Daryl Hannah arrested in White House oil protest
31 Aug 2011
Actress Daryl Hannah has been arrested in front of the White House along with other environmental protesters opposing a planned oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The sit-in Tuesday, August 30th involved dozens protesting the Keystone XL pipeline. It would go through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to refineries in Texas.
It takes a village to help the environment.
30 Aug 2011
I imagine that most people are familiar with the phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child”. While this rings true for children and families, I find that this can apply to many things. In fact, the community or village around that child or idea betters almost everything as it tries to grow and plant its roots.
At the moment, I believe this philosophy can be applied to making a change for our environment and helping our environment to continue to grow, as it should. While a lot of positive changes and growth begin in the home, much like with children, you cannot underestimate nor deny the positive influence provided by the village.
There are many ways that you can encourage your community to come together to help the environment. While we don’t exist in the same way as a community or village that we used to, it can still be a great way to educate and spread the word about some of the issues going on in the environment today.
California wants to lead on socially-conscious businesses
18 Aug 2011
We are at the cusp of major positive change in corporate governance and corporate responsibility in California.
Behind us is the old way, the only way corporations in California and most other states have operated: Start a business and try to maximize profits for shareholders. Under this model, any notion of broad corporate social responsibility is subordinated – and legally trumped – by a fiduciary duty to make as much money as possible.
Important Links
17 Aug 2011
Albuquerque
Portland
Eugene
Berkeley
San Francisco
Sunnyvale
Saint Paul
Minneapolis
Fort Worth
Austin
Denver
Boston
Cambridge
Seattle
Women who broke the barriers
17 Aug 2011
Fifteen prominent women who broke the gender barriers and stepped into historic leadership roles.
See them in all their glory in this Washington Post slide show.
Backyard Agrarian’s 30-days without packaged food
16 Aug 2011
Liz Brown Morgan is a wilderness guide, turned environmentalist, turned water lawyer, turned tax lawyer turned Agrarian Revolutionary. Liz is the founder of Backyard Agrarian through which she writes about the requisite Agrarian Revolution and the Landscape Imperative needed to save ourselves – from ourselves. Liz is a yogi, a wild gardener, a telemark skier, a rafter, an eco-entrepreneur and a community activist. She lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains just outside of Boulder, Colorado.
On the cusp of spring, here in the high mountains of Colorado, I found myself embroiled in the weekly battle that my husband typically oversees: Recycling. I was appalled. We are environmentalists. We eat organic food. We buy local. We do, what we thought, was our best to eat and live responsibly given the constraints of the culture that we live in. But here I was, up against that unspoken behemoth of wastefulness: food packaging.
I decided then and there to embark on a 30-day adventure without packaged food. I convinced my husband to join me, cleaned out the cupboards, grabbed some tote bags and Tupperware, and headed to the farmers markets, the grocery stores and whatever farm stands I could find.
For Leah, creativity is the cure.
8 Aug 2011
As my knowledge and passion grows, I see that we, as Americans and world citizens, have a lot of work to do. To combat frustration and despair that grip many of us after we see movies like Food Inc., I have developed a platform for change. Human creativity remains to be one of the last resources that has not been commodified for profit. There are vast untapped stories, images, fears, dreams and damaged lives out there that are waiting to be expressed.
Our Facebook Page, World Food Day KC 2011 Flash Mob has many functions, but at the top of the list is: A place where we can express in different ways our concern, hope and fears around the topic of the future of food. These expressions, in turn, are then made into posters and fliers that are free for world citizens to download in order to make their own parties, potlucks, protests, flash mobs or advertisements. We encourage people who feel that they don’t have a voice to contribute, as their healing becomes our healing. The system in the U.S. and around the world is truly in a crisis of proportions that we are barely conscious of.
Sundance award-winning filmmakers of FUEL bring us new documentary FREEDOM
5 Aug 2011
From the filmmakers of the Sundance Award-winning film FUEL, comes the new documentary FREEDOM. In the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill; filmmakers Josh Tickell and Rebecca Tickell (check out our interview with Rebecca on Women Of Green) took an international journey to investigate alternatives to fossil fuels. FREEDOM offers an array of green solutions. From about advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, to plug in hybrids, we learn about the sustainable technologies that could fulfill our transportation needs.
With insightful and inspirational interviews form former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former NATO Commander Wesley Clark, Singer/Songwriter Jason Mraz, international author Deepak Chopra and actors Michelle Rodriguez, Amy Smart and Ed Begley Jr., FREEDOM invites people to not just get mad, but get motivated.
Above all, FREEDOM calls for a revolution in how we live. Inevitably we must shift the types of houses and cities we live in, we must rethink the way we work and change the way we treat each other and the planet. Most importantly we must transform ourselves.
More information on theater location and time coming! If you are anywhere near Santa Fe, NM on August 23, I’ll see you at the screening. If not, check out the FREEDOM Film site for a screening near you.
If you don’t bring it, we won’t get it. A conversation with Rha Goddess – show 50
4 Aug 2011
One of the best parts of my work with Women Of Green is I get to hang out with some of the coolest, smartest, electrifying people on the planet. Rha Goddess is at the top of that list. She is a captivating performance artist, activist and social entrepreneur who uses her artistic and motivational talents to heal, transform, and inspire. If you are an entrepreneur (or want to be) whose mission has social change at the heart of your enterprise, listen to this interview. Rha’s shares her hard-earned business savvy with her deep passion to make a difference, and shows us how to “Stay True, Get Paid and Do Good”. That’s music to my ears.
Izilwane takes on women, reproduction and consumption.
2 Aug 2011
Tara Waters Lumpkin, environmental and medical anthropologist, is the president of the nonprofit Perception International and founder, editor-in-chief, and project director of the online multimedia platform Izilwane. Perception International is a nonprofit that promotes environmental, cultural, and perceptual diversity worldwide. Izilwane is one of its projects and focuses on creating awareness about the importance of changing how human beings perceive themselves in relationship with other species and the natural world.
Just as Copernicus forever altered our perception of the role of humans in the cosmos, Dr. Lumpkin’s organization believes that humankind can redefine our human place in local and global ecosystems as being a part of nature, rather as seeing ourselves as being above nature. The website asks, “How can we change our perceptions and, thus, alter our negative impact on biodiversity? Are we evolutionarily hard-wired to destroy other species? Or can we become more aware of our own ‘animal nature’ and consciously and deliberately change our behaviors?”
What is truly new about Izilwane is that we work with volunteer eco-reporters from around the globe. Reporters use writing, photos, video, and more to reflect on what is happening globally to biodiversity and how we can change human perceptions to stop the massive species die-off we are perpetuating. By being participatory in our journalistic approach, we are creating activists around the world who support our mission to stop biodiversity loss, as well as educating the general public. This is why we call ourselves a platform not an ezine.
Dr. Lumpkin is also a nonprofit consultant and journalist. Although she is a resident of Taos, New Mexico, her fieldwork has propelled her around the globe. From 1993-1994, Dr. Lumpkin worked in Namibia to conduct research for her PhD, where she studied the community use of traditional medicine. A few years later, in 1997, she traveled to Panama as a “Women in Development” fellow for USAID and the Panamanian National Commission on the Environment where she researched ecotourism possibilities in the Panama Canal Watershed. Since then she has worked for a variety of nonprofits across the world, including Tibet, where she conducted a Maternal and Child Heath Needs Assessment. Her project resulted in the building of a health clinic in Gargon village, and the training of nurse midwives and doctors.
