By Hannah Malan
12/5/2012

Ready for the holidays? Give with a conscience this season, and get inspired with these green gift ideas from the editors at Sierra Club Green Home.

Recycled Wine Bottle Glasses, TheUltimateGreenStore

Show up with the good stuff. Make a toast to your host—and the environment—when you come bearing a beautiful bottle of organic wine. Not sure how to choose? Check out Earth 911’s Guide to Eco-Friendly Wines, and pick up the perfect bottle at your local wine shop. If you’re looking to add something extra special to your gift, complement the wine with a set of glasses made from recycled wine bottles—talk about a match made in heaven!

Inspire an eco chef. True, recipes are all over the internet these days. But there’s something about a real, tangible, pick-it-up-and-make-it-yours cookbook that lives on. Give a guide to good, green, wholesome food with planet-pleasing recipes from Big Green Cookbook or penny-saving ideas from Wildly Affordable Organic. Think about the inner-chef in your friends and family, and find the eco-friendly cookbook that’s right for them.

Potted Herbs by ccharmon, Flikr

Share your secrets. What are your favorite DIY projects and culinary concoctions? Take a break from the “buy” mentality, and think of one thing you do at home that you could share. Maybe it’s growing sprouts in a Mason jar or planting a pot of seasonal herbs. And what about that killer homemade trail mix everybody loves? Whip up one of your signature homemade masterpieces—and GIVE. Bonus points? Share the recipe or how-to instructions, too!

Copper Wrap Bracelet, GIVEN

Handmade=heartfelt. Even if you’re not a DIY-er, you can still give your special someone a handmade gift by shopping at a vibrant online marketplace like Etsy. No specific gift in mind? Simply search “eco-friendly” and browse through a variety of products—from journals to greeting cards to bath soaks. You can also contribute to a cause by supporting vendors on Etsy like ShopGiven. Their limited-edition bracelets are made in partnership with NPO Project Light Rwanda and the Aspire co-cop in Kigali.

Himalayan Salt Lamp, Solay

Give the glow of nature. Sierra Club Green Home Operations Manager Heather-Leigh Logan says her Himalayan salt rock lamp is one of the best gifts she’s ever received. Not only do natural salt lamps create a beautiful, soft glow, but Pure Crystal Salt also ionizes indoor air, simulating the cell-nourishing ions of an ocean breeze. Browse through this collection of salt crystal lamps to shine a new light on the spirit of giving.

Nature’s Basin Organic Lotion

Inspire natural beauty. Treat your friend or family member to natural, organic beauty and body care gifts that bring to life the luxuries of nature. From bath soaps to lip balms to men’s soothing shaving cream, discover perfectly priced, beautiful products at Nature’s Basin. We’ve also fallen in love with Josie Maran Cosmetics featuring all-natural, 100% organic Argan Oil—a “super food” for the skin, hair, and the whole body.

Looking for gifts for the kids? Check out our article Natural Toys That Keep Children Safe.

For related articles, see:
Eco-Friendly Gifts for the Holidays: Go Green and Give Green
25 Eco-Friendly Gifts for the Holidays
Green Your Shopping With Carbon Offsets
Eco-Friendly Gift Bags: Wrapping Without Waste
Holiday Shopping? Check the Eco Price.
Green Holiday: Shop Less, Celebrate More

© 2012 SCGH, LLC.

The post Green Gift Guide: Editors’ Choice appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.

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The Kickstarter campaign Urban Air seeks funding to transform unsightly Los Angeles billboards into thriving above-ground bamboo gardens. (Photo Courtesy of Stephen Glassman)

12/3/2012

Companies seeking to expand or launch new projects have a tough time of it, particularly green-based companies. Sierra Club Green Home explores why more green entrepreneurs are turning to crowdfunding as a viable financial option to help them grow.

Crowdfunding is a financial vehicle that helps entrepreneurs, start-ups, small businesses, and even musicians and artists to raise much needed funds by pitching their ideas directly to the general public via the internet and asking for pledges.  It lets them bypass the lengthy, often grueling process of seeking venture capitalists or “angels.” However, a crowdfunding campaign offers no guarantees. Success or failure rests on the efforts of the entrepreneur and the response from the public.

Many crowdfunding websites have gained prominence over the past few years. Perhaps the best known are Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Launched in 2009, Kickstarter has seen over $250 million pledged to more than 24,000 creative projects backed by two million people. Projects encompass a panorama of topics and industries, covering innovative products, books, movies, technology, and much more.

Kickstarter has helped to successfully fund green business campaigns including the WindowFarms Project—a vertical hydroponic “farm” that allows urban folks to grow fresh veggies year round in almost any window—and ANI (As Nature Intended) shoes—stylish, vegan, eco-friendly “Barefoot” shoes made with 100% organic canvas and recycled packaging. Examples of active green Kickstarter campaigns include the following projects:

• Lean, Mean & Green—an exciting documentary focused on what residents of urban areas are doing to turn urban blight into something extraordinary and useful to their communities. This campaign closes December 9^th, 2012.
• Urban Air—a project to convert conventional advertising billboards in Los Angeles into above-ground living bamboo gardens. The campaign ends December 11^th, 2012.

Project organizers run everything on Kickstarter campaigns. They build their web page; shoot and upload pictures and video clips; set their minimum funding goal timelines (the “by when” the project must be funded or end); and  come up with tiered incentives to entice donor participation. From there, it’s all about promotion—casting as wide a net as possible to publicize their campaigns, create excitement, and elicit oodles of donations to turn the dream campaign into reality.

An added benefit is Kickstarter’s focus on building a community around its projects/campaigns. Running a campaign is a way to connect with potential customers, build word-of-mouth, and generate enthusiasm about a forthcoming project.

Yanna Sharifi, founder of ANI, was surprised at the number of people contacting ANI to sell the shoes in their stores after learning about ANI on Kickstarter. “I think being eco-friendly is a plus [with crowdfunding] and definitely helps,” said Sharifi.

Like Kickstarter, Indiegogo provides a platform where passionate people with creative projects can tell their story to the public and inspire others to get involved. While Kickstarter campaign fundraising is “all or nothing,” Indiegogo takes a different approach. It offers two funding options: Flexible Funding and Fixed Funding.

Both funding options charge four percent of monies raised when a campaign meets or surpasses its goal, but the entrepreneur can choose what happens should the campaign fall short: 1) Flexible Funding lets campaigns keep the money they’ve raised, but collects nine percent; or 2) Fixed Funding simply refunds the money back to the contributors, with no fees required.

Some of the exciting green projects currently listed on Indiegogo include the following:

• The GreenG Network—its first project will be to help eliminate invasive, allergy-causing forest species in Oklahoma and turn them into biobased chemicals and products. This campaign closes December 7^th, 2012.
• Tenderloin Vertical Garden—a project to transform a blank wall in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district into a thriving produce-filled green wall. This campaign, if successful, will increase green produce availability in an area of San Francisco which currently has limited access. The campaign closes January 6, 2013.

Though not a crowdfunding platform, LivingSocial is a new venture launched in May 2012 that’s helping fund some green-related businesses. Mission Small Business^SM, a partnership between Chase Bank and LivingSocial, funds individual grants of $250,000 each to twelve small businesses. To date, the grant program has awarded up to $3 million to small business owners nationwide.

This funding program was designed “to increase awareness of the important role small businesses play in local communities and to help small businesses grow.” Companies and entrepreneurs submit applications, along with a 500 word essay detailing why their business is unique, a plan for how they’ll utilize the grant to grow their business, and how the business is involved with its community.

In addition to receiving the grant, winners work with LivingSocial and its social media staff to design a LivingSocial promotion for their business.  This opportunity allows recipients to expand and/or grow their small business by adding locations, equipment, products, or distribution.

The public votes for their favorite project via their Facebook, and winners must accrue at least 250 votes. Finalists in 2012’s inaugural competition were chosen by a distinguished panel of industry experts:

• Steve Case, Chairman/CEO of American Online (AOL)
• David Chavern, EVP & COO of  U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Jason Calacanis, Founder and CEO, Mahalo.com, a knowledge sharing web service
• Candace Nelson, Founder, Sprinkles Cupcakes (the first nationwide cupcake bakery)
• Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and Co-Founder, LivingSocial
• Richard Quigley, President, Business Card and Innovation, Chase

The winners of this funding competition were announced on August 21^st, 2012. Among the 12 winners is EcoScraps, a Utah-based company that creates nutrient-enriched soil from recycled fruits and vegetables to grow healthy plants. Another green winner, PlanetReuse, is a consulting and brokering company that matches materials with designers, builders, and owners to serve LEED projects while cutting costs.

“What led us to participate in the Chase-Living Social competition,” said Nathan Benjamin, PlanetReuse’s Principal + Founder, “was the opportunity to make reused materials simple, top-of-mind, and easy to access.”

“If we could reuse 25 percent more construction and demolition materials that are currently headed for the landfill by the year 2020, and put those materials back to good use,” said Nathan, “it would be like salvaging sixty-eight Empire State Buildings each year!”

These exciting platforms provide opportunities for green entrepreneurs to not only source much needed funding, but to also gauge consumer interest, build a brand, and expand their reach to make a difference. Success or failure primarily rests on how resourceful and connected they are. It’s real twenty-first century American-style innovation, and we’re definitely going to see more of it.

For related article, see:
ECOnomics — Creating Environmental Capital
Sustainable Brands Save the Environment with Creativity
Environmentalism and Innovation at Sierra Nevada Competition
Eco-Entrepreneurs Inspire at Opportunity Green

 © 2012 SCGH, LLC.

The post Crowdfunding: Green Start-Ups Crowdfund Their Way to Success appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.

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Unlike a car, riding a bike doesn’t release emissions. People-powered transport is the way to go! (Photo by Ken Mayer)

By Kristina R. Anderson
November 5, 2012

We all have ideas as to how we would like to see society change. But how does one become a doer, a changer, an activist? How do we create change? While many of us dream of influencing large changes, of having a great big voice that triumphs over the rest, that’s not always possible for everyone. Most of us have jobs we must do and people who rely on us, so “activism” comes second to our obligations. But does this mean we cannot affect change at all? Of course not! There are so many ways to be an activist and change the world without making a huge time commitment or taking a radical stance. Often, it’s the small steps that matter the most. With that said, what can you do to make a difference?

“That’s the number one question: ‘What can I do to help?’” says Charles Hambleton, producer of two acclaimed documentaries, The Cove and The Big Fix, and another about the executives at Britesol, a company committed to changing the world through technology.  “The answer is: look in the mirror. What is it you do in your daily life?”

Think about it for a few minutes. What are your sustainability shortcomings? Is it the disposable coffee cup from your daily Starbucks run? Do you leave lights on when you are not home? By the same token, what areas of your life are you using to mitigate your impact? Maybe you pick up litter by the side of the road once a week, or perhaps you take public transit to work instead of driving. Take an inventory of your habits. What do you do?

“Every single time we make a choice, we make a difference,” says famed tree-sitter and activist Julia Butterfly Hill. “Because we do not live in a vacuum, every single choice has an impact and therefore, it is not only spiritually impossible to make no difference, it is scientifically impossible to make no difference! Ever!” she says. “Therefore, seven BILLION of us … are actually ‘activists.’  The difference is are we being conscious or unconscious activists with each and every thought, word, and action.”

Ready to take control of your power to affect change? Here are 15 simple actions that you can take to be a more conscious activist in your everyday life:

1. Eat less meat. Producing meat releases more greenhouse gases (GHGs) into the atmosphere than either industry or transportation. Less meat consumption, less global warming. If you want to be an over-achiever, go veg!
2. Kick your single-use habit. Disposable goods don’t disappear when we’re done with them. Plus, they require significant resources to manufacture. Something we use for a matter of minutes shouldn’t take up energy, materials, and space in a landfill. Think about all the GHGs we could avoid creating if we replaced single-use with reusable items.
3. Learn. Watch a documentary about water-use. Read an article about deforestation. Knowledge is power. You can’t fix something you don’t know is broken. Expose and empower yourself to think and form an opinion. (You’re on the right track if you’re reading this article!)
4. Have conversations. You cannot change other people, but you can be a source of information. Being a body of knowledge, or even simply alternative thinking, is an activist action.
5. Plant a tree. Trees are a valuable ally in the fight against global warming. They absorb CO2 and release oxygen.  They have super powers. Be a tree-hugger and stand proud.
6. Go to a beach clean-up. Trash that is swept into the ocean becomes food for the fishes, literally. Or it becomes part of the garbage patch in the Pacific Gyre, which is larger than Texas. When you clean up a beach, you’re helping to keep our oceans safe and beautiful.
7. Choose organic. Organic produce isn’t just good for your health, it’s good for the planet. Pesticides are highly toxic. Humans end up ingesting these chemicals through food, but they also end up in our water.
8. Buy local. When you buy locally, you not only support your local economy, you also save fossil fuels from being burned by cutting out the transport of that item. Find out about your local farmers’ market and look for “local” labeling at your neighborhood market.
9. Reuse. Visit your local thrift stores and look for items you can buy used. If you buy a used flower vase or picture frame, you’ll save money and the raw materials needed to make it new.
10. Flex your muscles. Ride your bike to work. Walk to the grocery store. Take public transit. All of these alternative transportation methods lower our carbon output.
11. Use your voice. Write a letter to your senator. Call the White House. Sign petitions. Your representatives are elected and paid to listen to you.  Your voice matters.
    
12. Watch what’s happening. Watch the news, check out YouTube videos, and browse articles online (find great material in Sierra Club Green Home’s Learn More section). See what social, cultural, and environmental leaders are up to. Get inspired by current events and people who are doing great things.
13. Consume less plastic. Plastic is made from oil, which is toxic and takes hundreds of years to fully degrade. In the meantime, plastic that gets lost or thrown away will photo-degrade (be partially broken down by sunlight) and animals that have access will eat it. For more info, watch the documentary Bag It.
14. Volunteer. Pick a cause you care about and get busy. No matter where you live, there are likely to be plenty of local organizations that you can donate your time to. You’ll not only do good, but you’ll feel good, too.
15. Let love rule. “You want to know the very best thing you can do for your daily life and for the world?” asks Julia Butterfly Hill. “Ask yourself in each moment and every choice, ‘What would love have me think, say, and do right now?  What would love choose?’ Love always calls forth our greatness, our best and most conscious selves, moving us past and through the limits of our minds, fears, apathy, laziness, and other ways we sell out on our world and ourselves.  And our world, planet, and future desperately need our best from us right now!”

You are an activist. You make a difference. What conscious actions will you take or are you already taking to steer your world in the right direction? Comment below.

For related article, see:
Sundance 2012 Environmental Films
Sustainable Seafood Guide: How to Save the Seas with Your Diet
The Best Green Home Books and DVDs
Global Warming is Now

 © 2012 SCGH, LLC.

The post Be an Activist in Your Everyday Life appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.

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The book “Eating Planet” details not only the problems related to food sustainability but also the solutions. (E.Q. Lam)

On Tuesday, July 17, the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition will present a webinar on “Obesity: Impacts on Public Health and Society.” Join online at www.barillacfn.com.

By E.Q. Lam
July 15, 2012 

NEW YORK — How can we have one billion starving people in the world at the same time that an equal number of people are battling obesity?

A new book—Eating Planet 2012, Nutrition Today: A Challenge for Mankind and for the Planet—connects these two urgent issues, along with health, culture, and sustainability, to the global food system.

“Ultimately, you can’t consider one without considering the others,” says Samuel Fromartz, chief editor of the Food and Environmental Reporting Network, who served as moderator at a recent symposium held for the U.S. release of Eating Planet.

The symposium featured a panel of policy and program experts, and Sierra Club Green Home was there to capture the thoughts of these leaders in the field.

Agriculture can be the solution for most urgent problems today, providing proper nutrition as well as creating resilience against climate change, says Danielle Nierenberg, director of Nourishing the Planet, a project of the Worldwatch Institute.

“Eating Planet holds important lessons for consumers, farmers, and politicians,” Nierenberg says.

Topics discussed at the forum included better connections between rural farmers and urban residents, job creation through growing a better food industry, infrastructure needs, demanding better media coverage of not only celebrity chefs but agriculture, and private sector actors such as banks funding agriculture.

Jonathan Bloom, author of American Wasteland, says the United States produces twice as much food as it needs, in terms of calories. He outlines the problem in this country in terms of abundance, beauty, and cost. The U.S. culture does not value food because it is available cheaply everywhere from gas stations to drugstores, he says, adding that items with blemishes are tossed aside. There are environmental costs to that, including lost water present in the food and waste contributing to landfills, which produce harmful methane gas.

“That energy embedded in food is then squandered when we throw it away,” Bloom says. “… We are aiding climate change from our kitchen bins.”

Stephanie Hanson, director of policy and outreach at One Acre Fund, an organization in Kenya helping small farmers, depicts the opposite problem with a story of a woman picking up kernels of maize off the floor at an event in order to take home and cook.

Local programs in different parts of the world, from the U.S. classroom to SEWA, a network of self-employed women in India, were highlighted as current solutions that work to ease these urgent issues. The strategy should be to take a global idea and adapt it to provide a solution appropriate to the locale, Bloom says.

“You can’t solve big problems in one swoop,” says Dan Morrison, founder of the philanthropic Citizen Effect. “You can’t solve the global water crisis, but you can install a well somewhere so women don’t have to spend all day going to fetch water and have time to start a small business.”

The panelists agreed that American consumers can play a big role in bringing about solutions to food issues, by choosing not to buy from large companies with wasteful food packaging or unhealthy food, stopping the separation between philanthropy (in charity donations) and the rest of life, as well as getting politically active.

“Money to charity is good, but your voice to politicians is worth thirty high-paid lobbyists in Washington,” says Kelly Hauser, a policy manager for the ONE Campaign to fight global AIDS and extreme poverty. “We really need to make our voices heard.”

Eating Planet provides a collection of data, interviews, and—perhaps most importantly—potential solutions from a wide array of experts and sources. The book is the result of research by the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition in Italy in collaboration with the U.S.-based Worldwatch Institute.

“Coming from a global food brand, Barilla, I hope we can think of these organizations as an ally,” says Brian Halweil, author and editor of publications such as Edible Manhattan.

Eating Planet is available in hardcover as well as online at Amazon and iTunes for $3.99.

For related article, see:
Can Environmentally Friendly Agriculture Grow As We Grow?

© 2012 SCGH, LLC. All rights reserved.

The post Connecting Obesity, Hunger, Poverty, and the Environment appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.

Want to be the first to check out the latest environmental films this year? Sierra Club Green Home is covering them for you at Sundance Film Festival 2012. Here is a list of the environmental films set to debut at Sundance this week. Be sure to read all our movie reviews on our homepage, Sierra Club Green Home.Com.

CHASING ICE

When National Geographic photographer James Balog asked, “How can one take a picture of climate change?” his attention was immediately drawn to ice. Soon he was asked to do a cover story on glaciers that became the most popular and well-read piece in the magazine during the last five years. But for Balog, that story marked the beginning of a much larger and longer-term project that would reach epic proportions.

In this breathtakingly beautiful documentary, filmmaker Jeff Orlowski follows the indomitable photographer as he brings to life the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS)—a massive photography project that placed 30 cameras across three continents to gather visual evidence of the Earth’s melting ice. Chasing Ice tells the story of a visionary artist who, in facing his own mortality, bequeaths the magic of photography and the adventure of the expedition to a new generation and captures the most visible sign of climate change on the planet today. - S.F.

Screenings

A FIERCE GREEN FIRE

In the twenty-first century, the idea that we are all connected is almost a cliché, though it is little understood and rarely acted upon. One twentieth-century social movement understood this concept at its core. It is, in the eyes of many, the most important ever: the environmental movement. It seeks nothing less than saving the planet from its most destructive force—humanity.

Screenings

THE ATOMIC STATES OF AMERICA

Based on Kelly McMasters’s memoir about growing up in a nuclear-reactor community, this stirring film illustrates the dire health consequences for many residents in Shirley, her Long Island hometown. Yet despite the known risks of utilizing nuclear power, our country’s rapidly increasing energy needs are fueling a nuclear renaissance.

Screenings

Moving the Masses

What is a movement made of? We live in an age when, for the first time in history, millions of people are engaged in movements urging equity and justice. From civil rights to the environment to the recent Occupy initiative, strides and setbacks have marked our history. JoinLois Gibbs (subject of A Fierce Green Fire), Richard Kim(executive editor of The Nation), Peter Staley (subject of How to Survive a Plague), and Naomi Wolf (author and political activist) as we delve into the evolving nature of making change.

Screenings

New Frontier Shorts

The New Frontier short film program stretches the possibilities of moving pictures, providing a visceral experience for our minds and souls. Through controlled minimalism, evocative landscapes, and sonic panoramas, we find the ability to see through the blurry lines of our physical and political worlds. Starting with the global and moving to the microscopic, we get closer to the issues of our times to understand and deal with them. We are all made of the same stardust, and keeping that fact close to our hearts may help us act respectfully with one other.

Screenings

Bear 71

Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison’s poignant interactive documentary about a bear in the Canadian Rockies illuminates the way humans engage with wildlife in the age of networks, satellites, and digital surveillance. Audiences from around the world can use their smartphones to become part of an interactive forest environment rich with bears, cougars, sheep, deer, and people as they follow an emotional story of a grizzly bear tagged and monitored by Banff National Park rangers.

Screenings

BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS!

In April 2009, Swedish filmmakers Fredrik Gertten and Margarete Jangård learned that the world premiere of BANANAS!*—their documentary about a lawsuit against the Dole Food Company—would take place at a major film festival in Los Angeles. Within weeks, they were embroiled in a legal and public-relations battle to save their premiere, their film, their reputations, and their freedom of speech.

While censorship is, sadly, nothing new, its insidious power gains startling immediacy by playing out in front of Gertten’s camera. The filmmakers find themselves painted as villains due to Dole’s shrewd PR moves—even before their film has been screened. Gertten takes the offensive, filing a countersuit and media campaign of his own to confront Dole’s overgrown-schoolyard-bully tactics.

As demonstrated over the past several months in actions held around the globe, corporations are being taken to task for their disproportionate political and financial influence. BIG BOYS GONE BANANAS!* is a telling case study of the power of individuals to fight back.
- B.T.

Screenings

The Landfill

Trash becomes energy at a small New York landfill, where people are thinking differently about garbage.

Screenings

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Hushpuppy, an intrepid six-year-old girl, lives with her father, Wink, in “the Bathtub,” a southern Delta community at the edge of the world. Wink’s tough love prepares her for the unraveling of the universe; for a time when he’s no longer there to protect her. When Wink contracts a mysterious illness, nature flies out of whack—temperatures rise, and the ice caps melt, unleashing an army of prehistoric creatures called aurochs. With the waters rising, the aurochs coming, and Wink’s health fading, Hushpuppy goes in search of her lost mother.

Hushpuppy is not just the film’s heroine; she’s its soul. Beasts of the Southern Wild exists entirely in its own universe: mythological, anthropological, folkloric, and apocalyptic. Benh Zeitlin’s first feature (a Sundance Institute Feature Film Program project) employs a cast of nonactors—reflecting its grassroots production—to fiercely portray the bond between father and daughter in a world where only the strong survive. Standing defiantly at the end of the world, Hushpuppy affirms the dignity of telling their own story: that they were once there. . . - J.N.

Screenings

Valley of Saints

Widely considered to be the crown jewel of Kashmir, Dal Lake is a sprawling aquatic community where erupting political violence often distracts from the natural beauty. Gulzar, a young, working-class boatman, plans to skip town with his best friend in search of a better life, but a weeklong military curfew derails their departure. Forced to wait it out, Gulzar takes a job assisting a pretty scientist named Asifa. As they navigate the floating landscape, collecting water samples for an environmental study, an unlikely relationship blossoms between the two. When Asifa’s research reveals harmful pollutants, Gulzar realizes that the ecology of the lake and an entire way of life face an alarming threat, and everything in his own life begins to take on a new hue.

Lush cinematography heightens the region’s visual splendor in this enlightening feature debut from Musa Syeed. Intricately weaving contemporary issues with traditional culture and ancient myths,Valley of Saints is a vibrant, lyrical film about finding one’s path home in a changing world.
- C.D.

Screenings

Celebrating Stories of Change

Global issues demand innovative solutions, and documentary film is increasingly showcasing the unprecedented efforts of social-issue change makers around the world. At this special discussion event celebrating the five-year partnership between Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and the Skoll Foundation, Skoll President and CEO Sally Osberg moderates a thought-provoking dialogue among award-winning filmmakers—including clips from their work—and innovators who are impacting millions. Invited panelists include Joia Mukherjee (chief medical officer at Partners in Health), Kief Davidson (Untitled Global Health Documentary),Jehane Noujaim (Control Room), and Bunker Roy (founder of Barefoot College).

Screenings

Detropia 

Detroit’s story has encapsulated the iconic narrative of America over the last century— the Great Migration of African Americans escaping Jim Crow; the rise of manufacturing and the middle class; the love affair with automobiles; the flowering of the American dream; and now . . . the collapse of the economy and the fading American mythos.

With its vivid, painterly palette and haunting score, DETROPIAsculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. As houses are demolished by the thousands, automobile-company wages plummet, institutions crumble, and tourists gawk at the “charming decay,” the film’s vibrant, gutsy characters glow and erupt like flames from the ashes. These soulful pragmatists and stalwart philosophers strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance. Their grit and pluck embody the spirit of the Motor City as it struggles to survive postindustrial America and begins to envision a radically different future. - C.L.

Screenings

663114

I am a 66-year cicada. There was a big earthquake. There was a big tsunami. There also was a big accident.

Screenings

Sundance 2011 Environmental Films 

Curious about the environmental films from last year’s film festival? Sierra Club Green Home compiled a list of the best environmental films from 2011.

The Last Mountain

The Last Mountain takes a look at coal/mountaintop removal mining. See what SCGH’s own Jennifer Schwab has to say about the movie, Sundance Explores the Last Mountain.

If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front

Marshall Curry’s documentary tells a timely story of political action and environmental beliefs at loggerheads. His reconstruction of the recent history and unraveling of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) is a fascinating exploration of a modern revolutionary movement and its efficacy. Fusing fervent concerns about ecological imbalance and capitalism run amok, ELF members and sleeper cells employed economic sabotage by destroying facilities involved in deforestation to remove the profit potential from companies wreaking environmental destruction.

Focusing on Oregon-based activist Daniel McGowan, Curry relates the tale of a mild-mannered, middle-class citizen driven to extremes and brought to trial on charges of terrorism for his participation in ELF-related arson plots. Detailing activists’ past disillusionment with public protest—and the police brutality and inertia that often followed—the film poses difficult questions about the possibility of effecting change from either within or without the system and examines the changed stakes for revolutionaries today in a world fixated on branding all dissenters as terrorists.

The Woods

We were promised change, but it never came. Our cities crumbled around us. Our streets ran red with Hawaiian Punch. Our country was no longer our own. Under Daniel’s guidance and leadership, we agreed to take action into our own hands. We preset our DVRs and ventured out of the city limits united. In the woods, we will be safe. In the woods, we will start anew.

This satirical attack on young, modern, globally conscious citizens tells the story of eight grown-up American children creating utopian society as best they can. With gorgeous Super 16 footage and an eclectic soundtrack featuring Dirty Projectors, Sun Araw, and Lucky Dragons, filmmaker Matthew Lessner playfully subverts counterculture films of the seventies while questioning the shortcomings of his own complacent generation. In a world where new technologies merely distract us from reality, the greatest revolution can only begin by leaving everything behind.

Connected: An Autobiography of Love, Death and Technology 

With wonderful heart and an impressive sense of scale, Tiffany Shlain’s vibrant and insightful documentary, Connected, explores the visible and invisible connections linking major issues of our time—the environment, consumption, population growth, technology, human rights, the global economy—while searching for her place in the world during a transformative time in her life. Employing a splendidly imaginative combination of animation and archival footage, plus several surprises, Shlain constructs a chronological tour of Western modernization through the work of her late father, Leonard Shlain, a brain surgeon and best-selling author of Art and Physics and The Alphabet Versus the Goddess.

With humor and irony, the Shlain family life merges with philosophy to create both a personal portrait and a proposal for ways we can move forward as a civilization. Connected illuminates the beauty and tragedy of human endeavor while boldly championing the importance of personal connectedness for understanding and coping with today’s global conditions.

For related articles, see:
Sundance Explores the Last Mountain

Movie Summaries provided by Sundance Film Festival

The post Sundance 2012 Environmental Films appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.

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Diesel engines can run on sustainable biofuels without modification. (Courtesy of FUEL Web site)

By Debbie Van Der Hyde

Like the Veggie Van he drove across the country, Josh Tickell’s documentary FUEL covers a lot of territory to make a point: our reliance on oil must change.

Tickell advocates biofuels as the answer. His message is “Change your fuel, change your world.” Over the course of two hours, Tickell takes a meandering route, weaving personal perspective with at least 50 insightful interviews recorded during the 11 years it took to make the film.

Ultimately, FUEL works, coming full circle to deliver the substance behind Tickell’s message of change. He is a passionate believer in sustainably-made biofuels. Watching the documentary might make Sierra Club Green Home readers believe too.

Starting slowly
FUEL is delivered as a sort of stream of consciousness from Tickell. The film begins by depicting how oil reserves were originally formed and how oil is now the lifeblood of our society.

“It heats us, cools us, feeds us, takes us where we need to go,” Tickell says, then describes the numerous problems of our oil dependence, effectively poking a hole in the tank.

To explain why he’s spent his life searching for solutions, FUEL takes an autobiographical tangent. Tickell describes his youth in Australia and the stark differences, like oil refineries and toxic waterways, he found when his family moved to Louisiana.

Later, while pursuing his college degree, Tickell worked on an organic farm in Germany where he witnessed a farmer pouring vegetable oil into his tractor. The idea of alternative fuel ignited, and Tickell became obsessed with bringing biofuels to America.

One of the results of this fixation was a two-year Veggie Van USA Tour to promote biofuels. Tickell filled the van with cooking oil “harvested” from fast food restaurants. He gave lectures and appeared on talk shows. But no big culture change occurred.

Then 9/11 happened. In the film, Tickell asks the question: “Did our choice of fuel lead to this?”

Picking up the pace
To answer, FUEL ventures into the educational arena. The film describes the process oil companies use to create gasoline and explores what led the auto industry to rely on gas engines instead of ethanol. He also poignantly notes that diesel engines can run on vegetable oil without any modifications. So why aren’t we switching? And what will we do when our oil reserves run out?

FUEL gains speed to respond. The film reviews America’s reaction to the 1973 oil shortage and the Carter administration’s ambitious program to reduce oil dependence. This progress was followed by the about-face policies of the Reagan administration and both Bush administrations.

Tickell also notes that America isn’t the only country that suffers from an oil addiction. He looks at how people in other countries demanded energy from renewable materials, and their governments responded by investing in solar, wind, and biofuel.

Coming to a sudden stop
But even the government cannot control natural disasters. During the making of FUEL, Hurricane Katrina hit Tickell’s home state, spilling nine million gallons of oil. The film takes another detour as he talks to climate scientists about the effects of global warming.

Compelled to help, Tickell joined a relief mission for Katrina victims. Although he started the trip angry that government and industry refused to take responsibility for the oil spill, he was transformed by the experience of aiding hurricane victims, saying “It’s going to take everyone to fix this.” Tickell’s epiphany led to coordinated action through partnerships, including interviews with celebrities and politicians who appear in the film.

Then, in another unexpected turn, Tickell encountered a media-made disaster. Science Magazine published an article on the potential dangers of biodiesel, which essentially slammed the brakes on the biofuels movement. Tickell now asks: “Was everything he’d done harming the environment?”

Tickell answers this food versus fuel debate by describing how ethanol is created from corn for gas engines and biofuel from soy for diesel engines. He agrees that biofuel from monocrop corn and soy fields, which require fertilizers and pesticides, is not the answer.

Returning to the road
The remainder of the documentary takes a positive turn by covering how to make biofuels sustainable by producing them with waste, camelina, or even the original source of our oil reserves: algae. According to experts in the film, algae can double its cell mass in a few hours. When burned, algae-based biofuel doesn’t add additional CO2 to the atmosphere.

As FUEL rolls to a stop, Tickell acknowledges that biofuels are a critical part of solution, but not the whole solution. The film takes quick side trips to look at biomass, wind, solar, hybrid and electric vehicles, and energy conservation.

Tickell sums his filmmaking trip with: “We have an infinite abundance of resources that can sustain every living human being. The choice is ours. The rest of the journey is up to you.”

For a review of Fuel‘s sequel, Freedom:
Will Oil Alternatives Free Us?

The post The Hero of Biofuel Documentary FUEL? Algae. appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.

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Refineries process crude oil into petroleum products such as gas, kerosene or asphalt base. (Wiki Commons)

Film review by Erika F. Washington

“Oil has become the one substance on which our very existence depends,” says Josh Tickell, director of the documentary Freedom. In this film, Tickell and his wife, Rebecca Harrell Tickell, take the audience on a journey where they discover the true cost of America’s oil dependency, and the freeing possibilities of oil alternatives.

The post Will Oil Alternatives Free Us? appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.

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Several hundred people attending the Green Living Project film night. (Courtesy of Green Living Project)

By Debra Atlas

GLP hosted its second annual film premiere at the Hub SoMa in San Francisco on October 22 in partnership with Presidio Graduate School. This showcase featured six short films focused on sustainability and conservation as shown through the lives of indigenous communities in Nicaragua, Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico, as well as conservation efforts in Illinois and New Mexico.

Strong messages shone through these films. Potters for Peace shows how clay pots made by women artisans in Nicaragua remove 99 percent of the bacteria in the water. This simple water filtration system creates potable clean water for the people of their country. In Finca Argovia, which focuses on a 120-year-old, world-class coffee plantation, the shade coffee trees grown create a unique and diverse ecosystem.

The Guatemalan film Semilla Nueva examines the question of how to help lift poor farmers out of poverty via the promotor program, where designated farmers become spokespersons to promote a sustainable agriculture system, which in turn will help establish food security. Spanish Creek Rainforest Preserve shows organic farming coexisting side by side with agroforestry in Belize. Bamboo is raised, harvested, and turned into products that help the people feed themselves.

The two US-based films were Lincoln Park Zoo, which was about wildlife and conservation in this country’s oldest public zoo, and Ecotourism in New Mexico, featuring a sustainable eco-tourism pilot program in Taos, New Mexico.

In addition to the film screenings, several presenters spoke at this fascinating event. Bill Shutkin, the president and CEO of Presidio Graduate School, spoke about his goal that the school become the go-to hub for sustainability, competing equally with more-established schools. Nikhil Arora, co-founder of Back to the Roots, which produces a do-it-yourself mushroom kit, recalled how the idea for mushrooms grown in used coffee grounds came about, how it’s grown from one bucket to producing 500 pounds of gourmet oyster mushrooms per week, and its recent retail launch at Whole Foods nationwide.

Another highlight of the evening was Green Living Project’s Student Film Project, an opportunity for students with short creative films which tell a unique, compelling story about a local or global sustainability project or initiative to be seen. The upcoming competition submission deadline is December 6.

Green Living Project hosts a number of educational programs, including its free curriculum to students and teachers on sustainability, events, and school presentations and its mobile sustainability tours. For more details on GLP’s curriculum, contact laura@greenlivingproject.com. For information on participating in GLP mobile tours, contact Jason@greenlivingproject.com.

Check out more articles by Debra Atlas.

© 2011 SCGH, LLC. 

The post Green Living Project Brings Eco Projects to the Screen appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.

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Architects and friends gather for a meal and discussion about local foods and building materials. (Photo by Jake Richardson)

Story and Photos by Jake Richardson

SAN FRANCISCO — Local Mission Eatery is a very appropriately named restaurant. Situated in San Francisco’s Mission District, the eatery serves up food purchased solely from local farmers’ markets.

What’s more, when the dining area and kitchen were being reconstructed before opening, the restaurant used only locally-sourced materials.

Co-founders Yaron Milgrom and Jacob Des Voignes (who is also the eatery’s chef) wanted to create a business that was well-integrated into the surrounding community and supported local businesses in addition to serving top-quality food. Recently they explained their approach to community participation and local food sourcing at an event for the American Institute of Architects San Francisco. Architects and friends gathered to hear about the construction of the kitchen, restaurant, and bakery.

One of the more striking aspects of the interior space is a wall covered with small wooden tiles depicting scenes of public life on 24th Street in the Mission District, from Valencia to Vermont streets. The tiles were recycled from another building north of San Francisco. Local artist Jon Fischer worked with Milgrom to prepare the tiles, and Fischer took the photographs simply by walking around in the neighborhood. Images he captured of the community were printed on the wooden tiles. Tiles were chosen because they are an integral part of Latin American culture and are found throughout the Mission District.

Another important visual aspect of the interior is a very long span of redwood slats on the ceiling, beginning near the entrance and ending near the area where the bakery entrance is located in the rear. The eatery is somewhat narrow, but very deep, and the redwood slats provide a consistent visual path toward the back of the space. The slats themselves were discovered by accident, when Milgrom and his crew were removing old sheetrock. They were pleased to find such valuable wood and decided to use it in their project. Redwood also is a local tree, so it fits the eatery’s theme of using local resources.

Some other elements fitting the theme are a library of several hundred food books for customers, so they can read while they are eating or waiting for their meals, and sharing the space with a bakery which is run by Des Voignes’s wife.

A large counter borders the open kitchen. It was designed to resemble a sushi bar, where customers can see the food as it is prepared and talk directly with the chef. This kind of openness also is part of the culture of Local Mission Eatery. The counter is made of zinc and was made on-site.

All the food prepared and served is purchased by the chef and his staff at local farmers markets, in order to support the community and to build long-term relationships with other residents of the community and region. Personal relationships between chefs and farmers allows for better communication and sharing of knowledge. Ultimately this kind of personal interaction can help facilitate better dining experiences for customers, because of the care taken by the chef to know the produce sources and how they are being grown.

© 2011 SCGH, LLC. All rights reserved.

The post Local + Mission = Great Eatery appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.

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Chico bag starter kit offered by Greenfeet. (Courtesy of Greenfeet)

By Debra Atlas

Online retailers generally are not known for great customer service. Instead, they build their reputation on offering quality products and prompt delivery, and many carry a variety of eco-friendly or sustainable products.

(Photo courtesy of Greenfeet.)

One online retailer has figured out how to put all this together. Bucking the norm, Greenfeet strives to offer online shopping that is easy, fun, and steeped in customer service. One of the original online retail stores, Greenfeet features thousands of sustainably sourced healthy-living and food products. The company seeks to offer products which are well made, built to last, and produced in a fashion that is not detrimental to people or to the planet—all while providing customer service.

This last criterion recently earned Greenfeet a STELLAService award. STELLAService is an independent, third-party company that identifies and awards online retailers that demonstrate excellent customer service.

“We think customer service is a simple idea. We’re champions for companies treating customers right,” says Jordy Leiser, CEO of STELLAService.

Launched in 2010, STELLAService is about transparency in the marketplace. “This is an important thing for online commerce,” says Leiser. “Businesses really want to improve. They’ve never really been able to benchmark what their performance is before.”

STELLAService provides insight for companies on how well they are doing from a customer’s perspective. It gave Greenfeet an “excellent” rating for customer service. Greenfeet did not know it was being scrutinized for this award, says Valerie Reddmann, Greenfeet’s co-founder and “Chief Yoo-hoo.”

STELLAService evaluates companies in three overall categories:

1. Customer online experience;
2. Company shipping and return policies and practices; and
3. Customer support (any interaction that a customer would have with the business).

STELLAService utilizes what it calls “mystery shoppers on steroids”—people who work 40 hours a week for STELLAService evaluating thousands of companies large and small. This year, Leiser says the company plans to evaluate 4,000 companies. To do so, STELLAService contacts nominated companies and interacts with them—by phone and online.

“[The mystery shoppers] evaluate [the company] as if they were the manager of their call center,” says Leiser.

“They want to see how Greenfeet reacts, how they treat their customers,” Reddmann adds.

STELLAService has three levels of rating. First is the basic “approved” level.

“Less than 50 percent of the [thousands of] companies that go through the process make that,” says Reddmann. “It tells me there’s a big problem with [delivering] good customer service these days.”

The next level is the “excellent” rating. Reddmann says Greenfeet received this high rating.

You can see Greenfeet’s rating on STELLAService’s site. Among the factors that Greenfeet received an “outstanding” rating on are its return policy, friendly knowledgeable support, and outstanding gifting options.

The third and highest rating any online retailer can receive is STELLAService’s “elite.” This rating is very difficult to get to, says Reddmann. But she is determined that Greenfeet will achieve it.

Companies such as Amazon and Zappos have achieved this level. “It’s a high echelon of service that I’m sure we’ll get to,” Redmann says. “It’s a coveted seal, a badge of honor.” And it is one rating that award winners proudly display on their Web sites.

To ensure that award recipients maintain their rated level of service, STELLAService revisits companies a minimum of once a year. Customers can visit company profiles and leave feedback and comments about their own experiences. STELLAService makes sure to take this information into consideration.

Winning the award has motivated Greenfeet to “up our game even more” and exceed customers’ expectations, Reddmann says. “We try to be fresh, true, and we don’t overcomplicate things,” she says, noting that green living is going back to basics.

“It’s about relating to customers as people,” says Reddmann, “treating them as we would want to be treated and adding a sense of humor.”

Check out more articles by Debra Atlas.

© 2011 SCGH, LLC.

The post Online Retailer Delivers Customer Service appeared first on Sierra Club Green Home.