Futurama’s Leela is an EcoFeminist Hero, Sort of

Ecofeminism, civil disobedience for environmental causes, galactic golf and species extinction: all of this and more is featured on ‘Into the Wild Green Yonder’, the last of a series of straight-to-DVD Futurama movies.

Central to the story is a group of pink-wearing eco-feminists riding around in a ‘Vagiroscope’ battling to save an asteroid of primitive life forms from destruction by a businessman who has created the biggest game of (supremely environmentally unfriendly) miniature golf ever played.

Here’s a quick clip:

Futurama	Weeknights, 9p/8c
Into the Wild Green Yonder – Eco-Feminists
www.comedycentral.com
Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

If you missed ‘Into the Wild Green Yonder’ when it played on Sunday night and you’re too lazy to Netflix it, it’ll be replaying this Wednesday, September 2nd, at 7pm EST on Comedy Central.

But wait, there’s more! Previous green-themed Futurama episodes include ‘The Problem with Popplers’, ‘A Taste of Freedom’     and ‘The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz’, and they even covered poo power.

Link [Comedy Central]

Greenpeace Praises McDonalds’ Eco-Fridge

Is Greenpeace turning over a new, softer leaf? The organization known for taking a hard-line stance against companies that are known to have unsustainable or polluting practices now seems to be more open to encouraging small steps toward improvement. First there was their dramatic turnaround on paper company Kimberly-Clark, and now they’re praising… McDonalds.

From Triple Pundit:

While McDonalds is one of the “last corporations [Greenpeace] want[s] to say anything good about,” (Greenpeace’s website says), Greenpeace has decided to give credit where credit is due (in this instance anyway). The interchange raises some interesting issues, since Greenpeace isn’t exactly known for being diplomatic (think “graffiti on Hewlett Packard buildings”) and Micky D’s has traditionally been far from sustainability-minded. Is this a Big Mac-sized mood swing, a fluke, or a genuine change – on both organizations’ parts?

The Greenpeace article emphasizes McDonald’s opening of a restaurant (in Denmark) equipped with environmentally-friendly refrigeration. Since traditional refrigeration systems contribute significantly to ozone depletion and climate change, McD’s eco-fridge maneuver is an important step in its purported efforts to green itself. It is also important since McDonalds’ oomph in the food service and refrigeration industries could cause a green-fridge domino effect.

But is eco refrigeration really cause enough for Greenpeace to drop its usually-militant stance against the global hamburger joint?

Triple Pundit reports that Greenpeace claims some credit for McDonalds’ decision to try green refrigeration, as it has been trying to convince them to take the step for at least nine years. So, it makes sense that the environmental organization would make a positive statement about it. In fact, Greenpeace has begrudgingly praised McDonalds several times in the past for changing certain practices, like feeding its hens genetically engineered soy.

A commenter further notes that “Greenpeace has a long history of working with companies willing to make real change on the ground. And yes, they will even praise those companies’ who have been slow to wake to sustainability issues: when they do good.”

However, there’s a fine line between recognizing small but concrete action, and allowing companies to claim they’re ‘going green’ because they changed some small thing while their operation as a whole is still as far from green as a company can get.

And while some may applaud Greenpeace for being a little less harsh, don’t we need some organizations to demand the best from people so we don’t all get caught up in a cyclone of half-assed action, greenwashing and undeserved praise? Let’s hope that Greenpeace doesn’t make this kind of thing a habit.

Link [Triple Pundit]
Photo credit: Greenpeace

Greenpeace Gets Verbal Ass-Kicking Over Ancient Forest Toilet Paper

When it comes to any sort of environmental initiative, it’s usually Greenpeace that’s complaining that the effort is just not enough. They’re often purists, demanding more than people are willing to give, out of a noble sense of urgency and responsibility. But after they suspended a recent campaign to stop Canada’s ancient boreal forests from being cut down for toilet paper, one ecologist says Greenpeace gave in too easily.

Dr. Glen Barry, environmental sustainability policy expert and founder of Ecological Internet, sent out a press release entitled ‘Greenpeace Wipes It’s Soft, Virgin Butt with Canada’s Ancient Boreal Forests’:

Greenpeace’s long-standing campaign against “ancient forest crimes” by Kimberly-Clark was suspended on the basis of promises that 40% of its North American tissue fiber will be either recycled or FSC certified by 2011. The company traditionally has used 3 million tones of virgin fibre a year, which will fall to 2.4 million tons if they are successful. This atrociously weak target will legitimize continued destruction of Canada’s ancient forest ecosystems for throw away paper products for decades.

“In a world well past its carrying capacity, facing abrupt climate change and species and ecosystem collapse, we call upon Greenpeace to immediately disclose the ecological science that suggests primary and old growth forests can and should continue to be clearcut to wipe our asses,” questions Dr. Glen Barry. “It is just like Greenpeace to half carry out a campaign, achieve partial success, claim victory and move onto a more telegenic protest opportunity to fill their coffers.”

Ecological Internet calls upon Greenpeace to embrace substance over style (for a change) and immediately disassociate itself from the Forest Stewardship Council’s ongoing certification of first time industrial logging of primary forests as being “well-managed” while implying sustainability.

“No one including Greenpeace can tell us how many tens of millions of hectares of primeval forest ecosystems are being destroyed under FSC’s certification label for, amongst other things, toilet paper and lawn furniture. Until Greenpeace and friends stop greenwashing FSC ancient forest logging, we call upon committed forest protectors to resign their membership from Greenpeace and other ancient forest logging apologists, and to stop using virgin toilet paper, no matter how sensitive their behinds,” explains Dr. Barry.

Wow. It’s not often that Greenpeace is accused of not being tough enough on environmentally irresponsible companies. They’re known for being among the biggest hardasses in the world of environmental activism, yelling “bigger, faster, more” like a drill sergeant when companies take baby steps toward better practices.

But Dr. Barry has one-upped them, saying “There is no such thing as ecologically sustainable or even mildly beneficial first time industrial primary forest logging, and Greenpeace should be ashamed of itself for legitimizing the trade. If you support Greenpeace, you support ancient forest logging that endangers our shared being.”

Judge for yourself at Greenpeace’s Kleercut campaign website.

Link [Greenpeace] + [Forests.org]
Photo credit: Greenpeace

Register Now for 1Sky’s Midwest Leadership Summit

1Sky, a climate change advocacy group dedicated to encouraging federal action by 2010 to stem global warming, is holding a leadership summit on Saturday, August 1st and Sunday, August 2nd in Chicago.

The Summit will provide an opportunity to network with other volunteers making strides on this issue, receive a full policy briefing, and learn skills like how to communicate with elected leaders and reach out to the media: the nuts and bolts of organizing!

You can expect to come away from this weekend with new friends in the movement and a sense of empowerment and momentum to move your leaders and motivate your peers. You and 1Sky’s staff organizers, Climate Precinct Captains and other activist leaders will:

-Develop an Effective Message
-Learn the fundamentals of organizing and mobilizing
-Practice the Skills to Move the Message to Action
-Engage in the 1Sky Campaign

A small registration fee is required to cover costs of materials and services for the two days. You will receive an e-mail receipt to confirm your registration.

Sat-Sun, August 1st-2nd
9-6 on Sat, 9-3 on Sun
$35 for admission

Loyola University of Chicago
6430 N. Kenmore Avenue
Damen Hall
Chicago, IL 60626
Google Map | Campus Map (PDF)

Who’s Who in Green: Cameron Diaz

Cameron Diaz was recently crowned ‘Queen of Green’ by Vogue Magazine, but she’s not looking to become some kind of superstar face of the environmental movement. The actress is just trying to live green for herself, sans fanfare, like a normal person. She drives a Prius, but seems annoyed at the kudos that celebs get for doing so. “It’s just a car,” she told Vogue. “It’s a choice people can make.”

In fact, attendees at one of former VP Al Gore’s slideshow training sessions were surprised to see Diaz among them, and even more surprised when she actively took part, asking questions and staying afterward to hang out with everybody else.

Diaz has been quietly supporting environmental causes for years. She joined Gore to announce the initiative Save Our Selves (SOS) – The Campaign for Climate in Crisis, and regularly shows up at environmental events such as the National Resources Defense Council’s 20th Anniversary Gala Celebration.

Most of the public learned about Diaz’s green leanings when she became host of the MTV reality program ‘Eco Trippin’, which followed her and a group of friends as they traveled the world to learn about the importance of protecting the environment. All travel from the show was offset with carbon credits, which Diaz also uses to offset her own personal travel.

From the July 2009 issue of Marie Claire:

Inspired by the annual TED conference that she’s attended—a kind of smarty-pants consortium dedicated to the spread of innovative ideas put forth by speakers like Bono, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, and Samantha Power—Diaz felt the urge to start a far-reaching conversation about the environment. “I was like, I’m going to get a camera, and I’m going to mobile-home it across the country, and I’m just going to find out what people are thinking. What would it take for the common person to become engaged?”—in the catastrophe that is the state of our natural resources. Most of all, she wants to help raise consciousness. “There’s a lot of great minds out there who are thinking about this,” she says, “who are coming up with solutions. Not to crash anybody’s party, but to actually make the party better.” She laughs. “Really, that’s what it’s about—that’s my participation in it.”

Diaz recently took a yearlong hiatus from acting to enjoy some personal time and get more involved with charity work. She also hitched a ride to the Oscars in a BMW Hydrogen 7, and went public with David Letterman about her “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” flushing practice.

When it comes down to it, Cameron Diaz is just a regular green gal who happens to have a very high-profile job.

Cameron Diaz’s Green Score: 20,455

Who’s Who in Green: Robert Bullard

Dr. Robert H. Bullard is one of the nation’s leading authorities regarding environmental justice. In fact, he’s been called ‘the father of environmental justice’ by Grist.org, and and has written or edited several books on the issue, including Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality; Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color; and Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots.

More than that, Bullard is an activist who has tirelessly worked to draw attention to the practice of building polluting factories and dumping hazardous waste in communities of color. Bullard says he was “drafted” into environmental justice while working in Houston as an environmental sociologist in the 1970s, where he identified the practice of placing garbage dumps in black neighborhoods as a “systematic pattern of injustice”.

Bullard staunchly believes that standing up for the environmental rights of one particular group is not justice. Bullard uncovered the utter unfairness of disproportionately targeting the neighborhoods of people of color, regardless of annual income, for landfills, toxic waste sites, industrial runoff and other environmental hazards and made it his life’s work to put a stop to the practice.

Listen to this interview with fellow Who’s Who in Green Simran Sethi, from the Sundance Channel, as Bullard explains what the Environmental Justice movement entails.

This video of Dr. Bullard’s February 2008 presentation at UC Santa Barbara goes even more into depth about environmental justice and the connection between human rights and the politics of pollution.

As Bullard told CNN in 2007, the green issue is a matter of black and white.

“When you look at the neighborhoods that are where you have a lot of different waste facilities… the people who live closest are oftentimes the most vulnerable people who have the fewest resources to escape neighborhoods because of residential segregation, housing discrimination, and limited incomes.”

“Just because you’re poor, just because you live physically on the wrong ’side of the track’ doesn’t mean that you should be dumped on.”

Bullard is currently professor at Georgia’s Clark Atlanta University and the director of that university’s Environmental Justice Resource Center. He continues to campaign for the fundamental right of all humans to breathe clean air and live free of damaging pollution.

Robert Bullard’s Green Score: 74,522

Photo credit: The Sundance Channel

The Great American Cleanup Has Begun

Last week saw the launch of the 2009 Keep America Beautiful (KAB) Great American Cleanup, with the kick-off of activities like beautifying parks and recreation areas, cleaning seashores and waterways, handling recycling collections, picking up litter, planting trees and flowers and raising awareness. The nation’s largest community improvement program continues until May 30th, with an army of 3 million volunteers and attendees.

From Earth 911:

The Great American Cleanup is not a small project. Last year, 86 million pounds of litter and debris were collected for proper disposal, reuse and recycling. Also, the program:

• Removed 15,200 junk cars, recycled 10.2 million pounds of aluminum and steel and recycled 1.4 million tires
• Recycled 5.3 million pounds of electronics and 137,000 batteries
• Improved over 144,000 miles of roadway
• Recycled 186 million plastic (PET) bottles
• Improved and maintained 91,000 acres of parks and public lands; 7,000 miles of rivers, lakes and shorelines; and 6,000 miles of hiking, biking and nature trails
• Recycled 37.1 million pounds of newsprint
• Recycled 5.2 million pounds of clothing

Of course, you want your own community to be free of litter and graffiti, and full of more trees and flowers, right? Who wants to live in a trash hole? That’s why you need to get up off the couch and help make this year’s Great American Cleanup more successful than ever. Find your local organization participating in the cleanup at the KAB website and get the info on how you can contribute.

Don’t make Iron Eyes Cody cry! Let this retro-fabulous crying Indian PSA from 1974 remind you just how important it is to Keep America Beautiful.

Link [Earth 911] + [KAB]

British Business Secretary Beaned with Green Custard by Protester

British business secretary Peter Mandelson got ‘slimed’ with a cup full of green custard on Friday by a protester associated with Plane Stupid, the UK direct action group that’s seeking to stop a new runway from being built at London’s Heathrow airport. Mandelson has been accused of putting business before the planet in Britain, drawing the ire of environmental groups.

From Yahoo News:

Mandelson was arriving for a London summit on carbon strategy when protester Leila Deen approached him and hurled a large cupful of custard straight in the former European Union trade commissioner’s face, at close range.

Mandelson bent over, turned away and hurried inside, while the protester picked up papers she had dropped and calmly walked off.

“Mandelson is trying to make political capital out of climate change,” said serial campaigner Deen, a member of the group Plane Stupid, which has staged several protests over plans to build a third runway at Heathrow.

“The only thing green about Peter Mandelson is the slime coursing through his veins.

“We can’t let the ‘Prince of Darkness’ cast his shadow over west London” — a reference to Mandelson’s nickname earned for his media spinning skills.

Mandelson was unfazed, telling reporters that he’s glad people are speaking their minds but would rather they “said it to my face rather than threw it in my face.”

Green custard? That’s a new one. Creative. Not quite as messy or wasteful as pies. But, don’t expect it to become the new in thing to throw at people you don’t agree with – bookmaker William Hill is taking bets on which popular dessert will next be thrown at a government minister, and spotted dick is the odds-on favorite. I don’t know what spotted dick is, exactly, but it sounds like something that should be thrown and not eaten.

Link [Yahoo News]

Thousands of Youth Energy Activists Prepare for PowerShift 2009

This week more than 10,000 activists will converge on Washington D.C. to hold our elected officials responsible for rebuilding our economy and reclaiming our future through bold climate and clean energy policy. This historic national youth summit, which will take place between February 27th and March 2nd, aims to pressure our political leaders to act – and to provide young people with training, ideas, connections and opportunities to make things happen.

The PowerShift 2009 conference, organized by the Energy Action Coalition, will be held at the DC Convention Center and will include a career fair, workshops, keynote addresses and entertainment. Speakers will include Van Jones, Nancy Pelosi, James Hansen and Majora Carter and performers include The Roots and Santigold.

The Nation lists some of the young activists scheduled to attend:

*A busload of Indigenous youth from the US and Canada who have been active in sustainability initiatives on tribal campuses and in their communities.

*A group of 50 Washington-area public and private high school students who have been lobbying to get the Board of Education to commit to making Montgomery Co Public Schools energy self-sufficient by 2050.

*A group of sixty students from Kentucky who are lobbying for a statewide moratorium on mountaintop coal removal, passing sustainability measures on their campuses, and creating innovative clean energy corps program models.

It’s not too late to sign up – check out PowerShift09.org for more info.

Link [PowerShift 09]

Change the Web, Save the Earth

Have you ever noticed that on the bottom of Earthfirst.com posts there are some links that help you take action on an issue you just read about? For example, below a recent post about Obama shelving the Bush-era offshore drilling plan, there are related ways to take action on drilling:

That magic is provided by a Social Actions widget and we’re excited to announce they’re now launching an online competition to make even more cool tools for social change! The Change the Web Challenge aims to inspire third-party developers to build innovative tools that make it easy for people to find and share opportunities to make a difference. If that means turning out more cool ways to save the environment, we’re totally down!

You can find more info at socialactions.com/changetheweb. You can also follow @changetheweb on Twitter for the latest campaign updates.

%RA={environment, activism, climate change}%

Who’s Who in Green: Daryl Hannah

You could say that Daryl Hannah is sort of a green rock star. She drives around in a matte black 1983 El Camino, got herself arrested for protesting the bulldozing of a South Central urban farm and has joined ‘conservationist pirates’ in defending whales from Japanese whalers. She may be a pretty blonde actress known for roles like the mermaid in ‘Splash’, but she’s as hardcore of an environmental activist as any other and she’s as genuine as they come.

Hannah lives on a solar-powered off-grid ranch in the Rocky Mountains, where she grows her own organic food and biofuel. She buys carbon offsets to make up for flying, and says she has “carbon neutralized” herself so many times she’s got a carbon surplus but continues to do it anyway. Of her home, she told Central Florida Green Guide,

It’s a small but beautiful house made with salvaged materials. It’s both passive and active solar, meaning it faces southwest. It is bermed into the landscape and uses the natural movement of the sun and the insulation of the earth to heat/cool the structure. The power is amended by solar panels. I have most of the modern conveniences, but I choose not to have a TV. I have a friend who is an amazing mosaic artist, and as I have radiant floors, I had him make a mosaic with sea glass and shells I’d collected over the years. All of the materials that were removed from the ground when we bermed the structure were incorporated into the house – thus the living couch. Moss can go dormant for several months so it doesn’t need to be watered very often.

The vegetarian actress has been an environmentalist for decades, but wasn’t spurred to make it public until after the Iraq war began, when she says she realized simply living a privately sustainable life wasn’t enough. She appeared on Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor” and extolled the virtues of biodiesel, hoping to show people that they didn’t have to consume fossil fuels.

Hannah also hosts ‘DH Love Life’, a weekly video podcast that explores inspirational and cutting-edge developments in green culture and lifestyle. Episodes are fun and quirky, including one in which she visits the Cyclecide fair, a travelling exhibit that uses their customized bikes to provide pedal power for their fair rides. Check out the episode below, ‘Worm Poop’, to see Hannah visit the Terracycle factory run by Tom Szaky, a previous ‘Who’s Who in Green’ here on EarthFirst.

In perhaps her most famous example of environmental and social activism, Hannah climbed up into a walnut tree in a South Central urban community garden to protest plans to bulldoze the land. She lived there for three weeks along with noted activist Julia Butterfly Hill, hoping to save the community garden from plans by the new landowner to replace it with a warehouse. Sadly, the farm was shut down and razed the day after Hannah and around 50 others were arrested, but she says he did what she believed was “morally right”.

Hannah has also worked to raise awareness of contamination caused by the oil industry in the Amazon, fought to keep Rwandan gorillas disease-free and has donated to a number of charities and causes. She also co-founded the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to developing practices for sustainability in the U.S. biodiesel industry.

Keep up with Hannah’s latest news and get her tips and alerts at Dhlovelife.com.

Daryl Hannah’s Green Score: 47,503

Send a 1Sky Green New Year’s E-Card

Keep sustainability at the forefront of your friends’ and family’s minds by sending them e-cards from 1Sky, an organization that is working to build a diverse, society-wide mobilization to convince the U.S. government to take bold action on climate change by 2010. Choose from three designs including Obama’s New Year’s resolutions, ‘One Ball We Can’t Let Drop’ and one that illustrates a potential effect of global warming.

What 1Sky’s all about:

1Sky was created in 2007 to focus the power of millions of concerned Americans on a single goal: bold federal action by 2010 that can reverse global warming. The 1Sky Solutions are grounded in scientific necessity—they are the bottom line of what’s needed to dramatically reduce carbon emissions while maximizing energy efficiency, renewable energy and breakthrough technologies. They also represent significant economic promise. By pivoting to a clean energy economy, we can relieve our dependence on foreign oil, unlock the potential of sustainable industry and usher in a new era of prosperity and green jobs.

American citizens are building support for the 1Sky Solutions in key Congressional districts on a non-partisan basis, using cutting-edge communications, Internet and old-fashioned neighbor-to-neighbor outreach. To get our leaders to take action, the 1Sky community is bringing together an incredibly diverse range of individuals and organizations in a collaborative effort. With the help of many leaders and groups, 1Sky has already gained the support of elected officials, student and business groups, and faith-based institutions, as well as organizations focused on health, civil society and the environment—and now we need you.

1Sky wants to involve as many people as possible in their grassroots movement for change. That means getting the word out, so send these e-cards or invite your friends to join the 1Sky email list.

Link [1Sky]

Who’s Who in Green: Bryant Terry, Eco-Chef

Bryant Terry is an eco chef, food justice activist, co-author of the book Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen and author of the forthcoming Vegan Soul Kitchen (VSK): Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African-American Cuisine (Da Capo/Perseus March 2009). Terry has been working toward building a more just and sustainable food system for the past 8 years, using cooking as a tool to illuminate the intersections between poverty, structural racism, and food insecurity.

Terry founded b-healthy! (Build Healthy Eating and Lifestyles to Help Youth) in 2002, a program created to raise awareness about food justice issues that inspires and empowers youth to get involved in creating a more just and sustainable food system.  Terry’s motivation was simple: he felt like people living in poor communities, where high quality, fresh food isn’t always readily available, get the short end of the stick. Since then he has become one of the most important voices speaking out for the rights of poor communities to have access to healthy, sustainable food.

He’s also a fellow at the Food and Society Policy Fellows Program, which “provides fellowships to professionals in food and agriculture from across North America, enabling them to use mass media channels to inform and shape the public agenda, in alignment with the goals of creating sustainable food systems that promote good health, vibrant communities, environmental stewardship, worker justice, and accessibility by all.”

Terry has been honored with many awards for his work, including the inaugural Natural Gourmet Institute Award for Excellence in Health-Supportive Food Education. He was honored as one of 7×7’s ‘Hot 20 under 40’, and has frequently contributed essays and recipes to online and print outlets like Food and Wine, The New York Times Magazine, Vibe, Domino and Gourmet.  He’s also made many national television and radio appearances including serving as host on The Endless Feast, a 13-episode public television series that explored the connection between the earth and the food on our plates.

The blog Eat.Drink.Better asked Terry what he thought could be done to change the perception of local food as “elitist”, and make healthy and sustainable local food available to everyone:

I don’t necessarily think that the local foods movement is elitist, I simply think that communities are self-interested.  In order to ensure that historically-excluded communities have access to grub members of those communities need to ask/cajole/pressure/demand that existing institutions in the communities (i.e., places of worship, community-based organizations, and the like) take the lead in creating locally-driven and community owned food systems.

In addition to people, many of these institutions have financial capital, land, and other resources.  By creating community gardens, rooftop gardens, urban farms, Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), value added businesses, food buying clubs, food coops, local restaurants, and independently owned grocery stores, these institutions would not only address food injustice but also spur economic development, community beautification, youth empowerment, and a host of actions that would strengthen marginalized communities.

We all can ask/cajole/pressure/demand our elected officials to reform our Farm Bill so that it restores fairness to America’s food and farm policy; improves access to healthy, affordable foods in low-income and underserved communities; and expands market opportunities for small and mid-sized farms.

If you’re ever looking for some delicious, healthy recipes, be sure to check out Terry’s blog posts at Eco-Soul Food on TheRoot.com, which features mouthwatering photos of his culinary creations like Cajun-Creole-Spiced Frittata.

Bryant Terry’s Green Score: 28,582

Macedonians Plant Six Million Trees in One Day

Extensive wildfires in Macedonia over the past two summers destroyed millions of trees, but the hills and forests of this Balkan country will be green again before too long. Thousands of Macedonians came together in a major reforestation drive, and planted six million trees in a single day.

From Reuters:

“Our goal is to make Macedonia “greener” and make people more aware of the needs of this planet,” said Macedonian opera singer Boris Trajanov, who initiated the project.

Thousands of people were bused to the planting sites, including more than 1,000 soldiers who planted some 200,000 seedlings at 14 sites.

“Just as we take care of our homes, we should take care of our planet,” said Silvana, boarding a bus with her two children. “We have no other place to live, that’s why I’m going.”

Trajanov told Reuters he hoped to spread the campaign across the whole Balkan region next year.

“If Macedonia, a country of two million people, can plant six million trees, we can only imagine how many trees can be planted in other, bigger countries,” he said.

Six million trees in a single day – that’s really impressive. Pretty inspiring to see so many people come together for the purpose of beautifying their country and repairing damage to the environment. And, this wasn’t even the first time – back in March, they planted 2 million trees, symbolizing one for each citizen in the nation. Imagine how much good we could do if even a fraction of the citizens of every other nation in the world followed suit!

Link [Reuters] via [The Huffington Post]
Photo credit: Balkan Analysis

Who’s Who in Green: Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben knows more about environmentalism, genetic engineering and climate change than you and me. A lot more. In fact, as noted in an article about him by The Nation, he’s the go-to guy for keynote speeches, forewords, blurbs and anthologies. He has been writing about these topics since the ‘80s and has written a long list of well-respected books including The End of Nature, The Age of Missing Information, Maybe One, Enough and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future.

In 2006, McKibben led the organization of one of the largest demonstrations to raise awareness about global warming in history, cementing his already admirable reputation as a leading American environmentalist. Al Gore has said that McKibben’s descriptions of the problem of climate change made a huge impression on him as a senator, helping to shape his revolutionary work in environmentalism.

You may have already seen McKibben’s writing at Grist, where he’s a frequent guest author and is also on the board of directors.  He also contributes to The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, The National Geographic, Rolling Stone and Outside.

He’s been honored with both the Guggenheim and the Lyndhurst fellowships, won a Lannan Literary Award and has been given honorary degrees from a variety of colleges including Green Mountain College and the State University of New York. He’s currently a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont, where he also directs the Middlebury Fellowships in Environmental Journalism.

McKibben is also co-founder of 350.org, an international grassroots campaign to spread awareness of the need to keep CO2 levels in the atmosphere at 350 parts per million or lower. The idea sprang from a speech given by NASA climate scientist James Hansen, in which he said that levels above 350ppm were too high, at least “if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted.”

Of their efforts, McKibben wrote at Grist.org,

Our plan — again, with your help — is to take the number 350 and beat it into every head and heart on planet Earth, to tattoo it into every brain. If our fellow earthlings know nothing else about climate change, they need to know that 350 lies in the direction of safety. We are busy trying to find artists, musicians, activists, preachers, athletes, and, well, normal people in all corners of the globe who will figure out how to make 350 the most well-known number on the planet.

Already it’s starting — 350 cyclists circling through Salt Lake City, earning real publicity as they did so. I was in Honolulu yesterday, where activists are figuring out how to put red tarps on the roofs of 350 homes in a single neighborhood that could have solar PV panels if only the utility would get out of the way. In Maui today, people promised to assemble 350 surfers off the beach for a photo. At an evangelical conference last week, pastors were talking about ringing their bells 350 times.

McKibben also founded StepItUp07.org, an online organizing hub for a National Day of Climate Action, April 14th, 2007. On that day, people gathered for hundreds of rallies around the world to ask Congress to cut carbon by 80% by 2050. McKibben himself led a 5-day walk across Vermont to demand action on global warming, and Step it Up 07 has been described as the largest day of protest about climate change in the nation’s history.

Many people credit McKibben with bringing the concept of climate change to the masses, making it easy to understand in his book, ‘End of Nature’. That was obviously just the beginning, as McKibben makes it his life’s work to make sure people understand just how important of an issue climate change really is, and continues to inspire people to act every day, all around the world.

Bill McKibben’s Green Score: 88,572

No Impact Man: The Cultural Barriers to Environmental Change

Colin Beaven, a.k.a. No Impact Man, pondered the social obstacles to environmental change on Monday, wondering why so many of his neighbors were so averse to seeing bicycles on his block. A woman who lives nearby threatened to have police remove one of his rickshaws from the sidewalk where he parks it, saying it makes the street look untidy and implying that the sight of it brings down the neighborhood market.

From No Impact Man:

And the thing is, the way that bikes are parked in New York City is kind of untidy. There is little dedicated space to park them so we New Yorkers lock bikes to lampposts and street signs and parking meters and scaffolds and railings and anything else we can find.

That’s cultural barrier number one: that the infrastructure does not exist to support change.

One of the biggest barriers to people turning to biking in NYC is the fear that their bikes will get stolen–nowhere safe to leave them. The good news is that new planning regulations will soon require every new building to provide indoor bike parking.

Colin noted that cars ugly up the streets more than bikes, and that a hundred bikes replacing a hundred cars would look far nicer. But, people have come to accept cars as a given, no matter how ugly they may be.

This is just one small example of how many social obstacles we will really have to overcome to push real environmental change. If people fight bicycles parked on the sidewalk, they’ll really get worked up about vegetable gardens in place of lawns, compost piles and other ‘unsightly’ things that are part of a green lifestyle.

Perhaps the biggest social obstacle is the fact that the mainstream public sees the green movement as an attempt to take things away from them.  You know, that idea that we environmentalists just want to ruin everyone’s fun, forcing them to give up things they see as God-given rights, like driving Hummers around their bourgeois suburban neighborhoods and running the A/C with the windows wide open. We’re just a bunch of grumpy, Chicken Little commies, aren’t we?

Link [No Impact Man]
Photo credit: Colin Beaven

Consumer Campaign Succeeds! Brita Will Recycle Filters

Here’s a great example of consumer activism winning a big victory from a major company. Clorox, which owns the Brita brand, has agreed to take back used filters and recycle them. The Take Back the Filter Campaign has been writing letters, collecting petition signatures and accepting filters from customers who didn’t want to throw them away. All their efforts paid off, and how consumers can feel even better about using tap water filters instead of buying bottled water.

From Take Back the Filter, via Treehugger:

11/15/2008: The Take Back The Filter campaign received a call from Brita brand manager Drew McGowan yesterday alerting us that Brita will indeed begin taking back and recycling pitcher filters beginning in January!

Full details on the plan will be released on Tuesday. Please visit this site again Tuesday to learn where you’ll be able to take your filters to be recycled as well as how they will be recycled.

We have no information at this time about recycling of faucet or other types of Brita filters. Please stay tuned…

Take Back the Filter formed when Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish read about the massive patch of floating plastic in the Pacific Ocean and became frustrated that for all her efforts in cutting back on plastic consumption, she still had to throw away her Brita filters when she was done with them.

While Clorox is still very far from being an eco-friendly company – despite their GreenWorks line of home cleaning products – this is certainly a step in the right direction. We need to see more manufacturers taking responsibility for what happens to their products when they are no longer useful.

Link [Take Back the Filter Campaign] via [Treehugger]

Who’s Who in Green: Wangari Maathai

Dr. Wangari Maathai is a Kenyan environmentalist and political activist who was the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2004. Maathai is internationally recognized for her dedication to democracy, human rights and environmental conservation. She founded the Green Belt Movement, a grassroots environmental non-governmental organization, in 1977.

Born in 1940 in the Tetu division of the Nyeri District of Kenya, Maathai received both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in biology, and also studied veterinary medicine, earning the first Ph.D. awarded to an Eastern African woman.  In the 1970s Maathai was a professor of veterinary anatomy at the University of Nairobi and was active in the National Council of Women.

It was during her work with the National Council of Women that Maathai got the idea of planting trees in order to conserve the environment, prevent soil erosion and improve quality of life.  That led to the Green Belt Movement, which has assisted women in planting over 20 million trees on their farms, on schools and on church compounds.  Maathai’s Green Belt Movement spurred the creation of a Pan African Green Belt Network, spreading the idea of the tree-planting initiative.

Wangari Maathai ran for President of Kenya in 1997, but her party withdrew her candidacy a few days before the election without telling her. It was in 1998 that she gained worldwide recognition in her efforts to stop Kenya’s new president from tearing down hundreds of acres of forest to build luxury housing.  She has been arrested numerous times when taking part in protests, including once in 1999 when she suffered head injuries after being attacked while planting trees.

In December 2002, Maathai was elected to Kenya’s Parliament and she was named Deputy Minister of the Environment, Natural Wildlife and Resources in 2003. In 2004, she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her dedication to peace, democracy and sustainable development.

Maathai has spent much of her life championing the idea that protecting the environment will help ease poverty.  Here’s what she had to say in September at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting, about her belief that if you destroy the environment, poverty cannot be eliminated:

I eventually found out that no matter what we do, after the global level, even at the national level, that it is extremely grassroots level, and the majority of the people that we have mentioned here, when we mention poverty, we are thinking about a large number of people at the grassroot level.

Now those people are mostly dependent on primary natural resources. We’re talking land, soil, water, forests. Yet we haven’t mentioned many of those issues except in terms of deficiency [...] But we need to think of how we can sustainably manage these primary resources that all of us depend on.

But the people at the grassroot are the ones that are most directly dependent on them. And even on issues of climate change. Even as we speak of what is going to happen, it’s already happening to a large number of people. They are experiencing lack of water. They are experiencing drying rivers. And most of all, they are worried because their forests are disappearing. And that is partly why I think that the environment is extremely important.

Wangari Maathai has done as much for environmentalism in Africa as Al Gore has done here in the United States, earning her an esteemed place among the most influential environmental figures of modern times. As much as she has already achieved, she will undoubtedly continue exemplary and inspirational work on behalf of the earth and its people.

Wangari Maathai’s Green Score: 90,389

AASHE Announces Campus and Student Sustainability Award Winners

Congratulations to the winners of The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE) Campus Sustainability Leadership Awards! Tulane University, Northland College and College of Menominee Nation have been recognized for their commitment to going green. The schools showed outstanding leadership in their curriculum, research, operations, community outreach and life on campus.

Two students were also honored for their work in sustainability.  Sarah E. Brylinsky, a senior at Ithaca College, received the Student Sustainability Leadership award and Ryan Graunke, a recent graduate of the University of Florida, won the Student Research on Campus Sustainability Award for his paper: “Food and Fuel: Biogas Potential at Broward Dining Hall.”

From Media Newswire:

The winners of the campus and student sustainability leadership awards are highlighted in the October issue of Sustainability: the Journal of Record. The research award winner and honorable mentions will be featured in the December issue of the Journal. In addition, the applications and papers received through each of the awards program are posted on the AASHE website.

The awards will be formally presented at the upcoming AASHE 2008 conference, Working Together for Sustainability – On Campus and Beyond, Nov. 9-11 in Raleigh, NC. With over 1,700 registrants, the conference will be the largest gathering focused on campus sustainability to date in North America.

AASHE received 59 applications for the campus awards, 38 applicants for the student leadership award, and 37 submissions for the student research award. The award winners were selected by pools of campus sustainability experts assembled by AASHE.

Competition for prestigious sustainability awards like this is tightening up big time – so many more people are applying! You can really tell how much the green movement on college campuses is growing every year. We’re happy to see so many new green leaders emerging!

Link [Media Newswire]
Photo credit: Flickr user Authentic Eccentric (Tulane University)

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