This Saturday thousands of people around the country are transferring their money from large corporate banks, into small financial institutions, community-oriented cooperatives and credit unions. We’ve been doing this for some time, check out our own Dragonfly’s amazing stealth video during our successful campaign against JP Morgan Chase and their financing of Mountaintop Removal.
I recently read a headline saying that Scotland had made the “World’s First Urban Green Space Map.” Now, while that sounds pretty cool, I’m not sure if I caught what’s first about it. As you may or may not know, my master’s degree was in city planning — making urban green space maps is nothing new in the field. Even making online, interactive versions of the maps like this one is not at all unheard of. My only thought is that it might be the first national-scale map of its kind….
On PARK(ing) Day each year, citizens take back a bit of the green spaces lost to parking spaces. There is a message behind this event, and that is to demonstrate, in a very visual way, the quick decline in green spaces for humans, sacrificed for the ever-growing need for places to park our cars.
Believing that the Earth is our god, government, economy and culture – all wrapped into one big institution – that is simple common sense!
Why was Avatar such an international hit? Pundits and viewers/reviewers cite animation effects and a combination of fantasy and real global issues such as themes of indigenous cultures, corporate eco-terrorism, and the supremacy of the forces of nature. What Avatar may not have pushed completely with their merchandising (though the audience saw it as they watched) was the integrity of the values that the viewers were pulled to the box office for time after time. Seth Godin may interrupt this paragraph with his adage that the Fox consumer division is just selling what people are buying…. But are they? When Joe Smith bought a movie ticket for the third time, he was probably buying values at that point.
Earth Day… Earth Day, Earth Day. What to say today? I spend most of the day every day writing about environmental issues and solutions to them. So many hours every day, and every week and month and year.
Why do I do it?
April through June 2011, the Let’s Go Chipper Into the Great Outdoors Tour crisscrosses the country to encourage children and families to get outside and play in time for Earth Day and summer fun. Chipper is an inquisitive city squirrel who will visit schools, parks, stores and events to generate enthusiasm for outdoor activities.
With all the traffic, electricity use, people, and public transportation, it’s easy to assume that cities emit more emissions than the suburbs with their lawns and open space. However, Jess Zimmerman of Grist cites a study in the Environment and Urbanization journal that shows carbon emissions in cities are lower than in the suburbs where people are more prone to driving everywhere. Really? Driving can make that much of a difference? Evidently, because Zimmerman goes on to say that Manhattan is one of the greenest places in America. Manhattan? Green? It’s all in how you measure it.
To effect true, lasting change, there needs to not only be education, but a change in attitude and the way we see the world. A widespread way to do that is to teach children from a young age about the importance of conservation and climate change. The California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken a big step in the right direction by implementing a new, green learning initiative in its public schools. California began rolling out an innovative K-12 environmental…