What’s better than good?

I remember “grosser than gross” jokes from when I was young (my mother always hated them).  You know:

What’s gross?

Finding a worm in your apple.

What’s grosser than gross?

Finding half a worm in your apple.

There are lots of things that are individually good: electric cars, recycling, composting.

But, what is better than good?

When we work together to create even bigger solutions.

Many of our sustainability solutions are aimed at individual action.  Individual actions can be great – but will only get us so far.  For example, if we rely on individual consumers solving transportation problems, we may end up with a million electric cars on the road.  We will never end up with a dismantling of our wasteful interstate system.  We’ll certainly never hit the even better ideas, such as turning the interstate infrastructure into a public transportation system.

Better than good?  Join together.

Good? Reusable shopping bags.  Better than good? Campaigning for an ordinance banning plastic bags.

Good?  Taking the bus.  Better than good? Working as groups to get our towns / cities to adopt better public transportation systems.

Good? Home compost.  Better than good?  Industrial composting that will actually break down those Sun Chips bags.  (And kudos to Sun Chips for thinking big, even if the first try failed.)

Good? Refilling your water bottles.  Better than good?  Public bottle refill stations that encourage more people to do so.

Each of these real solutions require people working together – better than good.  We can work as governments, neighborhoods, companies, citizen groups, and more.  What unites may of these better than good group solutions is that they are able to create bigger change faster than sitting around waiting for the market to respond.