Rob Greenfield: Living in Line with Your Values
“And I decided to just change my life one bit at a time. You know, none of the individual steps to start with are necessarily radical in themselves, but all of it adding up together, created a radically different place than I was living before.”
In this episode of EcoResolution Interviews Ruby sits down with Rob Greenfield, where together they discuss localisation, waste, consumerism, inequality and how individual choices and actions can help us to live a life aligned with our values.
“Life is a accumulation of many intricate little parts of the web coming together and the reality is we live in a very complex globalised, industrialised world where all of our daily actions have ripples around the world in ways that we never would fathom.”
The relationship between individual change and systemic change is a pivotal part of EcoResolution, and also of the wider movement for fairer, just societies and healthy ecosystems. We often come across debates as to whether our individual choices have any impact, and also whether it is fair to expect individuals to make such changes when wider structures continue to exploit both human life and the natural world. That is why we loved chatting with Rob Greenfield, an inspiring example of living in line with your values and demonstrating the power of even the smallest of actions.
In this interview we learn what keeps Rob motivated and inspired, and discuss what happens when you transition from a dependence on our globalised economy, to a dependence on the strength and kindness of community.
“I'm just always inspired by people who are standing up, who see something wrong, and they just decide to stand up to it, whether it's organised, like creating a small nonprofit that works to make a positive difference in their community, or just an individual person who is changing their life .”
During much of Rob’s teens and early 20s his life was focused on money, possessions, and mainstream ideas of success (as shaped by the “American Dream”). He had the goal of being a millionaire by age 30. His life took a great turn at the age of 24 when he started to become aware of the environmental and social issues of his generation. He realised the his current lifestyle was contributing to many of these problems from the food he was eating, to the car he was driving and the stuff he was buying and consuming. At that point he began his transformation.
Rob started with small changes such as shopping local, reducing the amount of trash he created, eating a more whole-food, local diet, removing chemical products from his life and using reusable bags and water bottles. Building on the success of these small changes, he took greater leaps of change such as getting rid of his car, pulling all his money out of investments and banks harmful to the environment and decreasing his dependency on money altogether. Since he began his transformation, he has adapted hundreds of small changes into his life in an effort to live for the benefit of many and to do no unnecessary harm to the lives of any.
But how easy is it to commit to this lifestyle within a wider system of economic globalisation and corporatisation?
“In a globalised system, what we do is we send all of our resources and our money out into large corporations, and we deplete our own self-sufficiency and sovereignty and our ability to take care of one another, and instead become dependent upon these corporations which really don't care that much about our communities, or us as individuals - that's not that's not their purpose.”
“People like to think that if they earn money, and they can buy everything they need and pay for all the services, that they're actually independent - they don't need anybody else. But the truth is that behind every dollar that's spent, there's someone there and there's other species, and there's an environment. It's a complete illusion of independence, and it's a big problem, because it allows people to not think about the truth behind their actions and the implications behind their actions.”
Go further into Localisation here.
Rob Greenfield is an adventurer, environmental activist, and humanitarian. He is dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable and just world. He is the creator of The Food Waste Fiasco, a campaign that strives to end food waste and hunger in the U.S. Rob has cycled across the U.S. three times on a bamboo bicycle bringing his message of sustainability and earth-friendly living to the United States. His first bike ride across the U.S. is also a book, Dude Making a Difference. In 2016, he landed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil without a penny in his pocket on a mission to travel 7,000 miles and seven countries away, all while relying only on the goodness of humanity. This adventure is a six-episode series called Free Ride on Discovery Channel that played worldwide. Rob donates 100% of his media income to grassroots nonprofit organisations and his financial net worth is kept to a bare minimum. All of Rob’s extreme adventures and activism campaigns are meant to bring attention to important environmental and social issues and to inspire positive change. Find out more here.
