a conversation with Dean Steele-Bennett of Melbourne Greendrinks

TEN MINUTES WITH
DEAN STEELE-BENNETT

When I first meet Dean Steele-Bennett, he is a blur of smiles, handshakes and laughs as he works his way across the crowded restaurant. He is sporting a very stylish Melbourne-black tie, and is surrounded by beautiful people.

I grab him as he walks past and ask, "If you were a new college graduate with an education and interest in sustainability, who in this room would you talk to about getting an awesome job in that field?"

He pauses, surveys the room quickly, and says, "I know just the person...". I introduce him quickly to Vanessa, whom I have just met at this Greendrinks event, and her jaw drops as she rushes to follow him through the crowd to meet his contact.

Dean is the organizer of Melbourne Sustainability Drinks, one of 3 events listed for Melbourne on the Greendrinks website. He is a volunteer "green collar mentor" to the Fellowship participants undertaking the sustainability leadership program at the Center for Sustainability Leadership, and actively volunteers with other community organizations as well.

"I want to help show people how they can have a fun, cheeky, rewarding, and planet-friendly lifestyle," says Dean. "Living a more sustainable lifestyle does not have to be extreme."

Dean is a co-founder of The Shaper Group, a group of companies that work with businesses, government, and non-profit organizations who want to embrace sustainabilty. Their focus is to help these organizations imrpove their competitive advantage and reputation by embracing more sustainable business practices.

Prior to co-founding The Shaper Group of companies, Dean held various management, consulting, and senior research roles for Russell Reynolds Associates, Korn/Ferry International (FutureStep), and KPMG Executive Search. In addition to successfully identifying CEO, C-Suite, and other executives for leading ASX300, Fortune 500, government and higher education clients internationally, he is passionate about making a positive difference in his community...and is just a very fun guy to hang around with!

For more information about the origins, benefits, and future direction of this event, watch the video interview posted above! Click here for the trailer...

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Links to resources mentioned in the interview:

1. Future Canvas
2. Sustainable Living Foundation
3. Sustainable Living Festival
4. Carbon Innovators Network
   

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how to sail on H-1 freeway

TRAFFIC IN THE BOATYARD

Q: How do you sail a ship from Ko'Olina deep water harbor to Honolulu Yacht Club on the H-1 Freeway?

A: Very Carefully, with very large machinery, and with great care...

HUGE WHEELS!



APPROACHING THE SPEED LIMIT

OK OK OK , just kidding... it was too wet and too windy to capture any footage or images on the 4-hour sail home from Ko'Olina... and the boatyard operations were so interesting I couldn't resist!

VERY LARGE MACHINERY

Anyways, Country Boy is back in the water after much-needed repairs...we sailed back in time to join the fleet coming in from the Friday Night Beer Races...

THE INFAMOUS "COUNTRY BOY"

FISH OUT OF WATER

JIM & HUGO SURVEY THE BOATYARD LANDSCAPE
AS WE ARE TAKEN TO THE SLIP



SKIPPER & FIRST MATE

The winds on this day are 20-25 knots, with gusts up to 34 knots recorded... we are sailing with a limited crew, and the seas are choppy; the boat bucks and pitches through the whitecaps as our Skipper slices deftly though the waves.

We round Campbell Industrial park, and a big US Military plane thunders overhead - a Submarine-Catcher, according to our First Mate. The big four-engined turbo prop will continue its maneuvers for the next 4 hours, repeating the same loop which takes it directly over and over and over and over us again and again for this leg of our journey: landing gear down on final approach to runway, black exhaust fumes trailing, extended tail radar gear ominously watching us. 3 out of 5 of us hold foreign passports, and we joke that they are keeping tabs on us.

There is a massive yellow buoy that looks more like a miniature oil rig off the coast here, that most Oahu residents are unaware of. 90% of Hawaii's energy needs depend upon imported petroleum. A massive tanker is tethered to the buoy, a web of gossamer ropes of each side is anchored to a small armada of tugboats whose job is to keep the tanker steady in the choppy seas so that the pipe does not break and cause an oil spill.

Being out in the ocean on a day like today, with the gusty wind and seas breaking over our bow and marinating us in briny seawater, only highlights how precarious the energy situation in Hawaii is.

Possible solutions? Click here:

"The State's combination of abundant renewable resources, high fossil fuel prices, limited geographic area and recognized expertise in hydrogen research and development makes Hawaii an ideal leader for hydrogen production. "
-from the book "Winning the Oil Endgame", Rocky Mountain Institute-

Download the two reports entitled "Energy for Tomorrow" for more information.

We pass Pearl Harbor approximately 3 nautical miles offshore, and the massive Evil White Dot glares at us from its perch in the middle of the harbor. I've heard that the equipment it houses can detect a mosquito farting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

I didn't know mosquitoes could make it that far out into the ocean; and I didn't know mosquitoes farted, for that matter... That being said, if the equipment housed in that thing really is that powerful, how come it couldn't help keep that silly battleship off the reef outside of Pearl Harbor one month back??

Anyways...on with our sail...the Travel Poet graces us with a beautiful acapella song over the roar of wind and waves, and a flock of seabirds appear, frolicking and wheeling playfully on the wind swirling just above the waves. We are all wet by now; no amount of skill can keep the boat dry in seas like this. First Mate Hugo tells us that on the open ocean, they would be riding over 20-foot swells that roll like the hills of New Zealand, graceful and flowing; not like the washing machine-like conditions that often arise in the seas around the islands.

A pair of whales' spouts, followed by a pair of whales' tails arch out of the water 500 feet or so ahead of us, straight off our bow, and we watch in awe as they continue their journey towards deeper, colder water as their calving season draws closer to its end for this year.

I lick my lips and taste sea salt as I prepare to bite into a poppy seed muffin that is being passed around the crew. The wind is whipping our hair, the boat crashes loudly through the waves breaking around us, and we are all calmly munching on a snack as nature pounds us all around. There is a rythm to sailing that sets in once the initial flight-or-fight response kicks in soon after you clear the harbor and hit sloppy seas, an adrenal high that gradually fades ince you step off the boat and back onto bring, stable, quiet [relatively speaking] dry land.

The sun, which has been muted by the pastel blue ocean and grey clouds all day, bursts through on its final sprint towards the other half of the world, casting a sunset-orange spotlight on all the buildings of downtown Honolulu and Waikiki as we near our destination and nonchalantly join the tail end of the fleet that is out racing this evening. You can almost hear the Honolulu jazz music wafting from the romantically lit buildings gleaming back at us...

We sail the boat all the way into its slip [the engine is still broken], and head back to the clubhouse with satisfied grins on all of our faces to enjoy a cold beer with each other.

Country Boy is an old friend to many sailors in and around Honolulu Yacht Club, has sailed in Hawaii's waters for the last 30 years... and she's baaaaaaaaaaack......

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departure draws nigh, doubts run high

WHERE AM I ?

My departure date draws nearer each day, and I find myself constantly amazed at the doors that are opening to me - sometimes it feels as though the universe is conspiring to fulfill my dreams...

I am meeting writers, filmmakers, activists, volunteers, philanthropists, visionaries ...the world gets smaller each day...and, on other days, the world seems vast and inaccessible...

...these are the days when my electricity gets shut off and I have to come up with $400 that I don't have to pay the entire bill and turn it back on; the days where I speak with the buyer of my house and can hear the doubt in his voice as we drag this transaction further and further along in this limbo we "in the biz" call "escrow"....3 months now, and the guy is having difficulty getting financing from the bank, even though he has perfect credit and is putting 50% down, yes five-zero....HALF OF THE PURCHASE PRICE...towards the purchase of this home....

These are the days when the chatter starts in my mind:

• "WTF am I doing??"
• "How the hell am I going to pay for this??"
• "Who do I think I am anyways, who am I kidding?!?"
  

On these days, this blog seems like a bad mistake, an out-house of misplaced dreams and hopes, a mish-mash of unconnected ideas and threads that make sense to no-one but me....and maybe the 4 people or so who read this [thanks Mom]. The whole idea seems absurd, how the hell can you travel around the world without any money??

Is TheGreenBackpack a travel log? a journal? a spiritual diary? a "green" resource? Are these personal rants relevant? Does anyone even care? Am I writing for an audience [that doesn't even exist yet], or am I writing for me?

One of my best friends left this for me the other day, with the handwritten note "for your blog" scrawled across it:

"Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations."
- Earl Nightengale-

Why did he leave this for me? What about it grabbed him that made him think of me? I'm thinking it's something along the lines of "To Think Is To Create", but there is something else about it that is toying with me, tugging at my mind like that shadow that disappears when you turn your head...

Especially after having spent much of the week with a guy who has decided to devote his life to the fight against climate change, funding trips out of his own pocket to China and India and all over the world to educate people. Passionate, angry, and driven, a reformed Financial Planner with a top 10 firm and later a Professor of Statistics [in former lives] ....and now, he is a self-proclaimed Eco-Soldier.

Tears well in his eyes when he comes to certain parts of his Al-Gore-Inconvenient-Truth-inspired presentation that he shares with me, and the conversation breaks off in moments of despair as he pauses to gather himself when the data gets too heavy.

I can't remember the last time I was that passionate about something.

Comments like "If we're still here" and "If it's not too late" pepper our dialogue, and he speaks with such fervor that I find my own temperature and concern rising.

Why am I concerned with things like art, and photography, and literature... when the glaciers are slipping off of Greenland into the sea? Why am I frolicking in the mountains and valleys of Oahu while humanity is poised to destroy itself, and Honolulu may very well be under 10 feet of water within a few years?

Is global warming a product of our mass consciousness' attitudes and expectations? And if so, then what does that say about the race of humanity....and our chances?

Am I really about to set off to travel the world while the impending doom of our species and planet lurks around the next decade?

Will I embark on a journey of trivial discovery, or can I really use my Ninja skills to help save humanity?

My life has turned into a surreal dream of late, each conversation I have is from two perspectives: talking me, who is engaging in said conversation with subject, and observer me, who watches the whole thing with a bemused smirk and the detached air of someone who is watching a really bad soap opera.

Of course I met this person now, just before I am about to depart. Of course, they have a contact in [insert exotic future destination here] that they would love to introduce me to. Of course, of course, of course, it's all synchronicity, isn't it?

Especially when you risk it all in search of your dreams....who am I kidding, I've got nothing left TO risk ...one of the perks of "losing it all". And, look what I've gained access to:

THE WORLD AT-LARGE

...if we can keep it.