Solar Mamas


They can’t read or write but a couple of brave Bedouin women from Jordan travelled far and wide to help their villages become solar powered. The biggest struggle yet may be with their husbands: We’ve covered this hopeful story of Solar Mamas, Bedouin women from Jordan who went to Barefoot College to learn how to solar power their villages. We’ve interviewed the women from solar mamas, and have reviewed the film Solar Mamas, a documentary movie about their journey.

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Is Ecosex Your Thing?

Many conversations about sexuality focus on health. It’s safe and respectable. Builds the immune system? Yep. Good for the heart: check. Relieves menstrual cramps and depression: double check. Sex bonds us through the oxytocin-dopamine cascade: check again. We know healthy people have more sex, and having good clean fun may help you live longer too. Orgasms are great for body and mind, and caresses feed our skin hunger. Check, check, check.

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The Older We Get, The Less Eco We Get

Sad but true, as we get older, we choose economics over the environment. What can we do to change this? Share your thoughts below!

I recognize that I do not see a random sample of young people by teaching graduate students in environmental policy and sustainability management at Columbia University. I also confess that my visit last week to Portland, Oregon to meet with sustainability management students at Willamette University is influencing my mindset. Portland has been working on sustainability for a long time, and it shows. Caveats aside, I find that more and more people born since the mid 1980’s have internalized aspects of an environmental ethos, and that awareness will soon have a major impact on American politics. While Gallup continues to poll on what I consider the false tradeoff between economic growth and environmental protection, even their data reports growing environmental awareness, especially among young people.

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What to Do This Weekend

This Saturday there will be a great opportunity to listen in to two inspiring leaders talk about how women can most effectively transform themselves and the world. You can listen in from anywhere.. and call-ins are welcome!

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Cultivating Women’s Leadership with Bioneers co-founder, Nina Simons – show 37

Nina Simons is one of those rare teachers who encourages and emboldens at the same time that she inspires curiosity about the topics of service, gender, and leading from the heart. She speaks here about the importance of collaboration between women (and between men and women) as we all strive to reinvent a model of leadership that can help steward the current changes taking place on our planet. “Liberate your own capacity,” she suggests “and get out of your own way!”

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Greening In Grim Times, by Phila Hoopes

With the economy in upheaval, Congress reeling, and the environment under continuing assault from Big Oil, Big Coal, and Big Agro, it’s sometimes tempting to question – how much good can living green really do The luxuries of enviro-heedless daily American living surround us on all sides…high-tech petro-based cosmetics…sweatshop-manufactured designer clothing…toxin-emitting furniture, carpets, cabinets… mountaintops being exploded into rubble to keep our lights on and our computers running. Even if you’re committed to a green lifestyle, the relentless din of this consumerist world view can get wearing. In the midst of a hectic day, does it really matter that much to the planet if you drive to the 7-11 to pick up a pack of Clorox wipes instead of cycling to the health food store for white vinegar to use with your reusable cloth towels? But there’s a deeper question here – it’s not a matter of harshly enforcing green discipline. Somewhere over the last sixty years or so, our culture has lost the skills…and joy…and value…of living simply, lightly, in balance with the natural world. I took my 86-year-old father to a local Fair Trade coffeehouse and housewares shop awhile back. He browsed through the reclaimed-wood furniture, clay-based paints, […]

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From Rosie The Riveter to Green Irene: A Plan For Bringing Women Into The Green Revolution, by Shari Shapiro

While I was in New Orleans for the Green Matters Conference, I met the most extraordinary woman. Simone Bruni, better known in the Crescent City as the “Demo Diva,”  took her personal tragedy from Hurricane Katrina and turned it into a woman-owned and run demolition business, complete with hot pink front loader and giant dumpster. I have written and spoken extensively on the lack of women in green. There are many reasons for it, I suppose. Green, particularly Green Building, is really a version of construction, and women represent only 3-6% of the building trades as a whole. But the lesson from the Demo Diva is that there is nothing really stopping women from becoming involved, even in the male dominated fields like demolition and construction! On the softer side, there is certainly no reason that women cannot be green building lawyers, sustainable investment advisors or involved in the marketing and selling of green products. Given that the economy is in a fragile recovery, green and sustainable businesses are leading the areas of growth. There are many programs specifically designed to help women acquire these skills. (A listing is available here.) Green Business Women is a nice site with resources for women looking to turn […]

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To GREEN or not to GREEN, that is the question.

Luckily for us all, there is only one answer. That answer is yes. A better question might be, “Who can you trust?” In this ever growing and rapidly changing “green” market, it is harder and harder to figure out who or what is actually green. With so many words being thrown at us daily, ranging from “green”, “biodegradable”, “non toxic”, and many more, it is close to impossible to find out what truly is green.

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