By: George B. Brooks, Jr. Ph.D.
Southwest Green
Southminster Social Service Agency

The business magazine cover story asks “Can Green Save Us?” My response is yes. But to do so we must do more than attract solar manufactures and create green jobs. We must also connect green to the community. According to the book Influencer* people will change their behavior if first, they feel it is worth it and second they think they can do it. For green to save us, individuals must feel empowered to put green to work to meet their everyday needs. Allow me to elaborate beginning with my grandmother.

My grandmother lived in Phoenix during the great depression. A learned woman and educator during the age of Jim Crow, her focus was on improving the quality of life for her family and community. She lived by three basic rules, make the most of what you got, do no harm and always seek to make things better. So Grandma recycled pop bottles and wasted nothing. She knew how to turn a dime into a dollar and to treat her neighbors as family. She new that cleanliness was next to Godliness. She patched pants, planted a garden and used the wastewater from the washer to irrigate it. Grandma knew how to sustain. Grandma was Green! Back in 1930 she knew what we are just now rediscovering, that when focused on a goal, the processes that create sustainability are powerful tools for solving short-term problems. The interesting thing is that she knew little of environmental, economic or social science. Yet instinctively, as did most of our grandparents and great grandparents, she got it.

A transformative reality, we can see examples Grandma’s rediscovered wisdom growing across the Arizona. In South Mountain Village where I live, the Green Revival program is using green to help revitalize a community. Green Revival is a partnership of Southminster Social Service Agency, Southwest Gas, the City of Phoenix Neighborhood, Human and Environmental Services Departments, ASU, the Girl Scouts, the Minority Business Enterprise Center and Southwest Green magazine. Its goal is to provide 1,000 low-income families with “energy conservation kits” including CFL light bulbs, low flow showerheads, several packs of seeds, other tools and incentives and the knowledge and or assistance to use them. If properly applied, each family could reduce their water and energy use, decrease their carbon footprint and save perhaps $700 a year. The greatest potential however, may be in those few packets of seeds.

When you plant a garden language, race, class, ethnicity and religious barriers are crossed. Neighbors, who before did not know each other, now work together. As they grow their back yard or community gardens, homes and empty lots are beautified and neighborhood safety improves. Children learn the value of not only hard work but also ownership, pride of accomplishment, science and economics. As the crops are harvested family and neighborhood health and nutrition health improve and the need to buy food is reduced. If the crops are sold, family incomes are increased. An example of the Triple Bottom Line at work  (people, profit & planet,) this project is sustainability at its best.

What I have described here is but the tip of the iceberg. In Phoenix, organizations including Tiger Mountain Foundation, KEYS Community Center, and Roosevelt School District’s innovative 30 acre Sustainability Education Park are using goal focused green not only to protect their communities for tomorrow, but improve them for today. As more rediscover Grandma’s Green wisdom, one can only dream of what will happen next.

*Patterson Kerry, J. Grenny, D. Maxfield, R. McMillan and A. Switzler 2008. Influencer. McGraw-Hill Books New York New York 299pp

Holding a Ph.D. from the School of Renewable Natural Resources at the University of Arizona George Benjamin Brooks, Jr., is a Public Servant, Environmental Scientist, Sustainability consultant, Publisher, Educator, Leader and Business professional. He is an accomplished writer and editor with a number of scientific publications as well as publishes The Ebony Cactus and NxT Horizon and Southwest Green magazines. He is the vice president of RighTrac a green company focusing on the urban aquaculture of tilapia (fish) and giant freshwater prawns. A frequent writer and contributor to the Arizona Republic Newspaper he is the past Executive Director of the Arizona Commission on African American Affairs, a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Phoenix Black Chamber of Commerce, the Chair of the Board of directors for the Southminster Social Service Agency and a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. He was recently appointed as a member of the Phoenix Union High School District’s Governing Board over Ward 2 (South Mountain (Phoenix) and part of Downtown)

He is married to the former Angela Miller and is the proud father of 4 daughters (Andrea 24, Amanda 23, Haley 19 and Hasina 15) and grandfather to Marcus Reyes 4.

The Green Revival Initiative

http://www.sw-green.com/Green%20Revival.html

Roosevelt School District

http://www.rsd.k12.az.us/

Keys Community Center

http://www.childhelp.org/programs/centers

The Arizona Minority Business Enterprise Center

http://www.azmbec.com/Green_Biz.html