* Alliance Updates -- Join Us for a Summer Pot Luck and a Salon on Aug 7; UN Earth Summit Leader to Visit the Twin Cities August 6th

* Sustainable Sweden Tour -- You Can Still Join Us on an Incredible Journey

* Take Action! -- How Close Will You be to a Nuclear Waste Route? Tell USDA to Offer Organic Alternatives to Cow's Milk in Schools

* Minneapolis Green City Initiative -- Learning from Other Green Cities Around the World

* Resources of the Month and Sustainability Book Club -- Seven Wonders: Everyday Things for a Healthier Planet by John C. Ryan; Next Book Club Meeting August 14; Green Resource Center Open in Minneapolis

* Organizational Sustainability -- A Step in the Right Direction by Joel Makower; Better World Travelers Club

* New York Alliance for Sustainability -- Interdependent Film Series Planned

* Personal Sustainability -- Priceless

* Center for Spirituality and Sustainability -- The Power of Now: Opening our Eyes to the Heart of Sustainability

* Center for Judaism and Sustainability -- Updates

* Selected Upcoming Events

* Our Wish List

Taking the Next Step Toward Sustainability, a summer potluck and salon will take place Wednesday, August 7th from 6pm to 8:30pm at the Boom Island Picnic Shelter "A", 700 Sibley St. NE, Minneapolis, MN.

The family friendly evening will feature:

* New Games

* Organic Vegetarian Potluck

* A children’s play area

* View of the sunset over the Mississippi

* Informal small group discussions on how each of us can take the next step in our lives toward sustainability

* Introduction to the Natural Step Framework for sustainability for those who wish

* Update on current Alliance projects with the Natural Step Framework, including the Green City Initiative and Junk Mail Tree Project.

* Grill available for veggie burgers (but bring charcoal)

Please join Alliance Member David Grider, Managing Director Sean Gosiewski, President Terry Gips and Intern Kristine Root for this fun and inspirational gathering. The Salon is a follow-up to the successful June event organized by Alliance Member, David Grider.

Directions: Boom Island Park is located on the Northeast Minneapolis side of the Plymouth Ave. Bridge, just north of Nicollet Island and Downtown. Picnic Shelter A is the closest to the river. The park is easily accessible by magnificent bike trails, and we encourage people to bike to the event.

August 2002 will be a big month for the sustainability movement, around the world and in the Twin Cities. Ten years ago, at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, the international community adopted Agenda 21, an unprecedented global plan of action for sustainable development. Alliance President Terry Gips served as a Non-Government Organization (NGO) delegate and the Alliance played a key leadership role in working with many of the other 20,000 NGOs in assuring the historic decision by 170 countries (including the US) to adopt sustainable agriculture as a goal.

Countries such as Sweden took their Agenda 21 action plan commitments seriously and worked to adopt it at all levels of society. Unfortunately, due to poor leadership and in some cases intransigence by the Clinton and Bush Administrations, most Americans have no idea what Agenda 21 is or that the US has failed in its commitment to implement it.

University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis Campus,1000 LaSalle Ave., Downtown Minneapolis

5:00 -- Reception, Exhibits, Appetizers

6:00 -- Introduction and remarks by Nitin Desai

6:30 -- Panel Reaction/Discussion, including Alliance President Terry Gips

7:00 -- Audience Questions and Answers

If your summer schedule permits, you can still join an incredible group of business, government and community leaders from Mexico, Nigeria and the United States for our third Sustainable Sweden Tour August 18-24. This will be a great way to combine a life-changing and powerful professional educational experience with a delightful summer vacation to the Land of the Midnight Sun and some of Sweden’s most gorgeous communities and landscapes during its most beautiful time of year.

You will get an inside look at Swedish society and its commitment to healthy, sustainable practices while learning about what is happening with the Natural Step, Agenda 21 and innovative sustainability initiatives, including a day-long session with Dr. Torbjorn Lahti, the founder of Sweden’s first eco-municipality and the head of its eco-municipality movement. We’ll also explore sustainable architecture, housing, planning, agriculture, and education, innovative recycling, renewable energy and business sustainability initiatives.

The all-inclusive cost (except for transportation to Sweden) is $2195 for contributing members of the Alliance for Sustainability ($100 more otherwise). Also, we are arranging a few days after the tour for visiting leading businesses and municipalities in the Stockholm region.

These routes run all over the country passing by millions of homes, schools and hospitals. Sadly, the Senate has already voted in favor of the Nevada nuclear waste repository, and these routes could become permanent (if the State of Nevada fails in its legal challenges to stop them), putting the health and safety of your communities at risk.

The Special Nutrition Program, part of the Food and Nutrition Service under the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is now taking comments about adding soy and rice drinks as alternatives to milk to the food programs in our nation's public schools. Currently, funding is not readily available for these alternatives and schools are only required to provide them to students with medical conditions that require such an option.

With enough support from the public, the Special Nutrition Program will draft a legislative proposal asking Congress to amend the Child Nutrition Acts to make available alternatives to milk in school cafeterias. Please call and write, and ask all your friends and family to do the same, in support of the addition of ORGANIC soy and rice drinks to the food programs in our public schools.

If you have a child in public school, please mention it in your letter. Please contact: Peter Murano, Associate Deputy Administrator, Special Nutrition Program, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, 3101 Park Center Dr. Rm. 510, Alexandria, VA 22302; Tel.: 703-305-2052; Fax: 703-305-2782

The 2002 elections brought about an opportunity to accelerate the efforts within the City of Minneapolis to implement the UN’s sustainability goals. With strong support from the City Council, Mayor R.T. Rybak has initiated a comprehensive Green City Initiative in Minneapolis to broaden "Green Government" initiatives throughout city government. Since January, six interdepartmental work teams have been identifying ways for the City of Minneapolis to become more sustainable in the areas of green purchasing, green fleets, green buildings, green transportation, green energy and green neighborhoods. These work teams will be sharing their work at a

1. Including the community -- We will work to expand the Minneapolis Green City Initiative beyond improving the performance of City staff and departments to also focus on the performance of the broader community, including local residents, businesses, neighborhoods and institutions.

2. Defining sustainability -- We will support participants in the Minneapolis Green City Initiative to work towards true sustainability, including the Natural Step’s four principles and the Alliance’s definition of becoming ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just and humane.

3. Setting clear performance goals -- We will help participants to set clear 10-year sustainability performance goals and success indicators for the City and community for the Minneapolis Green City Initiative.

Many other cities around the world have been implementing Green City initiatives for the past 20 years. The Alliance is currently working to connect neighborhood volunteers and city staff from Minneapolis with their peers that are doing great work across the river in St. Paul and around the world including:

The bicycle : The most energy-efficient form of transport ever devised. It doesn't emit pollution, it runs on renewable energy, it makes its user healthier, it's easy to repair, it requires little in the way of pavement or parking lot, and 80 percent of the world's people can afford one. (Only 10 percent of the world's people can afford a car.)

The clothesline : Even more affordable than the bicycle, runs on solar energy, no wires, no electricity, no pollution, and your clothes come out smelling sweet.

The ceiling fan : The air conditioner of the tropical world, which I fondly remember turning slowly and romantically in rooms all over India. A fan makes a space feel 9°F cooler than it really is. A typical ceiling fan draws no more than seventy-five watts, about as much as a single incandescent light bulb, only one-tenth as much as an air conditioner. And it doesn't make the air stale and clammy, the way air conditioners do.

Now what were Alan's other four Sustainable Wonders? I couldn't remember. I kept meaning, and forgetting, to call him and ask. So I was delighted to see that he passed his idea on to a colleague, John C. Ryan, who has just put out a little book called Seven Wonders. Here are the other four:

The condom : Protects against some of the world's worst diseases, gives potential parents control over the size and timing of their families, helps control population growth. "Those are big jobs for a flimsy tube of rubber," says Ryan. One sustainability problem with this item is that it's discarded after just one use. But it's made from natural rubber, a renewable resource.

The public library : The written wisdom of the world at anyone's fingertips! The average American pays $20 a year in taxes to support public libraries, and can save that much by borrowing instead of buying just one or two books. A book that is loaned ten times cuts not only cost but paper use per read by a factor of ten.

Pad Thai : The highly seasoned Asian dish made of noodles, garlic, and vegetables, sometimes with bits of chicken or shrimp thrown in. Ryan doesn't mean to celebrate that particular dish so much as the basic principle of "peasant" cooking around the world: Start with starch, mix in veggies, add great seasonings, and use meat sparingly if at all. Could as well be tortillas and beans, curry and rice, or spaghetti and tomato sauce. Healthy, cheap, do-it-yourself, easy on the planet, delicious.

The ladybug : Constantly searching out and destroying plant pests, without charge, without environmental damage. Your average ladybug scarfs up forty to seventy-five plant-sucking aphids a day. Multiply that by 75,000 beetles per gallon, which farmers can order through the mail, and you've got one heck of an efficient pesticide. Something like 98 percent of sprayed chemical pesticides never even hit a pest, but ladybugs zoom right in on the aphids and nothing but the aphids.

After I finished reading Ryan's book, which is full of interesting facts about these wonders, I started seeing Wonders of Sustainability all around me. There's no reason to limit the list to seven.

Future selections include:

* Sept 11 -- Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money & Achieving Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin

* Oct 9 -- Food related book TBA

* Nov 13 -- Cradle to Cradle by Bill McDonough & Michael Braungart

A new resource for green design and green related technologies was unveiled on June 21st as the Green Institute celebrated the opening of the Green Resource Center. The center, located in the Phillips Eco-Enterprise Center (PEEC) at 2801 21st Ave. S., Minneapolis, is yet another testament to the Green Institute’s commitment to improving the quality of life and enhancing the urban environment for inner-city Minneapolis.

Open to design and construction professionals, PEEC tenants and the general public, the Green Resource Center hopes to provide outreach to the community for the purpose of generating awareness and building the frequency of green design initiatives in the city. With information on sustainable design for both business and residents in the areas of new construction and rehabilitation, operation and maintenance of buildings, green space practices and green technologies such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, solar technology, building/construction techniques and waste management, the Center hopes to achieve the following four objectives:

* Democratize the field of green buildings by making more information and technical assistance available to the public at large.

* Support the development of green building skills among design and construction professionals and the development of businesses engaged in design and constructing green buildings.

* Develop a resource that can support the work of the Green Institute, PEEC tenants and other project partners in the field of green buildings.

* Build greater public awareness about the principles of green landscaping, green design and construction and support public policies that promote green buildings.

TNS caught a wave of interest in Sweden, with dozens of firms -- including IKEA, Electrolux, and McDonald’s -- harnessing TNS as an agent for internal change. In the US, however, the going has been much slower. Early efforts to sign up companies met with a tepid response.

Now, it appears The Natural Step may, at last, be off and running. TNS has added a corps of scientists, researchers, and consultants who seem to be making headway, albeit with what some might call the usual cast of corporate characters. But the experiences of these leadership companies suggests that TNS may finally be ready for prime time -- at least for select firms.

Consider, for example, the testimony of McDonald’s, which has made TNS the only outside advisor to its Global Environmental Council, the company’s top environmental organization. "They attend meetings and conference calls and get copied on everything we’re doing," says Bob Langert, director of community and public affairs. "I think they’re terrific strategic partners because they can speak at a higher level that I think our management can appreciate. They’ve been critical to getting our supply chain to understand the scope of what sustainability means and how to apply it to McDonald’s."

Starbucks Corp. hired TNS after soliciting proposals from several consulting firms. The goal: to help Starbucks "map all major material flows and operations, assess the relative impacts of the various operations, and establish forward-looking performance measures and goals for each part of the enterprise," says Ben Packard, Starbucks’ manager for environmental affairs.

Meanwhile, Better World has started receiving some positive press, which you will find on their web site under the section Newsroom/Articles of Interest (Better World Club Articles of Interest). While they differ from AAA in their focus on reducing the environmental impact of travel, they are similar in one key way -- the quality and reliability of their service. The fact is that national towing networks essentially use the same roadside assistance providers. We're using the same network that serves much of the insurance industry, including GEICO and CNA.

Why not join Tom Magliozzi of Car Talk, Rudy Maxa the Savvy Traveler, and Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber in being among their first members -- which you can do easily by going to the site and hitting the "Join" button? As you will see, their prices are competitive, and in many cases, they are less expensive than AAA. They also offer their exclusive Travel Cool program to help fight global warming and..."If you don't use it, you won't lose it". Check their web site for details.

Since 1998, MasterCard has sponsored a variety of "Priceless" commercials. Each ad begins with a list of stuff (or services) and a matching set of prices. Then comes a phrase identifying some intangible that can't be purchased. And finally, there's the single word "Priceless," followed by the assertion that "There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard." They're great commercials, and they're popular, according to the Harris ad tracking service. The ad executive who services the "Priceless" account at the McCann-Erickson ad agency explains that "what really hit home with consumers is that a company that is fundamentally all about money and paying for things would actually declare that the things that really count can't be bought."

But what really hits home with me is how complex this issue is. This priceless promotional campaign attempts a type of brand positioning. The ads are meant to position MasterCard as the credit card company with a sense of humor and proportion, a hip, friendly business that shares our family values. They're meant to establish the image of MasterCard as the wise credit vendor that understands the distinction between the goods we buy and the good life. In short, the company hopes to make money and increase its market share by associating itself with the things that money can't buy.

MasterCard's "Priceless" ads are obviously designed to respond to the American public's worry that everything is being commodified, and that we're becoming too materialistic. So the ads emphasize the things money can't buy, the intangibles that make the good life really good. Most of these intangibles involve relationships, especially family relationships. It's priceless, for example, to read a book to your child, or to watch your children playing joyfully with the cardboard boxes instead of the toys under the Christmas tree.

Happiness can be pursued from the outside in and from the inside out. Many of the messages we receive each day living in our consumer-oriented culture are encouraging us to pursue happiness from the outside in, by acquiring things and traveling places. But as the Indian poet Kabir said, "You can travel from Calcutta to Tibet, but if you cannot find where your soul is hidden, for you the world will never be real."

In The Power of Now Tolle does not hesitate to point out the tremendous amount of needless pain which most of us inflict upon ourselves by staying trapped within the confines of our busy minds. At the same time Tolle provides simple, easy-to-understand anchors we can use to bring our attention back to our underlying state of presence, including the breath, body, silence and space. The depth of personal realization from which Tolle is speaking is immediately evident in his audio taped version of the book. I was deeply moved by reading his book, and have received even deeper insights from his tapes.

Study groups have formed around the world for people to discuss this simple book. I encourage all Manna readers who have read Eckhart Tolle's book or have heard his tapes to e-mail me your insights about how the principles in The Power of Now can be applied to making our personal lives, organizations and planet more sustainable.

July 28-30 The Demise of Democracy: The Rise of Corporate Power, Duluth, MN

Aug 6 Public Lecture by Nitin Desai, Minneapolis, MN

Aug 7 Alliance Summer Pot Luck and Salon: Taking the Next Step Toward Sustainability, Boom Island Park, Minneapolis, MN

Aug 14 Sustainability Book Club, Ecopolitan, Minneapolis, MN: Seven Wonders

Aug 8-11 Annual NOFA Conference and Celebration of Rural Living, Amherst, MA

Aug 17 2nd Annual Windy River Renewable Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Fair, Lion’s Park, Long Prairie, MN

Sept 3-6 12th International Conference on Bicycling and Walking, St. Paul, MN

Sept 11 Sustainability Book Club, Ecopolitan, Minneapolis, MN: Your Money or Your Life

Nov 9-10 Green Economy Festival, San Francisco, CA

Jenna Sellers, Lee Traband, Dan Yavner

Judith Ross

Thanks to Philipp Muessig for his donation of a two-line office phone.

A great way to help us out is to donate new or used resources:

* Two-line office phone

* Up-to-date PC (Pentium II, 300MHz, 64MB of memory, 4GB hard drive, Windows 98, 15 inch monitor...or better...please)

* Current version of Filemaker Pro