Screengrab from Why? Simply Because video; Footage by JobBook News; Photos by Kimberley Mok
Prompted by my curiosity about the global movement known as Occupy Wall Street, on Saturday I headed out to the Occupons Montreal / Occupy Montreal protests, which mirrored similar events springing up in Read the full story on TreeHugger
Photo credit: USGS
Oil companies have done much to contribute to climate change. Of course, they extract, distribute, and sell a product that, when burned, emits heat-trapping greenhouse gases. But they also have used part of their profits to engage in efforts designed to convince the public that this should cause no alarm. Finally, they devote even more of their resources to back politicians who obstruct climate and clean energy policies that would reduce carbon emissions at large.
Their strategies have appeared to pay off -- now ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
I wrote the other day about a green cleaning service in New York. If you're interested in doing some green cleaning of your own, click through for a quick overview of how to make your own cleaners from natural, nontoxic ingredients. It's the most condensed how-to you're likely to find anywhere. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Photo credit: EricaJoy via Flickr/CC BY
Who likes oil subsidies? Nobody! Nobody but the oil companies, that is. But as we know, these subsidies, which American taxpayers annually spend billions of dollars on, are extremely difficult to kill. But 35 US congressmen and women are going to try: They've just drafted a motion to the so-called 'super committee' charged with reducing the deficit, asking it to remove $122 billion worth of oil subsidies from the federal budget. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Image: Etsy.com
Things are looking bleak for wildlife in New Zealand as the disastrous oil spill grows even worse. Oil-soaked Read the full story on TreeHugger
Water-strapped Tuvalu. Photo credit: mrlns via Flickr/CC BY
Climate change largely to blame
It's a particularly bad time to live in a low-lying island nation. With global warming continuing unmitigated, rising sea levels and increasingly violent storms aren't just dangerous. They're existential threats. Island nations like Tuvalu and Maldives have become famous in recent years for their impassioned pleas for action on climate change. And the mental image these nations' plights are capable of conjuring -- entire countries disappearing...Read the full story on TreeHugger
![studentmentor.org How to Start an Online Platform that Matches Students with Mentors [VIDEO]](http://www.greenmarketing.tv/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/studentmentor.org_.jpg "studentmentor.org")
Working almost like a dating service for mentors and college students, StudentMentor is a nonprofit organization that helps to match people up to enhance the education process for anyone interested. Ashkon Jafari is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of StudentMentor and has tons of wisdom to impart to those interested in discovering the ins and outs of establishing an innovative nonprofit organization like this in the US. Listen in to this interview between Ashkon and Lorna Li for a glimpse into his thoughts on:
You’ll also learn about how beneficial having a mentor can be for your earning potential and future career success.
![ashkon jafari How to Start an Online Platform that Matches Students with Mentors [VIDEO]](http://www.greenmarketing.tv/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ashkon-jafari.jpg "ashkon-jafari")
Ashkon Jafari is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of StudentMentor.org, a nonprofit organization leveraging technology to provide mentorship to college students across the country. Previously, Ashkon was the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Making a Difference for Good USA, a nonprofit working to improve the lives of rural Cambodians through rural development and education. Prior to that role, he worked in finance for NVIDIA and was a key player on their philanthropic team. Ashkon is the creator and host of Social Innovation Live, a talk show where he has interviewed a Nobel Laureate and many leaders from around the world, and sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation. Ashkon graduated in the top 1% of his class and has a B.S. in Finance from Santa Clara University. He is a StartingBloc Fellow.
Connect with Ashkon on Twitter and Facebook.
Resources
Tools
Companies Mentioned
Image & video: The D*Haus Company
The idea that our built environment can be fluid, adapting to the needs and constraints of the moment, is something that isn't seen often. But so-called "transformer spaces," "transformer furniture" and "genetic architecture" are all examples of ho...Read the full story on TreeHugger
The rapidly falling costs of solar and the rapid growth of clean energy are causing ripples of excitement in an otherwise depressed economy. But we should not forget that old adage that the cheapest energy is almost always the energy you don't use. That's why it's particularly exciting to read over at GreenBiz that Read the full story on TreeHugger
Photos by Jerry James Stone
Nothing quite captures the flavors of butternut squash like these pillowy dumplings. Dressed in a poppy seed and butter sauce, this dish is bound to be a fall-time favorite. Enjoy it with good friends and a nicely chilled bottle of Chardonnay. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Image credit: FOE UK
When we hosted a live chat with Solarcentury's Jeremy Leggett, he was unequivocal in describing the relationship between fossil fuels and clean energy as nothing short of "civil war". Interestingly, he also singled out many utilities as clinging desperately to the old way of doing things and a centralized, fossil-fuel driven business model. As Read the full story on TreeHugger
Image credit Michael Jantzen
Lately we've been covering some of the amazing early work by designer Michael Jantzen (see how the Retro 1970s Solar Vacation House by Michael Jantzen is Still Relevant).
For his mother's house, Jantzen turned to out of off-the-shelf agricultural building parts.
Nebraska Rancher Susan Luebbe testifies against the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline from Sierra Club National on Vimeo.
Susan Luebbe's testimony at last week's State Department hearing on TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline was very moving. We'd already heard from college students, a union representative, environmental organization leaders (including me), and more - but to hear testimony from a land-owner in the path of this destructive and dangerous pipeline was ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Photos: iMacquarium website
Electronic waste is a huge environmental issue that carries global impact. Though there are plenty of interesting e-waste recycling ideas out there, here is probably one of the most creative re-use strategies we've seen for e-waste: turning the prismatic shells of old Apple iMac G3s into amazing aquariums.
...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Peter Lehner
“Americans actually do care about their health. They don’t want their kids have to be poisoned in order for them to get a job. They value their natural heritage.”
“One should not read what’s going on the House of Representatives as an indication of where America wants to be.”
That’s Peter Lehner talking. Peter, a 52-year-old environmental lawyer, is executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of America’s most important environmental groups. The NRDC has a $95 million budget, about 400 employees and about 1.3 million members. They’re big and they represent a lot of people.
And yet the NRDC and its allies are getting nowhere in Washington.
They’re struggling to protect the EPA against unrelenting Republican attacks.
And, as Elizabeth Rosenthal wrote the other day in the Times, climate change–arguably the biggest problem facing mankind–has devolved into a non-issue. The “fading of global warming from the political agenda is a mostly American phenomenon,” she wrote.
Why?
That was the question on my mind when I met recently with Peter, who is thoughtful and smart, to talk about the politics of climate. That’s not my specialty, but I came with an idea: The green groups that try to persuade Americans that environmental protection is good for their jobs and pocketbooks–that is, that green is in our self-interest–have missed opportunities to frame the environment and especially climate as moral issues, in ways that would appeal to our higher and better selves. Put another way, the big NGOs that focus on policy are not as comfortable talking about culture and religion.
So I wondered what the NRDC had learned from the failure of cap-and-trade—the scheme to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that was rejected by Congress—and whether its leaders are rethinking their message.
As best as I can tell from Peter, the answer is no or at least not yet, anyway.
He offered several explanations for the defeat of cap-and-trade, most of them familiar and arguably true. Enviros were outspent by polluters, he said, who succeeded in re-branding the Waxman-Markey legislation passed by the house as a “job-killing energy tax.” (According to the Center for the American Progress Action Fund, “Big Oil, Dirty Coal, and other special interests like the American Petroleum Institute combined spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers and filling their campaign coffers.”) It’s very difficult to pass major legislation of any kind during an economic downturn, and few complex and sweeping pieces of legislation are enacted on their first go-around. (Although cap-and-trade has been talked about in Congress.) Maybe cap-and-trade was too complicated; maybe a tax on carbon pollution, with the money rebated to people, would be simpler.
“If you look at history,” Peter said, “the fact that we didn’t get this big bill through in the face of enormous amounts of money, during a recession and on the first try should not be a surprise.”
So what now? Build bridges, he says: “To take on strong interests, we need a broad alliance of voices.” Public health groups and parents can be enlisted to talk about the health effects of pollution. National security and military people can talk about imported oil. Business leaders can talk about the clean energy economy.
“The environmentalists can’t carry this ball by ourselves,” he says. Again, this is true enough, but those groups were enlisted as allies during the 2009-2010 debate. The trouble is, none worked very hard.
Time may be the green groups’ best ally. “Eventually, reality will win,” Peter said. “Those who claim the climate isn’t change are eventually going to be seen as ostriches with their head in the sand.” What’s more, as businesses and consumers save money with energy efficiency and adopt clean energy, they will see that “you can actually have a better life through a lot of the solutions we are talking about.” Again, this makes sense, but time is short. And, while some people may get excited by the smart grid or solar rooftops, others don’t want transmission lines or wind farms in their neighborhood.
It’s easy for policy-oriented organizations like the NRDC to forget that we’re driven by emotion as well as logic–and that there’s nothing wrong with that. Some people get involved with environmental issues because they want to leave their children a better future. Others do so because they love the outdoors and don’t want to see it trashed. Those with a strong sense of fairness are troubled when polluters cause harm, and not held accountable.
Protecting the earth is fundamentally a moral issue, I suggested to Peter, and perhaps environmentalists should do more to enlist religious allies. Of course, he agreed.
“I would hope that the faith voices would make it a more important issue,” he said. “Some are.”
Yes, some are. [See Interfaith Power and Light, the Evangelical Environmental Network, and COEJL, a Jewish environmental group.] But not enough.
When our conversation ended, I gave Peter a book called Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves by Adam Hochschild. It’s a riveting account of the British movement to end slavery, which was the world’s first grass-roots movement. The parallels to the environmental movement are at best imperfect – abolitionists did not have to contend with Exxon Mobil or Fox News – but the 19th century global economy as dependent on slavery as today’s economy is reliant on fossil fuels. (And, while people will have to pay more for electricity if dirty coal gives way to solar and wind power, our ancestors presumably absorbed rising prices when slaves were replaced by workers who were paid for their labor.) The anti-slavery movement was at its heart a moral and religious crusade. So, of course, was the 1960s civil rights movement.
Environmentalists today desperately need a movement, and while you can find the beginnings of one if you look—see 350.org or Tar Sands Action or maybe even OccupyWallStreet—it’s hard to build a movement without religious voices.
350.org in San Francisco
Image credit: The Center for a New American Dream
When I posted a video about Portland's tool libraries, one commenter wished that he had something similar in Boise—and I am sure he was not alone. The idea of being able to borrow tools you rarely use, rather than fork out large amounts of cash and then have them sit around the house, is certainly an appealing one. But the encouraging thing about tool libraries and similar sharin...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Photo: Kelly Rossiter
Cauliflower has such an affinity for Indian spicing, that I often turn to Indian recipes when I get one. It's not one of my husband's favourite vegetables, but he's always willing to eat it if I make an Indian recipe. Aloo gobi is one of those traditional dishes that has many, many recipes. When we order it in our local Indian restaurant, ...Read the full story on TreeHugger
Photo: B. Alter
The marathon of talks about every aspect of gardens lasted for two days. This TreeHugger lasted for one, but what a day it was.
The Garden Marathon was organized by the Serpentine Gallery. Held in a geodesic dome with a christmas tree outside (?), inside was a series of speakers ranging from stories of shame totem poles (more common than one would think) to the architect of the fabulous Vertical Forest in Milan....Read the full story on TreeHugger
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