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MANNA
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It is in great sadness, grief, and uncertainty that we prepared this edition of the Alliance for Sustainability’s tree-free E-Newsletter Manna. This has been such a difficult and confusing time for so many people that we were conflicted in terms of how to respond. We hope to build upon and further the extraordinary expressions of love, emotion, honesty, genuineness, reflection, spirit, determination, collaboration, solidarity, selflessness and generosity that we are witnessing everywhere. For these are the very qualities essential for us to bring about sustainability. At the same time, let us look deep into our own souls and lifestyles and that of our nation and ask how we can create anew. What can we learn from our past and what is it we wish to create in the future? In the midst of this global tragedy we have not forgotten the others that continue to unfold. At the present time, every major eco-system on the planet is in serious decline, whether it be our forests or fisheries, wetlands or coral reefs, topsoils or atmosphere. These breakdowns are having direct impacts on poor people around the planet, creating more than 10 million environmental refugees a year according to the UN, a figure that is expected to double in the next ten years. We also have not forgotten that despite our nearly overwhelming abundance in industrialized countries, the equivalent of 100 jumbo jets full of children and their parents crashes every day with everyone aboard dying of hunger and related diseases, equaling more than 30,000 deaths a day. At the same time, the UN estimates that to overcome this problem and provide the basic needs of every person on this planet in terms of adequate food, shelter and clean water would cost about $60 billion, the same price as the Star Wars anti-missile shield. It is important to point out that $60 billion is also equivalent to our asking the 250 wealthiest individuals on the planet to give up just 4% of their net worth. Astounding isn’t it? We can meet the basic needs of every person on the planet today. We can end suffering and create the basis for a sustainable world for every human being. This is the vision that gives us the energy to get out of bed every morning and go to work. We hope you will join us. With Love, Prayers, and a Renewed Commitment to Sustainability, The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we used when we created them. -- Albert EinsteinIn this issue of MANNA... * Center for Spirituality & Sustainability -- Letter from Neale Donald Walsch, James Twyman, James Redfield and Doreen Virtue * Planetary Sustainability -- Our Tragedy: A View from Ireland * Resource of the Month -- Bridging, Inc. and the National Furniture Bank Association * Take Action! –- Food Irradiation: Tell the FDA Enough is Enough! * Lessons from Sustainable Sweden (The Second in a Series) -- Eco-Driving Saves 10-20% on Car Energy Use * Hot Conferences -– Taking It Personally * Organizational Sustainability – Is It Possible to Be Clean and Green? By Lynn Gordon, Co-founder of French Meadow Bakery and Alliance for Sustainability Advisory Board Member * Global Warming -- Cost of Inaction on Climate Change to the U.S. Economy Estimated at from US $69.3 to $335.7 Billion Annually * Our Wish List! * Selected Upcoming Events Open House and Sustainable Sweden Event During these difficult times we'd like to invite you to come together with others concerned about the fate of the earth for a positive event. The Alliance for Sustainability will host an Open House and Sustainable Sweden Presentation on Thursday October 4, 2001 at the Alliance for Sustainability,1521 University Ave SE in Minneapolis. The Open House sections will take place from 11:30am to1:30pm and from 4:00pm to 5:30pm with brief talks at 12:15pm and 5:00pm. We'll share information regarding opportunities for learning about our various projects as well as volunteer, intern and research possibilities. And don’t forget about the delicious organic apple juice and organic treats from French Meadow Bakery and Café. That evening, come at 7 pm to see the Alliance office and enjoy organic treats. From 7:30-8:30 we'll have the premier showing of a new video just shot in Sweden with Natural Step Founder Dr. Karl-Henrik Robert, "New Insights on the Natural Step Based on Twelve Years of Experience." This will kick off the first in a video series on Sustainable Sweden. Following that, those who'd like are invited to enjoy refreshments outside in the Sukkah (weather permitting) to enjoy the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot. For more information, call the Alliance for Sustainability at 612-331-1099, send e-mail to iasa@mtn.org or see our web site at www.mtn.org/iasa. RSVPs are greatly appreciated.An eye for an eye ends up leaving the whole world blind. -- GandhiCenter for Spirituality & Sustainability Dear friends around the world: The events of [September 11] cause every thinking person to stop their daily lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger questions of life. We search again for not only the meaning of life, but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have created it - and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate ourselves anew as a human species, so that we will never treat each other this way again. The message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one. That is a message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this truth is the only cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember is simple: Love, this and every moment. If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what then will be the outcome? These are the questions that are placed before the human race today. They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years. Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer them at all. If we want the beauty of the world that we have co-created to be experienced by our children and our children's children, we will have to become spiritual activists right here, right now, and cause that to happen. We must choose to be at cause in the matter. So, talk with God today. Ask God for help, for counsel and advice, for insight and for strength and for inner peace and for deep wisdom. Ask God on this day to show us how to show up in the world in a way that will cause the world itself to change. And join all those people around the world who are praying right now, adding your Light to the Light that dispels all fear. That is the challenge that is placed before every thinking person today. Today the human soul asks the question: What can I do to preserve the beauty and the wonder of our world and to eliminate the anger and hatred - and the disparity that inevitably causes it - in that part of the world which I touch? Please seek to answer that question today, with all the magnificence that is You. What can you do TODAY...this very moment? A central teaching in most spiritual traditions is: What you wish to experience, provide for another. Look to see, now, what it is you wish to experience-in your own life, and in the world. Then see if there is another for whom you may be the source of that. If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another. If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know that they are safe. If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help another to better understand. If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness or anger of another. Those others are waiting for you now. They are looking to you for guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking to you for love. Seeking Your Involvement The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you murder the hater; but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Our Tragedy: A View from IrelandBy Terry Gips, President, Alliance for Sustainability In the farming and fishing village of Bally Conneely on Ireland's rugged Connemara coast, the small Catholic Church overflowed with 300 adults and children for services Friday night, September 14 in remembrance of the victims of terror in the US. Scores lit candles and stayed for an all-night vigil. It was not the kind of Sabbath celebration I had ever envisaged or hope to repeat. Throughout Ireland churches, synagogues and mosques were packed by millions of faithful and those who never go, political leaders and teenagers with rings in assorted body parts, and Americans and visitors from others countries expressing their solidarity with the grieving families and the US. In Dublin, Rabbi Zalman Lent spoke to his congregants who similarly face terror in both their homelands of Ireland and Israel, saying violence will never win: "The human spirit is stronger than any attempt to crush, intimidate or terrorize it." At the Clonskeagh mosque in Dublin Imam Hussein Halawa condemned the attacks but warned against "groundless accusations" being levelled against the Islamic religion. "I call on the world to think thoroughly and rationally, not to make of Islam and Muslims an enemy and not to punish the innocent for the crime of the guilty." Unfortunately, more than 90 abusive calls were received by the Islamic Foundation of Ireland. To read this article in its entirety, visit our web site at www.mtn.org/iasa/ireland.html. Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. -- Albert Einstein Bridging, Inc.The fourth principle of the Natural Step addresses how we can meet human needs and use resources more efficiently. There's a simple way you can accomplish both. Bridging, Inc. is one Twin Cities nonprofit that is taking this idea and putting it into action. Their mission is to provide the economically disadvantaged in transition with quality furniture and household items free of charge. The moral of the story? There's no reason to send that perfectly good sofa, playpen or microwave to the landfill. Just as importantly, you can help to empower those most in need by donating your items (in good condition, please) to Bridging. Drop off donations at 201 West 87th Street, Bloomington, MN 55420 or call 612-888-1105 to schedule a pickup. See their web site (www.bridging.org) for more information about Bridging, acceptable items and how to volunteer. Do you live outside of the Twin Cities area? The National Furniture Bank Association has listings for services around the country. Call them at 317-631-5395. The United States’ population has increased 85 percent since 1950, growing from 151 million to 283 million in just fifty years. If present trends continue, our population will reach 400 million by the year 2050. -- Negative Population Growth, www.npg.org/popfacts.htm Food Irradiation: Tell the FDA Enough is Enough!The multinational food industry is publicly bragging that the Food and Drug Administration is on the verge of legalizing the irradiation of ready-to-eat foods - such as frozen dinners, luncheon meats, pre-cut salads, and baby food. One company, Titan/SureBeam, was so haughty as to announce that it received a patent to irradiate these food products - even though it isn't legal, and may never become legal. A growing body of scientific research shows that irradiated food contains chemicals that can cause cancer and birth defects. Moreover, the food industry, with each passing day, is becoming more unwilling or more unable to clean up its slaughterhouses and processing plants, which have become breeding grounds for E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria and other food-borne pathogens. Acting FDA Commissioner Bernard Schwetz has the power to do the right thing. But he needs to hear from the American people that he must do the right thing. Tell Dr. Schwetz that irradiation should not be legalized for any additional types of food until up-to-date testing on the toxicity of these food products is conducted. The food irradiation industry has decided that instead of it cleaning up its act, it would rather sell you food that may still be contaminated with feces, urine, pus and vomit. Irradiation is their silver-bullet solution. Taking this solution away from these companies would force them to take responsibility for their actions. Don't wait until it's too late. E-mail or write Dr. Schwetz today! Dr. Bernard Schwetz Nothing is more powerful than an individual acting out of his conscience, thus helping to bring the collective conscience to life. -- Norman Cousins Lessons from Sustainable Sweden--The Second in a Series Eco-Driving Saves 10-20% on Car Energy Use By Terry Gips As we reported in the August issue of Manna, the Alliance joined with the Sustainable Sweden Association and Esam (The Human Ecological Corporation) in sponsoring the August 4-19 Sustainable Sweden Tour. This is the second in an on-going series on what we can learn from Sweden on taking practical steps to sustainability. We have documented the tour on video and will be premiering these positive examples and making them available (see the Alliance website, www.mtn.org/iasa). Also, we are beginning plans for future tours that may focus on more specific topics such as architecture, health care, 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.org. In order to reduce urban congestion and meet its Kyoto Treaty
commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the northern Swedish
coastal city of Lulea has successfully initiated an innovative Sustainable
Travel Program ranging from Natural Step sustainability education and
subsidized, convenient public transportation in ethanol-powered buses to
car sharing and "eco-driving." Eco-driving involves proper maintenance of
the car and its tires, fast acceleration in high gear, looking ahead to
avoid sudden stops and starts, and "soft driving," more gradually slowing
down at lights and stop signs. Americans spends 8 months of life opening junk mail. Ninety million trees are leveled each year to provide the paper for mostly unwanted mailings and 340,000 garbage trucks are needed to haul away all the junk mail that doesn't quite make it to the recycling bin. -- Center for a New American Dream Taking It PersonallyBy Blair Pollock It's no wonder, James Hillman the eco-psychologist, pointed out at a national environmental conference last week at the Omega Institute, that half the people in this country are depressed, medicated, in therapy or chasing some form of enlightenment. They're in despair about the state of the world and know that it is being destroyed; that would depress anyone. The withdrawal from the world that results from depression is, Hillman says, a simple way of opting out of the destructive process. If your legs don't get you out of bed, you can't do too much damage to the planet. Hillman's tonic was not more therapy, better medication or more meditation, but action. If you show up at your therapist's office tense and angry, because you just drove sixty miles through horrendous traffic, avoiding raging drivers and viewing ugliness, you're not angry at mommy and daddy for some long ago hurt. You are angry because of what you've just been through. One prescription Hillman had was not Prozac or Saint John's wart, but to sit in the morning and practice, not meditation but letter-writing to elected officials about what you're outraged about. Rather than walking aimlessly for exercise, walk or run or bike to the post office and mail your letter. This article originally appeared in the Chapel Hill News on September 16, 2001. To read it in its entirety, visit our web site at www.mtn.org/iasa/pollock.html. Reprinted with permission. You've got to fall in love with the world to save it. -- James Hillman, Eco-psychologist Is It Possible to Be Clean and Green? How to Overcome the Hidden Dangers of Cleaners & Pest ControlBy Lynn Gordon, Co-founder of French Meadow Bakery and Alliance for Sustainability Advisory Board Member In 1962, a biologist named Rachel Carson published a landmark book titled Silent Spring. Backed by extensive scientific research, Ms. Carson brought the dangers of the chemical industry to the attention of public consumers, the media, as well as government agencies and President Kennedy. Nevertheless, nearly 4 decades later the public continues to endure exposure to thousands of toxic chemicals through the everyday use of products such as cleaners and pesticides in our homes and commercial kitchens. As a bakery and restaurant owner, I have experienced the difficulties and legal challenges in using non-toxic cleaners and pest management methods. Fortunately, positive solutions are available and becoming increasingly visible through various publications and organizations. The intent of this article is to explain the background of the dangers associated with toxic chemicals and to provide direction for positive solutions to these products and services for others in the food service industry. To read this article in its entirety, visit our web site at www.mtn.org/iasa/clean.html. We’d Like Stories of Your Steps to Sustainability A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. -- Lao Tsu Cost of Inaction on Climate Change to the U.S. Economy Estimated at from US $69.3 to $335.7 Billion AnnuallyWhat will be the economic impact in the United States if President Bush listens to the siren songs of the oil and coal industry to not act on reducing carbon dioxide emissions? It is possible that the U.S. will run aground on the economic rocks created by the negative impacts of climate change. The International Affairs journal article written July 1996, entitled, "Economic Implications and Decision-Making in the Face of Global Warming," written by Paul Ekins, outlines the potential costs. The number crunching was done by the economists Dr. Samuel Fankhauser and Dr. William Cline. They found that the estimated annual damage and adaptation costs from global warming incurred by the U.S. economy could range from US $69.3 billion to $335.7 billion (in constant 1990 dollars). The greatest costs and construction measures to adapt to global warming are in agriculture production and the provision of potable water supplies. Other substantial costs include loss of commercial species and their wetland habitats. Here is a partial list: Paul Ekins wrote that, "clearly the costs and benefits(CBA) involved in global warming, and responses to it, are of major importance for any approach to decision-making on the issue and will need to be carefully considered. However, seeking to undertake a relevant costs and benefits can be identified and quantified, but also that they can be expressed in monetary form. Where this is possible, for example, where costs and benefits are well defined, and the valuation of them is widely agreed - CBA has much to recommend it, and its outputs, the benefit/cost ratio or the revealed optimal cost of action, give powerful guidance to decision-makers." Source, "Economic Implications and Decision-Making in the Face of Global Warming," Paul Ekins, article in International Affairs: A Journal for Research and Policy, Volume 8, No. 3, Hanover, New Hampshire, Summer 1996. About 37 percent of people in the market for a new vehicle in 2001 considered themselves "extremely concerned" about the environment -- more than triple the percentage who said they had that level of concern in 1996. – Grist Magazine, www.gristmagazine.comFrom the Center for Judaism and Sustainability We'd Like Your Support
Let us know if you would like to make a donation by contacting Krista Leraas at iasa@mtn.org or 612-331-1099. For each species of songbird whose population is on the rise in the U.S., two species are in decline. -- Jeff Wells, National Audubon Society Selected Upcoming Events (See our Online Calendar,
www.mtn.org/iasa/events.htm) October 2 Gandhi's Birthday and World Farm Animals Day -- Celebrate with a meat-free meal! October 4 Alliance Open House and Sustainable Sweden Video Presentation 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 Oct 11-14 Natural Products Expo East, Washington, DC Oct 11-14 Social Venture Network Conference, San Jose, CA Oct 14 Introduction to the Natural Step by Ken Seguine, Lakewinds Natural Foods Co-op, Minnetonka, MN October 14 Permaculture Design Course Online Oct 16-19 Terry Gips will be doing a series of Natural Step Seminars and Presentations, including a keynote at the West Virginia Conference on the Environment in Charlestown, WV October 18-20 The Global Responsibility Forum 2001: Harnessing the Power of IT for Sustainability, Monaco Oct 19-21 Whole Life Expo at the LA Convention Center, including a talk by Terry Gips October 19-21 12th Annual Bioneers Conference, San Rafael, CA October 19-21 Women Sustaining Environment Sustaining Women: Discussions and Dialogues on Women and the Environment, St. Paul, MN October 21-26 Participatory Research and Action for Environmental Sustainability, Cape Cod, MA October 29 and November 6 Taking the Natural Step to a Safe, Healthy Home, Workplace and Community, TNS Seminar, Lakewinds Natural Foods Co-op, Minnetonka, MN Nov 6 Election Day -- Please VOTE to make a difference ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copyright 2001 Alliance for Sustainability Information can be copied or shared with proper attribution to the author and MANNA, 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. |