Today is the second anniversary of my new life working for me, writing another 150 posts here at Carbon Upfront! I started this site to keep myself out of trouble after being laid off; I thought that at my age, I was unlikely to get hired, and as I wrote last year, “my biggest worry was that I would disappear into the void.”
I have not disappeared quite yet.
Carbon Upfront! was the working title of my book, changed by the publisher to The Story of Upfront Carbon, and released last May. The book has not found its audience yet; I wrote it for the general public, not professionals, who now deal with (or pay lip service to) the concepts of embodied or upfront carbon every day. Perhaps that will change; it got a lovely little review in the upcoming February issue of Canadian Architect.
Canadian architect-turned-developer-turned-writer Lloyd Alter's recent book looks at the importance of embodied carbon-or in his term, upfront carbon-in everything from buildings to shoes. Designs that minimize upfront carbon are key to reducing impact, but ultimately what is needed is a global turn towards sufficiency- essentially, using less stuff. "Unlike operating carbon emissions, where efficiency rules, dealing with upfront carbon emissions is all about sufficiency, about using less of everything, because everything has a footprint," writes Alter.
The reviewer got the book's essence: sufficiency is key to reducing upfront carbon, and it’s not just about buildings. I have been talking about it all year; in March, I was honoured to be invited to speak about sufficiency in Paris at the Buildings and Climate Global Forum and to be part of the Sufficiency Action Hub that got sufficiency written into the Declaration de Chaillot, a document that may change the industry. It has certainly changed my focus.
While in Paris, I met Yamina Saheb of Lausanne University, who developed the SER Framework that now ties it all together: it is not enough to have efficient buildings powered by renewable energy; we need to question what we build and why we buy. It’s a hard sell; as Marine Girard wrote in the report that came out of the Sufficiency Action Hub,
“It requires a fundamental shift in mindset, moving away from the pursuit of endless growth towards a more balanced and sustainable approach that prioritizes the well-being of both people and the planet.”
I spent the next month after Paris couch-surfing through London (thanks, Bonnie and David) and Belgium (thanks, Adrian and Robyn), rethinking my April presentation for the International Passivhaus Conference in Innsbruck with an increased emphasis on sufficiency. I then took it on the road to New Zealand, Australia and Portugal; it was not a year for Living the 1.5 Degree Lifestyle.
As I start my third year with this site, I am thinking about where it is going. It is probably time to change the name; Upfront and Embodied Carbon are now a sophisticated industry that is not interested in me, and I am not writing about it very much anymore; I am much more focused on sufficiency. I suspect that I will be writing more about my next project, my New Manual of the Dwelling. I previously suggested that I would serialize it here, but it has just grown too big; I have written 30,000 words, and I am not even out of the kitchen.
But the 3,500 of you subscribing to this site mean the world to me; you have kept me out of trouble, and you have kept me going. I want to thank every one of you. As I noted last year, it has turned out rather well.
Photo: Laura Burrell Photography
My colleague, co-worker and friend Katherine Johnson Martinko was laid off the same day as I was. Last year, I asked her to comment on how she got through the year. She wrote then that she was struggling. I asked her for an update, which is far more positive this year:
It's been two years since I was laid off from a decade-long job as a writer and editor at Treehugger. I loved that job, and the layoff was devastating. After a few sad days spent moping aimlessly around the house, I spent the next 15 months applying to over 150 positions, with no luck. In the meantime, I continued to work away on my Substack newsletter, The Analog Family, where I wrote regular posts about getting kids off screens, embracing digital minimalism, and developing healthy offline habits.
After many months of that, magic started to happen. It turns out that, when you do what you love, and you do it consistently, and you do it to the best of your ability, interesting doors start to open. The executive editor of the Globe and Mail, Canada's largest newspaper, reached out to say she loved my writing and wanted me to contribute to the paper. Jonathan Haidt of The Anxious Generation contacted me to ask if I'd join his team, which has led to an explosion in speaking opportunities across North America. My days now feel full, diverse, and stimulating.
A week after my layoff, a close friend bet me a bottle of tequila that, within two years, I'd look back and be glad it happened. I said, no, impossible! I will be bereft forever! It looks like I owe him a bottle of tequila.
You make a difference, which in the final analysis is about all we can hope for in life. Your thoughts create echoes that reverberate throughout the cybersphere, enriching us and inspiring us to all to make a difference, too.
You make a difference, which in the final analysis is about all we can hope for in life. Your thoughts create echoes that reverberate throughout the cybersphere, enriching us and inspiring us to all to make a difference, too.
Congratulations, and thanks for all your fine work. Great to hear that Katherine has also found new audiences.