Minimalism: A Documentary About Finding More Meaning with Less

minimalism_documentary_women_of_green

While in his 20s, Joshua Fields Millburn faced a trio of challenges: the death of his mother, divorce, and a deep dissatisfaction with his high-paying job. He decided to limit himself to only those things that served a purpose, hoping to find more meaning in life (“Love people, use things, because the opposite never works,” he says). His longtime friend Ryan Nicodemus joined him in an easygoing embrace of a “minimalist” philosophy, eventually resulting in the recent book tour that this film follows.

Continue reading...

Doctors Explain How Hiking Actually Changes Our Brains

hiking_good_for_brain_women_of_green

While it may seem obvious that a good hike through a forest or up a mountain can cleanse your mind, body, and soul, science is now discovering that hiking can actually change your brain… for the better! Aside from the almost instant feeling of calm and contentment that accompanies time outdoors, hiking in nature can reduce rumination. Many of us often find ourselves consumed by negative thoughts, which takes us out of the enjoyment of the moment at best and leads us down a path to depression and anxiety at worst. But a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that spending time in nature decreases these obsessive, negative thoughts by a significant margin.

Continue reading...

Solar Experiment Lets Neighbors Trade Energy Among Themselves

solar_experiment_brooklyn_women_of_green

In a promising experiment in an affluent swath of Brooklyn, New York, dozens of solar-panel arrays spread across rowhouse rooftops are wired into a growing network. Called the Brooklyn Microgrid, the project is signing up residents and businesses to a virtual trading platform that will allow solar-energy producers to sell excess-electricity credits from their systems to buyers in the group, who may live as close as next door. The project is still in its early stages — it has just 50 participants thus far — but its implications could be far reaching. The idea is to create a kind of virtual, peer-to-peer energy trading system built on blockchain, the database technology that underlies cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Continue reading...

They Serve Bagels in Heaven: A Story of Love, Eternity, and the Cosmic Importance of Everyday Life

they_serve_bagels_in_heaven_women_of_green

Irene Weinberg is the author of They Serve Bagels in Heaven, a 5-star rated memoir filled with humor, love and narrative flair. As Irene chronicles her healing journey from devastating loss to a renewed sense of inner strength, spiritual wisdom and passion for life following the death of her husband Saul, she also shares beautiful and important insights about healing both in heaven and on Earth

Continue reading...

85% of Tampons, Pads and Other Feminine Care Products Contaminated with Monsanto’s Cancer-Causing, Endocrine-Disrupting Glyphosate

round_up_ready_glyphosate_women_of_green

Typically we take for granted the safety of cotton products such as gauze, bandages, swabs, pads, wipes — and even feminine products, like tampons and sanitary pads. But a 2015 Argentinian study should give us pause for thought. As it turns out, researchers from the University of La Plata found that a vast majority of these products contain glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s wildly popular Roundup herbicide and the same chemical that’s considered a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization. If that’s not enough to get your attention, glyphosate is also associated with IQ loss/intellectual disability, autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, obesity (both child and adult), diabetes, infertility and cardiovascular disease. Needless to say, this isn’t the kind of chemical you want absorbed by wounds, or worse, through the vagina.

Continue reading...

The Navajo Solar Project: Lighting the Navajo Nation with Solar Powered LED Lights

Roughly 250,000 people call the “domestically dependent” sovereign Navajo Nation home. It is a place full of diverse landscapes, tradition, beauty, and history. Many inhabitants live in such remote places that simple amenities like running water, power and lights aren’t available. Miles of rugged dirt roads separate neighbors and the cost of running power and water to each home becomes fiscally impossible. Thus, over 18,000 homes are without power. Part of a larger ongoing operation run by Elephant Energy, known as Eagle Energy to the Navajo, a non-profit dedicated to resolving the energy access issues in Africa and in the Navajo Nation, Eagle Energy and The Honnold Foundation partnered with Goal Zero, The North Face, and Clif Bar to install solar panels and lights on rural homes and to donate to an entrepreneurship program Eagle Energy has already set in motion.

Continue reading...

Participant Media’s ‘TakePart World’ Highlights Sustainability Progress in Developing World

take-part-world_women_of_green

Participant Media, with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched a new multi-platform series, TakePart World, which investigates the myths and misconceptions people across the globe have about the developing world. The year-long series spotlights the faces and voices of those driving progress towards a sustainable future for the world’s poorest.

Continue reading...

The Once Hopelessly Polluted Anacostia River is Making a Comeback

chesapeake_restoration_women_of_green

The Anacostia River, which runs 8.7 miles from Bladensburg, Maryland, to the District of Columbia, has endured centuries of abuse. Once teeming with fish and clear water, the river is but a bedraggled ghost of its former self. But it’s a ghost with the potential to come back to life. To encourage this conservation and document the complexity of the task, photographer Krista Schlyer has brought her talent for visual storytelling to the front lines. In the process, she reaffirms the importance of looking at one’s own backyard for ways to make a big difference through environmental stewardship. “We don’t have to travel far to work on an important conservation issue: We can look in our very own backyards.”

Continue reading...

Love is the Most Powerful Force in the Universe

healing_power_of_love_women_of_green

Love is the most powerful force in the Universe. With it, anything is possible. The stories of the healing power of love are all over the Internet. They’re the kind of feel-good stories that make you pause during the day and realize that there is so much more to life than our day-to-day routines and responsibilities, and that there is a greater power in our lives. Sometimes they even make you cry.

Continue reading...

An Immodest Proposal: Make America Beautiful Again

make_america_beautiful_again_women_of_green

Communications strategist and linguist George Lakoff has often warned that the Left communicates through policies and the presentation of factual data while the Right deals in moral themes and a focus on values. Lakoff has suggested that campaigns must appeal to a moral vision, and one that understands the needs and longings that are common to all of us. As for policies, he would focus on themes and legislation that can simultaneously address many of these common needs and longings. He calls such campaigns “strategic initiatives” and, a decade ago, pointed to one — the Apollo Project, a major investment in alternative energy that would simultaneously have created jobs and challenged climate change. A new suggested initiative for progressives is a “Make America Beautiful Again” campaign which is first a jobs program.

Continue reading...