The
Alliance for Sustainability |
Homepage Events History Membership Manna Archive |
|
The
Alliance for Sustainability |
Homepage Events History Membership Manna Archive |
|
MANNA
|
|
From a national renewable energy policy to a uniquely natural home, this August edition of Manna takes us from Sweden to Arizona. We especially hope you enjoy the first article of a series on Sustainable Sweden based on the recent Sustainable Sweden Tour co-sponsored by the Alliance for Sustainability. (It's not too early to start saving for next year!) Also of possible interest to some is our new text-only Manna option. Let us know (iasa@mtn.org) if you would prefer to receive the newsletter in this format: without colors or special text. Manna: always informative, always tree-free. Sustainably, August 21, 2001 The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we used when we created them. -- Albert Einstein In this issue of MANNA...* Planetary Sustainability -- Lessons from Sustainable Sweden: Government and Business Creating a Partnership Benefiting Consumers and the Environment (First article in a series) * Take Action! -- Support Roadless National Forests, Tell Your Senator: Don’t Give Tax Breaks to Burn Filthy Cow & Hog Waste * Big Hempenings in the Twin Cities by Alliance Member Keith Pille * Personal Sustainability -- Living on the Rocks * Centers for Spirituality & Sustainability, and Judaism & Sustainability -- Rabbis Across Nation Call for "Moral Reflection" on Energy Policy and Global Warming * Our Wish List! * Resource of the Month -- Operation: Landfill Elimination * Selected Upcoming Events We'd Like Your
Support Donate your rebate to the Alliance for Sustainability. You can send your check directly to us at 1521 University Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414. Or if you prefer, pay by credit card over the phone at 612-331-1099 x2 or via e-mail at iasa@mtn.org. Your donation will help us to continue offering Manna for free, develop new projects, maintain our up-to-date and information-packed web site, continue our Natural Step trainings and more. Your donation will also be tax deductible. Is this what they call "poetic justice"? When I was very young, I was disgracefully intolerant, but when I passed the thirty mark I prided myself on having learned the beautiful lesson that all things were good, and equally good. That, however, was really laziness. Now, thank goodness, I've sorted out what matters and what doesn't. And I'm beginning to be intolerant again. -- G.B. Stern Lessons from Sustainable SwedenWhat Can Sweden Teach the World About Sustainability? By Terry Gips, Alliance for Sustainability President Can a business and municipality eliminate their greenhouse gas emissions and become fossil fuel-free? Is it possible for McDonald's, Ford and a major gas station chain to join together and create a model green development providing environmentally sound products and services? Can a community achieve a 90% recycling rate (in contrast with 50% rates in the US)? Is it possible for schools, homes and workplaces to be non-toxic, allergy-free, and beautiful while saving money and energy? Can business work with government to provide consumers with products that function at the highest standard, cost less and are environmentally sound? The answer is yes to all of these questions as participants in the recently completed August 4-19 Sustainable Sweden Tour discovered. The tour was sponsored by the Sustainable Sweden Association ( www.sustainablesweden.org), Esam (The Human Ecological Corporation – www.esam.se/english), and the Alliance for Sustainability (www.mtn.org/iasa). The tour explored the Natural Step and numerous other cutting-edge policies and practices in business, government, schools and ecomunicipalities that have made Sweden a global sustainability leader.The trip was led by the founder of Sweden’s ecomunicipality movement Dr. Torbjörn Lahti, Board Chair of Esam and Robertsfors Ecomunicipality Sustainability Leader. Participants came from Japan, New Zealand, the US and Sweden, including a Sami leader (the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia and Russia) and an exiled Chilean Indian rights leader. There were numerous highlights each day, from an in-depth seminar with Natural Step founder Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt to a reindeer herding Sami village in the Land of the Midnight Sun and perhaps one of the world’s best examples of an Eco-Education Center for homes and businesses. The entire visit was videotaped and will be made available from the Alliance for Sustainability with information to be provided on our website, www.mtn.org/iasa. We also will be providing write-ups on our website as well as feature articles in Manna, which we’re kicking off with a short piece below on the innovative work by Environmental Action Varmland on its work with business to develop markets for green products. We are beginning plans for future tours that may focus on more specific topics such as architecture, healthcare, education, business, municipalities or other topics, as well as looking at possibly bringing some of the Swedish leaders to the US. Please let us know if you might be interested, iasa@mtn.orgGovernment and Business Creating a Partnership Benefiting
Consumers and the Environment Beginning in 1989, five business and government organizations in the Central Swedish County of Varmland joined together to create a unique non-governmental organization, Environmental Action Varmland (EAV), with the vision of creating "a successful sustainable Varmland." The groups included the Varmland County Council, County Administrative Board, Swedish Association of Local Authorities (16 municipalities), ALMI Foretagspartner (corporate support for small and medium-sized enterprises) and the Chamber of Commerce in Varmland. With regional, national and European Union financing of $400,000 annually, EAV has been initiating and facilitating work on sustainable development for public services, companies, organizations and consumers in Varmland to help them be successful in their work. Their strategy has been to undertake sustainable development, including both production and consumption, through market-based ideas from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. EAV has already accomplished a number of successful projects that demonstrate the power of government and business working in creative partnership. According to Project Managers Jonas Lagneryd and Anders Olsson, their three-year Energy Efficient Varmland Project created a market breakthrough and increased the sale of ecological white goods such as refrigerators and freezers from 25 to 50% in just three months. They accomplished this by formulating specifications ("technique procurement") for the white goods based on energy efficiency, environmentally friendly materials, and performance. At the same time, they organized a large group purchase among municipalities, government agencies, companies and households giving significant market power. They then put out a request for proposals to various manufacturers and took the best bid based on price that met the other criteria. This gave the consumers the highest quality, environmentally friendly white goods at prices far below regular prices. At the same time, it stimulated the growth of new green white goods as well as market demand. And it ultimately reduced the communities’ energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions. One other intriguing aspect was that once the white goods manufacturer was selected they had to submit the white goods to EAV for testing. Thus, EAV in effect became the consumer’s advocate assuring them that they would get a product that would function as promised. In cases where the product didn’t meet the specifications, EAV worked with the manufacturer to modify the product before releasing it for a round of limited consumer testing before fully releasing it. This represents a real breakthrough in helping to drive both the supply and demand for green products while assuring that the best interests of the consumer and communities are met. It is a clear case of a win-win-win model that could be utilized in communities across the US and around the world. We’ll be sharing more about their other accomplishments in future articles. If your only involvement in democracy is in a voting booth 10 minutes a year, then that's all the democracy you're going to get. -- Ventura A.E. Simmons Submit Comments Supporting the Roadless Rule to the Forest ServiceTo submit a comment regarding the future of the roadless rule, you may send an e-mail to roadless_anpr@fs.fed.us, send a fax to 801-296-4090, or mail to Roadless ANPR Comments P.O. Box 221090 Salt Lake City, UT 84122. Comment period closes September 10, 2001. A sample letter follows.
Please protect all of our remaining roadless areas, the sources of our
cleanest water, from road construction, logging, mining, and other forms
of commercial extraction. Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi Tell Your Senator: Don’t Give Tax Breaks to Burn Filthy Cow & Hog
Waste To learn more about the legislation, why it's bad and how to contact your senators, go to http://www.citizen.org/cmep/alerts/hogexcrement.htm.There must be a new contact between [humans] and the earth; the earth must be newly seen and heard and felt and smelled and tasted; there must be a renewal of the wisdom that comes with knowing clearly the pain and the pleasure and the risk and the responsibility of being alive in this world. -- Wendell BerryBig Hempenings in the Twin Cities By Keith Pille, Member In late July, as I was wandering around my workplace handing out flyers announcing the upcoming visit of the Hemp Car to the Twin Cities, I found myself being asked again and again, "What's a hemp car?" The Hemp Car is a diesel Mercedes-Benz station wagon running unmodified on 100% hemp oil biodiesel, currently on a 10,000-mile tour of the United States to highlight the usefulness of biodiesel fuel and of industrial hemp (for a wealth of information about the Hemp Car, its mission, industrial hemp, and biodiesel in general, visit www.hempcar.org). Without going into too much detail, why bother with this? The main reasons are twofold: first, biodiesels are endlessly renewable. As long as you can grow hemp, or soybeans, or other vegetables (hemp was chosen here because the chemical makeup of the oil results in the lowest greenhouse gas emission and, more importantly, because there's no need to make a point about reforming the nation's soybean laws), you have fuel. No dependence on foreign sources, no need to drill in Alaskan wildlife refuges. Second, burning fuels based on biomass produces far less pollution than burning petroleum-based fuels. In nearly every conceivable category -- particulate emissions, carbon monoxide emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, you name it -- hemp oil and other biodiesels outperform petroleum fuels by a staggering margin (once again, for more detail on this, visit the Hemp Car web site). But enough about that. The Hemp Car's August 1 visit to the Twin Cities raised a great deal of excitement beforehand and consciousness afterwards. The Hemp Car appeared at a number of locations around the cities in conjunction with the Green Party, NORML-MN and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. The highest-profile event of the day was the late afternoon rally and press conference at the front steps of the State Capitol. There, Hemp Car creators Kellie and Grayson Sigler spoke to the press and to people, along with Alliance Board Vice Chair Ken Seguine, Minnesota Representative Phyllis Kahn and Krista Leraas. Several great pictures of this rally, along with the day's other events, are available at http://www.mtn.org/iasa/hempphoto.html. Everywhere the Hemp Car appeared, crowd response was enthusiastic and overwhelmingly positive. The final event of the day was the "Hemp Car FUNdraiser" at the new Minneapolis club Sursumcorda, where a gaggle of local bands played in between snatches of some priceless old anti- and pro-hemp propaganda films, while the Hemp Car sat outside and continued to attract attention. Once again, the crowd was large, enthusiastic, and supportive. Even the cop posted in the alley behind Sursumcorda seemed to be interested in the Hemp Car. From the Twin Cities, the Hemp Car traveled on to Winnipeg and then through Canada to the West Coast. It will continue to travel around the nation until early October. As of their recent stop at the Seattle Hempfest, the Hemp Car and crew have traveled a record 6300 miles. For a tour schedule, see the web site (www.hempcar.org). If consumption of an energy resource is allowed to grow at a steady 5 percent annual rate [current US rate], a full doubling of the available supply will not be as effective as reducing that growth rate by half.… Doubling the size of the oil reserve will add at most 14 years to the life expectancy of the resource.… On the other hand, halving the growth of consumption will almost double the life expectancy of the supply. -- Evar D. Nering, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Arizona State University in June 4, 2001 NY Times Op-Ed Living on the RocksBy Peter Marchand I never expected anyone to take my house seriously. It was just a quick fix at a transitional time in my life, a maverick dwelling that I put together with reworked materials and an overworked imagination. But soon after I started building I knew I had something different, something abiding. The project drew inquisitive, contemplative looks from visitors; people with far more house than mine were asking questions. In seven hundred square feet of shelter built on the rocks, I rediscovered simple, long-forgotten truths. It all began rather naïvely. When I strolled into the local realtor's office back in 1989 and announced that I was looking for a piece of land that was off the beaten track, and didn't care whether it had power or water as long as it was cheap, the man behind the desk was ready for me. We walked over to a big map of Navajo County, Arizona, where he had listings all over the place marked in different colored dots. The realtor pointed to one isolated gold dot and declared it just the property I was looking for, so we jumped into his Wagoneer and with four-wheel drive and a shovel set out to find it. The realtor had been paying attention when I said I wanted a place out of the way. Four miles after turning off the paved highway, we left the dirt road and drove overland, across a meadow, toward a group of stunted trees at the far end. There we picked up the washed-out trace of an abandoned right-of-way and pursued it another mile. The terrain got rougher, hillier, with frequent dry washes and outcrops, at times requiring shovel-work to clear the way. Layer upon layer of eroded rock created a labyrinth of ravines and jumbled boulders. Weathered pines and junipers grew out of the shallow soil like forgotten bonsai in groping, conciliatory shapes, toughened by two centuries of wind and little rain. It was a wild and fanciful landscape, and the farther into it we drove, the more enamored with it I became. At the road's end we got out of the car and the realtor walked me another hundred yards to a magnificent sandstone slab bordered on one side by sculpted rock that would have left Frank Lloyd Wright teary-eyed. That was it. I talked a friend into splitting the cost with me and a month later owned the property. I spent many days afterward walking the land, getting to know the trees, the cliffrose, the yucca - all the subtleties of that dwarfed and windblown piñon-juniper woodland clinging to the bare bones of the high desert. And the rock, so smoothly weathered, so unperturbable, so quieting: it was a gift I could not refuse. I kept returning to the site, wondering how I could incorporate that splendid sandstone into a house. It was a crazy thought, but gradually I began to see possibilities. Sealing around the rocks and redirecting runoff from its natural course would be the greatest challenge, but the more I grappled with the idea, the more I liked it. Over the next few months my vision of a house on the rocks slowly sharpened. Finally, on a chill November morning, I put my coffee down on the sandstone and started building upon a foundation that was set in place 250 million years earlier. Scrounging from nature and the castoffs of other generations of builders, I began to fashion a house that, like the driftwood boards of Aldo Leopold's family farm, would tell a story of time and changing fortunes. To read this essay in its entirety, visit http://www.oriononline.org/pages/om/01-3om/marchand.html. This essay originally appeared in Orion Online (www.oriononline.org) and is reprinted with permission. We’d Like Stories of Your Steps to Sustainability Those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do. --Bhagavad Gita 2:49Center for Spirituality & Sustainability The Alliance continues gathering materials and contacts to create a new Center for Sustainability and Spirituality that will provide programs, resources and a website addressing environmental concerns from a spiritual perspective. Krista Leraas has started a section on the Alliance’s website, www.mtn.org/iasa/spirit.html. We’d love to have you involved in any way, from helping with programs and sharing articles to participating on the Steering Committee or providing financial support. Let us know at iasa@mtn.org. Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. -- Henry David ThoreauCenter
for Judaism &
Sustainability The letter, 'Let There Be Light': Energy Conservation and God's Creation, cites the commandment in Genesis to 'till and to tend' (Gen. 2:15), and concludes that there is "a moral obligation to choose the safest, cleanest and most sustainable sources of energy to protect and preserve God's creation." Burning oil and coal has long been a major cause of air pollution and therefore respiratory illness. It is now known to cause global warming. The letter was first released in May with the signatures of 41 heads of denominations and senior leaders of major American faith groups, serving more than 60 million Americans. Since then, more than 500 rabbis from 36 states and every denomination have added their names to the letter. The distribution of the letter today comes on the heels of President Bush's withdrawal of the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol, the only international framework to address climate change. The open letter is sponsored by the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) - encompassing 29 national Jewish organizations and 13 regional affiliates, along with the National Council of Churches (NCC). COEJL and NCC are organizing interfaith climate change campaigns in 20 states across the US. The House debate on the energy bill largely based on President Bush's energy plan is among the most important environmental debates in recent years. COEJL chair Sharon Bloome and NCC General Secretary Rev. Dr. Robert Edgar sent a letter to each House member on behalf of COEJL and NCC to convey specific concerns about the legislation. They call for changes including significantly greater increases in fuel economy standards, continued protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and increased investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy. The House plan "does not reflect our obligations to protect the environment and human health, nor is it prudent," they wrote. "Now is the time to set a new and positive direction for American energy policy." Shundahai -- A Shoshone word meaning "peace and harmony with all creation" A great way to help us out is to donate used (or new) stuff. As with any contribution to the Alliance, your donation is tax deductible.* Plain paper fax machine Let us know if you would like to make a donation by contacting Krista Leraas at iasa@mtn.org or 612-331-1099.No one knows the potential long-term health or environmental effects of genetically modified products. -- Ecological Farming Association Operation: Landfill Eliminationhttp://www.geocities.com/RainForest/5002 Looking for a way to give new life to used aluminum foil, candles, containers or even pop bottle lids? Do you have a creative idea for how to reuse old flashlights? Then, Operation: Landfill Elimination is just the place for you! It's a fun way to get and give tips on how to reduce your waste output by reusing. The only thing new is you finding out about it. -- Mike WattSelected Upcoming Events (See our Online Calendar, www.mtn.org/iasa/events.htm)September 8-9, Iowa Energy Expo 2001, Hiawatha, IA September 20 Introduction to the Natural Step by Terry Gips, Minneapolis, MN September 20 MN Sustainable Communities Network Conference and the Governor's Environmental Awards, Minneapolis Convention Center (Discussion session, New Directions for Economic Development, led by Terry Gips) September 23 3:00-4:45pm, Creating a Safe, Healthy Home, Life Workplace and Community: Taking the Natural Step to Sustainability presented by Terry Gips, Whole Life Expo, Dallas, TX September 29 Nationwide Earth Charter Teleconference September 30 3:00-4:45pm, Creating a Safe, Healthy Home, Life Workplace and Community: Taking the Natural Step to Sustainability presented by Terry Gips, Whole Life Expo, Boston, MA October 10-12, Learning Sustainability: Achieving Environmental, Economic, and Social Well-Being, Buffalo Convention Center, Buffalo, NY October 11-12, Green Gold's 2001 Exposition, Buffalo Convention Center, Buffalo, NY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright 2001 Alliance for Sustainability Information can be copied or shared with proper attribution to the author andMANNA, the newsletter of the Alliance for Sustainability. This issue edited by: Krista Leraas and Terry Gips MANNA is the newsletter of the Alliance for Sustainability and is published on a monthly basis with occasional additional editions. The Alliance is a tax-exempt [501(c)(3)] nonprofit organization dedicated to "supporting ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just and humane projects on a personal, organizational and planetary level." If you or others are interested in becoming members (free or contributing) and receiving MANNA, please see www.mtn.org/iasa/join.htm or contact Krista Leraas at iasa@mtn.org or 612-331-1099. Submissions, comments and questions are always welcomed. Please direct them to the Alliance for Sustainability, 1521 University Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414 or iasa@mtn.org. |