Who’s Who in Green: Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Anti-Nuclear Nun

Mathematician, nuclear science researcher, nun in the order of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart, human rights activist and author Dr. Rosalie Bertell knows a thing or two about uranium, and how it effects the human body. Dr. Bertell has devoted her life to speaking out on behalf of those most vulnerable and affected by radiation – women and children, aboriginals and workers in uranium mines and nuclear facilities.

Bertell is an activist of protecting the health of the planet through peace, writing in her book Planet Earth: The Newest Weapon of War,

“It is my belief that we have been treating the symptoms but not the cause of the disease of the Earth. We have been abusing Earth’s natural systems, the way it regulates temperature and water supply, recycles waste and protects life. For me, some of the most fundamental abuses have occurred because of our continued reliance on the military.”

Dr. Bertell is especially vocal about the consequences of the 1984 Union Carbide explosion in Bhopal, India and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown. Both disasters killed and sickened hundreds of thousands of people and still have an effect today on people who live near the accident sites.

The dual Canadian and U.S. citizen knew from childhood that she would become a nun, but her interest and abilities in the field of science were also clear from an early age. She took a research job at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the world’s first cancer research facility, and it was then that she became interested in radiation and nuclear-related subjects.

Bertell told interviewer Wendy Jewell,

“I was a senior cancer research scientist studying the harm done to a large population by unnecessary uses of diagnostic medical X-ray. I became outraged when I found that nuclear power plants were releasing radioactive materials (like X-rays) at this same level routinely, indiscriminately exposing the unsuspecting public. My first experience was a nuclear plant, which wanted to locate its facility next to the Gerber’s Baby Food Farm in Barker, NY. That plant was never built.”

After suffering a heart attack in 1972, Dr. Bertell spent much of her recovery time in a monastery studying the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings and emerged as the field’s top expert. She quit her job at the Roswell Institute, which accepted research money from the nuclear industry, after they put pressure on her to keep quiet.

Dr. Bertell is an outspoken critic of the use of depleted uranium in warfare, which has extremely destructive effects on the planet and human health.

Rosalie Bertell has written several books and was among 1,000 women peace activists from around the world nominated as a group for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She has also received numerous awards including the Alternative Nobel Prize, the Right Livelihood Award and the World Federalist Peace Award.

Dr. Rosalie Bertell’s Green Score: 79,995

Timberland Celebrates Undiscovered Independent Environmental Activists

How many unsung environmental heroes are there in the world, tirelessly working to improve the health of the planet and all of the living creatures that call it home? In a culture where celebrities are applauded for taking the tiniest of steps while the everyday people doing the real work go mostly unnoticed by the general public, Timberland has dedicated itself to elevating environmental activists onto the global green scene.

In partnership with Changents.com, The Timberland Company is creating a unique consumer engagement engine to help get emerging eco-change agents their big break. The Earthkeepers Movement garners support for these activists on an interactive platform that connects people who are changing the world with the people who can help them do even more.

Meet the 2009 Earthkeepers Heroes – from an eco-photographer to a teacher designing green makeovers for homes with inner city youth – at Changents.com/Earthkeepers.

You can help your favorite Earthkeeper get exposure on national TV for defending the planet! All you have to do is grab a widget and post it to your social networking profile or blog. When you register to join Earthkeepers, you get the opportunity to win some cool prizes, too.

If Timberland gets 100,000 supporters for these Earthkeeper Heroes by November 1st, they’ll unveil a publicity stunt where you can take action to help the winning hero get on TV. Check it out at Changents.com.

Link [Earthkeepers]

Who’s Who in Green: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have been born into one of the most privileged families in America’s history, but like his father and many of his aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings, he wasn’t content to live a selfish life of fame and fortune. Named one of TIME Magazine’s “Heroes of the Environment”, Kennedy is an environmental lawyer, author, activist and defender of the Hudson River and has won many cases upholding the Clean Water Act.

Born in 1954 to Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in American history and literature and then went on to law school, obtaining his Masters of Law at Pace University School of Law. In 1984, Kennedy began his storied work with the Riverkeeper organization, suing alleged polluters of the Hudson River.

Kennedy also founded and is current chairman of Waterkeeper Alliance, an organization that connects local waterkeeper groups around the country. He has served as Clinical Professor of Environmental Law and co-director of the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic since 1987, and is also Senior Attorney for the National Resources Defense Council.

Aside from his three New York Times best-selling books Crimes Against Nature (2004), The Riverkeepers (1997), and Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr: A Biography (1977), Kennedy has written two children’s books and hundreds of articles, mostly on environmental subjects, which have appeared in a wide variety of publications from The Wall Street Journal to Rolling Stone. He also co-hosts a radio show – ‘Ring of Fire’ on Air America – and writes regularly for The Huffington Post.

Kennedy was one of the most outspoken critics of former President Bush’s environmental policies, and his book Crimes Against Nature called Bush “America’s worst environmental president.” The book reveals, in stunning detail, the many ways in which the Bush administration put industry and big business ahead of the health of American citizens, the land and our natural resources.

This is one environmentalist who isn’t pushing ‘small steps’, but rather, encourages taking direct action. He told Grist in a 2004 interview,

Industry wants us reading those books that say “50 things you can do to help the environment” because it distracts you from what you ought to be doing, which is joining an environmental group and voting for politicians who support the environment and fighting against the lobbyists on Capitol Hill. I mean, you can go out and buy a car that gets 40 miles per gallon, but it’s not going to change the planet.

What’s going to change the planet is if we have somebody standing up to the auto-industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill to pass standards that require that every car in this country gets 40 mpg. I try to focus on that part, not on how individuals are incorporating environmental ethics into their lives. I think it’s important for people to do, but to the extent that it’s distracting you from participating in the political process, it’s not a good thing.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Green Score: 79,844

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Who’s Who in Green: David Suzuki

David Suzuki is one of the world’s most prominent green leaders and has been named a ‘Hero of the Environment’ by TIME Magazine. The Canadian science broadcaster and environmental activist is well known for his TV and radio series and books about nature and the environment, and has long been host of CBC Television series The Nature of Things.

Suzuki began his career as Canada’s premier young geneticist and award-winning bench scientist, becoming a professor at the young age of 33, but ultimately found himself drawn to environmentalism. He made a second career for himself of creating nature documentaries for television and radio, and The Nature of Things – which began its run in 1979 – has aired in 50 countries around the world.

But Suzuki is more than a beloved television host – he’s also a long time climate change activist, working to reverse global warming and protect the Earth. He co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, which works to “find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that sustains us”, and has also been a prominent proponent of renewable energy and sustainable living.

His passion for global warming activism has done as much for his image as a green guru as his hosting duties. In recent years, Suzuki has spoken out again and again for the need to act on climate change, controversially urging college students to find a way to jail political leaders for ignoring science in February of 2008.

Suzuki has been honored with Canada’s most prestigious award, the Order of Canada Officer as well as Order of British Columbia and UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for science. He has been nominated as one of the top ten greatest Canadians by viewers of CBC, finishing fifth – and the four Canadians ahead of him on that list are all dead. Suzuki is also the recipient of the Bradford Washburn Award, presented by the Museum of Science in Boston.

David told Natural Life Magazine why he feels it’s important to target children with environmental education:

The lesson to me is that adults don’t want to change. People – especially people in positions of power – have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don’t want to hear that we’re on the wrong path, that we’ve got to shift gears and start thinking differently. And I understand that. After you’ve worked for a little nest egg, you don’t want to change.

Children haven’t invested time or effort into the status quo. They’re completely open. Now the problem is that children are going to take another 20 or 30 years to replace us and we don’t have 20 or 30 years. But I feel the one vulnerability adults have is their children. Even the most rabid right-wing conservative bastard loves his children and if you love your children you are vulnerable. If a child says, “Dad (or Mum), I’m really worried. What kind of a future am I going to have? What are you doing to help my future?”, parents have to respond. You have no choice. So the hope in this kind of endeavour is that children singing it around the house are going to effect mum and dad.

David Suzuki’s Green Score: 67,849

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

Who’s Who in Green: Vandana Shiva

Physicist, ecologist, activist and author Vandana Shiva is often called one of the world’s top environmental leaders and thinkers. The Indian food-sovereignty activist is an outspoken critic of industrialized globalized agriculture and has dedicated much of her life’s work to uncovering the devastating human and environmental impacts of corporate international trade agreements. Her books include Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit, Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply and Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis.

Shiva was one of the most influential figures of India’s environmental movement and has played a major role in the international ‘ecofeminism’ movement. Shiva believes that a more sustainable and productive approach to agriculture can be achieved by reinstating a system of farming in India that is more centered around women. She was a co-chair of the 1991 World Congress on Women and the Environment and more recently launched a global movement called Diverse Women for Diversity.

One of Vandana Shiva’s most ardent causes is the introduction of genetically modified crops to Indian farmers by big corporations like Monsanto, which have led to thousands of farmers committing suicide when the experimental crops failed. The seeds are engineered not to reproduce, so the farmers have to continually buy more every year, putting new financial strain on people who are already struggling.

Shiva believes that corporate seeds aren’t about increasing productivity, they’re about increasing debt. That’s why she set up the Navdanya movement to counter corporate seed control in 1991. Navdanya distributed seeds to farmers and taught them how to go organic, creating what she calls “an alternative to corporate destruction”.

Opposing monoculture in the fields is far from Shiva’s only cause. She helped build the Movement for Retail Democracy to oppose monopolies in the commercial distribution of food, fighting to keep Wal-Mart out of India. She also heads up the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, an independent research institute that she founded in 1982 and has argued on behalf of the wisdom of many traditional practices as a superior alternative to a life ruled by corporate money-mongering.

Yes Magazine interviewed Shiva in 2003, asking her what keeps her so energized and alive.

Well, it’s always a mystery, because you don’t know why you get depleted or recharged. But, this much I know. I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against, if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that in itself creates new potential.

And I’ve learned from the Bhagavad Gita and other teachings of our culture to detach myself from the results of what I do, because those are not in my hands. The context is not in your control, but your commitment is yours to make, and you can make the deepest commitment with a total detachment about where it will take you. You want it to lead to a better world, and you shape your actions and take full responsibility for them, but then you have detachment. And that combination of deep passion and deep detachment allows me always to take on the next challenge because I don’t cripple myself, I don’t tie myself in knots. I function like a free being. I think getting that freedom is a social duty because I think we owe it to each other not to burden each other with prescription and demands. I think what we owe each other is a celebration of life and to replace fear and hopelessness with fearlessness and joy.

Vandana Shiva’s Green Score: 85,689

Photo credit: Benjamin Root via Treehugger

San Francisco Zip Car Lets Charity Workers Drive for Free

Zip Car is giving Bay Area nonprofits a massive break by offering their cars to charity workers for free. This generous program is designed to help the organizations get through the current donation slump that has deeply affected their budgets. Among the workers who have gotten to drive around for free are volunteers who help seniors switch their analog televisions to digital, after-school art teachers, environmentalists planting trees and Big Brothers and Sisters who mentor kids.

From SF Gate:

“I believe it’s part of doing business; it’s part of being a human being,” said Michael Uribe, general manager of Zipcar San Francisco.

“We get to come to work and contribute to the larger social network. How cool is that?” he said.

Fees averaging $70 a day are waived for Bay Area artists with HIV who need to haul their canvasses to exhibitions sponsored by the nonprofit Visual Aid, employees who need to pick up supplies for author Dave Eggers’ 826 Valencia writing center, and to Meals on Wheels drivers bringing hot food to the homebound. In March, Zipcar will lend 10 trucks to Friends of the Urban Forest to plant trees throughout San Francisco parks and residential neighborhoods.

Zip Car, which has been around for nearly a decade, has yet to turn a profit – but growing demand in cities with a high parking-hassle factor like San Francisco and New York have helped position the company as a creative social entrepreneur.

Helping people in need, even when they aren’t rolling in cash themselves – now that’s something to be proud of. Let’s get the word out about Zip Car’s good deeds. Knowing that they are providing such an unselfish service to volunteers in San Francisco makes me want to help them become more successful themselves.

Link [SF Gate]
Photo credit: Frederic Larson / The Chronicle

Who’s Who in Green: Laurie David

Laurie David may not be as visible a green Hollywood figure as Brad Pitt, Daryl Hannah or Leonardo DiCaprio, but she’s every bit as powerful – if not more so – than her more famous counterparts. The producer of An Inconvenient Truth is a longtime environmentalist who’s on a mission to spread global warming awareness around the world.

Sprig called her “a walking eco-encyclopedia of green-living tips” and Grist affirms that anyone who’s skeptical of Hollywood greenies would have a change of heart after meeting her. With a background in the entertainment industry booking comedians for David Letterman, David changed her focus over the years to concentrate on the environmental movement and has been a force of nature ever since.

Laurie David founded the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, wrote the best-selling book Stop Global Warming: The Solution is You!, co-authored The Down to Earth Guide to Global Warming and executive produced HBO documentary Too Hot Not to Handle as well as comedy special Earth to America!. David also famously embarked on the Stop Global Warming College Tour with Sheryl Crow in 2007, visiting college campuses in the Southeast to raise awareness about global warming and inspire students to act.

She’s a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a founding member of The Detroit Project, producing television commercials that helped change the tide of public opinion about the use of gas-guzzling SUVs. In 2004 the NRDC opened the David Family Environmental Action Center in her honor, featuring museum-quality exhibits on global warming, ocean pollution, everyday toxins, green building solutions and other issues.

David has been particularly successful in reaching women with her message of taking action on global warming. She has appeared multiple times on Oprah to discuss environmental issues in front of a devoted audience of millions, and was the first-ever guest editor of three issues of Elle Magazine, which became the first fashion magazine to devote an entire issue to the environment and print on recycled paper. She also regularly writes for The Huffington Post.

Vanity Fair declared her to be ‘the Bono of climate change’, and with a resume like hers, it’s not hard to see why. In the last two years alone she has been profiled in People, Glamour, Vogue, Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, Self, Elle, Seed Magazine, Wired, House and Garden, Vanity Fair, Outside Magazine and The New York Times and appeared on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNBC, NOW, Nightline Hardball, Joe Scarborough Country and The Martha Stewart Show.

David has been honored with numerous awards including a U.S. EPA Climate Protection Award, the Feminist Majority’s Eleanor Roosevelt Award, Audubon Society’s Rachel Carson Award, the NRDC’s Forces of Nature Award and National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Achievement Award.

When asked by Treehugger why global warming issues are so important to her, David replied,

First of all, if you care about anything as human being, you have to care about the issue of global warming because it is the mother of all issues. We are literally changing life on this planet as we know it. And we’re not talking about just melting glaciers, we’re also talking about affecting seasons, and we’re talking about the leaves changing, when the birds get their food, how polar bears exist and survive, and we’re affecting, we’re causing extinction. Human beings are causing the climate to change. That is a giant statement; that is a huge thing to sort of wrap your mind around. This is as big as it gets, and we’re doing it. In particular, the United States is the world’s biggest cause of global warming position and we’re doing the least about it. It all has to do with our consciousness; it has to do with how we’re living, and how we’re going to live in the future. My whole thing is the solution is you; we have to change the way we think, we have to change the way we act, we have to change the way we behave. And then we’re going to demand… if we change ourselves as individuals, we’re going to demand that our families change, then we’re going to demand that our businesses change, and then hopefully country changes. That’s sort of the path that I’m on, and that’s what I’m hoping will happen.

Laurie David’s Green Score: 77,599

Photo credit: Vogue Magazine

Who’s Who in Green: Captain Paul Watson, Marine Activist

Captain Paul Watson is more than a little controversial. The anti-whaling activist is aggressive, tenacious and unapologetic when it comes to his goals of protecting and preserving the environment, particularly marine animals. Watson is known as a bit of a radical, having deployed dramatic tactics as founder of Sea Shepherd, an anti-whaling organization.

Born in Canada in 1950, Watson was an animal lover from an early age, reportedly going out into the forest at nine years old to find and destroy leg traps. He spent years on the sea both in the Canadian Coast Guard and as a merchant seaman with the Norwegian Consulate in Vancouver. At nineteen, Watson joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing at Amchitka Island, and the group he was with formed into the Don’t Make a Wave committee. From that group evolved what we know today as Greenpeace.

The incident that spurred his lifelong love for whales and ardent desire to protect them from harm occurred in 1975 while he was serving as First Officer on a Greenpeace voyage to confront Soviet whaling. His official biography (via Wikipedia) describes the incident:

In June 1975, Robert Hunter and Paul Watson were the first people to put their lives on the line to protect whales when Paul placed his inflatable Zodiac between a Russian harpoon vessel and a pod of defenseless Sperm whales. During this confrontation with the Russian whaler, a harpooned and dying sperm whale loomed over Paul’s small boat. Paul recognized a flicker of understanding in the dying whale’s eye. He felt that the whale knew what they were trying to do. He watched as the magnificent leviathan heaved its body away from his boat, slipped beneath the waves and died. A few seconds of looking into this dying whale’s eye changed his life forever. He vowed to become a lifelong defender of the whales and all creatures of the seas.

Watson’s newfound passion soon got him into trouble, though. Greenpeace found his opposition to their nonviolence policy to be divisive and kicked him out in 1977. It was then that he founded Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the organization that he still helms today.

Sea Shepherd has gotten a lot of press in recent years for their aggressive tactics. Many people may disagree with the act of ramming whaling ships, throwing butyric acid onto their decks and even jumping onboard. They’ve clashed with Greenpeace, which also protests whaling – albeit more peacefully. But many believe that Sea Shepherd’s techniques are just what is needed to stop whalers from illegally killing whales.

In an interview with Treehugger, Watson explains why whaling still continues despite the International Whaling Commission moratorium and why it’s so difficult to stop it.

One word – greed. When there is money to be made from exploiting nature, that is in and of itself enough of a powerful motivation. Unfortunately there are fortunes to be made in destroying the oceans and no profit to be found in protecting the seas and the threatened life within. Japan, Norway and Iceland are blatantly violating international conservation law in their ruthless slaughter of the whales.

We have all the laws we need to stop the slaughter of whales but we lack the political and economic will on the part of governments to enforce the laws. Sea Shepherd simply upholds the laws that exist but that are not being enforced. Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary could be ended tomorrow if nations like the United States or Australia demanded that the criminal slaughter of whales is ended.

To this day, Watson takes an active part in Sea Shepherd campaigns. He’s on the front lines of the anti-whaling efforts, earning him a reputation as a fierce and feisty eco-pirate and a spot among the world’s most notorious environmental activists.

Paul Watson’s Green Score: 58,984

Photo credit: The New Yorker + Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Low Cost Housing Made from Loofahs

If you thought all a loofah is good for is exfoliating your butt, think again. The dried vegetable is being used as a renewable, natural building material in impoverished areas of Paraguay thanks to the genius of social activist Elsa Zaldívar.  Elsa realized that not only is the loofah a great cash crop for poor communities to grow, it also makes strong yet lightweight building panels.

From Ecolect:

Working with industrial engineers, Elsa Zaldivar has combined readily available waste from the loofah with plastic waste to form strong, lightweight building panels. The panels can be used to create furniture and construct houses, insulating occupants from temperature and noise. This innovation addresses a real need in Paraguay, as around 300,000 Paraguayan families lack adequate housing. When the panels break or fall apart they can easily be broken down and recycled back into new panels, greatly easing the demand for wood in Paraguay’s over-harvested forests. Because of Elsa’s inspiring work she was awarded a Rolex Award for the creation of a low cost housing material. Rolex is now partially funding her effort and Elsa hopes to provide her sustainable and low cost housing throughout all of Paraguay.

It’s pretty incredible that Elsa was able to combine creating an income stream for these communities, giving them environmentally friendly housing and innovating a new eco-friendly building material all in one project.

Even better, Elsa persuaded local women to grow and process the loofahs using ecological methods that make the products superior to the ones grown on plantations in China (which are the ones you most often see in stores). The main, high quality part of the loofah is made into high-profit cosmetic products while the waste is used to create the building panels.

This is quite an admirable accomplishment – if only more of us could do so much for our communities and the world! Learn more about Elsa’s work at the Rolex Awards website.

Link [Ecolect] + [Rolex Awards]

Who’s Who in Green: Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson is regarded by many as the godmother of the environmental movement. It was her book, Silent Spring, that sowed the seeds of passion for protecting the environment – and she wrote it in 1962, years before hippies brought the concept of ‘saving the earth’ to mainstream consciousness.

Carson grew up in the rural river town of Springdale, Pennsylvania and earned degrees in marine biology and zoology before becoming a federal scientist and Editor-in-Chief of all major publications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1936. The job combined both of her lifelong passions: nature and the written word.

Much as she loved science, the work she did for the government must have been a bit dry; she began turning her government research into lyrical prose in her free time, first as an article entitled ‘Undersea’, which was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1937, and then in a book, Under the Sea-Wind (1941).  Two subsequent books, The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea, made her famous as a naturalist and science writer. In 1952, Carson resigned from her post at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to devote her time to her writing.

Through the remainder of the 1950s Carson wrote two more books about the wonders of nature, Help Your Child to Wonder and Our Ever-Changing Shore. In 1957, Carson began closely following federal proposals for the widespread spraying of pesticides, and her then-unpopular belief that such human actions could have an intense negative effect on the earth led her to focus the remainder of her career on pesticide overuse.

Carson had been concerned about the use of synthetic pesticides since the 1940s, but it was the USDA’s 1957 fire ant eradication program that led her to devote her research and her next book to pesticides and other environmental poisons. She began by gathering examples of environmental damage attributed to DDT and found a community of scientists who were documenting the physiological and environmental effects if pesticides.

Unsurprisingly, Carson was attacked by the chemical industry and some government officials as an alarmist when her book, Silent Spring, was published in 1962. In the book, Carson argued that pesticide use had effects far beyond the mere eradication of harmful insects from croplands. Silent Spring addresses the effects pesticides have on natural ecosystems as well as human poisoning, cancer and other illnesses attributed to pesticides.

Despite the efforts of the industry, Silent Spring went on to gain a wide audience.  Angry critics launched attacks on her personal character, with one calling her “a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature” and another, former Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, concluding that the fact that she was attractive yet unmarried must mean she was a Communist.

But, such criticism didn’t hold back Carson’s book. Silent Spring became a rallying point for the budding environmental movement in the 1960s, opening many people’s eyes to the fact that progress did not need to come at the expense of the environment. It also inspired the campaign to ban the use of DDT in the United States.

Today, Carson’s name also lives on in the form of the Rachel Carson Prize, awarded to women who have made a contribution to the field of environmental protection.

Rachel Carson’s Green Score: 96,331

Second Graders Refuse to Take ‘No Recycling’ for an Answer

Recyclables may be losing value due to the economy, but that certainly doesn’t mean people are going to stop recycling. One second grade class in West Virginia decided to fight back after their county decided to put an end to their recycling program, starting a letter-writing campaign and continuing to gather recyclable materials.

The class had begun recycling for the first time ever as part of a special project just a few weeks before, and their teacher, Rachel Fisk, was surprised at how enthusiastic they became. It caught on throughout the school, with students in other grades dropping recyclables off in Fisk’s classroom. Then, parents began sending in their paper and plastic in huge shopping bags. So, you can imagine how disappointed they were when their city recycling program was cancelled.

From the West Virginia Gazette:

Last month, Norm Steenstra, director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority, wrote to mayors across Kanawha County, saying that the agency would suspend collections of plastic, glass and cans for at least one month. Paper still will be collected.

Steenstra cited dramatic changes in the national and global markets for recyclables. He wrote that storage space is very limited at the Slack Street facility and “we are not able to market several items at this time.”

Last week, her students skipped recess one day and wrote letters to South Charleston Mayor Frank Mullens and Gov. Joe Manchin.

“In 30 years when we will only be 38 years old, what will the Earth be like if no one recycles?” one student wrote.

The New York Times’ ‘Green Inc.’ bloggers contacted Ms. Fisk to learn more about what her students were doing to get the recycling program started up again.

The children got down to business. They wrote letters to the mayor and governor, and wanted to make a television ad to inspire everyone to keep recycling.

Last week, just as the recycling was about to stop, the city found a way to save it. The paper, which the county still accepts, will be recycled locally, and “we’re going to take the rest to Ashland, Kentucky,” said Gerald Burghy, the public works director for the city of South Charleston.

Ms. Fisk said she is proud of her second-graders. “It goes above and beyond the fact that they wanted to continue to recycle,” she said. “They wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

How awesome that these kids were so motivated to keep on recycling. It warms my cold, dark heart to imagine the things that kids like this will be able to accomplish in the years to come. Cue that annoying Whitney Houston song…

Link [Green Inc.] + [West Virginia Gazette]

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

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

Featured Change Agent: Scott Harrison is Bringing Clean Water to Africa

Scott Harrison had the kind of life many people dream of leading: a glamorous, exciting, privileged life in the glitzy world of upper class Manhattan.  Scott was a party promoter, living in a luxurious loft and dropping hundreds of dollars on Grey Goose vodka.  But something didn’t feel right.  He wasn’t happy.  That’s when he asked himself, ‘what does the opposite of my life look like?’  After doing some digging, he found it and in that instant, his life was profoundly changed.

Scott learned about Mercy Ships, an organization that offers free medical care in the world’s poorest nations on ‘floating hospitals’ – surgery ships where hundreds of top medical professionals from around the world spend their time – and some of them, their entire lives – giving to others.  Scott joined Mercy Ships as a photojournalist, documenting the process of providing medical help to people off the coast of West Africa who were desperately in need.  It was then that he fell in love with the country of Liberia, and realized how good he really had it: he had food to eat, and water to drink. Clean water. Over the next eight months, Scott grew increasingly inspired to do whatever he could to help these people, and that’s how charity: water was born.

Charity: water is a nonprofit organization that has funded more than 600 water projects in 11 developing nations.  They fund local engineers who drill freshwater wells and teach basic sanitation and hygiene.  The wells cost between $4,000 and $10,000 each to dig.

Scott has been able to put his connections in NYC to good use, organizing fundraising projects that have helped bring in the money needed to pay for clean running water for the neediest of communities. Luckily, Scott’s friends wanted to help – and so have thousands of other people who have heard about charity: water’s mission.

You can help, too – whether you’d like to donate money, buy 5 charity: water bracelets so you can spread the message to your friends and family (100% of proceeds goes to building wells), or join Changents as a backer.  As a Changents backer, you can act as a fan, a buzz builder, or a volunteer.  You can also respond to Scott’s action requests to help charity: water continue to make a vital difference in Africa.

Link [Changents] + [Charity: water]

Who’s Who in Green: William Kamkwamba

William Kamkwamba, at fourteen years old, was facing a situation that most Americans could never dream of: his parents could no longer afford to continue his schooling, so he was frced to drop out. His sister had developed a nasty cough from the smoking paraffin candles used to light his family’s home in a Malawian village without electricity. William, one of seven children, was frustrated at the idea of being unable to continue his education, to learn things that could enable him to help his family.

So, William took things into his own hands. With the help of his mentor, Dr. Hartford Mchazime and the Malawi Teacher Training Authority (USAID), William educated himself, reading every book he could get his hands on. One of those books happened to be Using Energy by Mary Atwater, and it inspired him to take on an extremely ambitious project: building a bare-bones but fully-functioning windmill out of scrap materials like salvaged broken pipes, wooden poles, old shoes, copper wire and his father’s old bicycle. He knew that a windmill could provide electricity for his house, eliminating the need for those unhealthy, hard-to-come-by candles.

He cut PVC pipes, heated them and pounded them flat to serve as blades. When a bicycle chain didn’t work the way he wanted it to, he replaced it with an old fan belt from a car. William’s makeshift invention provided enough electricity to power his room, but that wasn’t enough – so he set out to improve it.

He took an old barrel to a tinsmith and had it turned into new, more efficient blades. He took parts from his father’s bike to increase the gear ratio, which helped turn the turbine faster and boost power. He even made electrical components from scratch, fabricating a light switch from plastic pipe and rubber from shoes. Soon, his windmill was supplying power for his family’s entire house as well as charging local cell phones and a car battery for backup power.

Once the word got out about what William had done, he was invited to become a fellow at TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) GLOBAL 2007. TED seeks to spread innovative ideas that have the power to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. TED gave William a computer – which he now powers with his windmill.

Watch William discuss how he built his windmill in this video clip:

William is now using his wind-powered energy to reach out to people in his community. He designed a radio station that transmits to an audience within 100 square meters, and hopes to expand that to 20 miles so he can broadcast messages to his fellow Africans about not contracting HIV.

But he’s not stopping there. William’s next project is building a larger windmill that can help pump water and irrigate his family’s vegetable garden. He hopes to eventually be able to irrigate all of the crops in his village. Through his fellowship with TED, William has received enough support to help him improve his inventions by incorporating solar energy. He has also received enough donations to fund mentorships and his education.

William Kamwkamba’s inspiring story has touched people all over the globe, demonstrating the power of creativity and persistence in the face of a profound lack of resources. You can follow William’s journey at his Malawi Windmill blog, where he keeps readers updated on his inventions and their impact on his community as well as his own life.

William Kamkwamba’s Green Score: 20,893

Photo credit: MyHero.com

Who’s Who in Green: Majora Carter

The South Bronx, where Majora Carter grew up, wasn’t exactly an inspiring place for a creative girl who would go on to study cinema.  Back then, as Majora told CNN, the area was considered “the poster child for urban blight”.  Waste facilities and other kinds of polluting infrastructure crowd this neighborhood outside Manhattan.  While the South Bronx is better now than it was when she was a child, Majora was still stunned by the prevalence of such facilities in a poor community.  She decided to get more involved, and founded Sustainable South Bronx, an organization that works to promote green collar jobs and sustainable development to create healthier communities and help lift people out of poverty.

Over the years, the South Bronx has literally served as a dumping ground for waste.  The air quality was abysmal and athsma rates were raising ever-higher.  When Majora went back to live with her parents while seeking a graduate degree from New York University, she noticed a disused stretch of waterfront one day and thought, why can’t that be a usable, clean, green space for the community to enjoy? She wrote a $1.2 million Federal Transportation planning grant for the South Bronx Greenway, which resulted in a big victory: an 11-mile waterfront park.

The South Bronx still faces plenty of problems.  It handles more than 40 percent of New York City’s commercial waste.  There’s also a sewage treatment plant, a sewage sludge palletizing plant and four power plants.  Residents breathe in diesel emissions from about 60,000 diesel truck trips every week.  Majora hopes that Sustainable South Bronx’s efforts will inspire the community to come together and fight against the kind of discrimination that results in poor communities being kept on the receiving end of all of this pollution.

Five years ago, Sustainable South Bronx started an urban green-collar job training program, Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training (BEST). It focused on individuals who needed help the most; many of the trainees were formerly incarcerated. The program has a fantastic 85 percent employment rate in areas like forestry, green roof installation, brown field cleanup and maintenance.

Other projects by the Sustainable South Bronx include building a park on the site of a former concrete plant, developing an ecological restoration workforce to protect the environment, replacing the abandoned Sherridan Expressway along 1.25 miles of the Bronx River with riverfront housing and retail stores and advocating for swimmable waterways.

Check out this video of Majora talking about ‘greening the ghetto’:

Of Sustainable South Bronx’s future, Majora told CNN,

In ten years I hope that Sustainable South Bronx has worked itself out of a job because our work to help create the South Bronx as a hope for green businesses, for clean businesses, has taken off so much; that our 25 percent unemployment rate is in the past; that our asthma rates have plummeted because there is so much green space along the new Greenway that has been built here; that there are so many people bike riding and the diabetes rate is gone; and that Nobel Prize Laureates are being born.

In 10 years, if we play our cards right and make the right partnerships, whether that’s with the city or with businesses, absolutely. I don’t think it would take much for that to happen. When my parents moved here 60 years ago, this place was a working class community and it was thriving. We can be thriving again.
There was a different kind of manufacturing then, but it was manufacturing and the jobs were right here in this country. People were able to make livings out of it and the gap between rich and poor was smaller.

I think we need to decide as a society, as a country, that it’s not ok that people are as poor as they are right now. We’ve got to decide that we want to live in a world that is sane and happy and healthy, and that everyone deserves that.

Majora has been named among Newsweek’s ‘Who’s Next in 2007’, The NY Post’s 50 most influential women in New York City, Essence Magazine’s 25 Most Influential African-Americans of 2007 and Vibe Magazine’s New Power Generation.  She has also been awarded the National Audubon Society’s Rachel Carson Award for outstanding efforts in environmental protection.  In fact, she’s received so many awards that the list is too lengthy to include here! Check it out on her Wikipedia page.

Majora is also co-founder of Green for All with fellow Who’s Who in Green Van Jones, which aims to help raise people out of poverty through green jobs.  Majora looks forward to a future where the world works together to create communities that are safe and healthy, and she’s inspiring plenty of people along the way.

Majora Carter’s Green Score: 74,887

Featured Change Agent: Chad Pregracke is Cleaning Up America’s Rivers

Each week, EarthFirst.com will be featuring a new ‘Change Agent’ from Changents.com, a social media site that connects people who are doing good in the world with a support system of advocates, donors, publicity generators and fans.

This week we’re putting the spotlight on Chad Pregacke, a change agent who set out to free the rivers he loves so much from the trash that was polluting their shorelines.  Chad, who grew up and spent much time along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, decided at 22 that he wanted to do something about the problem.  So, he started calling around seeking corporate sponsorships, and after many rejections, finally got his first one from Alcoa, Inc.  That helped him get started, and 10 years later, he’s traveling the rivers of America in his barge, cleaning them of trash.

Chad’s organization, Living Lands and Waters, has pulled over 4 million pounds of trash from the nation’s river since he first set out in 1997. LL&W now has 10 employees, a fleet of workboats and barges and many corporate sponsors. They’ve engaged thousands of people in river cleanups all over the U.S., and continue to work toward their mission of river cleanup, riverbottom restoration, educational workshops, Adopt-A-River-Mile and the Million Trees project.

Living Lands and Waters goes one step further in their efforts by giving away a million fruit and nut bearing hardwood trees to help restore watershed ecosystems.  The trees are offered in the hopes that communities will be able to get rid of invasive species and instead provide food and shelter for wildlife, and preserve the riverbottom ecosystems.

Check out this video clip from Big Ideas for a Small Planet, where Chad talks about Living Lands and Waters’ efforts.

Chad and Living Lands and Waters are actively seeking volunteers to help them in their current crusade, which is helping to restore the Midwest areas that were affected by this year’s flood.  See the Chad Pregracke Changents Action Opportunities page for more information.

Living Lands and Waters also hosts community cleanups, educational workshops and tree-plantings throughout the Midwest, and occasionally in other locations.  Join Changents as a backer or contact Living Lands and Waters by emailing madeline@livinglandsandwaters.org for more information.

As a Changents backer, you can offer your assistance in any way you can: as a volunteer right out there on the rivers, sponsors, advocates and publicity generators.  Even if you only have a few minutes of your day to spare, you can help get Living Lands & Waters’ message out so they can continue cleaning up our rivers.

Featured Change Agent: Agent 350 is Building a Global Climate Movement

Each week, EarthFirst.com is featuring a standout Change Agent from the social change platform, Changents.com. Today’s featured Change Agent is Jamie Henn, also known as Agent 350.

Jamie Henn wants you to remember one very important number: 350. He and his team at 350.org are working to spread their message – and this number – across the planet to fight global warming. What’s the significance of the number 350? It’s the number of parts per million that we need to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere down to. Climate experts say that’s the magic number that can help us start reversing the damage we’ve done to the earth.

Jamie’s mission is to get everyone in the world aware of that number, and actively working to reach it – together, as citizens of the earth. The 350.org team is using the internet to crowd source cutting edge ideas as well as volunteers who can help them raise money, spread the buzz and turn 350 from a concept into reality.

This 23-year-old first became inspired to start 350.org as a college activist. He helped start the 2007 Step it Up campaign at Middlebury College in Vermont, which inspired people to gather around the U.S. on April 14th, 2007 in the name of cutting carbon emissions. The project, which encouraged cutting 80% of carbon emissions by 2050, soon became entwined with the 2008 presidential campaign and gained a lot of much-needed publicity for their cause. Jamie didn’t want Step it Up to be a one-time deal, though – he felt like there was still so much work to be done, and he wanted to be on the front lines to fight global warming.

There are many ways to participate in the 350 movement – even the busiest of people can find an opportunity to help out. Right now, Agent 350 has Action Opportunities on the Changents site that range from a crafting competition to helping spread their new video on YouTube, which you can view below.

Want to help Agent 350 spread the word about climate change and how we can all do our part to get carbon levels down to that all-important number? Join Changents as a backer and act as a publicity generator, fan, investor or advocate. There are so many ways to help, and each backer puts Agent 350 that much closer to their goal.

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