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Overview

  • 54 references 51 Confirmed & Positive
  • Fluent in English; learning Spanish
  • 69, Male
  • Member since 2009
  • Writer/consultant/speaker
  • B.A., Antioch College and continuous self-education
  • From New York City, NY, USA
  • Profile 100% complete

About Me

Please give at least a day's notice, preferably more. I only check my messages once or twice a day.

CURRENT MISSION
Use the power of business and the profit motive to turn hunger and poverty into sufficiency, war into peace, and catastrophic climate change into planetary balance. Move the world toward ethical, eco-friendly, peace-oriented practices. Currently working on a book about how to be an effective activist when your 60 or older.

ABOUT ME
Author of ten books (mostly on business/marketing as a catalyst for change), but also on having fun cheaply and on environmental issues). Live on a working dairy farm in Massachusetts (we don't farm it--our neighbors do). With my wife, co-founded the movement that saved our mountain from a really disastrous housing development.
Spent a week witnessing and working on the US-Mexico border in 2020, Lifelong entrepreneur and activist, very interested in social media (I've been active since 1995). Operate several websites, including http://goingbeyondsustainability.com, http://frugalfun.com, and various others. Post a daily gratitude journal on Facebook since March, 2018.

International speaker, especially proud of my TEDx Talk,
"Impossible is a Dare: Business for a Better World"
http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809

Current environmental and social justice activities: immigration justice, safe energy/opposing nuclear and fossil power, local and national electoral politics, elder activism, speaking to business owners about how to build profitable environmental and social justice initiatives.

PHILOSOPHY
Every person can make a difference in the world--especially when joining with others. Ordinary people change the world, over and over again--if we believe we can.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

A visit is much richer if it includes the chance to meet people in a real world setting. Many of my best travel experiences happened either as a homestay host or traveler. I've been a homestay traveler/host with Servas since 1983, have traveled extensively, stayed with and hosted many wonderful people from all over the world. On Couchsurfing since 2009. It's not about the bed, but the visit. We like cooking vegetarian meals, hanging out and talking, connecting guests with relevant resources, showing the sights (or at least directing to you toward the best ones for your interests), and talking about the world.

IMPORTANT: THERE IS ALMOST NO PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION (there is one bus that goes by a few times a day and stops about 1/3 mile away). WE ARE 7 MILES FROM NORTHAMPTON AND 9 FROM AMHERST. IF YOU WANT TO STAY WITH US, YOU WILL NEED YOUR OWN TRANSPORTATION (personal vehicle, taxis, Lyft, Uber, Zipcar, or a good bike that can climb steep hills on roads with fast traffic and in some places no shoulder). If you can't swing that, maybe we can meet for a meal or coffee in one of the nearby towns, but it will not work to stay with us. Also, we are NOT CONVENIENT TO THE BOSTON AREA. Boston is 100 miles/160 km and takes two hours by car, three via public transit.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE
Visited 50 states and more than 50 countries on five continents. Have done homestay visits through Couchsurfing and Servas in many of them.

Interests

Environmental and social justice, activism, business ethics, marketing, copywriting, publishing, land use, transportation, alternative energy, local economies, community self-sufficiency, politics, books, music, gourmet vegetarian food, fair trade and organic food (including the darkest possible chocolate). My own most recent (10th) book is Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World, all about how business can profit by creating and marketing products and services that directly make a difference on things like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. I'm working on my 11th book, on how to be an effective and spunky activist at 60 or older.

See my TEDx at http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809 (click on "Event Videos"), and my main website, http://goingbeyondsustainability.com

  • culture
  • writing
  • books
  • environment
  • ethics
  • dining
  • cooking
  • chocolate
  • vegetarian
  • organic food
  • politics
  • traveling
  • music
  • business
  • communications
  • entrepreneurship
  • climate justice

Music, Movies, and Books

MUSIC: folk, folk-rock, world beat, classical. Favorite artists include Lorena McKennett, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Indigo Girls, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Rachmaninof, Bob Blue, Rolling Stones, The Who, the Temptations, and many more.

BOOKS: A Wrinkle in Time, The Golem and the Jinni, Anastasia Krupnick, Escaping Into the Night, Playing Dad's Song, Blue Economy 3.0, Net Positive, Business Solution to Poverty, the Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Harry Potter, The Color Purple, The Golden Compass, Hug Your Customers, Love Is the Killer App, Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul, Revolutionary Nonviolence, Co-opetition, The Company We Keep, Values-Driven Business, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?, The Success Principles, The Power of Nice, Small Is Beautiful, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, The Great Formula, Influencer, Javatrecker, Cash Copy…

MOVIES: Life Is Beautiful, Big Fish, You Can't Take It With You, Bringing Up Baby, Thank You for Smoking, Wag the Dog, American Dreamz, Mrs Doubtfire, RBG, pretty much anything with Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, or Katharine Hepburn

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Here are two: Started a successful movement to save our local mountain. Was part of the 1977 Seabrook nuclear power plant occupation that birthed the safe energy movement as a national force in the US.

Teach, Learn, Share

Business ethics, social change, and eco-friendly policies as success drivers
How to write and publish a book
Speaking around the country and around the world on Green and ethical business success, elder activism, book publishing and marketing, and social change
Frugal and ethical marketing
Local community organizing
Having fun cheaply
Great-tasting, healthy vegetarian and vegan cooking (and I know many dishes that are gluten-free and//or low-FODMAP)

What I Can Share with Hosts

A positive attitude about change. Good vegetarian home cooking. Lots of travel and organizing and culture stories.

Countries I’ve Visited

Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Cambodia, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Iceland, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Palestine, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Viet Nam, Wales

Old School Badges

  • Pioneer Badge

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