Change a Light, Change the World 2002 – You can’t afford not to change: $1 for a compact fluorescent

Dump Destructive Energy Plan – Your voice is still needed on energy

• Sustainable Sweden Tour – Can small and medium-sized organizations use ISO14001? A Unique Swedish Model Incorporating the Natural Step Framework
• Resource of the Month and Sustainability Book Club -- Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimist’s World by Alan AtKisson; Next Book Club Meeting Nov 13
• Special Thanks to our Recent Contributors
• New York Alliance for Sustainability – Following a successful opening, the Interdependent Film Series in NYC Rolls On with Shaman’s Apprentice and Dr. Mark Plotkin
• Center for Spirituality and Sustainability – Heads of Major Religions Oppose War in Iraq

Homily and discussion on Sustainability and the Natural Step Framework at Open Circle Church

Center for Judaism and Sustainability – Presentation on what Judaism Teaches about the Environment at Congregation Beth Chaim in Princeton

We’d like to encourage you to join us in the Center for a New American Dream’s Turn the Tide Campaign, a practical, easy to use tool that can inspire our members to take the next step to sustainability, whether it's their first environmental action or whether they're a long-time activist.

This is an outgrowth of the Alliance’s growing partnership with the Center’s leading efforts with junk mail, for which we are extremely grateful. Throughout the Junk Mail Tree Project we have appreciated Center staff teaching us everything they know about the current state of affairs on junk mail and giving us their time, energy and support as we move the project forward.

While junk mail is one simple step we can each take in our households to live more sustainable lives, the Center wanted to go further and asked leading scientists and experts in the field of conservation what first steps they would ask Americans to take to reduce global warming, conserve water and energy, and save wildlife and forest habitats.

6:15-9:45 pm Wednesday & Thursday evenings, October 23 & 24 at St. Joan of Arc Church, Minneapolis, MN

This will be a special seminar offered by the Alliance for Sustainability for free to participants in the Junk Mail Tree Project and for a reduced price of only $55 (instead of $95) thanks to a grant from the Solid Waste Management Coordinating Board. You'll learn what the real impacts of junk mail are, how they relate to the Natural Step Framework's four sustainability principles, including basic human needs, and what you can do.

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By Eric Scigliano, Seattle Weekly Published September 15, 2002 in the LA Times

Last year, in the US Air Force’s Air & Space Power Chronicles, Col Richard Fisher published what many of his peers might consider rank heresy. "As a general consideration," Fisher wrote, "the US should include environmental effects as an issue of central value along with politics, economics and social effects when deciding whether or not to wage war…It may well be that the potential long-term environmental risk…outweighs the importance of other considerations."

Are we ready to weigh environmental impacts in the calculations of war? We certainly notice them after the shooting stops. Farmers, elephants and other creatures in Cambodia, Angola and many other countries still are regularly killed by shells and land mines left from old wars. Children still are born crippled and deformed in Vietnam, three decades after US planes stopped spraying Agent Orange and other herbicides. Forests leveled in Civil War battles still have not entirely recovered.

Such consequences seem predictable in hindsight; in the heat of war they tend not to be foreseen or even considered. Iraq, however, affords a rare chance to weigh environmental impacts beforehand, try to prevent them and perhaps choose not to risk them. The last war there gave a preview. It’s not a pretty picture.

In February 1991, the world watched in horror as Saddam Hussein’s troops unleashed one final, spiteful assault of their own. They opened the spigots on Kuwait’s vast oil reserves and detonated its wells, releasing what was far and away the largest oil spill in history. About 60 million barrels—more than 200 times as much as the Exxon Valdez spilled—oozed into the ground, forming 246 black, lifeless lakes. It took nine months to put out the 613 oil-well fires spewing dark clouds that covered the region, lowering local atmospheric temperatures an average of 10 degrees Celsius. Physicians now await the cancer toll in those who breathed this oily air.

Even before allied bombing began, Iraqi troops had begun releasing 10 million barrels of oil into the shallow Gulf waters, hoping to forestall a seaborne invasion—by far the largest marine spill in history. The slick coated nearly 1,000 miles of coastline.

American and Iraqi tanks chewed up the hard-packed desert, a particularly fragile ecosystem. Afterward, Kuwait’s top environmental official reported that shifting dunes covered twice as much of the country as before, and dust storms rose to record levels.

1. Pray and meditate continually for peace;
2. Affirm and visualize a peaceful resolution to the Iraq and middle-east situations;
3. BE peace-full; and
4. Voice our opinions to our political representatives.

Special interests have not given up on gaining the right to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. While the public is focused on Iraq, back room deals are being cut in a last ditch effort to reverse the Senate decision to keep drilling out.

Both the House and the Senate have passed energy legislation, and a conference committee is trying to meld the two versions into a bill that can be passed before the election. Neither version contained serious efforts to increase fuel efficiency in cars and trucks or measures to reduce global warming pollution. Both versions did contain new tax breaks for oil and gas drilling and extended support for the nuclear power industry. But worst, the House version provided for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

As an increasing number of companies and governments in Europe require ISO14001 certification (the International Standards Organization voluntary environmental management system) by their suppliers, more and more institutions are feeling pressure to engage in the ISO14001 process. According to Torbjorn Lathi of the Swedish human development company Esam in Umea, Sweden (host for the Alliance’s Sustainable Sweden Tour), "Sweden has more ISO14001 certifications than anywhere else. Market pressure pushed them to do it."

However, many have found this to be an expensive and time-consuming process that has precluded most small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from participating and thus cut them out of many contracts. There is an exciting new movement in Sweden that is addressing this challenge through a cost-effective approach incorporating the Natural Step Framework. It may be of great interest to businesses, governments and nonprofits interested in ISO140001 certification, as well as those who just want to establish strong environmental management systems and inspired staff anywhere in the world.

The companies begin with an environmental assessment, track their problems, make a policy, set goals, implement plans, establish controls and conduct audit/reviews with a systems check twice a year. The Esam process takes about 13 months with one meeting per month and one person in each company responsible. Each company has homework to do between sessions and she works with them like a teacher, spending about 4-6 hours per company per month with site visits. Once they have their certificate they continue to meet twice a year. So far there are 50 companies in three groups in Umea and other groups they’ve begun in Lulea, Kiruna, Ornskoldsvik, and Stockholm.

What distinguishes it from most other IS014001 processes is that inter-company cooperation is encouraged and the Natural Step Framework’s four system conditions are incorporated in the policy and goals. Lahti noted, "What we want to do is to teach people to ask the right questions so they’re better at solving their own problems. We’re trying to create an independence of consultants." He added that they are working on incorporating social responsibility.

Andersson acknowledged that there are many legitimate critiques of ISO14001, including its not going deep enough, but emphasized that it calls for continual improvement and that Esam’s utilization of the Natural Step framework takes it to a new level. She explained that, "It’s not like a mark or a brand saying the company is environmentally friendly. It only says it’s trying to improve and say what their biggest effects are on the environment."

According to Andersson, "The advantages of group certification are improved environmental work; savings of one-third in cost and time demand; engagement of the employed; cooperation with other companies; and education of everybody on the staff. In general, people spend about 10-30 hours per person over the 13 months, leading to inspiration, responsibility and a deep understanding of environmental problems, laws and legislation."

As far as results, Anderson said, "They reached their goals. For example, one company decreased its use of gas and people began recycling. These may seem like small steps but it gets them thinking."

Alan AtKisson is a player. Not just a player of the game, but a player in the Shakespearean sense. He brings to the Question a sense of mirth and irreverence, and while still remaining committed to the Cause, he takes an approach that is atypical and even taboo-breaking. He is indeed an optimist in a party of pessimists - a peculiar Touchstone, a court's fool.

AtKisson is also a very good summarist of the problems facing the world today. Believing Cassandra begins with a discussion of global environmental and economic trends, including the exponentially exploding human population, the destruction of natural habitats, and the "normalization" of the American lifestyle (i.e. gross mass consumption) in the global culture. He brings together elements of human psychology ("Studies have shown that people's sense of satisfaction with their material wealth is determined not by what they actually have, but by how much they have compared to everyone else") with systems theory to show why we are "progressing" ourselves rapidly down to all hells, and even why we should not fault (or guilt) ourselves for these rather destructive-seeming impulses.

He shows us the picture - what we are doing, a little of why we are doing it, and where we and our world are going if we keep on as we are - and then he brings us with him into Cassandra's Dilemma: how do we sound the alarm loudly and articulately enough and with such appropriate timing that we can stop the mindless descent into chaos? At the end of part one, he offers his answer, that "To... prevent global collapse, we need an idea that is both visionary and profitable, a solution that can appeal to both the ardent altruist and the hardened venture capitalist... something that will challenge our higher natures and attract our baser instincts... something that has the power to command a lifetime of allegiance..." This something is Sustainability.

Contributing member John Niedfeldt-Thomas and membership contributions from Terry Gips in honor of the Bar Mitzvah of Zachary Ross and the Big Happy Birthday of Karen Harris-Gips.

Special thanks to the financial sponsors of the NY AFS Interdependent Film Series: The Union Square Fund, Inc., HAG and Pop Sustainability.

With Hope’s Edge co-author Anna Lappe (who was joined by her brother Anthony Lappe with the Guerilla News Network) and the films Off the Books, Countdown, and Life and Debt, there was a near sell-out crowd at the Cooper Union in NYC for the Oct 8 Opening Night of the three-part Interdependent Film Series, which explores the inter-dependence of global cultures, economies and the environment.

Wollman Auditorium, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, 51 Astor Place, New York, NY

The third and last night will be November 5 at 6 pm (remember to vote!) with a focus on design and featuring the Sun Dance Film Festival Award Winner Blue Vinyl and the film’s makers Judith Helfand, Daniel Gold, and Bill Walsh, along with the films Profile John Stauber from the Guerilla News Network and The Wind from Greenpeace. Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institute, 91st Street and 5th Avenue - Main Entrance on 91st Street, Concurrent with New Hotels For Global Nomads exhibit (free admission 5-9). Info:

The signers included Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, Moderator, 214th General Assembly Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); Rev. Dennis Cleary, MM, U.S. Regional Superior, Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers; Rev. Dr. Robert Edgar, General Secretary National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA; Mary Ellen McNish, General Secretary, American Friends Service Committee; The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop and Primate, The Episcopal Church, USA; The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Rev. Judy Mill Reimer, General Secretary, Church of the Brethren General Board; Dr. William J. Shaw, President, National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc.; Ronald J. Sider, President, Evangelicals for Social Action; and Rev. John Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ. Center for Spirituality and Sustainability

At 7:30 pm Thurs Nov 7 Alliance President Terry Gips will address what Jewish texts teach about treating our world at Congregation Beth Chaim, 329 Village Road East, Princeton Junction, NJ. Contact: Barbara Lerman <BabsInk@aol.com>

Oct 22 NYAFS Interdependent Film Festival, The Shaman's Apprentice with Mark Plotkin, NYC

Oct 22-24 Solid Waste/Recycling Conference & Show, Brooklyn Center, MN

Oct 23 & 24 Special Free and Reduced Price Natural Step Framework Seminar addressing Junk Mail, St. Joan of Arc Church, Minneapolis, MN

Oct 23 Green Graphic & Package Design: Making Money & Feeling Good, Minneapolis College of Art & Design, MN, 612-874-3765

Oct 24 UN Day Rally, Minneapolis Convention Center, MN, includes panel discussions on UN Earth Summit with Alliance President Terry Gips & others

Oct 24-26 CleanMed, Chicago, IL

Oct 25 Beyond 6 Billion: Population Studies for the classroom, Science Museum of MN

Oct 26 Choosing Our Future: Population and Our Ecological Footprint, Science Museum of MN, cosponsored by the Alliance with a presentation by Terry Gips at 1:15pm and workshop.

Oct 27 Homily and Discussion on Sustainability and the Natural Step Framework by Terry Gips at Open Circle Church, Burnsville, MN

Oct 29 Hennepin County Green Day with Noon Presentation by Alliance and Government Officials, Minneapolis

Oct 30 Sustainability & Branding, Minneapolis College of Art & Design

Nov 5 GET OUT AND VOTE!

Nov 5 NYAFS Interdependent Film Festival, Blue Vinyl with Judith Helfand, NYC

Nov 6 Sustainable Product Design, Minneapolis College of Art & Design

Nov 6-8 Business for Social Responsibility Annual Conference, Miami, FL

Nov 9-10 Green Festival, San Francisco, CA

Nov 13 Green Mapping & Planning Sustainable Communities, Minneapolis College of Art & Design

Nov 17 Turkey-Free Thanksgiving Celebration with EarthSave, Minneapolis

Nov 20 Visualizing Sustainable Futures Panel, Minneapolis College of Art & Design

Nov 21-22 Wind Energy: New Economic Opportunities -- A Summit for Minnesota and the Midwest, Minneapolis Convention Center

Nov 24 One-Day Natural Step Framework Seminar with Terry Gips, NYC

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