About

Global Climate Change is real. We may not know the exact impacts, but they are with us already: collapsing antarctic ice shelves, rising sea levels, violent weather. Nearly every major oil company is now taking action — that says something about the seriousness of the issue.

Emergency Picnic was formed to help organizations and individuals implement practical means and methods for affecting the issue at the local level. And this blog is focused on the things we can do on the ground and in our communities to be more sustainable, but it’s more than that.

This is a long-term issue — a long emergency, as Jim Kunstler calls it. But it’s also an exciting and important challenge. It will not only affect future generations, but involve them. We will have to sit down around the tables – breakfast, conference,  and make change happen.

Addressing the issue will require many incremental changes in everyday life and some big changes in how we do things as a country and global society. The challenge will be easier to meet if we recognize that it need not be dull and plodding work. This is an exciting time and an opportunity to reconnect with how the natural earth and the human world work and interrelate. It might be fun…

Emergency Picnic is written by Kevin Pierce, an architect and urban designer. I’ve been working exclusively in sustainability since 1998. At my day job I’m Director of Sustainable Design for Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure, Inc. and Managing Director of Shaw Sustainable Design Solutions of Illinois, LLC, an architecture, engineering, and planning firm focuses exclusively on high-performance, low-impact design of buildings and places.

Nothing I write in this blog should be construed to represent my employer.