It’s like magic: having a baby. I don’t just mean the obvious: bump one day and baby the next. I mean what happens to the parents, the mom especially. One day she is a woman and the next day she is a mother. That act of becoming a mother represents the largest life change, and the most sudden, that most people will ever experience. One day you are free to stay up late drinking wine, forget your sunhat, and pass judgment at the woman with screaming toddlers, impertinent teenagers, or breast milk stains on their silk blouses. Then, seemingly overnight, you are part of a secret tribe of women giving each other the thumbs up when passing with sleeping babies in strollers or sharing tips on favorite slings and you oh-so-sympathetically-and-without-ANY-judgment smile at the frazzled mother trying to pry her child’s booger-filled hands out of the bulkfood bins in the aisle of the grocery store.
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Never again will you have to answer the question “paper or plastic?” At this grocery store, they are eliminating all of it. Destined to become the first zero-waste, packaging-free store in the US, this Austin, TX start-up in.gredients says that it will carry “all the basic ingredients you need for life (and most recipes).”
“Most will perceive our competition as supermarkets, since we’re literally revising what grocery shopping looks like. But really, our competition is hyper-consumerism, which is just not sustainable long-term,” explains Brian Nunnery of in.gredients in an email to Fast Company. “If we were competing with supermarkets, we’d be setting up shop across the street from one. Instead, we’re targeting areas where folks don’t have easy access to good food–and are forced to buy unhealthy food out of convenience.”.
Continue reading... →I have attended many Clean Tech conferences in the southwest over the last six months. Frankly, I wish I saw more women in the room. So this post on EcoAid’s website really resonated with me, so I am sharing it with you. It’s a juicy topic. Please join in on the conversation by leaving your comments below. And if you are a woman working in clean tech now, what do you know now that you didn’t know before that could help other women wanting to enter the clean energy sector? — Carolyn
Women across the nation are preparing to play an integral role in the green economy, and the United States will need their help if we’re going to pull ourselves out of the recession and compete in the new economy on a global scale. CAP’s Jorge Madrid has the story in this repost.
It’s true that men have been hit the hardest in the recession as far an unemployment numbers go, but we will need to seize the opportunity to diversify the future workforce in a way that will incorporate all workers in all areas of the clean energy economy—including those where women have been traditionally underrepresented.
Women in Burlington, Vermont are training for careers in the fields of green construction, renewable energy, and energy efficiency as part of the Vermont Works for Women project. Women Going Green in Atlanta, Georgia is educating women in management and entrepreneurial opportunities in the clean energy economy. And young women in Los Angeles, California are receiving science, technology, engineering, and math education through the Infrastructure Academy, which will prepare them for high-paying, high-demand careers developing the next generation of clean energy technology.
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This 4th of July, we Americans will consume 150 million hot dogs, “enough to stretch from DC to LA over five times,” says the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council. Yikes! An estimated 100 billion gallons of water and 70 million gallons of gas would be saved if everyone in the US just ate vegetarian for just one day. One day. So skip the pork and pile up the potato salad instead. For more eco tips on how to make this Independence Day lighter on the planet, and your palate, check out Huff Post’s Green July 4th.
Continue reading... →According to Businessweek, today, 29 companies in the S&P 500, or 9.4 percent, have no women on the board or among the five highest-paid executives. Among these are Discovery Communications, the co-owner of the Oprah Winfrey Network, and America’s largest maker of uniforms, Cintas.
Oprah’s audience is overwhelmingly women. What is wrong with this picture? Unfortunately, this is common across the board. Women hold less than 15% of leadership positions in Corporate America and politics. We need to seriously make a change. With the state of the world — from toxins in our food, to oil spills poisoning our marine life, to the threat of more nuclear disasters, we need women’s voice at the table more than ever. What are you willing to do to make that happen?
Continue reading... →The Environmental Working Group just released their 2011 Shopper’s Guide for pesticides in produce. Here are the top three offenders:
#1 Apples. An apple a day keeps the doctor away? Not if 98% of conventional apples have pesticides. Sad but true.
#2 Celery. Don’t crunch this for lunch. Celery tested positive for 57 different pesticides.
#3 Strawberries. Some of these lovely, juicy red berries have as many as 13 pesticides.
To see their whole list and get their guide, go to Environmental Working Group. They are your friend.
Continue reading... →A new report from the clean tech research firm Pike Research confirms a trend that has been percolating along mainly under the radar: the U.S. Department of Defense is gung ho for clean energy. In an interesting twist, Pike states that “increased access to clean and reliable energy has become a leading priority for the U.S. Department of Defense.” By stressing the reliability of clean energy, rather than focusing on the renewable aspect, Pike effectively steamrolls over any further discussion of whether or not the U.S. should continue to promote oil drilling, at least not for national defense purposes.
Continue reading... →Hot composting, cold composting, worm composting, grub composting? Here’s a quick and easy slide show that breaks it down for you whether you are a Compost Aficionado or just starting out.
Continue reading... →“Solar is the most distributed energy source we have. The same sun shines down on everyone. And with advances in technology, it is available and affordable. Especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where only 5% of the rural population has access to electricity, solar is the perfect energy source as it takes advantage of their most abundant resource, the hot African sun,” says Katherine Lucey, Founder & CEO, Solar Sister.
Continue reading... →I live in an idyllic valley just 45 minutes drive north of Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. These six acres I call home has been my turangawaewae or standing place for 25 years. The first time I walked the land, I knew I belonged here. It was mostly pasture with a scraggly bit of remnant native forest that sheltered the sheep and cattle that grazed here. North facing, it is surrounded by huge hills covered with native trees. My then husband and I had no doubts. We rang the agent and put in a bid. From a piece of bare land it has grown to be a tree covered oasis, a place of healing and a haven for people, birds and insects.
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