Jill Kiedaisch's Blog

As I race around this holiday season, pulling late nights wrapping and boxing up countless gifts to friends and relatives far and wide, then lugging said packages in great heaps to the post office for ground or priority or rush shipping, depending on the day and my state of mind, I have to take a moment to acknowledge the efficiency and simple industry of the cardboard box.

So basic. So useful. So ubiquitous. So kind of boring. But what would we do without them? Really. They come in all sizes. They’re pretty sturdy. They’re basic in that clean, no frills, Dwell Magazine sort of way. They come equipped with various flaps, slits and tucks for easy transformation into the squares and rectangles that we fill with stuff.

Photo: Walden Pond, Creative Commons

I saw a girl today wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan, “If you don’t have it, you don’t need it.”

My first thoght was, Probably true. My second thought was, Only in this country would a shirt like that read like a poignant insight. My third thought: If that’s the case, so much for capitalism and the market economy. And then with a smidgen of sarcasm, What are we all so worried about?!

Yes, Thomas Friedman has done it again. He’s made me say “YES!” and “THANK YOU!” aloud to myself in my office.

Why? Because he’s “all stocked up on crazy,” and so am I. Friedman's New York Times Op-Ed column “Is It Weird Enough Yet?”, published on September 13, cuts to the quick of the absurdity and ignorance of recent (and past) claims that climate change is “some fraud perpetrated by scientists trying to gin up money for research.”

I happened to be reading this column while listening to The Climate Reality Project, a 24-hour, live, worldwide stream (currently in its 21^st hour) featuring experts and scientists from 24 time zones. One of these scientists was explaining that with each degree of warming, the atmosphere can hold more water—an unsettling percentage more that I have since forgotten, or blocked out.

Photo: Matt Kiedaisch

Many Vermonters haven’t had the time or space to fully process the destruction caused by Tropical Storm Irene.

They’re either still completely cut off from the world without services of any kind, they’re struggling to get access to critical supplies and services, or they’re in the throes of a massive cleanup effort—one likely to last for weeks, even months to come.

I’m one of the lucky ones, able to watch from the safety of a community not badly affected by the storm. My home is dry, my family safe—sadly, not the case for so many of my fellow Vermonters.

It’s not every day this small northeastern state lands a top story in The New York Times, and I wish it didn’t have to happen as a result of such severe devastation. (There are countless positive Vermont stories that merit national headlines and the attention of people across the country.) But, as is often the case, out of the seemingly impenetrable layer of bad news have sprouted some uplifting shoots of goodwill and true grit: the stories of regular citizens going out of their way—and in some cases, putting themselves in serious danger—to help each other.

You hear a lot of talk about sustainability and the Green Revolution, about shrinking carbon footprints and maximizing solar gain, about new, innovative methods for building energy efficient homes using local or renewable or recycled materials.

You also hear a lot about how these methods can be prohibitively expensive, sensible only for those with large expendable incomes that afford them the luxury to consider their impact on the environment—unlike most other, average, working Americans.

Well, here’s a story about a young couple of Annapolis, Maryland, who have neither expendable incomes nor much “luxury” in the way of resources, time or connections, let alone cash. They have three children, ages 11, 6 and 1. One, Carri Beer, is an architect at Brennan + Company Architects, the other, Michael Hindle, a Passive House consultant who works out of their small home in Catonsville while also caring for their youngest. Read their bios here at INDRAlogic, a passive house and holistic sustainability architecture firm they co-founded.

It’s finally a sunny, warmish day here in Vermont—please cease your cackling, all you mild climate folks—and now that Easter is upon us, we northeasternerns will be damned if we can’t finally, formally declare that Spring has arrived.

(I’m sitting beside an open door right now! With the sun pouring in! And a breeze touseling the tax report my accountant sent me recently! So I have on wool socks and sweater...minor detail.)

Religious traditions aside, this is already an auspicious occasion.

You’ve probably heard of Braddock, Pennsylvania given the attention it’s gotten for its rising-from-the-ashes, against-all-odds resurgence over the past decade or so.

Much of the credit for this renewal has gone to Braddock’s Mayor, John Fetterman, who has committed his own money to projects ranging from an at-risk youth program to a church-turned-community-center to a non-profit called Braddock Redux, which puts up money for community revitalization projects and advances what Fetterman calls his “social-justice agenda.”

Susan Halpern recently wrote a story for The New York Times about Fetterman called “Mayor of Rust”. She lauds Fetterman and his folk-hero status—“a Paul Bunyan hipster of urban revival.” And this seems appropriate given his demonstrated commitment to Braddock, where poverty is the norm and 27 consecutive months without a homicide is really astonishingly good news.

Photo: Lauren Bierman
When Peter Day of The Grift sang the opening lines of The Grateful Dead’s “Shakedown Street,” kicking off a heart-pumping rendition of the song by an all-star cast of local musicians at a concert to benefit Pete’s Greens at Higher Ground, it was as though all the key reasons why I love Vermont—spirited community, lively arts scene, delicious local food, good friends—were colliding into a single, adrenaline-packed moment.

“You tell me this town ain't got no heart,” Peter sang, with Clint Bierman and Page McConnell on harmonies. “Well, well, well, you can never tell.”

If you’ve ever doubted the heart of community, this story will give you hope: Before dawn on January 12, Pete Johnson’s barn—housing all his harvested crops, tons of chicken, beef and pork, coolers, freezers and processing equipment—burned to the ground. A total loss. But countless Vermont citizens, driven by their belief in Pete’s mission as well as their reliance on this critical, local resource, have since proven that a community can and will come together to turn tragedy into a force of grassroots mobilization to be reckoned with.