Monday, December 31, 2007

8 Reasons to Love '08

Thanks to many of your efforts, a lot of the issues explored in Weekly Way '07 blogs have been addressed by increased awareness and action and/or new legislation. Here's to continuing to support positive change in environmental, humanitarian, and political issues in '08!

It's a new year and twelve months of growth, education, improvement, and adventure lie ahead. Here are 8 reasons to get excited about '08, and the best news is that this is just the start!

1. There will be a presidential election! Please remember to register and vote.

2. You can join the Free Hugs campaign. At the very least watch the video. Trust me.


3. Thanks to organizations like Cross Cultural Solutions and Globeaware, you can can spend a week or more volunteering in countries all over the world.

4. President Bush just signed the the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act (SADA) into law. There is still much more to be done to stop the genocide, but this is a very good start.

5. Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore's Dilemma, just published another book, In Defense of Food, with gems like, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

6. Almost every bill you can create (credit card, electricity, mortgage, phone etc.) can be payed online. What are you waiting for, paper hog? Go to their websites and switch to e-bills today, and while you are at it, don't forget to switch to electronic bank and investment statements too! You might even be able to save some money. Got a college loan to pay off? Sallie Mae offers interest rate reductions from .25-.375% on many loans if you change to electronic payments. That little bit pays off in big savings over time.

7. It is easier than ever to live in a cool city. Check out Sierra Club's list to see if your city made the grade. Either way, see how you can get involved and help keep your city cool.

8. The 2008 Smart Car ForTwo just became available in the United States.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

It's December Again...

...and that means what, exactly? For many of us, it is a time of numerous obligations and/or celebrations. I hope you find yourself experiencing mostly the latter. By now we have all heard about cutting back, relaxing, enjoying the true spirit of the holidays - time with family and friends, etc.

So why is it that every year many of us find ourselves up until midnight the night before whichever holiday we celebrate wrapping presents? Not just any old presents either; these are often presents that we grabbed at the last minute. Worse still, we find that we are wrapping them in the last of the reindeer wrapping paper from Wal-Mart - Yes, Wal-Mart, which equals, "I panicked on December 24th again."

But what to do about the inevitable last-minute frenzy? Please indulge me as I throw my bit of advice into the heap.

Most importantly, try to align your holiday practices with your sustainable practices from throughout the year: Conserve energy (both yours and the kind that comes from the power grid), eat and cook good local/organic/seasonal food, and if you participate in a present giving holiday, use the opportunity to give gifts that are produced in a socially and environmentally responsible manner. In addition, shop online because it is not only less stressful, it is also energy efficient. According to StopGlobalWarming.org, "e-commerce warehouses use 1/16th of the energy used to operate retail stores. And even overnight air shipping uses 40% less fuel than the average car trip to the store."

So chill out, stay home, hang those solar-powered or LED lights, skip the gift wrap (use newspaper or reusable gift wrap like scarves, jars, or reusable boxes), and check out a few of my favorite gift ideas:

For the Person Who Has Everything They Need (And really that is most of us isn't it?):
Choose a charity that matches your recipient's interests and make a donation in their name. These charities are ready to help you spread those glad tidings. Most of them are set up to send off an email or card to your loved one as soon as they receive your money. If you are not sure which charity to choose, Guidestar offers a free search service that classifies and rates nonprofit organizations, and Guidestar just added a new feature that enables you to donate directly from their site.

For the Kidlets: If you have been paying attention to the news at all this year, you are probably as scared as I that that cute little doll you have your eye on for your niece will turn into next year's leadsicle. Lucky for us and all of the little tots in our life, Coop America has put together a list of Ten Green Toys for the Holidays.

For the Discerning Ladies in Your Life: An excellent new online boutique has just opened called Mico Boutiko. They sell accessories such as bags and belts as well as a variety of home decor including blankets, vases, and sculptures, which are made with natural and recycled materials. Here are a few of their pieces:


Vase and bowl made with recycled paper

Bio-jewelery made with renewable resources

For a little pampering, Pangea Organics continues to be my favorite company for beauty products. All of their products, from facial scrub to lip balm, are organic and made without synthetic preservatives, parabens, or petrochemicals. They have also extended a limited time wholesale offer to Ten Ways readers.

For the Mamas and the Mamas-to-be: I have not had any babies yet, so I can only take this on secondhand authority, but apparently the products from Earth Mama Angel Baby are the bomb. They offer everything from ready made gift baskets for the new and expectant mama to healing salves and teas - all organic of course. Their website also offers a plethora of information, and your expectant mama will be grateful that you introduced her to this company.

Housewarming: Shitbegone. The name pretty much says it all. What started as an amusing art project has grown into a legit business. It makes a hilarious gift and is made using 100% recycled paper. Their website is full of helpful hints too, in case you need some guidance.

For the Gardeners (and Eaters!): Seeds of Change will send gift boxes of organic apples and pears to your fruit fanatic friends around the country. You can also order them gardening gifts or gift certificates to encourage them to enjoy an organic bounty during the upcoming growing season. As true gardeners will tell you, the best time to start thinking about your next garden is when there is still snow on the ground!

For Everyone Else: Fair Indigo sells "clothing and gifts made by paying a fair wage to those who make them." Fair Indigo's artisans from around the world produce clothing and accessories for men and women (often made with organic cotton), bath and spa products, gifts for babies, and gift certificates.

Big Dipper Wax Works makes beeswax candles of all shapes, sizes, and scents. While most candles are made with paraffin, which is a petroleum by-product, Big Dipper uses beeswax, a 100% renewable and natural resource. In addition, paraffin is a pollutant when it burns, and beeswax burns soot free. To read more about the benefits of beeswax candles, visit Big Dipper's website.

For the Green Greenie: If you know someone who is just getting started making environmental practices a part of their life, send them a starter kit from Greensender. The box contains a reusable SIGG water bottle, a reusable organic cotton bag, an energy efficient cfl light bulb, and an organic cotton t-shirt.

Still can't find what you are looking for? Search Co-op America's National Green Pages, which is a directory of screened and approved green businesses.

Lastly, please comment on this blog and tell us where you will be finding your fair trade/sustainable gifts this year, as well as how you will be saving energy (and money!). Check back later this week to see what other great sustainable holiday ideas the Ten Ways Crew has come up with!






Friday, November 30, 2007

World AIDS Day

The theme for both the 2007 and 2008 World AIDS Day is leadership. According to the World AIDS campaign, "leadership" was chosen because "significant advances in the response to HIV have been achieved when there is strong and committed leadership. [This] leadership must be demonstrated at every level to get ahead of the disease - in families, in communities, in countries and internationally." The two leaders highlighted below were in their twenties when they founded their organizations and will be featured in Ten Ways to Change the World in Your Twenties. See how you can be a leader in your community and beyond by visiting their websites.

Sekolo Projects was founded by Elizabeth Robinson, who spends much of her year in Namibia, and her organization works to both prevent HIV infection through education and to support those who are living with HIV/AIDS. Elizabeth works closely with the Namibian Ministry of Education to train teachers and young people all over the country.

The Ubuntu Fund was founded by Jacob Lief while he was still in college, and it has since grown into an organization which reaches over 40,000 children with its health and educational services. Their Mpilo-Lwazi (Health-Knowledge) Initiative, is "a comprehensive community health program that empowers at-risk children and youth to confront HIV/AIDS openly and develop the knowledge, skills and resources to secure healthy lives."

amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS research, is a good resource for facts about HIV/AIDS. You can also search for HIV/AIDS resources and organizations by state and country. Many provide educational resources, support, and testing.


Saturday, November 17, 2007

Giving Back on a Day of Thanks

It will be Thanksgiving in less than a week, and it is my favorite holiday because it is all about gratitude and giving to those who need our help. We remember what we are so grateful for, and we make offerings, (often in the form of delicious food both to loved ones and also to those that we don't even know). I know from emailing with many of you that you will be volunteering your time at homeless shelters or soup kitchens this holiday. There is still plenty of time to plan a way to give back on this upcoming day of thanks.


Need inspiration? If you are interested in volunteering this holiday season, and have not yet found a place to do so, check out Volunteer Match. You can search by geographic location as well as areas of interest to find a volunteer opportunity that matches your skills. For more ideas, look at the thousands of volunteer opportunities on Idealist.org. You can also inquire with your local community centers and churches to see when and where they will be serving meals and what help they need. You can often prepare meals or dishes the day before and drop them off Thanksgiving morning. Consider dropping by your local food bank on the way back from your holiday shopping to share a few items of food that will surely make someone else's Thanksgiving a bit easier and sweeter.



If you want your efforts to be felt a bit further afield, consider making a donation to the Vitamin Angels. They are a non-profit organization dedicated to "providing vital nutrition in the form of supplements, to developing countries, communities and individuals in need." For example, $1 provides enough Vitamin A to prevent blindness in a child. Just $1 provides sufficient funding to preserve the sight of one child. On a day when many of us have so much, it is important to remember that 30% of the world's population suffers from nutritional deficiencies.


As for me, I can take no credit for my plans this week; they are all the product of the generosity and ingenuity of my friends and teachers. Thanks to our dear friends in Seattle, we will be making our annual trek out West in a few days where we will stock up on local fare, (check out the Puget Sound eat local pledge here, and visit local harvest.org to find your local and organic food purveyors). We will be cooking some dishes on Wednesday to drop off at the Plymouth Housing Group, whose mission is to "eliminate homelessness and stabilize homeless and very low income housing by preserving, developing, and operating, safe, decent, and affordable housing, and by providing opportunities for homeless and very low-income people to improve their lives." After dropping off our food at Plymouth on Thursday morning, I will go to the "Spirit of Gratitude" practice at Seattle Yoga Arts, the proceeds of which will be donated to Pasado's Safe Haven. Each of these upcoming celebratory moments will serve as reminders of how fortunate I am both to be with loved ones and to be of service to others.

Wishing you all a day filled with celebration, loved ones, and gifts of thanks.



Sunday, November 11, 2007

Back to School in December

As a former teacher, married to a current one, who currently resides on a school campus, I have seen first-hand the incredible power of student initiated action. Many of these students, most of whom are not even old enough to vote, have done something tangible about poverty, war, and injustice. On December 5th, students all over the country will once again have a chance to take action to help those displaced and in danger due to the atrocities in Darfur.

DarfurFast, sponsored by STAND (Student Anti-Genocide Coaltion), asks students to organize a day of fasting on December 5th. Participants are asked to give up one comfort item, such as a cup of coffee, and donate the money they would have spent to help feed and protect displaced Darfuri women and children. Just $3 can protect one person for a year. Students all over the country are already registering their schools and encouraging fellow students, family members, and those in their community to participate.

STAND, in partnership with the Genocide Intervention Network, provides educational materials to help spread the word about the situation in Darfur, as well as a link to register your school for the fast.

For more information about the situation in Darfur, I recommend that you read Not on Our Watch, by Don Cheadle and John Prendergast, any of Nick Kristof's many editorials about the situation in The New York Times, or visit ENOUGH, "the project to abolish genocide and mass atrocities." After doing your homework, challenge your representatives in Congress to do the same. You can visit Genocide Intervention's Darfur Scores to see whether or not your Representatives and Senators are making the grade. Some of them really need to raise their scores on this one.

For extra credit, (listen up Scrabble lovers and high SAT score seekers), visit freerice.com. It is the sister site of Poverty.com. Free Rice's two goals are, "To provide English vocabulary to everyone for free, and to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free." The free rice is supplied by the advertising sponsors, and the more words you know the more rice they donate! Students working to end mass atrocities and hunger is something we should all be able to stand behind. Take a few moments to help end world hunger, and join DarfurFast on December 5th.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Step it Up Tomorrow!

Want to help change the world tomorrow? November 3rd, 2007, is Step It Up's second national day of action. The organization's goal is to "empower the grassroots climate movement to take action locally by calling for national change." Step it Up has helped to organize rallies throughout the country to raise awareness about global warming and to initiate policy changes at both a local and national level. Visit their website to find an event near you.

Of the 18 presidential candidates invited to events tomorrow, 8 will be attending along with 78 members of Congress. The presidential candidates attending are Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson.

Step it Up was founded by Bill McKibben, author of Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community, but most of the team members are in their twenties. Step it Up is working with the 1 Sky Initiative, which has come up with a clear plan for "avoiding the worst effects of global warming and creating a clean energy economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." The three priorities of the plan are:


GREEN JOBS NOW
5 MILLION GREEN JOBS CONSERVING 20% OF OUR
ENERGY BY 2015

CUT CARBON 80% BY 2050
FREEZE CLIMATE POLLUTION LEVELS NOW AND CUT AT
LEAST 80% BY 2050 AND 30% BY 2020

NO NEW COAL
A MORATORIUM ON NEW COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS

Saturday's events will encourage our legislators to make these priorities their priorities too. They will also be great places to network with other like-minded individuals, and to send a message to Congress that we are concerned about climate change. Your attendance will also demonstrate your commitment to taking action both on Tuesday at the ballot box, and on presidential election day a year from now.

Ten Ways is also a friend and ally of Step it Up. For the complete list of friends and allies, click here.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Nature + 21st Century = We Have the Technology

Technology has been getting a bad rap these days. People are becoming disconnected from each other, kids are being raised on television and learning bad "IM-ing" grammar, and humans are creating pollution of all sorts at alarming rates. Oh yes, and we are running out of potable water. It seems that while a return to nature might be necessary to heal many of these woes, this solution by itself is not altogether practical. Instead, it is clear that it is time to look to the wisdom of nature and the innovation of technology for answers to pressing environmental problems.


The Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York has done just that. The Institute broke ground earlier this month on the Omega Center for Sustainable Living. The Center, which will include a constructed wetland, classroom, greenhouse, water garden, and laboratory, will get all of its water from collected rain, employ a roof garden and geothermal technology to help regulate the temperature of the building, and generate electricity through the use of photovoltaic panels. According to Executive Director Skip Backus, "For thirty years Omega has been a leader in holistic, sustainable living. As an environmental steward, Omega is launching the center to address a growing concern – the lack of fresh, clean water.”

Everyone's Digging the New Center!
(Photo by, Andy Milford, courtesy of Omega Institute)


One of the most impressive features of the new building is the Eco Machine, a state-of-the-art water filtration/recycling system. It will have the capability to recycle 35,000-40,000 gallons of wastewater into clean water each day using plants, bacteria, algae, snails, and fungi. According to John Todd, the initial developer of the technology used to construct the Eco Machine, "The Omega Center for Sustainable Living will be the first education center of its kind in the United States to combine the latest in green building and wastewater treatment technologies under one roof. It will be built with the most cutting edge technology currently available and will demonstrate how we can live in harmony with nature rather than destroying it."


Sounds like a good plan to me.


For more information on how the Eco Machines work and for other innovative water planning ideas, visit John Todd Ecological Design.






Tuesday, October 16, 2007

And The Bride Wore Green

Well actually, she wore white...
but consider the fact that the average wedding costs almost $27,000 according to cnn.com. As I start to plan my own wedding, I have found myself accidentally watching shows like "Bridezillas" and "Platinum Weddings," and they certainly do set a unique standard for what weddings should look like. But since I try not to over-consume in any other area of my life, planning a wedding feels like an overwhelming prospect for this environmental activist on a budget. Fortunately, there are plenty of options for a "green" wedding, and the recent wedding I attended in the Pacific Northwest was a wonderful example of what a wedding should be - not only was it environmentally and socially responsible, it was also fabulous and filled with love.

Lesley and Joe, my dear friends in Seattle were married this July. Their wedding felt both lavish and local at the same time. Many friends and family gathered days (and weeks! - guilty as charged! - but who can say no to a month in Seattle in the summer?) before the event to help prepare for the nuptials. According to Lesley (pictured right), "Our wedding planning was guided by our core values about community, place, family and friends. Our goal was to have our choices fit with who we are and what we believed in (as opposed to pre-existing traditions about what a wedding should and shouldn't be). When you start to plan a wedding, the first logical step is to tap into the ever-growing wedding industrial complex of websites, magazines, books, and conventions. Weddings Inc. is a huge industry, and we realized that we did not want to be a consumer at our own wedding. We wanted to actually be the creators of our own wedding."

To that end, Lesley and Joe used local sources for most of the food, wine, and decor. Even the photographer was local. They held their ceremony at a local park that overlooked the Puget Sound, and their reception was in their backyard. In lieu of a gift registry, they asked people to contribute to a travel fund, which they will use at a later date to go on a "family heritage tour." Their gifts to the guests were trees planted in their honor through treesforlife.

Friends and family helped to prepare for the big day using their particular brands of talent. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the prep, but I will try to describe the scene in a few words - The bride's twin, Alexis, spent months organizing the event - really she should start her own business. She also mowed the lawn a few days before the ceremony using an electric lawnmower, which is much more efficient than a standard gas mower. Steve (my husband), Lesley, and Joe spent many hours on home improvement projects as the reception was going to be held in their backyard, and I had an unsuccessful attempt at caulking windows, followed up by more capable help on the cleaning, cooking, and organizing front. Steve, aka DJ Sleepy, also made sure the dance floor was full on the wedding night. Lesley and Joe's families were both on hand several days before to help with all of the last minute details. Our friend Robin made the cake, helped to level the garden (where the tables and chairs would be), and cooked many a feast for the housemates using the delicious beets and greens from the garden. Lesley, in her infinite wisdom, had not wanted to have a fallow garden due to the festivities, so she planted crops that would be ready to eat by late July. The long planting season in Seattle allowed her to replant in August. She also planted flowers all around the house that added to the overall natural beauty of the reception.


1. The former and future garden 2. DJ Sleepy getting warmed up! 3. Happy and sated wedding guests (in case you couldn't tell from their big smiles) --> 4. Wedding planner extraordinaire Alexis, minus the electric lawnmower, plus one proud Aunt Joni

As for the food, it was incredible! Some of the highlights of the food from The Savory Gourmet included fresh shucked local oysters, bruschetta with Mediterranean toppings, grilled wild Lummi Island reef net caught salmon with Asian marinade and Javanese sauce, many shades of green salad with lemon vinaigrette, and grilled Tall Grass Bakery hominy bread with sweet butter. The Savory Gourmet's owner, Marcia Newlands says, "The Savory Gourmet focuses on food that is healthy and good for your body. To me, this means food made from what is local and fresh that day, not what is growing in Argentina or Australia and shipped thousands of miles to a grocer in Seattle. By shifting the focus to the ingredients, I have found that the flavors are enhanced as is the enjoyment of my food by its recipients." Of course, the wine and beer were also all from Washington State.

<--- This guy got a workout! Grilled Northwest Marinated Beef with Horseradish
and Salpicon Sauces and French Potato Salad


As for dessert, no wedding would be complete without the cake! This sweet masterpiece was created by our dear friend Robin Posey, the new executive chef at The Hi-Life in Seattle, and it was the creamiest, moistest, tastiest, fruitiest, most deserving of many more superlatives, cake I've ever eaten (and I'm not just saying that because I want her to make our wedding cake too!) The cake was officially a six layer lemongrass-ginger scented white cake with seasonal stone fruit and mascarpone buttercream frosting. As for her ingredients, Robin says, "The cake was about 72% organic -- most of the butter and heavy cream were, and all of the fruits were." Robin also used as many local ingredients as possible including Black Raven Plums, which are as scrumptious as they sound.




The newlyweds, Robin, Marcia, and a special guest appearance from the cake!

This wedding was amazing because it reflected the values of the bride and groom; it was a day (and night!) about love, community, and the responsible and respectful use of local resources. Any party can be thrown in this manner without compromising the celebration of special events. In fact, hosting an environmentally responsible bash can be even more meaningful, because you are gathering your friends and family together and leading by example.

I'll leave you with a story from Lesley, which I think encapsulates the entire spirit of the affair:

Here's a story. It's about flowers. While our wedding ceremony and reception settings (local park and our backyard) had quite a lot of natural beauty, we wanted flowers to decorate tables and add the special romantic touches that flowers do. Our first idea was to grow our own! We chose dahlias for their late and long summer bloom, their love of the Pacific NW climate, and the nooks and crannies and colors that make them beautiful and unique. No wonder they are Seattle's city flower. After carefully planting and caring for our 25 pots of dahlias, only two small buds had opened a week before the wedding. Our large plants of dahlias were blooming magically, but they weren't nearly enough to use for the wedding. Plus, we couldn't bear to cut these living beasts and the new burst of color they added to the south side of the house, and end all the buds and life they had to give for the rest of the summer (they are still blooming as I write).

So...we turned to our next local source...The Pike Place Market. The day before the wedding, we purchased dahlias and a few other varieties from several Hmong families that have been growing and selling flowers in the market for decades. We had friends and family throughout the day and night help arrange flowers into various jars that had been recycled over the past months. It was supporting and building community that guided these decisions, helping local growers continue their family tradition, and having our friends and family contribute to growing our wedding--we had everyone from Joe's Aunt Bobbie with many years of flower arranging to Matty and Stephane, buzzed at 2 a.m. and psyched to be arranging flowers for the first time in their lives. It was beautiful, and the tables reflected all the delicious personalities of the people that shared in the wedding day.

The next day, Barndi spontaneously put out cut flowers on the street with a "Free" sign. As we headed off for our trip to Vancouver Island, we were delighted to see someone stop by and pick a few up.


Was this the most enviro-friendly method? Probably not...at one point we had considered using living herbs and young vegetables, so people could plant them after the wedding, as opposed to the cut flowers that inevitably die within a few weeks. Likewise, our choice to not use a traditional registry was because we really wanted the wedding to be about experiences, not products. While our family heritage tour to Eastern Europe to visit old towns of our ancestors will be made possible through the generosity of our guests, we'll also be stamping our carbon footprint with our several thousand mile airline flight.

What's the moral here? Planning a wedding is complex, just as changing the world is. You have to feed people, get people to one place, figure out where they are going to stay, entertain, etc. It became clear fairly quickly that this wedding was going to cost money, whatever it looked like. We also soon realized that the answers to what we wanted our wedding to look like, a tribute to family and friends and place, were not to be found in the wedding resources available to us. What worked for us was to be the socially-conscious consumers that we are in our day-to-day life. Some of these are environmentally friendly and low impact, and some are not. Some can be created from the ground up, others cost money. We learned that whenever we hit a point where we didn't know what to do or where to go, going back to our core values always worked. Almost two months after the wedding, we are still buzzing with the love energy created by having everyone we loved in the backyard.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Are We A Disposable Society?

Knowledge is power, right? After all, it gave us all of this useful technology like plastic wrap, Tupperware, drinking bottles, and bags of just about every size. However, when I started to do a little research about all of this plastic -and what happens to it once I am done using it- I found that it was time to take a hard look at our society's plastic consumption. Here are a few facts about plastic:

  • According to the Container Recycling Institute, less than 30% of plastic bottles were recycled in 2006.
  • Plastic does not biodegrade.
  • Instead, it photodegrades from exposure to sunlight (not much of that in landfills) and becomes smaller and smaller pieces of plastic, which remain in the ecosystem.
  • Disturbing amounts of plastic are now being found in the ocean. There is a section of the Pacific known as "Eastern Garbage Patch" because it contains so much plastic.
  • The manufacturing and transportation process of one bottle of water uses ¼ gallon of fossil fuel and emits 1.2 pounds of greenhouse gases.
  • Nearly seven times the amount of water that goes into a bottled product will be required to produce its plastic container.
Okay, I'm convinced. Plastic may be necessary, but certainly the less I consume each day, the better off we'll all be. In order to curb my plastic consumption, I decided to start with something easy - my bottled water and plastic bag use. Both of these products are consumed in the United States in the millions (bottled water) and billions (plastic bags) every year.

Fortunately, the solution to the bag quandary is easy:

Bring your own!

Reusablebags.com and envirosax.com both make bags that are fashionable and compact. Reusablebags even makes produce bags, which really come in handy when you are tempted to take a bag to hold that wet head of lettuce or four round (and rolling!) tomatoes.

Now on to plastic water bottles. In order to help illustrate my point about how our individual actions can make a difference (cliche but true), I will digress with a short (but true) story:

I was recently playing basketball with a bunch of my basketball buddies, and one of them brought out several bottles of designer bottled water - you know the type - square bottle, expensive, comes from a land far far away. I pointed out to him that the water he was drinking had to go a long way in order to wet his whistle in Bedford, NY. In an earnest effort to cut down on the travel time of his bottle of water, he showed up to the next game with a bottle of water from his home state. I pointed out that while he had dealt with the travel issue of the last bottle, he was still drinking water from a receptacle that took precious resources to produce - electricity, petroleum, water - and that he could have easily brought water from home (for free!). It turns out that the third time was the charm. At the third water/basketball summit meeting, my friend showed up with a big reusable bottle of water. His big complaint about his water from home was the taste, and I recommended that he purchase a filter. I also pointed out that many brands of bottled water are tap water. For more on the bottled water fiasco, check out this month's National Resources Defense Council online article, "The Future of Drinking Water."

So please, by all means, hydrate. For water on the go, buy a reusable water bottle or two and use that instead. If you live in a place with safe drinking water, and I bet most of you do, fill it with tap water (filtered as necessary) and enjoy.

So why this sudden obsession with plastic? Well, the bottom line is that we are running out of room and resources on this planet. The products we consume and then turn into garbage do not really just go away, but rather they continue to reside with us in this limited space we all share. Many of them will still reside here long after we are gone. In order to reduce our waste, we have to take a critical and honest look at our consumption.

Once you see how easy it is to curb your plastic bottle and bag consumption, you will probably want to figure out ways to put even less in the landfill. Check out this list from Coop America of the "21 Things You Didn't Know You Can Recycle."

Go ahead, consume less, reuse and recycle more, and dispose of as little as possible.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Ode to Seattle and the Triple Bottom Line

I just had the good fortune of spending three glorious weeks in the Pacific Northwest. We were based in Seattle, as we had two weddings bookending our trip. One of these weddings was an incredible example of what can be done when a community of friends and family comes together to produce a sustainable, affordable, mostly organic, and delicious affair. In fact, this wedding was such a good example of a way to "party with a purpose" (yes, shameless plug for one of the chapters in my book), that it really deserves its own blog entry, and next week's blog will be all about it.

However, before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to extol the virtues of spending time in the Pacific Northwest in the summer, and especially the opportunities that we found to eat locally, even while on vacation. Not only were we able to eat local and organically grown foods when we did the cooking, we also found several restaurants and a chocolatier that use these same values when creating their culinary delights.

The first restaurant is aptly named The Stumbling Goat. I'll leave you to puzzle out why I say aptly, but I'll give you a hint and tell you that the night we dined there happened to be half price bottle night for many of their wines. The wine list was superb, the sommelier and waiter were knowledgeable and friendly, and the food was so delicious that I asked to take home a menu in order to remember every scrumptious morsel. The menu changes on a seasonal basis, and the restaurant uses mainly local, wild, and organic ingredients. In fact, they print a list of local farmers and purveyors that they work with on the back of their menu. One of my favorite taste sensations of the night was a cheese from the Estrella Family Creamery and bread from The Essential Baking Company.

The second restaurant is called Tilth, and while we did not have the good fortune of eating there on our trip, our close friends and bona fide foodies have dined there several times and highly recommend it. According to Tilth's website, it is "one out of two restaurants in the country to receive Oregon Tilth organic certification; (it) explores the experience of eating well and eating local through sourcing its produce, meats, eggs and cheeses from local and organic suppliers." Tilth is a food experience we will certainly enjoy next time we are in Seattle.

And for dessert, we discovered Theo Chocolate thanks to our friend Barndi, who happens to have a serious sweet tooth, or is it a chocolate tooth in her case? In any case, Theo Chocolate runs their business according to what they call the "triple bottom line" - People, The Planet, and Profit. They have been making chocolate (and a profit) with a business model that we can certainly encourage more businesses to follow. All of their specialty chocolates are organic and fair trade, and the real bottom line is that their truffles are some of the best I have ever tasted.

These were some of the many options we found for eating locally produced food during our travels. In order to find restaurants such as these on your next trip, you can simply do a search on Google with the name of the town you are visiting and the words "organic, natural foods, or vegetarian restaurants." As demand for this type of food spreads, so will its availability. Another great new resource for this type of product is a website, which is about to launch called Evolvist.com. It is designed to be a directory of organizations and businesses that are committed to environmental and social responsibility. Stay tuned to Weekly Way to find out when their website launches. In the meantime, visit their website to read their blog and to sign up for updates about their directory.

Until then, feel free to post your recommendations on this blog about organic restaurants and organic food purveyors that you patronize. After all, it is always great to discover where the locals eat, wherever your travels take you.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Chimp Greetings, The Wave, and An Inconvenient Truth: Remixed

Back Row Seats. Who could say no?

On July 7th, my husband Steve and I headed out to the Meadowlands to see the New York (or more accurately New Jersey, which many of the performers and presenters -most notably Bon Jovi and Zach Braff, writer and director of Garden State- pointed out) Live Earth concert at Giants Stadium. An estimated 65,000 people showed up along with us on the second Saturday in July. The purpose of the concerts was to launch a movement to address the global climate crisis. More than 10 million people watched the concerts live or on television. Eight concerts took place in New York, London, Johannesburg, Rio De Janeiro, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney, and Hamburg. While the concerts served as a giant launch party for the cause, this is just the beginning of a global movement to help repair and sustain a climate in crisis. The Live Earth website offers many tangible ideas for both reducing one's personal footprint and encouraging others to do the same.

While my husband and I were pretty much as far back as you could get while still being in Giants Stadium, we were grateful to be able to see all of the performances and speeches in person. Our seats also gave us a good vantage point for checking out the rest of the crowd from around the world.


Knew the words to every Kelly Clarkson Song...Best fan ever


Some of the highlights included performances by Bon Jovi, Alicia Keys, Roger Waters, and John Mayer. My four favorite moments were Melissa Etheridge's performance of music and words (here is the link to the first part - be sure to check out the second part on youtube as well), Jane Goodall's speech complete with two chimp greeting calls, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s speech about what we can do to promote effective and sustainable environmental policys, and the audience-generated wave.

While many of the other moments mentioned above were broadcast internationally, the wave was one of the most moving moments of the night. It began as a spontaneous rumble somewhere on one of the lower tiers of the stadium and turned into a musical movement of its own, as each section waited like an instrument in an orchestra to stand up and cheer at the appropriate time. The wave traveled through the stadium several times, picking up volume and synchronicity with each pass. It was a profound representation of what can happen when thousands of people make a collective decision to work together. While the moment passed as soon as Cameron Diaz came out to introduce The Police, we were all left with the knowledge that no matter what differences exist between 65,000 people, we all have the power to work together to shape the future of the home we all share.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Bounty of Local Harvests: Part Two

Please pardon the length of time it has taken me to follow up with you about my farmer's market findings. It turns out that the New York City area is even more of a cornucopia than even I anticipated. My journey to find local bounty began at Stone Barns, located in Pocantico Hills, NY. stonebarnscenter

Here, I was greeted with the scents and sounds of a working farm. The scents were surprisingly fresh and crisp considering that I grew up next door to a working farm, and the scents coming from that farm were definitely more odoriferous in the most unpleasant sense of the word. I have a feeling this has to do with the fact that the farm's beneficial symbiotic practices extend to all of the flora and fauna that have the privilege of living at this location.

I entered the herb gardens where the market is held and was greeted with the smell of an herbal medley and tables loaded high with different varieties of salad and Asian greens, garlic scapes (yes, I found them!), herbs, several varieties of meat, and, of course, the vegetable that started this all - bunches and bunches of tasty, "I was just in the desert and happened on this oasis of taste," CARROTS! No time to rejoice though; I had more markets to visit, and these carrots would give me the energy I needed with their ample helping of vitamins A, K, C, and B. I found out the nutritional information about carrots incidentally from a very useful website called The World's Healthiest Food. The purpose of this site is "to provide consumers with unbiased scientific information about how nutrient-rich foods can promote vibrant health and energy and fit personal needs and busy lifestyles." The website includes recipes and nutritional information and health benefits of different foods.


Finally, some real carrots!

My tasty bounty

On Saturday morning, I visited the farmer's market in Pleasantville, NY. It is one of 19 markets run in the NYC area by Community Markets. Their three driving ideas are "to make fresh produce available to all people, to support local agriculture, and to strengthen local communities." A visit to a market with these values ensures that one can have the opportunity to speak to the person who is growing the food, which is in fact just what I did.

In fact, I met an entire family from Claverack, NY who farms using "local, humane, sustainable farming and use organic/biodynamic methods." The Cowberry Crossing Farm sells a variety of vegetables and also raise a variety of free-range, organically-fed farm animals including bees, horses, chickens, and rabbits. Their farm was clearly a family affair, and each member was helping out at the market. I found more organic produce including radishes, salad greens, onions, and garlic at the Butternut Valley Organics farm stand.


The Cowberry Crossing Farm Crew:
Richard, Cecile, Grace, and Reese


In addition to produce and eggs, I also found two purveyors of organic bread and cheese. The Bobolink Dairy and Bakeyard sells grass-fed raw milk cheeses, wood-fired rustic bread, and pasture-raised meats. A highlight of their website is cheesemaker Jonathan White's "bookshelf" with a listing of recently read books on topics not just about food, but also about the entire ecosystem including Oxford zoology professor Richard Dawkins' book The Ancestor's Tale and On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. Jonathan's Bookshelf

My second bread supplier, Bread Alone, makes European style organic artisan breads and pastries. I tend to offset my Saturday morning yoga class with a healthy dose of organic sugar and carbs at their stand, where I often indulge in a croissant or fruit muffin. Their wide selection provides sweet and savory tastes for every palate, and they also have cafes in Woodstock and Rhinebeck, NY. Looking for someone to make your organic wedding cake? They do that too.


There's nothing better than fresh bread

I rounded out my food for the week with fruit from the Mead Orchard stand. Because it is July, I was able to get two different kinds of cherries and a quart of blueberries. Mead Orchard is located in Red Hook, NY and depending on the season, also offers strawberries, cherries, blueberries, peaches, apples, and pumpkins. Mead Orchard

We feasted for several days on our farmer's market food, and we even drew on some of the seasonal recipes from the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle website. When Wednesday rolled around, I got a call from one of my friends reminding me about a dinner we had planned for that evening. Since we did not have much left from my previous farmer's market trip, and I wanted to remain true to the project, I decided to check out the Greenmarket in Union Square in New York City. The markets are run by The Council on the Environment of New York City and take place all over the city. The Union Square market is open on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. There are vendors selling produce, plants, meats, dairy products, pickled products, jams, breads, and desserts. You can easily find all you need for full meals here, especially during the summer months.

I bought everything I needed for the evening at the stands operated by Tello's Green Farm, Hydro Garden Farm, Evolutionary Organic, Hawthorne Valley Farm, and Keith's Farm, which is where I found this enormous head of organic lettuce.


State Fair, here we come!

I am spending the next few weeks in the Pacific Northwest, and I certainly plan on eating locally while there. When I return at the beginning of August, there will be many new fruits and vegetables to enjoy, including one of my favorites, heirloom tomatoes. Stay tuned, this report on the joys of eating locally and sustainably produced food may turn into a trilogy.

Friday, June 22, 2007

The Bounty of Local Harvests: Part One

I was recently at a friend's house on Long Island for the weekend, and I bought some carrots for my dinner salad. As I was chopping the baby carrots, I found myself sampling the goods. First of all, the name baby carrot is a misnomer, as the baby carrot is pulled from the ground at an early age, while these carrots are pulled out once mature and then whittled back down to "baby" carrot size. Much to my chagrin, I found that much of the flavor also seemed to have been whittled away. Perhaps it was the fact that we had just purchased fresh, local fish, or maybe it was the lingering memory of the organic strawberries we had inhaled for breakfast, but I was ready for some savory produce to complement these summer flavors. Unfortunately, those carrots were some of the worst I had ever eaten.

The offending batch of carrots

In order to understand their lack of taste, I decided to examine the origins of these carrots. Apparently, the little orange sticks had been cut down to baby size in a land far far away, probably California, by a mythical green giant. Since I had recently been eating only carrots from a local organic farm, I must have become spoiled and expected my carrots to taste like, well, carrots. When I contacted General Mills, the parent company of Green Giant, I was told by a nice woman that they have "sources from all over the world" for their vegetables. According to the Green Giant website, their products come from "the Valley [note the singular here], where goodness grows and great tasting vegetables are picked at the peak of perfection." Okay, that sounds enticing, but then the products are shipped to points "all over the world!" How can they still be at the "peak of perfection" once they reach me?

This innocent, yet time consuming process got me thinking about the food we eat and how far it must travel to get to us. My usual carrot supply (when I can not get them at the farm), are the organic, bagged carrots from Trader Joe's. A look at the back of that bag revealed that my peeled carrots (at least they don't call them babies) come from CALIFORNIA. If these carrots are making the cross-country trek from California to New York, then I am certainly not eating them at the peak of perfection. And what about the fossil fuels used to harvest, package, and ship my carrots 3,000 miles? How many 18 wheelers on the road at this moment are taking California carrots to parts East? Are there carrot trucks passing each other in the night? If two carrot trucks leave, one moving West at 6o mph... well, you get the picture. It is clearly time to reevaluate my food supply and its sources. I am supposed to be a low-impact omnivore after all.

While pondering this increasingly complex consumer conundrum, born of a crappy bag of carrots, I came across Barbara Kingsolver's latest work, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The book chronicles her family's decision to move from Tuscon, Arizona to southern Appalachia where the entire family committed to a year of eating only food that they were able to grow themselves or that was produced locally. With the exception of one fair trade imported item each (Barbara chose spices, Steven coffee, Camille dried fruit, and Lily hot cocoa), the family agreed to live without anything that could not be obtained from a local source.

So you know I'm not lying about reading the book

After making this bold, and memoir-worthy decision, they embarked on a year of enjoying the bounty of locally produced food. The book highlights Kingsolver's gift for turning the mundane into the marvelous. Her narratives are playful and include vivid details about their agricultural adventures, while the informative contributions from her husband Steven and daughter Camille allow for a full perspective on their family's undertaking. In Kingsolver's capable hands, the personal quest of one family illuminates the increasingly universal quest for living lightly, yet enjoyably on the Earth. After reading this book, it is easy to see how and why we should all embark on a local food quest.

One particularly compelling entry by Steven early in the book explains the vast difference we could all make by eating locally produced food:

Americans put almost as much fossil fuel into our refrigerators as our cars.
We're consuming about 400 gallons of oil a year per citizen - about 17 percent of our nation's energy use - for agriculture, a close second to our vehicular use. Tractors, combines, harvesters, irrigation, sprayers, tillers, balers, and other equipment all use petroleum. Even bigger gas guzzlers on the farm are not the machines, but so-called inputs. Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides use oil and natural gas as their starting materials, and in their manufacturing. More than a quarter of all farming energy goes into synthetic fertilizers.

But getting the crop from seed to harvest takes only one-fifth of the total oil used for our food. The lion's share is consumed during the trip from the farm to your plate. Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles. In addition to direct transport, other fuel-thirsty steps include processing (drying, milling, cutting, sorting, baking), packaging, warehousing, and refrigeration. Energy calories consumed by production, packaging, and shipping far outweigh the energy calories we receive from the food (Hopp 5).

I'm certainly convinced, and I'm prepared to try the experiment myself. However, like many of you, I live in an urban area, and I have no access to a garden. The good news is that there are plenty of farmer's markets around, and I am excited to see what they have to offer. To find a farmer's market near you, check out:

localharvest.org
usda.gov
csacenter.org

Please post entries to the blog about the surprising culinary treasures or recipes you find on your visits to your local markets. Most farmers are happy to tell you how they prepare garlic scapes, kale, or rhubarb. We can create our own directory of Weekly Way-reviewed farmer's markets and recipes. It would also be interesting to hear which organically-grown non-local food product you would keep eating, if you were in the Kingsolvers' shoes. I've already decided that mine will be coffee. I am a writer and a caffeine addict, and these are codependent habits that I am not prepared to give up. I buy my fair-trade, organic, and bird friendly coffee at Coffee Labs in Tarrytown, NY.
coffeelabs

Now that I've fueled up on coffee, it is time to get started. Yesterday was the summer solstice, so today is the perfect day to start. It is also Friday, and the weekend is one of the most bountiful times for farmer's markets. There is an outdoor market at the Stone Barns Center for Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, NY on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays that sells organic produce and meat. It is located about an hour north of New York City on the Rockefeller Preserve, and it is a gorgeous day trip with plenty of hiking, biking, educational programs, and farm animal gazing available on the premises and nearby. In fact, June is spring garlic and garlic scapes month on the farm. I'm off now to load up on some delicious vegetables that I may or may not know how to cook...yet. By the way, I think my next book is The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.


Herb Gardens at the Stone Barns Center








Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Teaching Ways to Change the World

American Express has just launched their Member's Project, which asks American Express cardmembers to come up with ideas for making the world a better place. American Express' advisory panel will narrow the ideas down to 50 on July 3rd. From this pool of 50, American Express and its cardmembers will choose a winning idea on August 7th. For each cardmember that registers on the website, membersproject.com, American Express will donate $1 towards the winning idea up to $5 million dollars. The project should be innovative, achievable, and have a broad, positive impact.

Here at Ten Ways to Change the World in Your Twenties, I of course have plenty of ideas, and I have come up with a member's project called "Teaching Ways to Change the World." If you like my idea and are an American Express cardmember, please click on this link membersproject.com and rate my idea. You can also find my project by searching for ID#05186 on The Members Project Website.

The more five-star ratings this project receives, the higher the likelihood that it will be chosen as one of the top 50. Please consider telling your friends about "Teaching Ways to Change the World" too - this is an easy way for us all to make a positive impact today!

Those of you who are not American Express cardmembers can read about the project below.

The goal of this project is to empower the next generation of leaders by giving them the tools they need to first find the causes they are passionate about, and then to enable them to connect with organizations and individuals already making a difference in those fields. Teaching Ways to Change the World will offer tangible resources to 15-30 year olds who wish to be active in shaping the world in which they live, but may lack the guidance to easily do so. Ways to Change the World will present multimedia workshops about such topics as poverty, world hunger, health care, and the environment and will be offered at high schools, universities, and businesses. The workshops will be dynamic exchanges of ideas that will explore social, environmental, and political issues as well as possible solutions to those issues. The students will leave the workshops with innovative suggestions and strategies, which they can use immediately to begin implementing programs in their communities and beyond.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Spring Cleaning

Wouldn’t it be nice to open your mailbox and find only the mail that you want? Have you ever fantasized about throwing a yard sale but you either A. Don’t have a lawn or B. Don’t feel like haggling all weekend over the cost of your old desk or hula girl coffee mug? Well, thanks to two organizations, a free ad and a small fee will allow you to get rid of both the unwanted junk that arrives at your home on a daily basis and the unwanted junk that you’ve been accumulating for decades.

According to 41pounds.org, “The average adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail each year.” The organization offers a service that costs $41 and last for 5 years which will:

• Save time by eliminating 80-95% of your daily junk mail
• Save trees – 100+million trees destroyed annually for junk mail
• Save water used producing and recycling junk mail
• Reduce global warming – energy used for producing junk mail
• Support your favorite charity – they donate when you sign up

Now that your junk mail is taken care of, let’s turn our attention to that old printer. Freecycle.org is “a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns."

Each Freecycle group is moderated by a volunteer. You can follow the links on Freecycle’s website to find the group closest to you. If you can’t find a group near you, you can start your own group by following the instructions on their site. It’s a great way for anyone from college students to bi-coastal wanderers to both find and discard those precious home goods.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Hot Summer Clothes? No Sweat!

One of my favorite environmentally and socially conscious directories has done it again! Coop America has put together a list called “9 Ways to Avoid Sweatshops”coopamerica. In it, you can find everything from men’s undies to bath towels that are produced without using labor from sweatshops.

As an added bonus, most of these companies are also environmentally friendly (the two tend to go hand in hand after all), and many of the websites from Coop America have links to other environmentally and socially conscious designers. For example, a virtual trip to again.nyc (#7 on the list) yielded an entire page of designers that purse designer Allison Teich loves. You could be done shopping for that new socially conscious summer wardrobe in a day.

My new assistant Charlotte and I are heading into New York City soon to check out some of these designs in person. We'll keep you posted on our adventures in sustainable fashion hunting, and please let us know what you find as well. Contact Us

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Please Drive Responsibly

Memorial Day is right around the corner, and this 3-day weekend brings with it the promise of summer: long, lazy days at the beach, vacations, road trips, and an average national gas price of $3.10 a gallon. Gulp, Guzzle - that means my fairly fuel-efficient 2003 Toyota Corolla cost exactly $34.58 to fill up this week - ouch.

Given the high price of gas this summer, and the well-established negative effects that carbon emissions have on the environment, it seems to be obvious that we should drive as little as possible, and when we must drive, we should operate fuel-efficient vehicles. According to edmunds.com, these are the 10 most fuel-efficient vehicles produced in 2006:

  1. Honda Insight— 60/66
  2. Toyota Prius— 60/51
  3. Honda Civic Hybrid — 49/51
  4. Volkswagen Golf TDI — 37/44
    Volkswagen New Beetle TDI — 37/44
  5. Volkswagen Jetta TDI — 36/41
  6. Toyota Corolla— 32/41
  7. Scion xA — 32/37
  8. Hyundai Accent— 32/35
    Kia Rio — 32/35
  9. Honda Civic— 30/40
  10. Pontiac Vibe — 30/36
    Toyota Matrix — 30/36
If a new car is not in the budget right now, you can also ensure that your vehicle gets the best fuel-efficiency possible by taking simple steps such as making sure your air filter is changed on a regular basis, keeping your tires properly inflated, using your air conditioner sparingly, and avoiding idling. For a full list of tips on how to achieve optimal fuel-efficiency, check out eartheasy.com.

Lastly, you can utilize the power of your dollar by buying your gas from the most responsible of the oil companies and boycotting the rest. According to Fortune, Exxon-Mobil made over $36 billion in profits in 2005, the largest profit of any company in the world. They achieved this number one status due to the hefty increase in gasoline prices. In addition, according to The Sierra Club, their environmental record places them at the "bottom of the barrel" when ranked with seven other major U.S. oil companies. You can sign a petition at coopamerica.org urging Exxon-Mobil to invest some of their record-breaking profits in renewable energy. The two highest ranking oil companies on Sierra Club's list are BP and Sunoco. You can read the complete environmental lowdown on all eight companies at sierraclub.org.






Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The Twenty Dollar Bottle of Water

A small donation really can make a big difference. Here’s how it works: Buy a $20 bottle of virtual water at www.charityis.com, a nonprofit organization founded by a NY event planner turned humanitarian. Each purchase goes towards building sustainable drinking water systems in Africa. Through their work, they are “stimulating greater global awareness about extreme poverty, educating the public, and provoking compassionate and intelligent giving.”

The first of charity:’s campaigns is to use the money raised through the sale of their $20 bottles of water to provide clean drinking water to people in Africa. One bottle provides one person with safe water for 15 years. Through a unique funding strategy, 100% of your water purchase goes towards this campaign, as operating costs for the organization are covered by a separate fundraising campaign. When you go to charity:’s website, you can choose to donate to the water campaign or to the operating costs of the organization. Charity: has also partnered with Charity Navigator, so you know exactly where your money is going.

Check out their website today and consider buying the most expensive water you will never taste. And, if you actually would like to taste it, you can always spring (pun intended yet again) for a case. $480 will get you 24 bottles of water which "can produce the equivalent of more than 13 million 16.9 ounce bottles of water in Africa." We can all drink to that.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Ten Ways in Ten Days

This business of changing the world is overwhelming. Every day, I receive a new magazine to read, updates from the charities I support, and my stack of books and newspapers is almost tall enough to use as a measuring stick for my sixth grade students. In short, (pun unintended), I’m a bit overwhelmed myself, and this is my job.

But the good news in this confluence of good intentions, fluctuating priorities and time shortage is that we have already taken the first step – we care. I wouldn’t have created this website, and you wouldn’t be reading my blog if that were not the case. You probably also wouldn’t be reading the weekly way, if you were not looking for some advice. So here it is -

Just start. Take an action or two every day. Once these actions become second nature, you will find yourself looking for more ways to change the world. Visit the website and the blog often for more ideas. I will try to be both creative and practical with my suggestions.

The practical side of me says that it is important to suggest ideas that offer at least some immediate results. In order to kick off the website and welcome you to this new community, I have put together a list called Ten Ways in Ten Days, with a way inspired by each chapter of the book. Try a few or all of them out – let me know how it goes!


1. Register to Vote – This is the first step to getting involved politically and having your voice heard. If you have already registered to vote, then make sure you vote in all of the elections; even the local ones make a difference.

2. Watch a Movie – Well, more specifically a documentary or feature film about an issue or cause you are interested in. This is a great way to get educated. Perhaps the movie will inspire you to take further action. The most famous film of late that has spurred millions to action is An Inconvenient Truth, but some other films worthy of viewing are Who Killed the Electric Car?, Hotel Rwanda, Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, Bowling for Columbine, The Ground Truth, or Super Size Me. They each offer information about issues worth getting involved in, and each movie offers suggestions for fixing the problems addressed.

3. Sign the One Declaration – which is “an historic pact for compassion and justice to help the poorest people of the world overcome AIDS and extreme poverty.” one.org

4. Unplug – Every appliance that we leave plugged in while it is not in use continues to draw electricity. Unplug any appliances in your apt./house that are not in use.

5. Find Something New to Recycle – We all know about recycling aluminum cans, plastic, and glass. But you can also recycle printer cartridges, cell phones (most or all of the components), batteries, and plastic bags. Many grocery stores including Whole Foods offer plastic bag recycling receptacles. If you are ready to stop using plastic bags once and for all, good for you – bring your own reusable bags. Check out reusablebags.com.

6. Give a Green Gift – With many occasions to celebrate in the spring, including Mother’s Day and graduations, you are sure to need a gift for someone. Give a gift from an environmentally responsible source; it is a great way to raise awareness and give a wonderful gift. Check out earthmamaangelbaby.com, organicbouquet.com, equalexchange.com, oraganic.com, or ecoexpress.com.

7. Buy Local, Sustainably Grown Food – check out localharvest.org to find farmers' markets, CSA's, grocery stores, co-ops, and restaurants that supply and use local and organic products.

8. Become Carbon Neutral – Check out terrapass.org or drivinggreen.com and use their emissions calculator to first determine your carbon footprint and then learn how to offset it.

9. Check Out the tenways.org Website – especially the Businesses Making a Difference and the Organizations Making a Difference pages. Try one of the products or join one of the organizations listed.

10. Throw a Party with a Purpose – When you have decided on an organization or cause you would like to support, invite your friends over for a party. Provide some information about the cause and ask them to bring a small donation rather than the usual host/hostess gift.