. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Donating stuff that you do not need 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 anymore. giving it to friends or a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thriftshop rather than throwing it away. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Buying high quality stuff that wont 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 break, and composting. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then for transportation, which is the[br]last one. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the huge ones is going car free, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not owning a car. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Joining a car share program if you still 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 need to drive a car. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Driving less is a simple one if you are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 going to own a car still, just simply 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 driving less makes a huge difference. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If you ride a bike, which there is no 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 point in even talking about this here, I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 saw like a million bikes. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is just unique for me to see... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 actually when I got here, when I got into 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the train station, that was the most bikes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I have seen in my entire life. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 In the United States if there is like 6 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 bikes in the same space, it is like[br]"Whoa, bikers!" 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is pretty cool to see what is going on[br]here. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I will take the lesson from you on that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one and be quiet about the biking. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Public transportation, which I think is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 pretty good in Belgium, when you are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 complaining about transportation just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 imagine being in the United States for a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 little while, because it sucks over there, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and think about it that way. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Living near the places that you spend 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your time, so that you spend less time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 banging your head or being depressed in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the car and in public transportation, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 being closer to places. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And then simply walking. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One of the last ones is supporting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 environmental organizations, supporting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 environmental non-profits. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 As far as philanthropy goes, only 3% of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 all philanthropic donations go to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 environmental nonprofits, 97% goes[br]elsewhere. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Donating to nonprofits that are working 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on environmental issues goes a huge way. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The other thing is just volunteering with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 them, just getting involved. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A lot of the time that is much... that can 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 be much more beneficial than money to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 them, just getting involved and [br]volunteering. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There is a really awesome nonprofit 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 which was started by Patagonia, the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 clothing company, about 10 years ago. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If you own a business, you can join 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 "1% for the Planet", and your company 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 gives 1% of all of the revenue to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 environmental nonprofits. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You donate directly to the nonprofits, not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to1%, and they certify it, like [br]"Rainforest Alliance". 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But just a month ago they started that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or individuals, so now we can donate 1% to[br]different nonprofits. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And again, it does not go to them, they 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just certify you as a "1% for the Planet" [br]donor. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Just supporting environmental nonprofits 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 by volunteering or donating. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That is everything, and we have plenty of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 time for questions, right? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Who has questions? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Forwarding? On, voting. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The question is, is there a reason why I 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 do not put voting in the things that you[br]can do? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 No, I think that voting is one tool in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the arsenal of making positive changes, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but it is definitely not my focus by any[br]means. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I think especially on the local level 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 voting can be extremely effective. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I do not know what the political 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 situation is like here, but I know that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 voting at the local level is where often 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it can be the most beneficial for your[br]community. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I did not... enough people vote and are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not doing these things, so I focus on 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 these things too. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Actually, the biggest thing that any of us 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can do to make the largest environmental 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 impact is to eat a lot less meat, and eat 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a lot more fruits and vegetables, a lot[br]more plants. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 One thing as I have said many times, I do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a lot of very extreme things, but when it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 comes to all of this, my message is very[br]much moderation. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It is not go 100% zero waste, maybe it is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not be 100% vegan, maybe it is not 100% 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 never get into a car, but it is do things[br]more moderately. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Eating a lot more plant-based, is the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 largest thing that we can do[br]environmentally, really. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That would be the biggest one. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Plus, often most people eat way too much 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of it and they become a lot healthier 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 without it, and so you start to feel [br]better too. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Yeah? 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Everything has been a transitional [br]process. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Back in 2011 I started a marketing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 company, I was at that time still fairly [br]money oriented. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My first campaign, the bike ride across 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the country, I had money from running a[br]marketing company. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My earlier projects cost more money, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because the more you have, the more you [br]spend. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But during this whole time I have been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 transitioning away from having a lot of[br]money. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So currently, my yearly annual salary cap 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is $5,000 a year to keep myself as 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 minimally involved with money. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Now, my adventures are funded by being 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really simple adventures. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You can bike across the country, living 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 simply without spending a penny[br]doing that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For example, dumpster diving for a lot of[br]my food. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Wherever I stay, I always just stay with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 friends or family. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I carry a tent so I can camp outside, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 never staying in hotels. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 By focusing on the very basic needs in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 life, like this year I am doing a project 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 where I am not buying anything new, or 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 being given anything new for an entire [br]year. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 The less you need, the easier, so now with 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 my campaigns, they are mostly about how 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you can live more simply. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 As I have learned, early on I had that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 money from the marketing company, but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 overtime it has become less and less 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 necessary to have money. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And also, largely by living a life that is[br]about relationships. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Because the more... the thing is that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 everyone in this room, if we work 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 together, we can meet most every single 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 one of each others needs. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 By sharing stuff, sharing resources, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sharing time, sharing skills, there is so 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 much more that we can accomplish. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 For example with my videos, a lot of times 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I work with videographers who want to make 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a positive difference through their film, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and I am able to do something where they 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 are going to get good viewership on it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and feel good about it. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Does that kind of answer the question?[br]Cool. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I still fly. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I try to minimize my flying, I have flown 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 twice in the last 12 months or so, maybe[br]3 times. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 What I am doing now is... for me 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 personally, I find the more that I give to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 others, the more that I live in the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 service of others. often the more my basic 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 needs are met. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Which has been one of the really positive 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things in life, is seeing that when you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 put yourself out there and you help 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 others, that they are more likely to help 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you as well. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So as far as flying, m