American Labor For Sustainability - Woo Hoo!

Mainstream America is coming to an understanding of the need to get behind efforts to clean up the planet.  The American labor movement has for some time supported expanding “green jobs” that will help create a cleaner, renewable energy economy and address global climate change.  Three unions recently took additional action and announced their support for the science-based targets called for by the IPCC to reduce greehouse gas emissions that cost us all, and future generations, far more than any savings offered (to anyone) by maintainining the status quo in our current fossil fuel based economy.  More on this story here: http://www.labor4sustainability.org/post/unions-call-for-science-based-reductions-in-greenhouse-gases/

Learning the issues and taking action to be for the right kinds of change, are legacy level leadership activities! Right on!

The Solar Race Is On - Now There’s a Developing Legacy to Get Behind!

Many of you know my personal legacy is devoted to environmental protection, conservation and support for the development of clean, renewable energy technologies. Now that folks seem to be getting the sense that global climate change is happening, addressing it is important and that it is economically and common sensically viable to do so (not only crucial to life as we know it on Earth), it seems the race to innovate and initiate new solutions is on.  Yea!!

From the Las Vegas Sun news online comes the story of the race between Nevada and Arizona to be the first to employ solar energy production and storage.

Imagine: what would the world be like if we all were racing to create better solutions, especially to environmental problems?  From my perspective, it would allow us to eventually get away from fossil fuel based energy production, which is important why?  Again, from where I live on the ocean it would stop us from killing the ocean and a crucial food chain all us Earthians depend on.  The ocean is not the vast resource we once thought, that we can treat as a giant dumping ground (and unfortunately have).  Between doing that and adding carbon to the atmosphere, which the ocean tries to help moderate by absorbing it and creating carbonic acid (H20 + CO2 = carbonic acid), not to mention unsustainable fishing practices, the ocean and its resources are dying. 

Here’s a picture of where we’re going if we don’t race to find solutions.  This is not just a scary story, we’re already actually on our way to this end:

Coral reefs and climate change, a message for Copenhagen from Earth Touch on Vimeo.

It was a video shown in Copenhagen as part of the effort to urge global solutions to climate change (of which the ocean acidification I mentioned is part).  Consider your children and grandchildren and the world they will inherit from the current generation if we don’t get behind efforts to change things for the better. 

Knowing this, what solution could you race toward as part of your consciously chosen life legacy?  Let us know how we can help you!

In 2010 - On Enrichment and Being Rich

There’s a great new, free, ebook circulating on the web.  And if you haven’t seen it yet, get a copy and peruse it here at year end as you think about what you want to create in your life and work in the coming months and years … and how you intend to approach that. 

It’s called What Matters Now - download it as a pdf from Seth Godin’s blog.  Turns out what matters now, is what has always mattered really.  It’s like re-discovering an old classic, finding that old, soft ,warm, cozy sweater you thought you’d lost. 

My favorite line of advice? This:   You are only as rich as the enrichment you bring to the world around you.  So, if being richer is important to you, how will you go about bringing more enrichment to the world?  A good question to ponder as we close out this calendar year and, as we do at “new year” - consider fresh beginnings.

More Alternative Holiday Gift-Giving Ideas

I recently wrote about Legacy-Level Holiday Gift-Giving Ideas.  (If you missed it, you can read it here.)  What makes something legacy-level gift giving?  Much like  legacies themselves, this level of gift-giving makes a positive difference - particularly, hopefully, a sustainable or long-term one and/or one that keeps on giving.  

A number of the gift ideas in that article may not have seemed to make a tangible, sustainable difference directly.  The point was to give with a small environmental footprint. So the legacy aspect of it was in what the gift ideas don’t do - they don’t add to waste and overconsumption, so they help promote long term environmental sustainability. 

While ultimately practical and maybe not what folks would think of as really “sexy” or “magical” gifts, I just found a similar article that provides some additional alternative holiday gift ideas - as in alternative energy approaches.  See Great Green Gift Ideas That Will Save You Money and Help the Environment to check out these practical, alternative gems.

So maybe you don’t want to use one of these gift ideas to that fabulous new person you’re dating and whose heart you’re trying to win.  They may still be great for family members, those people on your list who “have everything” — or even as gifts for yourself (and that fabulous new date may well be practical and environmentally minded …).  Since these gifts are good for environmental protection and ultimately help create a more sustainable planet, you may well be regarded as a real visionary and trend-setter - indeed, an impressive enlighted leader in your own right - through a very practical approach to legacy-level gift giving.  That demonstration of leadership might just create a following, with people replicating your example, making your gift idea one that keeps on giving as well.

181 Investors Managing $13+Trillion Call For Strong Climate Change Action

Going into the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, which begins this coming week, I am feeling a bit dismayed, despite the fact that more and more common sensical and educated folks (like the 181 investors referenced in the title) are displaying a willingness to come forward in the climate change discussion and call on world leaders to get a grip and begin to do something about it. 

I am dismayed because telling the truth seems to be such a hard thing to do - because people are afraid of what will happen if they do.  Yet, as we are taught (just maybe not taught well enough how to practice), honesty is still the best policy.  It lessens the need for “spin” and opens the door to debate - hopefully honest debate without conniving trickery.  Having practiced law, I can, unfortunately attest to the existence of both conniving tactics and trickery in what is supposed to be high level honest debate built on a foundation of professional integrity.  Anyone who reads or watches any news also knows that people often read and watch whatever supports their underlying beliefs and attempted assertions - rather than staying open to and dealing directly with the sometimes not so pleasant actual truth. 

I say all this because in the past couple weeks thousands of emails and files were hacked from scientists inside East Anglia University, the British keeper of global temperature records, revealing at best a fearful reluctance among them to reveal all their scientific data and their efforts to disguise data that give rise to questions about human caused global warming.  Presumably, they do such things to divert the attacks of critics - when it would just be better to put it out there and well … honestly debate.   See more on that story here. (The hackers, of course, are still unidentifed and at large, and following their actions have been others who have attempted to post outright false information online to persuade people further in their beliefs that there is no environmental problem going on and we should stop making such a potentially expensive fuss about it).

Genuinely concerned scientists and environmentally minded citizens like myself have recently had to divert their focused attention from environmental protection, to defending the need for environmental protection.  This is despite plenty of real evidence that humans have seriously degraded the planet - jeeze just go to your nearest water body and have a look at it: wanna swim in that?  how about taking a nice long drink? 

And why and how did we get here? It’s a result of fear - it always comes down to fear even if it parades as greed and arrogance - of telling the truth in the first instance. That results in back peddling, having to explain, being diverted from the real, important issues, and feeling like you have to justify.  And worse, having to work harder to get a clear message to people whose beliefs cause them to be grounded in denial and avoidance to begin with. 

Yet, the truth, however it comes out - and it generally does - eventually leads to some level of honest debate among truly open and concerned persons, even though spinmeisters know that creating diversions can delay that debate.  Hence the old saying “justice delayed is justice denied,” a problem that ultimately be avoided if we would just do a better job of practicing telling the truth and treating each other compassionately. 

And the truth is that pumping carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, and other greenhouse gasses, in to our atmosphere IS a problem and it needs to be corrected.  Even scientists who criticize alleged ”government by the few” or a handful of “elites” — like the members of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been called – conclude that hidden and hacked emails or not, global climate change (a lot more than mere “warming”) is still a problem.  It is not a matter of how much carbon based fossil fuel is left in the ground and how we can exploit every last drop.  It is a matter of whether we should continue to pump that carbon into the atmosphere and poison our planet - or begin to move, as rapidly as possible, into production of clean energy alternatives and more effective conservation efforts. 

Not surprising as a result of the East Anglia email hacking debacle, I heard a report on the radio this morning that some religious leaders have started speaking out against efforts to address climate change, claiming that our creator endowed us with an earth that is resilient.  I have no qualms with them.  But best I’ve been taught, our creator also gave us free will, and that free will may be causing serious harm and deterioration to this garden and paradise we were given in the form of the earth.  I agree the earth is resilient and will be just fine - what I question is what will happen to life on earth (humans and other species, which are so very threatened and disappearing at alarming rates as a result of humans’ exercise of free will).  While I don’t completely agree with George Carlin’s suggestions in his “The Planet is Fine” comedy sketch that we should do nothing to address it, I do agree with his underlying premise.  We may destroy our species and life on the planet as we know it, but the earth itself will be fine.  But I have serious questions about what will happen to ‘we the people’ – so many of whom are failing miserably at living up to being made in God’s image and likeness.

Yet, from the business world we have some enlightened leaders:  Ceres (pr. “series”), is a U.S. network of investors, environmental organizations and public interest groups with a stated mission to integrate sustainability into capital markets for the health of the planet and its people.  They recently reported some seriously good news:  the world’s largest group of global investors has issued a joint call for U.S. and international policy makers to take strong action to address global climate change.  

What a pleasant experience to find such enlightened leadership within the financial industry - which often takes a bad rap for greedily focusing on profit over anything else.  Head of one of the investment group members recognized publically that the human cost of inaction is unthinkable, and called for the development of sustainable business practices.  Just goes to show, there are reputable, high integrity professionals in all industries (even as there are those gripped by fear and acting badly …).

And from the religious world come some enlightened leaders, too, who see global climate change as a possible threat to peace.  Religions for Peace is the world’s largest and most representative multi-religious coalition. In September, the organization participated in the sixty-fourth session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.  Their purpose was to help promote a binding global climate deal at the UN Climate Change conference this next week.  Hallelujah!

The upside?  Dismayed or not, I can always find some good news.  I’m so grateful for that.

Blondes Take Note: Volkswagen’s Really Do Have More Fun

And it’s a great key to leadership and social enterprise. 

We’ve become a two Vee-Dub family.  Partly that’s because they really are fun to drive, and economical.  Small, but lots of room, and great gas mileage.  And did I mention zippy?  Remember Fahrvergnügen?  (Then you’re older than I thought). 

German car manufacturer Volkwagen used the term in a 1990 advertising campaign, with the slogan “Fahrvergnügen: It’s what makes a car a Volkswagen.”  I “got it” immediately probably because my first car during high school in the ’70’s was my brother’s hand-me-down 1961 VW Karmann Ghia.  It looked pretty much like this one, except that it was originally really close to that cool ‘British racing green’ color like the old MG’s.  Anyway, it’s a word that in German means “driving enjoyment.”

I guess I’m taken by all that because joy is one of my values.  And it’s clear that it’s a value this company has embodied. Since the original Ghia, I’ve driven two VW buses (actually one that my father and I repurposed from the best parts of two into one, as one of my summer home vocational training programs - can you say “Bondo”?), a couple different Beetles, a Rabbit, two GTI’s and now the new (1997) Jetta my sweet husband just bought in VW solidarity.   

 Remember Turbonium?  I’ve had that, too, do now and wouldn’t be without it:  a ‘whole new element’ of extra fun.

But back to leadership and social enterprise.

One element of leadership is knowing your mission, built on some solid underlying value - one you can really get behind and that motivates others.  While the VW company has many we could identify, I’ll just focus on fun, because it’s one that is fundamental to their mission.  To which has been added social responsibility in a much more visible way.  VW has now created a program of positive social change devoted to the notion that fun may just be the best way to change people’s behavior for the better.  It’s called The Fun Theory - check out the site devoted to it to see how the company has incorporated a social enterprise element into its business operations.  Now that’s what I call positive leadership to power sustainable change.

As for why my husband just bought a new-to-us 1997 VW Jetta just about to roll over 100,000 miles, that’s a whole different story for another time.  But for me, while I am devoted to the notion that transportation should be economical and likewise am committed to keeping a low carbon footprint (a hint to that “other story”), I still value driving fun. Here’s my current ride:

People Want to Believe You Can Make Money And Make Sense - And It’s True

In fact, going into the future, it’ll probably be the best way to make money.  If we even need money - ah, the utopian dreams of my youth.  Consider …

There was the Agrarian Age - the age of farms and self-sufficiency.  Then the Industrial Age - assembly lines, mass production of goods, the throw away society, plastics, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, myriad forms of pollution, Global Climate Change … modern, progressive futurists we may think we are, we still live so very much in that age.  

Then came the Information Age - when we all began to have access to news and information from around the globe that we never had before, ushered in (oh so long ago now folks) when stories of the Viet Nam War were shown, graphically, on television.  War on TV for the first time - now sensationalized mayhem day in and day out on all major news stations - trying to keep us glued so as to sell us more and make us bigger consumers. 

Fortunately, during this era the internet was opened up to regular Josephines like us (yes, Al Gore DID do that - he didn’t invent it as the ridiculing comments would have it, but he did open up access to it for we the people.)  And baby look at what we know now. 

These past eras ushered in one where we have greeds like Bernie Madoff, and making money through mathematical formulas compounding penny size trades by the second and derivative securities concocted by the best and brightest from MIT and similar institutions of higher learning - instead of creating value added products and services to save the planet. But that’s another story.  Fortunately, these days of massive info access also ushered in greater transperancy in just about everything - from knowing much of the in’s and out’s of the fall of Enron and Worldcom and the big three auto makers (unfortunately too late to circumvent the harm their poor decisions wrought), to knowing all the ingredients in the products we purchase so can make better informed choices.

People are wondering what comes after the Information Age. 

Well, I think it is the Age of Integrity. I certainly hope it is.  As in, an age of wholenesss - we’re all one in this universe, so let’s pull this planet altogether and create from what’s best, what adds the most value to the most people, eliminate waste, become unconditionally constructive and compassionate, go back to being citizens rather than mere consumers to be marketed to and parted from our dollars, euros, yen, rubles, etc.  Integrity also as in ethical - doing the right thing for the right reasons and vowing to become ‘obedient to the unenforceable - doing what’s right because we all begin to develop a higher sense of consciousness and know it’s the right thing, not because someone’s going to punish you if you don’t.

If we can pull that off, we have a future.  In business there is (finally!!) a new push toward social entrepreneurship and conscious capitalism.  It’s been growing as a grassroots effort for some time, mainly on websites, blogs and in chat rooms around the world wide web.  These subjects are now being taught in some of the great university business programs  (it’s about time): the Harvard Social Enterprise Initiative, Stanford Center for Social Innovation, and Berkeley Center for Responsible Business, for example. 

As reported recently by Axiom News, people are eager for conscious capitalism focused businesses.  Word is getting out (geeze what has taken so long?) that people yearn for higher meaning and greater purpose in life and work than just financial results - elevating work to a spiritual practice, integrating the practical with the very personal.  Author and Professor at Boston’s Bentley University, Raj Sisodia understands this - and is teaching it.  His new book, Firms of Endearment: How World Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose makes the case.  

And none too soon.  What do you think?

Legacy projects are taking this form of social enterprise.  Whether as a corporate responsibility project cooperatively begun by existing business owners and their staff ,or a personally developed social change philanthropic project begun by individual social entrepreneurs - more and more people are doing this work.  It is my great pleasure to get to support them in consciously developing their projects, incorporating sound business, management and marketing principles for long term viability, and with an eye toward making a positive contribution.

What joy that is! So, if you, too, believe you can make money and make sense, how will you help usher in the Age of Integrity?  I’d love to know your thoughts and ideas, and how you’ll implement them!

68% of Americans Know We Can Do This - And We Can! Now Tell Congress To Get It Done

Two fascinating bits of news I ran across today:

As reported in Solar Nation, 68% of people in this country believe that passing strong clean, renewable energy legislation to address climate change will result in new jobs (as opposed to job loss).  And why would investing in creating and developing new green technologies not result in new jobs?! 

This is great news because the Senate is currently deliberating the Waxman Markey climate change legislation that came out of the House of Representatives a couple months ago.  If you want to let your Senators know how you feel about the U.S. taking a global lead in reducing the use of fossil fuels and addressing climate change, you can easily find and contact them here.

The second piece of good news is of the we have the technology variety.  Well, so many of them, but this one is amazing.  This isn’t some pie in the sky notion - creating these new clean technologies.  We now have the Algeaus: the first car with a gasoline engine (as opposed to diesel engine as in bio-diesel), to cross the United States powered by fuel derived from algae.  This story is being told in a film called The Fuel Film a winner in the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.  And what a legacy story that is!! World changing in a big, positive way.  Take that big oil!

Remember photosynthesis?  The process by which plants take up carbon dioxide and, using sunlight, produce oxygen? Well algae can do it and produce fuel - more fuel than any crop based ethanol or other biofuel.  Take that big agriculture!!

More about the film and the car:

 
But there is more to know and do, so oh!, now maybe we can move some of our tax dollars being devoted to oil and corn subsidies and pass them along to the production of clean, renewable energy sources?! As a consistent form of support they can count on so the needed business infrastructures can be built around them?  The kind of leadership being shown by the developers of this news and these technologies is the kind we need in our government representatives - focused on a more positive future for us all and following generations.

That would be a significant impact and a great thing.

The Future Needs More Women Leaders

Strength, vision, foresight and care - for people and the planet.  Here’s great evidence of a woman’s leadership taking us into a future in better harmony with our natural ecosystem: http://article-url.com/MIgreen 

Go Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan.

Powerful Women

I got this email today, twice before I responded to it.  It was one of those chain things that asks you to pass it on.  And usually I don’t (especially when they have some superstitious warning in them!!)  But I liked this one.  It said:
——————————
I am supposed to pick 12 women who have touched my life and whom I think would want to participate. I think that if this group of women were ever to be in a room together, there is nothing that would be impossible. I hope I chose the right twelve.  My hugs, love, gestures and communications hopefully remind you how special you are.
Please send this back to me. Remember to make a wish before you read the quotation. That’s all you have to do. There is nothing attached.
Just send this to twelve women and let me know what happens on the fourth day. Sorry, did you make a wish yet? If you don’t make a wish, it won’t come true.
This is your last chance to make a wish!…
“May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts  that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.”
Now, send this to 12 women within the next 15 minutes. And remember to send this back. I count as one… you’ll see why.  Suggestion: copy and paste rather than forwarding it.
————————————————————————-

But I had to include this note:

This found its way into my email today, coming in from somewhere else as these email things do. Generally I don’t participate in them, but I liked this one.  So my apologies to anyone who dislikes this sort of email; I’m truly not sure if you’d want to participate or not.  

I just liked the idea of including you and telling you so, because if I ever needed to do the impossible and had to assemble a group of women to make it happen, I would definitely get you in the room. And I’d include my mother, but she’s not on email.

So here it is, do with it what you will if anything other than read it.  As for the ‘you’ll see why,’ I’m thinking we may or may not see why, but just knowing you’re thought about as special and powerful may well be enough. I enjoyed recognizing my connection to you in this way.  If you receive duplicates, I guess that shows just how special and powerful you really are.  On that score, I’m glad it made its way to me at least once! 

And truth is, I sent it to more than 12 women.  On that score, it made me realize how many incredible, powerful, capable, strong, trustworthy and loving women I know.  I’m glad of that - and of their presence in the world doing great things.  I see the “legacy power” in what they each are able to change for the better in their own spheres of influence. That makes me glad.

It also spurs me into action on my quest to help more of them exercise more of that power in greater ways, for the benefit of an improved planet.  Call me a dreamer, but I think if we all dreamed a little bit bigger for better and better outcomes, rather than status quo, maintaining vested interests, and keeping things as they are (okay, I know that’s a bit redundant, but it seems to be a pattern humans persist in) we really could improve a lot of things.  And I see the positive thinking, nurturing and collaborating power of women leaders — of all feminine thinking (no matter who’s doing it) — as a most important way in which such results will come into being.

So hear this: women leaders and those embracing the power of the feminine - it is your time to shine, to rise up, to make your voices heard, to get on with being more visible and building more projects in this world!!  You are powerful beyond measure, especially when you get together and create some synergy toward a goal.  And we know how to get together - another strength in the feminine - generally with really good food to fortify us for the road ahead.

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