Generation that Gets to Remake the World

Supper Club with Leila Connors

AZ_Sun — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:05:40 -0500

10:30pm Thursday night I sit down on the couch to watch some TV. I am flipping channels to see if I prefer watching Jay Leno, David Letterman or Nightline. I make my decision, but I still have 5 minutes until the show starts, so I flip over to the Planet Green channel, and low and behold there is Leila Connors on Supper Club with Tom Bergeron. I only caught the last half hour of the show, but I watched the show in its entirety on Friday afternoon.

I have seen all the previous Supper Club shows and have enjoyed some more than others mostly due to the topic of conversation. I really enjoyed this show the most because of just one particular point that was addressed that has had me thinking a lot over the last several months.

The point was brought up during dinner that some people don’t want to be inconvenienced with doing a simple ‘green’ thing like carry cloth grocery bags with them to the store. Host Tom Bergeron commented that these people are not so much lazy, but just struggling to get through the day. Actress Aisha Tyler added that it’s not that people don’t care, it is just not as important to them as compared to their everyday pressures. I totally agree with both of them, and saw this first hand last year when confronted in a grocery store.

I was grocery shopping and I brought in with me as I always do my reusable grocery bags. I only brought in 3 reusable bags and the grocery bagger had filled them up and started to put the few remaining items I still had left in a plastic bag. I immediately told him, please don’t put those few items in a plastic bag, just place them in the shopping cart and I will put them in a reusable bag when I get to my car. I always have a lot more bags in my car.

The woman behind me in line who was about my age, said, “Oh PLEASE! Do you really think that one plastic bag is going to ruin the world?”

I replied, “It’s one plastic bag here, and another there, and it all adds up. It’s no big deal to just bag these few items myself when I get to my car in order to help ensure we leave a healthy and livable planet for future generations. It’s a small sacrifice.”

She boldly replied, “I sacrifice plenty, in fact all I do is sacrifice, my whole life has been one big sacrifice.”

WOW! Bad choice of words on my part, I used the word…SACRIFICE. I didn’t mean to, but I obviously hit a nerve, or what Eckhart Tolle calls in his book A New Earth, a ‘Pain Body.’ You didn’t have to be a psychologist to know that this woman has a lot of unhappiness, pain and negativity inside her. So trying to have a discussion with this woman about the environmental importance of bringing your own grocery bags would have been futile.

The part of The 11th Hour that resonated with me the most was said by Wes Jackson at the end of the film, he says, “The deterioration of the environment, of our planet, is an outward mirror of an inner condition. Like inside, like outside, and that‘s the part of the great work.” I couldn’t agree more.

I was happy that The 11th Hour DVD included in the Special Features Section the Religious Perspective. I completely agree with what Rabbi Michael Lerner says, “The environmental movement has to develop a spiritual consciousness and a spiritual approach…The environmental movement not only has to teach the scientific fact, but about the new spiritual vision.”

The biggest disease on our planet is unhappiness because people perceive they are drowning in either debt, poor relationships, family pressures, job/career stresses, or poor health. They feel they are drowning victims always in survival mode. They have forgotten that they already know how to swim. They just need to be reminded of who they are…they ARE swimmers.

So I was thrilled to hear Leila talk about the premise of her next film which continues on the theme of - What’s going on in the world is a reflection of an inner condition. The film will address the questions…Why are we here? Who are we? What is God?...in relationship to the environment and our survival. I can’t wait for this one to come out.

Yes Leila, you can pull this off.

You can still see this episode of Supper Club on Sunday August 10th, and on Monday August 11th. See schedule HERE.

Environmental Educational Tool for Teachers and Students.

mhaney — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:59:00 -0500

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On the right of that you will see the black which states "switch to eco lesson plans" Click It, then you will see it change to the ECO LESSON PLANS, type in your search and learn!!!

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

11thhouraction — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:43:46 -0500

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Americans ditching the car

11thhouraction — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:03:48 -0500

Commuters are driving less, the federal government says. Workers are leaving their cars at home and finding other ways to get to work. Highway funds at risk.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May compared with a year earlier, according to a report Monday from the Federal Highway Administration.

North America’s Largest Environmental Competition

AZ_Sun — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:22:55 -0500

More than 265 teenagers from 44 U.S. states and nine Canadian provinces will meet at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff this week to participate as finalists in North America's largest high-school environmental-education competition, the 2008 Canon Envirothon.

The Canon Envirothon is an annual competition in which winning state/provincial teams compete for recognition and scholarships by demonstrating their knowledge of environmental science and natural resource management. The teams, each consisting of five high school-aged students exercise their critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Green Becomes Official Color of Baseball

11thhouraction — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:39:57 -0500

NEW YORK -- When baseball's legendary greats came rolling up Sixth Avenue this month for the annual Hall of Fame parade, the familiar red carpet was distinctly green.

That's not talking about the hue.

The carpet, stretching for 20 blocks through Midtown, was made entirely of recycled fiber and manufactured using solar and wind power.

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Site provided by www.washingtonpost.com

Businesses Emerge to Help School Fund-Raisers Go Green

AZ_Sun — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:18:03 -0500

Parents and Kids Want Goods to Sell That Do Some Good

For decades, children have hawked candy and cookie dough to friends and family to help fund extracurricular activities and school playgrounds.

Now a handful of entrepreneurs have set out to change that paradigm, offering ecologically friendly products for kids and parents to sell for school fund-raisers. From recycled wrapping paper to fair-trade coffee, the business owners are pitching the products as viable fund-raising alternatives for schools.

It's good timing, as schools race to eliminate junk food in the face of rising childhood obesity rates, and state and local governments crack down on junk-food sales in schools. At the same time, green is in, and parents and teachers are paying more attention to energy use and pollutants.

Corinne Dowst, head of fund raising for the Parent Teacher Association at Henniker Community School in Henniker, N.H., says she was looking for new fund-raising ideas after her school's disappointing holiday sale of ornaments and related items last year. Concerns about children's products made in China helped put a damper on that sale, she says.

When Ms. Dowst saw an ad for Greenraising, a start-up fund-raising company that sells eco-friendly products, she was hooked. The school organized a spring sale around Earth Day, and circulated copies of the Greenraising catalog, which features such products as recycled gift-wrap paper and reusable water bottles. The result was the school's most successful fund-raiser in nearly three years, grossing about $2,500, Ms. Dowst says.

To date, Greenraising has helped about 500 schools and nonprofits raise money, says Lisa Olson, who founded the Agoura Hills, Calif., company last year. The company asks schools or nonprofits to distribute its catalog, from which customers then buy directly. For an item that costs, say, $20, Greenraising keeps $12 and returns $8 to the school or nonprofit. The company has grown to five full-time employees, Ms. Olson says.

Kids hear conflicting messages in today's complex society, Ms. Olson says, and too many school fund-raisers add to that confusion. "We're telling the kids about obesity and selling cookie dough," she observes. "We're telling them about global warming, and they come home with this big catalog of wrapping paper with no recycled content."

Parental Guidance
Some eco-friendly fund-raisers have come to another realization as well: It's the parents who are taking on more of the fund raising -- largely because of fears about their kids' safety -- and they'd rather buy and sell products that they want to use themselves.

"We learned whom we're selling to -- the kids' moms," says Corey Berman, president and co-founder of Green Students Fundraising Ltd., a Toronto-based company he started after graduating from college in 2006. "My friends would never buy these products, but I talk to people like moms and it's a different story."

Green Students began by selling energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs. But as more mainstream retailers began offering them, Mr. Berman says, the company wasn't able to compete on cost and knew it had to diversify. So, the company started selling stainless-steel water bottles, which got a lift from the recent outcry against bisphenol A, a chemical commonly found in plastic water bottles. Green Students also sells dryer balls, a reusable product that softens clothes while reducing drying time. The company, which relies on a focus group of area moms who test potential new products, became profitable in May. It uses catalogs to sell its goods and tries to keep prices under 20 Canadian dollars (about US$19.80).

One challenge these companies face is coming up with products that parents and friends will purchase year after year. Both Greenraising and Green Students say they plan to periodically change the items in their catalogs to keep them fresh, as well as offer products such as environmentally friendly household cleaners that consumers may want to purchase repeatedly.

"Every successful fund-raising company offers something that's fairly low-priced and offers frequency of purchase," says Tim Sullivan, founder of PTO Today, a Wrentham, Mass., magazine for parent-teacher organizations. "Like gift wrap," Mr. Sullivan says. "Every family uses it."

Strong Brew
Lots of families also buy coffee, which is something that led eco-minded schools to contact Chris Treter, co-founder of Higher Grounds Trading Co., a fair-trade coffee roaster in Traverse City, Mich. Fair-trade coffee is a concept begun a few years ago by small producers that wanted to show consumers their coffee is produced under conditions beneficial to workers and the environment. Schools looking to incorporate lessons about the environment and labor standards will call and ask if they can purchase the coffee for a fund-raiser, Mr. Treter says.

Today, school and church fund-raisers represent about 10% of Higher Grounds' business, Mr. Treter says, and that number is on the rise. So far, it's mostly the organizations that have reached out to him. For no money upfront, he supplies coffee to the school or organization, which then sells it at retail prices. The seller then reimburses Mr. Treter at the wholesale price of the coffee.

For a company that's not primarily in the fund-raising business, he says, the format is cumbersome. Higher Grounds has to come up with individualized order forms for each school to give to students, and explain the ordering process to teachers and administrators. "It's a lot more time-consuming than going into a grocery store that orders every two weeks," Mr. Treter says.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Country, the City Version: Farms in the Sky Gain New Interest

11thhouraction — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:38:10 -0500

What if “eating local” in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away? And what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food?

Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Dr. Despommier’s pet project is the “vertical farm,” a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact.

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Site provided by www.nytimes.com

Kids on Earth

11thhouraction — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:34:33 -0500

Kids on Earth (www.kidsonearth.org) is an ongoing, worldwide art project with a mission to inspire kids to raise awareness about global warming and the environment through their creativity.We are asking for writing and art submissions from kids between the ages of 5 and 12. Basically, we want you to show or tell us what's most important about your world. This could be a drawing of the earth itself, or a picture of letter about something or someone who means the world to you. Remember, creativity makes the world go around!

Organic producer jump-starts his company with Whole Foods loan

AZ_Sun — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:13:24 -0500

The business section of the Arizona Republic today featured a real success story about a local Phoenix man, Justin Baumgartner, who in 2006 started his own company Laughing Giraffe Organics, which produces raw, vegan, organic products, including macaroons and granola.

Earning $50 a day at a local farmers market is a tough way to make a living, and it's hardly an incentive to start your own business. But it didn't deter Justin Baumgartner.