Goodbye to all that

E: The Environmental Magazine, March-April, 1996 by Jim Motavalli

But, in 1993, Dick Roy said goodbye to all that, and he's never felt happier and more fulfilled. "When my wife, Jeanne, and I got married 30 years ago," Roy says, "we made a commitment that our income would not affect the way we lived - it was an external factor. And when I graduated from law school in 1970, we decided that I would support my wife, who would work full time for the Earth. And she's done that." Jeanne Roy founded Recycling Advocates, a citizens group with 130 members, writes a weekly "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" column, and serves as an advisor to the city of Portland on environmental matters.

But the Roys wanted to work together so, in 1991, Dick took four months off to work on environmental projects. He liked it. "By this time, we'd decided that I was either going to keep working and donate 100 percent of my income to environmental causes, or I would become a fulltime volunteer. I chose to become a volunteer, until Earth Day 2000."

In 1993, the Roys founded the Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI), from which they take no salary. "We are trying to develop a group of leaders in the Northwest who are well grounded in the habits, values and actions of living sustainably, and oriented towards protecting the Earth," Roy says. "I believe that we're now in a window in time that began in 1962 when Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published. By the late 60s, there was widespread environmental awareness, but that window will close when people lose hope. The opportunity won't last. We have to take advantage of the fact that we're human beings now, at this critical time."

Dick and Jeanne Roy practice what they preach. For 20 years, they haven't bought disposables and recycle as much as possible. (They fill two trash cans a year.) They compost their food waste, make do with one small car, and rarely buy new clothes. They're thinking of moving to a smaller house.

"I think that cutting down on consumption is extraordinarily important," Roy says. "As the work of [Beyond the Limits author] Donella Meadows demonstrates, even if we stabilize population, the Earth won't stand a chance unless we reduce consumption. Twenty percent of the world's population is using 80 percent of the natural resources. And instead of cutting down, we're trying to create a homogenized world of consumers. We need to reverse the current direction, because there's a lot of inertia heading us down the wrong path."

NWEI focuses on teaching sustainable consumption to people in the workplace. In the three years it's been in existence, it has held 375 discussion sessions with 3,600 participants at jobsites as diverse as Portland General Electric, Hewlett-Packard, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife regional office, Portland State University, the First United Methodist Church of Beaverton and the Society of Portland. Courses include "Voluntary Simplicity," "Deep Ecology" and "The Bioregional Perspective: Discovering Your Natural Community." NWEI has now expanded into the communities around Portland and has opened a new staffed office in Seattle.

The institute will remain focused on the Northwest, where the Roys believe "there is an enormous opportunity for dramatic cultural change that can be a model for the rest of the country." As Dick Roy puts it, "We have three things going for us here: We have a very strong environmental tradition with the first bottle bill and the first land use plan, people who live here have a conscious connection to nature and, the third thing, people are relatively well off and have options."

Sustainable consumption, Roy says, "is a great hook for the Earth. We have a whole generation of young adults who recognize that their material lives will not be equal to their parents. That American Dream is just not available. So the option of leading a simpler life holds enormous appeal. There's a seeming disinterest in the environment now - people feel overwhelmed - but simplicity is so closely related to their lives. It's direct and meaningful, and a good vehicle for change. I think the ethics will follow."

CONTACT: The Northwest Earth Institute, Suite 532, 921 SW Morrison, Portland, OR 97205/(503)227-2807.