Sound Healing and Energy? Scientists use sound to burn water as fuel.

Hydrogen has been on my mind for about 4 years now, as I put together a venture capital forum for the National Hydrogen Association in 2003 to help support emerging technologies and companies in the Hydrogen energy space. The conclusion I came to is that Hydrogen is currently another form of fossil fuel, since a large percentage of the current feedstock of hydrogen made by major corporations is fossil fuel in the form of natural gas.

The core idea is to produce sustainable hydrogen. Simply, the process of making hydrogen out of natural gas or other fossil fuel has a carbon byproduct. It can be sequestered, but that is a cost that is sometimes not considered, until now with carbon credits... yet that is another story for another day.

Long story short, you want to produce sustainable hydrogen - ideally by electrolyzing water to produce hydrogen "H2" from water "H2O."

According to the following article, scientists cited below have found a way to send sound waves through salt water and produce energy by literally burning the Hydrogen that is released from the water.

Fascinating!

I'd love to learn the chemistry behind this one! More to follow....


Here's the article:

"Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water

ERIE, Pa. - An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the "most remarkable" water science discovery in a century.

John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

Rustum Roy, a Penn State University chemist, has held demonstrations at his State College lab to confirm his own observations.

The radio frequencies act to weaken the bonds between the elements that make up salt water, releasing the hydrogen, Roy said. Once ignited, the hydrogen will burn as long as it is exposed to the frequencies, he said.

The discovery is "the most remarkable in water science in 100 years," Roy said.

"This is the most abundant element in the world. It is everywhere," Roy said. "Seeing it burn gives me the chills."

Roy will meet this week with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding.

The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen — which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit — would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery.

"We will get our ideas together and check this out and see where it leads," Roy said. "The potential is huge."

___
Information from: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

-- Found on Google News - 751 Headlines...

Photo by Birdfarm found on Flickr

An unthinkable future, or an unimaginable one?

Since we're adding the population equivalent to the population of Seattle Washington every day, are we going to create a future that is unthinkable or unimaginable?

Alex Steffan - founder of worldchanging.com raised those two terms in his 15 minute talk at the TED conference, suggested that now is the time to create an unimaginable experience to avoid the unthinkable in the future.

Ideas -
Denser cities
Growth Management - permanent green spaces
Transit systems that work
Zero energy buildings, natural lighting, recycled water, etc.
Close proximity - smart places sharing resources (car share clubs)
Biomimicry

More stuff on Worldchanging.com

Let's go everyone!

Billionaires gone Green?

I saw an article on American Prospect called "Environmentalism for Billionaires"

It speaks directly to the challenges that big money, big corporations and the people behind them are having in authentically "doing the right thing" for ecosystems and their residents. Frankly the money system we have created does not have the mechanisms to value nature properly. And therefore, when people with money are doing "what is right for money" they are often at odds with Nature, even if they don't intend it so.

The heart of the issue is this if we are not restoring and rejuvenating ecosystems - the very life support system of our civilization, then we're not getting very far in helping the planet.

Of course, we must reverse the damage = "the ecological u turn" but that is only the beginning.

We must devise mechanisms and systems that one, value nature in its pristine state, and two increase human well being while preserving nature's integrity.

Interview with my friend John Katovich and his colleague on Local Investing.

from the August 06, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0806/p99s01-usec.html
Forget globalization. Here's how to profit from 'localization.'
How ethical investors can get involved in this trend.

Many things aren't made in the US anymore, as any Wal-Mart shopper knows. But slowly, some consumers are rebelling against this globalization. Some look to buy foods produced within 150 miles of their homes. Others avoid big-box stores to patronize local retailers. Some investors are also eyeing ways to get involved in the go-local movement. Is it time for you to jump in? The Monitor's Laurent Belsie recently talked with two experts: John Katovich, chief legal officer of the Boston Stock Exchange, and Elyse Cherry, president of the Boston Community Venture Fund. Here's an edited transcript of their comments:

Elyse, why do so many people feel its ethical to go local?

Ms. Cherry: Many people who participate in the world today recognize that while globalization is with us and, in fact, may have many, many benefits, the benefits and burdens of globalization are not equally shared. And I think that there is a concern to be certain that local communities are not inappropriately burdened with the effects of globalization. And so, often in an attempt to create vibrant, diverse local communities, people attempt to invest locally.

Is this a movement that ethical investors should pay attention to?

Mr. Katovich: I think it is. There are a number of people that have been thinking quite a bit about how to get investors to invest locally. But it's really the investors that have to look at themselves and think about what it is that they want and expect – and whether they might be satisfied investing locally, even if it meant possibly having slightly less return.

If they accept lower returns, where would they invest?

Cherry: For an average investor, one great way to invest is to seek out your local community loan fund. That's a debt instrument rather than an equity instrument and it does tend to have a somewhat lower rate of return – although, frankly, these days not really less than a CD. And it's a great way to go out and invest in housing or charter schools or child-care facilities or inner-city real estate. And the risk on those investments is extremely low. We've done probably a quarter billion dollars of investing and our losses are less than a 20th of 1 percent.

Where can you find out about the loan funds?

Cherry: There's a national association called Opportunity Finance Network and you can find a loan fund in virtually any state – and often several in a state.

Suppose I want to invest in, say, a local hardware store.

Katovich: There was a day when you could do that. [But] the day came when federal laws changed that scenario and required you to become an accredited investor in order for you to invest in a private company.

An accredited investor means having how much money?

Katovich: A two hundred thousand-dollar income; $1 million dollars in net worth. It could be a $300,000 [net income] with a spouse.

You're working to change those rules.

Katovich: Yes, we have been working for a couple of years on attempts to find an approach that would allow small investors, nonaccredited investors, to be able to invest in local issues much like they invest in publicly traded issues today.

Cherry: We also have been looking at ways to achieve local investment. And we've really been thinking about it from the perspective of aggregating our venture fund investments with other investments across the country and creating an investment vehicle sufficiently large to be traded on a national exchange. So people in fact could invest just like they do today, but it would be ultimately into companies that are investment vehicles for community-based venture funds.

Like a mutual fund?

Cherry: It could be. [But] there are many issues associated with any of these vehicles…. Part of it is you need to have a sufficient number of shares trading…. The other thing I would say is that equity investments are complicated investments. And when you have small local entrepreneurs, they're often not so sure that they actually want an equity investor in bed with them. It often means sharing control.

Why does investing locally mean lower returns?

Katovich: What many [small companies] that we've talked to would prefer, if there were such a vehicle, is an easier approach to be able to go public in a way that provides safe, secure opportunity for local investors to invest in their company. [But] there is less liquidity when that occurs. And as a result of that, the expectations of the investor have to be quite different. Our thinking around this is that this is not an answer for retail private investors for all of their funds. But it could be a very interesting answer for a small portion of their funds.

How soon might average investors see such options?

Cherry: I think we're a distance [away] for a couple of reasons. Investing in small business is a pretty risky undertaking…. It's important for people not to underestimate the risk of that. In fact, the reason that loan funds and community venture funds got started in the first place was because individuals were out putting their money into companies and promptly losing it…. I also would say: Ethical investing is not necessarily local investing…. I'm reminded of a company that I visited several years ago in the southeast corner of our state that was running such a sweat shop that they couldn't get people to come work there because the folks down there thought McDonald's was a better deal -- gave them more money, better benefits, and better working conditions. So I think the critical issue with respect to ethical investing is to invest in companies that produce a good quality good or service, that have good employment policies and so forth, and are generally ethically run – whether global or local.

Don't feel rich? It's not about the money.... Silicon Valley "working millionaires" may feel the same...

Many multi-millionaires of Silicon Valley are still working long hours and striving to "keep up with the Jones'."

Executives cited in a recent NY Times article shared stories of their financial successes, yet they still don't feel like they have "made it."

The main theme of the article is that most of the people cited are comparing the money that they have accumulated even more than they have - people who have accumulated $30 Million or more.

“Here, the top 1 percent chases the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and the top one-tenth of 1 percent chases the top one-one-hundredth of 1 percent,” he said.
“You try not to get caught up in it,” he added, “but it’s hard not to.”

This story reminds me of the adage - "true wealth is living within your means"

After Growth - what is our wealth? Community.

The premise of Bill McKibben's new book "Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future" is that the economic axiom "growth is good" is no longer true.

In a recent article from Mother Jones he states:

"Growth no longer makes most people wealthier, but instead generates inequality and insecurity. Growth is bumping up against physical limits so profound -- like climate change and peak oil -- that trying to keep expanding the economy may be not just impossible but also dangerous. And perhaps most surprisingly, growth no longer makes us happier. Given our current dogma, that's as bizarre an idea as proposing that gravity pushes apples skyward. But then, even Newtonian physics eventually shifted to acknowledge Einstein's more complicated universe."

Well, then the question arises if growth is no longer desirable, nor even possible, then what is good? What is the measure of true wealth and well being for all of us?
It's in Bill's title - the wealth of our interconnectedness, our community.

I find the analogy of a forest very helpful. You can have a monoculture agri-forest with one type of tree, and very few other species. With the same amount of land, water and sunlight an old growth forest has many, many species of plants. A whole community of beings interacting. The same amount of input of resources generates a community of interaction.

In the same way, if you go to a local Megamarket there are typically one or two convesations and interactions - "paper or plastic?", "credit or debit". On the other hand, a farmer's market provides the same amount of groceries, yet you have interactions with many farmers, neighbors, children, and you're supporting a local food system.

Josh Mailman, a serial eco-entrepreneur and massive sustainable business instigator speaks on his views on the matter.

"I'm much more sanguine about the impact that we've been able to have, but I don't want to discount the small acts. We have a need for small acts, and I consider the things I have done small acts, hopefully compassionate acts. To the extent that I've been able to make a contribution, it's been out of a desire to build community, realizing that I'm no more important - and I think in many ways less so - than some local activist. The real leaders are the people that are in there day after day, slugging it out, who have chosen something other than monetary gain, who are there because they are fed by the experience of community that they have."

Barbara Marx Hubbard said "If you do a planetary scan, you'll see that communities are forming everywhere, and these communities are each holding the collective coding as well as the blueprint for a specific mission. I think these communities as separate yet interactive organs in the social body. And the potent interaction of these organic communities assure that the larger social body will be far greater than the sum of its parts."

Our community is our greatest wealth, I would add. And we are the leaders of this movement. Each and every one of us.

As I reflect on my life, I see that my life depends on a vast network of people 99% who I don't event know, literally. Just think of the number of people it took for you to have your daily cup of tea or coffee, or piece of toast, or oatmeal, or electricity... and that's just people. Add layers of animals, plants, earth, energy, air and water, and the community you live in expands exponentially!

Photo from Connectingdotz.com

The YES MEN strike again

If you don't know about the superlative ecopranksters The Yes Men, please visit their website www.yesmen.org.

They pulled a really good one recently.

Their press release just arrived in my inbox this week, I'll let it speak for itself...

Simple genius and sobering truth.

June 14, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EXXON PROPOSES BURNING HUMANITY FOR FUEL IF CLIMATE CALAMITY HITS
Conference organizer fails to have Yes Men arrested

Text of speech, photos, video: http://www.vivoleum.com/...
GO-EXPO statement: http://newswire.ca/...
Press conference before this event, Friday, Calgary: http://arusha.org/...
Contact: mailto:fuel@theyesmen.org
More links at end of release.

Imposters posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC)
representatives delivered an outrageous keynote speech to 300 oilmen
at GO-EXPO, Canada's largest oil conference, held at Stampede Park in
Calgary, Alberta, today.

The speech was billed beforehand by the GO-EXPO organizers as the
major highlight of this year's conference, which had 20,000
attendees. In it, the "NPC rep" was expected to deliver the long-awaited
conclusions of a study commissioned by US Energy Secretary
Samuel Bodman. The NPC is headed by former ExxonMobil CEO Lee
Raymond, who is also the chair of the study. (See link at end.)

In the actual speech, the "NPC rep" announced that current U.S. and
Canadian energy policies (notably the massive, carbon-intensive
exploitation of Alberta's oil sands, and the development of liquid
coal) are increasing the chances of huge global calamities. But he
reassured the audience that in the worst case scenario, the oil
industry could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of
people who die into oil.

"We need something like whales, but infinitely more abundant," said
"NPC rep" "Shepard Wolff" (actually Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men),
before describing the technology used to render human flesh into a
new Exxon oil product called Vivoleum. 3-D animations of the process
brought it to life.

"Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of
fossil fuel production," noted "Exxon rep" "Florian Osenberg" (Yes
Man Mike Bonanno). "With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of
disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will
continue to flow for those of us left."

The oilmen listened to the lecture with attention, and then lit
"commemorative candles" supposedly made of Vivoleum obtained from the
flesh of an "Exxon janitor" who died as a result of cleaning up a
toxic spill. The audience only reacted when the janitor, in a video
tribute, announced that he wished to be transformed into candles
after his death, and all became crystal-clear.

At that point, Simon Mellor, Commercial & Business Development
Director for the company putting on the event, strode up and
physically forced the Yes Men from the stage. As Mellor escorted
Bonanno out the door, a dozen journalists surrounded Bichlbaum, who,
still in character as "Shepard Wolff," explained to them the
rationale for Vivoleum.

"We've got to get ready. After all, fossil fuel development like that
of my company is increasing the chances of catastrophic climate
change, which could lead to massive calamities, causing migration and
conflicts that would likely disable the pipelines and oil wells.
Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of
humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all
those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us."

"We're not talking about killing anyone," added the "NPC rep." "We're
talking about using them after nature has done the hard work. After
all, 150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects
every year. That's only going to go up - maybe way, way up. Will it
all go to waste? That would be cruel."

Security guards then dragged Bichlbaum away from the reporters, and
he and Bonanno were detained until Calgary Police Service officers
could arrive. The policemen, determining that no major infractions
had been committed, permitted the Yes Men to leave.

Canada's oil sands, along with "liquid coal," are keystones of Bush's
Energy Security plan. Mining the oil sands is one of the dirtiest
forms of oil production and has turned Canada into one of the world's
worst carbon emitters. The production of "liquid coal" has twice the
carbon footprint as that of ordinary gasoline. Such technologies
increase the likelihood of massive climate catastrophes that will
condemn to death untold millions of people, mainly poor.

"If our idea of energy security is to increase the chances of climate
calamity, we have a very funny sense of what security really is,"
Bonanno said. "While ExxonMobil continues to post record profits,
they use their money to persuade governments to do nothing about
climate change. This is a crime against humanity."

"Putting the former Exxon CEO in charge of the NPC, and soliciting
his advice on our energy future, is like putting the wolf in charge
of the flock," said "Shepard Wolff" (Bichlbaum). "Exxon has done more
damage to the environment and to our chances of survival than any
other company on earth. Why should we let them determine our future?"

About the NPC and ExxonMobil: About the NPC and Exon Mobil
About the Alberta oil sands: About Alberta oil sands
About liquid coal: Sierra club on liquid coal

Are foundations REALLY helping deal with the environmental crisis? I think not!

I posted this item today on www.xigi.net - a group blog for socially responsible capital market formation.

Charles Conn wrote an article recently in Standford Social Innovation Review entitled "Robbing the Grandchildren: Foundations' shortsightedness is jeopardizing the planet's future."

He points out the fact that "...only 5 percent of U.S. foundation spending goes to the environment, and a paltry 2.9 percent goes to science and technology. Of the top 50 foundation grantees in 2004, only three were environmental organizations. Even those foundations that do work on ecosystems spend much of their resources on small-scale land conservation. Government priorities are also skewed to the here and now. As the Oct. 30, 2006, New York Times reports, U.S. federal spending on energy research has fallen to $3 billion – less than half of its level in 1980 – while spending on medical research has quadrupled to $28 billion over the same period."

Please read the entire article, as Conn covers the issue very well.

Bottom line: If foundations aren't stepping up with major dollars to help bring about the ecological u-turn, who is left to do it?

Naturally, I'd like to see responses from our fellow xigi readers who are in the foundation world to hear how they are channeling more dollars toward sustainability and environmental regeneration.

Slowing down in a world built for speed

We're so "marinated" in the "roadrunner" way of living that we have overlooked the toll that hyperspeed way of living takes on well being and simple life.

In his new book "In Praise of the Slow" author Carl Honore speaks to expressions of the dis-ease of our rush-a-holic society: speed dating, speed reading, fast food.

Carl spoke about slowness at a recent conference (Technology, Environment, Design) where some of the most innovative thinkers share their latest ideas with eachother. It is an important reminder, and you can watch it - (you can slow down for a minute to watch it, right?)

Click the following link to watch the short video of his thought provoking talk:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/73

This talk points to the grand opportunity we have to redefine our concept of time.

Thankfully, the popularity of books like The Power of Now and the growth of what is becoming known as the "international slow movement" reveals how slowness can transform the experience of living on the planet.

By slowing down at the right moments, we can vastly improve the quality of experience in our lives.

Think about these ideas: "slow food" and "slow sex." Aren't the the simple pleasures of food and lovemaking where we really want to slow down and "savour the moment?" Doesn't it sound wonderful?

Naturally, slowness is a way of life. And relaxation, too!

My spiritual teacher Amma emphasizes the importance of relaxation in all things.

The quote is framed on the wall of the travel office in her ashram temple in Kerala, India. Here's the quote:

"Children, learn to be relaxeed in all circumstances.

Whatever you do and wherever you are,
relax and you will see how powerful it is.

The art of relaxation brings out the power that exists within you;
through relaxation you can experience your infinite capacities.

It is the art of making your mind still , and focusing all your energy on the work you are doing, whatever it may be.

Thus you will be able to bring out all of your potential.

Once you learn this art, everything happens spontaneously and effortlessly."

All of us can benefit from slowing down.

Take a moment, slow down, relax.

And experience the benefit.

20 Year Anniversary of the Commision who developed the phrase "sustainable development"

"Sustainable"

It is certainly the buzzword of the day. Everyone wants to be "sustainable." Yet not many people know what it really means.

Simply put, it is like any other buzzword, it is overused and misunderstood. For example I was told that a woman's jewelry line is "sustainable" simply because the jewelry hangs down the front of the body and gemstones are placed at each of the different chakras. Give me a break.

So what does it mean?

The Native Americans embraced a philosophy called Gayaneshakgowa or "Law of Peace" of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy: "In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."

20 years ago the United Nations coined the term "sustainable development" in a report which is the source of much of the use today. The Chairperson of the effort called "World Commission on Environment and Development" was Gro Harlem Bruntland, former head of Norway - thus the name of the report was the "Brundtland Report"

The Commission defined the term sustainability to be "meeting the needs of the present without comprimising the needs of the future."

She wrote in the beginning of the report.

"A global agenda for change" - this was what the World Commission on Environment and Development was asked to formulate. It was an urgent call by the General Assembly of the United Nations:

- to propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development by the year 2000 and beyond;

- to recommend ways concern for the environment may be translated into greater co-operation among countries of the global South and between countries at different stages of economical and social development and lead to the achievement of common and mutually supportive objectives that take account of the interrelationships between people, resources, environment, and development;

- to consider ways and means by which the international community can deal more effectively with environment concerns;"

- to help define shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues and the appropriate efforts needed to deal successfully with the problems of protecting and enhancing the environment, a long term agenda for action during the coming decades, and aspirational goals for the world community."

The entire report is available to read here.

Unfortunately, the last 20 years we have not shown much progress to achieve the goals with coutries like China and India going full steam ahead with not-so-sustainable development paths.

Every one of us would benefit by reflecting on the true meaning of the term "sustainable" as we steer our civilization toward sustainability.

Smart mobs shut down toxic plant in China with text messaging

This blog and photo from worldchanging.com discusses a real milestone event.

It simply speaks for itself

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006896.html

Sky Farm - Growing Food in a Skyscraper

Treehugger.com just reported that a group in Toronto is proposing a sky farm.

Read the entire article here.

Here's another item from Gliving.tv

I think that this is particularly interesting, especially in light of my last post on peak oil.

Managing the Collapse - The End of Oil - weaning ourselves off of oil.

I attended the Global Green Millenium Awards last night and met Richard Heinberg who is a fellow at the Post Carbon Institute and author of the book "The Party's Over: Oil War and the Fate of Industrial Societies" and his most recent book "The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse".

As a resident of Los Angeles, I am overly aware of the addiction that we have to oil. Just look around us. Cars everywhere, no reasonable public transportation...

Our overly paved city populated by cars with human operators is perhaps the most ugly face of the fact that we in the US consume 25% of the world's energy and have only about 4.5% of the World's population.

So, what do we do?

In our brief conversation Richard shared with me that he estimates that we as a civilization need to prepare for 3% less oil every year.

This is certainly a manageable prospect, yet we have to get on it right away.Although it appears to be a small amount, that means roughly 10% in three years, etc.

We certainly have the technology, the money and power to downshift our use of Oil. And the goal of simply reducing by a measurable amount every gives us a pathway to deal with this situation.

Serendipitously my friend and long time environmentalist Paula Daniels, who is on the Board of LA's Department of Public Works, was close by and I introduced Richard to her. We discussed the urgency of the situation and how she is helping manage the city's massive infrastructure to use less oil, energy and water. She was happy to meet him, and they intend to get together for lunch. This made my day!

Well, in the meantime the rest of us have to begin visioning the pathway to how we as a civilization use less and less oil.

Another author by James Howard Kuntsler who wrote "The Long Emergency" outlined ten ways we must kick the oil habit in an article from
Alternet

I cut and pasted excerpts from the article to highlight the main points:

" 1. Expand your view beyond the question of how we will run all the cars by means other than gasoline. The bottom line of this is: start thinking beyond the car.

2. We have to produce food differently.

3. We have to inhabit the terrain differently. Virtually every place in our nation organized for car dependency is going to fail to some degree. Quite a few places (Phoenix, Las Vegas, Miami ...) will support only a fraction of their current populations. We'll have to return to traditional human ecologies at a smaller scale: villages, towns, and cities (along with a productive rural landscape).

4. We have to move things and people differently. This is the sunset of Happy Motoring (including the entire US trucking system). Get used to it. Don't waste your society's remaining resources trying to prop up car-and-truck dependency.

5. We have to transform retail trade. The national chains that have used the high tide of fossil fuels to contrive predatory economies-of-scale (and kill local economies) -- they are going down.

6. We will have to make things again in America. However, we are going to make less stuff. We will have fewer things to buy, fewer choices of things.

7. The age of canned entertainment is coming to and end. It was fun for a while. We liked "Citizen Kane" and the Beatles. But we're going to have to make our own music and our own drama down the road. We're going to need playhouses and live performance halls. [ yeah, whatever, I will always have my canned music solar powered or not...]

8. We'll have to reorganize the education system. The centralized secondary school systems based on the yellow school bus fleets will not survive the coming decades.

9. We have to reorganize the medical system. The current skein of intertwined rackets based on endless Ponzi buck passing scams will not survive the discontinuities to come.

10. Life in the USA will have to become much more local, and virtually all the activities of everyday life will have to be re-scaled."

Heinberg's suggestion that we manage to live on 3% less per year, and Kuntslers' ten points provide a navigable roadmap to a post carbon future. They underscore that it is actually possible to manage ourselves off of oil.

First we must simply ALLOW THAT IT IS POSSIBLE to live in a different way. From there we can actually get down to work of visioning and creating the new way.

IS BIG BUSINESS BUYING OUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT?

A recent article from
Corporate Research E-Letter No. 65, May-June 2007. speaks of the current surge of Environmental Enthusiasm in corporate America.

The article reminds me of feelings I had in the the early 90's when we saw environmental fervor in every media publication and many corporate advertisements. I recall one highlight was the 1990 issue of TIME Magazine which made "Earth" the Person of the year.

At that time the world was all about ‘green’ with the 20th anniversary of Earthday raising awareness of the environmental issues and the Earth Summit in 1992. This flash media hyper-attention fizzled rapidly from a green hue to a light brown as the public channel-surfed to other "issues".

This time, I am a bit more optimistic that many of the current green efforts of corporate America will stick, mainly due to the fact that the environmental crisis is on full fire alarm status and it appears that people are afraid - to lose profits.

Yet there are many corporate giants are who simply capturing the wave of environmental concern to continue a trend of green-washing as a means to obscure the business-as-usual mentality.

I recently visited a friend's home where he had a poster created by DOW Chemical highlighting all the spots on the planet where there are areas of concern on a particular green topic. I frankly wasn't inspired enough to read more.

Furthermore, the more corporations are willing to spend to advertise hollow, or shallow efforts, the greater the danger to environmental groups who would align with these shenanigans in order to receive much needed funding.

"Moreover, there is a risk that the heightened level of collaboration will undermine the justification for an independent environmental movement. Why pay dues to a green group if its agenda is virtually identical to that of GE and DuPont? Already there are hints that business views itself, not activist groups, as the real green vanguard. Chevron, for instance, has been running a series of environmental ads with the tagline “Will you join us?”

Join them? Wasn’t it Chevron and the other oil giants that played a major role in creating global warming? Wasn’t it Chevron that used the repressive regime in Nigeria to protect its environmentally destructive operations in the Niger Delta? Wasn’t it Chevron’s Texaco unit that dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste in Ecuador? And wasn’t it Chevron that was accused of systematically underpaying royalties to the federal government for natural gas extracted from the Gulf of Mexico? That is not the kind of track record that confers the mantle of environmental leadership.

In fact, we shouldn’t be joining any company’s environmental initiative. Human activists should be leading the effort to clean up the planet, and corporations should be made to follow our lead."

Read the entire article here

I agree with the skepticism in the article since many companies like GE, Union Carbide, Texaco, Exxon and Oxy have not paid a dime to clean up the messes they have made in the past. In fact they continue to fight tooth and nail in legal battles in order to avoid paying anything!

The Ecology of Work - how do us 'worker bees' evolve our role?

Most of us do not recognize the impact of how the system of work, consumption and money itself is fundamentally challenging to ecosystems around us. In order to restore the balance between our business based civilization and the other inhabitants on planet earth, we would be best served to observe the mechanisms at work.

The first question is how do each of us play a role in the larger economy? Each of us work in this system, and assume that the mechanism of employment is not to be questioned... yet a large percentage of adults assume we will work at some point in our lives.

An Excerpt from a two part series article in Orion Magazine, Curtis White writes:

"We are not the creators of our own world; we merely perform functions in a system into which we were born. The most destructive aspect of our jobs is that in them we are mere “functionaries,” to borrow Josef Pieper’s term. Just as important, we have a function outside of work: consumption. Money in hand, we go into the market to buy the goods we no longer know how to make (we don’t even know how to grow and preserve our own food) and services we no longer know how to perform (frame a house? might as well ask us to design a spaceship)."

The mere prospect that each individual is somehow responsible transforming the entire system is often too much, even for the broadest thinkers in the progressive movement. Yet I think that every one of us would benefit from seeing the big picture, and our role in shaping it.

He continues:

"Challenging our place in this system as mere isolated functions (whether as workers or consumers) is a daunting task, especially for environmentalists, who tend to think that human problems are the concern of somebody else (labor unions, the ACLU, Amnesty International, Habitat for Humanity, etc.). We’re about the 'Earth first.' My argument is simply that the threats to humans and the threats to the environment are not even two parts of the same problem. They are the same problem."

Bioneers bumper sticker on my car says "It's all connected...."

Dharma Marketing sprouting in Portugal

Dharma Marketing

From the site:

"Developed by a Portuguese investigator, this new concept aims to reach the deepest level of the human psyche, finding in the oriental example of enterprising spirit – which has a strong resource to spiritual values – the path to a new internal proximity Marketing.

For Dharma Marketing, the commitment between organisations and everyone they’re connected to is an effect of their actual proximity. Through more spiritualised human resources, the objective of Dharma Marketing is to have a significant impact on business, or at least to give the organisation’s relational competencies wider meaning as regards to empathy with oneself and with others.

This change is the distinctive element in the construction of a new way of looking at the organisations of the third millennium.
Dharma Marketing

• Transparency: the art of being associated with Competence
• Confidence: coherent relations and natural calmness
• Spirit of Mission: to live institutional values intensely
• Holistic Dimension: relations’ spiritual management
• Proximity: self-knowledge and meditation"

I am encouraged by such efforts because it is evidence emerging trend of spirituality applied in the field of business.

Sea change SRI now beginning to drive corporate change!

A recent article stated: "Investors today have now become as concerned about corporate ethics as they are with how profits have been earned. Following this trend, industry surveys by organisations such as KPMG and Business in the Community (BITC) confirm that more than half of the world's 250 largest companies now issue separate Corporate Social Responsibility reports as standard."

This is consistent with my experience - last year at the SRI in the Rockie's conference a friend who runs Progressive Investment Management. He shared with me that he is getting calls from corporations who want to know the changes that are needed to be made in order for my friend's company to include them in his Portfolio 21 mutual fund.

This represents a sea change - that investment managers' concerns are driving corporations to make changes in the way that they behave.

LOHAS Conference, good news about Bees, and questions on the media.

I attended my fourth LOHAS Conference this week, and kudos to the organizers for improving the event over last year! Although the conference was full of all the "late and great" thinking in the sustainability space, it still didn't feel that it was the "latest and greatest" - like other conferences I have attended like Bioneers, and Green Business Conference.

Even so, it is people and ideas that inspire me to attend as many such conferences as I can. As I was quaffing some an Acai Martini I mentioned what has been known in green circles as "the bee situation" with a fellow green business enthusiast.

We were discussing the recent reports in the media that beekeepers in 24 states are experiencing record losses of honeybees. Some states have reported up to 70% disappearances of commercial bee populations. Researchers are struggling to find the causes of this mysterious collapse.

My fellow organic quaffer shared with me a story he heard citing good news - the catastrophic bee colony collapse is not affecting organic hives.

I read this same account morning on an email from the organic consumer association that a blog on Guerilla News Network revealed a crucial element of this story, missing from reports in the mainstream media. They found that organic beekeepers across North America are not experiencing colony collapses.

OCA writes: "The millions of dying bees are hyper-bred varieties whose hives are regularly fumigated with toxic pesticides by conventional beekeepers attempting to ward off mites. In contrast, organic beekeepers avoid pesticides and toxic chemicals and strive to use techniques that closely emulate the ecology of bees in the wild. Researchers are beginning to link the mass deaths of non-organic bees to pesticide exposure, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the common practice of moving conventional bee hives over long distances."
Learn more: http://www.organicconsumers.org/bees.cfm

On a separate, yet related note - why is this news about organic bees not being reported in the mainstream media?

That is the question which comes to mind for me!

We are best served not only by seeking the correct answers, but to ensure that we ask the correct questions. Anais Nin's comment "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."

Meanwhile, as we collective cogitate on all things bees, I am heartened that Nature has revealed a pathway for us to continue feeding ourselves - with a strong message: "GO ORGANIC!"

For further reading on media, I recommend Thomas de Zengotita' book "Mediated" .

GOOD NEWS: 120 countries agree on Climate Action. Why does the US still sound ridiculous?

Today, I read in the International Herald Tribune that delegates from 120 countries came together.

Here's the first paragraph:
"BANGKOK, Thailand: Delegates from 120 countries endorsed a report outlining urgent steps needed to avert some of the most catastrophic results of climate change, but the United States warned that strict emission caps could cause a global recession."
read on here

Now, this is really good news! The absolute insanity that I hear, however is the last line: "the US warned that strict emmission caps could cause a global recession."

Please let me translate the entire paragraph:

"Delegates representing the leadership of the entire planet agreed that we need to take significant, life changing action now to stop climate change before we lose civilization as we know it, but the United States whined that they would not make as much money if we started doing something right away."

Hmmm... does this sound ridiculous to you too?

Also, I read in Forbes the following paragraph on the matter:

"But US officials defended nuclear energy as an important option for reducing dependence on fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases, saying scientists would develop technology to deal safely with radioactive waste." More here.

Yes, nuclear power has no emmissions... Yet Helen Caldicott just wrote her latest book "Nuclear Power is Not the Answer."

She just stated in a recent interview on Democracy Now:

"DR. HELEN CALDICOTT: Well, I have just discovered from the Department of Energy's data, that the enrichment of uranium produces 93% per year of the C.F.C. gas in this country, which is currently banned under the Montreal Protocol because it produces destruction of the ozone layer. In Australia, we've got an epidemic of skin cancer because the ozone is so thin. C.F.C. gas, which is the refrigerant gas banned, is up to 20 times more potent global warmer than carbon dioxide, which accounts for 15% of global warming. But also, to enrich uranium, they use 2 two 1,000 megawatt coal power plants to enrich the uranium itself for nuclear power. Massive quantities of carbon dioxide are produced in that very process but also in building the reactors, storing the radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years. The other thing is that nuclear power releases millions of Curies of unregulated radiation into the air every year of noble gases and of Tritium, which is very biologically dangerous and very carcinogenic. And it also creates massive quantities of radioactive waste, which lasts for up to half a million years, which inevitably will leak into the Ecosphere, bioconcentrate in each step of the food chain--the algae, the crustaceans, the little fish, the big fish. We can't taste the radiation, we can't smell it, we can't see it. Cancer takes years to evolve. If I sneeze on you, you're sneezing in two days because the incubation time for a cold is two days. But for cancer, when you've been exposed to radiation, its anytime from 5 to 60 years. Cancer doesn't wear a little flag saying what it was caused by years ago. What is predicted medically because of the nuclear wastes from nuclear power is epidemics of particularly childhood cancer, because they're very sensitive to radiation, leukemia, and genetic disease for the rest of time. And we're not the only species that have genes and get cancer. All other species do as well. So, a nuclear power is extraordinarily biologically dangerous. It produces filthy air with radioactive isotopes, carbon dioxide, and C.F.C. gas. The nuclear industry has been lying in its advertisements, being put out consistently on N.P.R. and P.B.S. and the like. You mustn't lie when you're talking about medical and environmental conditions. That's scientifically inappropriate and unethical to lie.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Scott Peterson, your response and also, given the fact that in the United States there hasn't been a new nuclear plant started to be built in decades, why would you expect the American public to suddenly want to change their perspective on the dangers of nuclear power?

SCOTT PETERSON: The American public's perspective on nuclear energy has actually been supportive for many years now, because they recognize the benefits that they get from nuclear energy, and they also recognize the safety of our plants, particularly over the last decade. 64% of the U.S. Public believes that we should build more nuclear plants, and we are now setting the stage in this country, working both with industry and government to begin building advanced reactors that have even better safety features. They're going to be more cost effective to build so the consumer electricity rates are going to be lower. They're also going to be built in a manner they're takes advantage of existing nuclear power plants so we're building them at the same sites, and actually, using less land, and taking advantage of the land and the transmission systems that we already have. So, we're taking a number of steps to make sure that we can meet consumer electricity demands as they continue to rise in the future. But meet them in a way that also protects the environment, and recognizes that we need to make changes in how we look at our air quality and how we combine the imperatives of having electricity and also protecting our environment. If you took the nuclear plants that we have today out of the electricity-

JUAN GONZALEZ: But if I can interrupt you for one second. What about the other part of my question, which is your response to Helen Caldicott's claims of the actual polluting nature of nuclear plants?

SCOTT PETERSON: I wouldn't know where to begin with some of the claims, because a lot of them are just not factually correct.

DR. HELEN CALDICOTT: But they are you see, because I have the data from the Department of Energy--They're correct. "

More here.

So, how does nuclear power address global warming?

U.S. Department of State to Host 2008 Washington International Renewable Energy Conference

U.S. Department of State to Host 2008 Washington International Renewable Energy Conference

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced today that the State Department will host the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC 2008) March 2008.

WIREC 2008 is the third global ministerial level event on renewable energy. It will be an important opportunity for world ministers to show their commitment to renewable energy. The ministers will discuss how renewable energy advances our shared goals for climate, sustainable development and energy security. The Secretary noted that, "Diversifying our energy supplies is a key foreign policy objective of this Administration," and that, "Renewable energy sources can go a long way toward breaking the 'addiction to oil' that President Bush cited in his 2006 State of the Union Address."

WIREC 2008 goals include:

* - Advancing energy security, climate change, air quality, and sustainable development goals, including agriculture and rural development;

* - Demonstrating global leadership in renewable energy research, policy development, technology innovation, commercialization and deployment; and

* - Fostering industry and government collaboration to help solve global energy challenges.

The U.S. Department of State will host this event, assisted by other relevant Departments and agencies including; the: U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of Interior, and the U.S. Department of Commerce. The intergovernmental team welcomes the strong support of the American Council On Renewable Energy and looks forward to cooperating with REN-21 and other relevant stakeholders.

For more information about the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference 2008, please contact William Armbruster at (202) 647-1247.

2007/360
Released on May 1, 2007