Late last week in a vote of 65-27, the Senate passed an energy bill that made progress in some areas but was stripped down in others.

The crown jewel was certainly a near-40 percent increase in…

The mantra of businesses targeting and converting consumers towards sustainable purchasing patterns has long been “small steps make all the difference.” At Worldchanging, we are generally of the mind that in fact small steps ultimately make no difference in the face of catastrophic environmental collapse and limited time to make real change. But it’s never an easy argument, since everyone has to start somewhere, and our consumption choices matter a great deal in aggregate. Last week, two UK-based organizations, AccountAbility and Consumers International, released an extensive consumer survey exploring the big problem/small action conundrum, among many other things. They surveyed 2,734 people in the UK and the US to get a better understanding of consumers’ sentiments about how and what they buy, and most importantly to find out who they trust (and how much) for information about their decisions. The 64-page report (available as a downloadable PDF) contains some predictable findings, such as the fact that “climate change is a mainstream consumer issue,” but it also delves deeper, investigating the problems inherent in current consumer trends towards “climate consciousness” and presenting solutions that might push us past a touchy transitional period between understanding the problem and learning to take effective… (more)

(Posted by Sarah Rich in Climate Change at 1:47 PM)

The US Senate passed its energy bill, including a compromise version (SA 1792) of CAFE legislation that increases new light-duty vehicle fleetwide fuel economy to an average 35 mpg by 2020, but that eliminates a mandatory 4% per year increase thereafter that had been part of the original proposal. More … US Senate Finance Committee members Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) have introduced a bill to support the development of commercially viable plug-in electric drive vehicles (PEDVs), including pure battery-electric, plug-in hybrid electric, and plug-in fuel cell vehicles. More… The California Air Resources Board (ARB) on Thursday approved three early action measures to address climate change emissions as set forth in the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32). More… The Oregon Senate approved House Bill 2210, creating a renewable fuels standard for the state. More… According to a new survey released by the Mayors Climate Protection Center during The US Conference of Mayors’ (USCM) 75th anniversary meeting this weekend, mayors are acting on many fronts to enhance climate protection, without significant support from their state and federal partners. More… The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed that US… (more)

(Posted by Mike Millikin in Transportation at 1:19 PM)

David McTaggart and Steve Sawyer, circa 1986

We had a big party Friday night to mark Steve Sawyer’s departure from Greenpeace after nearly 30 years of service to The Firm. We put an invitation out to the diaspora of Greenpeace staff that Steve has known over the years — and they are legion — and asked them to gather to celebrate not just Steve, but the organisation’s history — the two are sometimes difficult to distinguish. Steve was there at so many beginnings, so many transitions, so many crossroads. He was one of the major forces, second only to David McTaggart, who drove the organisation through its early years. And while McT, rest his soul, will probably always get the top-dog credit, the fact is that some of our most successful work would never have been begun, or would never have succeeded, without Steve’s hand on the wheel. And we could have had a few major disasters if Steve hadn’t known when it was time to take McT’s hand off the wheel.

I always thought of Steve as our Gandalf, our grey pilgrim, wise and cunning and wary — moving mysteriously, turning up at precisely the right time, inspiring and encouraging despairing members of the fellowship, always a step ahead of the enemy, and never one to suffer fools gladly.

Continue reading Greenpeace, history, and T-shirts…

by Worldchanging Los Angeles local blogger, Evonne Heyning: Last week I traveled to Manhattan to speak at Games for Change, the annual gathering of the Serious Games Initiative. In two days we played over 15 new issue-oriented games and witnessed dozens more playable programs for social change and education. From enlightenment pursuit to Real Lives from around the world, I drifted in and out of dozens of personas and possibilities. There are games like Karma Tycoon that help teach you how to run successful youth centers and nonprofits around the community or Real Lives, a game where you can be born as anyone in the world and learn about the limiting factors of health, poverty and circumstance based on real statistics. Playing Melting Point was frustrating; the global warming game is VERY hard to beat along with Ayiti: The Cost of Life, the Haitian-based game from Global Kids and Gamelab. Play is essential at every age; there are simple opportunities in the games all around us. Ted Castronova of the TerraNova virtual worlds blog spoke at Games for Change on research and virtual world economies, illuminating the power of games for major social transformation. Economists, quantitative social scientists have great… (more)

(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Media at 11:46 AM)

by Worldchanging New York local blogger, Mark Caserta: For more than five years, Solar 1 , New York City’s first solar-powered green energy, arts, and education venue, has acted as a sort of “center” for New York City’s green movement. Located on the East River waterfront in Manhattan at 23rd Street, the solar-powered classroom and the surrounding park (Stuyvesant Cove Park) have hosted eco-festivals, Citysol), Green Drinks events, and countless green lectures, solar-powered movies, cultural activities and fundraising efforts. Still, many New Yorkers have never visited the site, due to its waterfront location, which is many blocks from the subway and in the shadow of the FDR Drive. All of this will soon change for the better as Solar 1 begins to make its long-awaited transformation into the bigger and better Solar 2, which we covered here early in their planning stages. Mayor Bloomberg’s just announced that he will support the project with $3 million in city funds as part of his PlaNYC effort. What’s Solar 2? Well, from the very beginning, the Community Environmental Center, which was designated by the city to manage Stuyvesant Cove Park and Solar 1, had planned to raise millions of dollars to build… (more)

(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Energy at 11:35 AM)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is the true-life chronicle of author Barbara Kingsolver’s decision to move to an Appalachian farm and eat locally produced, organic goods for one year. She explains…

Vanity Fair’s July issue is devoted to raising awareness in Africa. Guest edited by Bono, the magazine has 20 different covers featuring celebrities and cultural figures like Brad Pitt, Madonna, Maya…

Image Credit: Joshua Thompson via Wikipedia
This week's Weekend Grub is less a recipe for what to cook than some suggestions about how to cook it. If you're looking for recipes, check out…

Farmers typically live modest, if not downright poor lives, working unforgiving swathes of land to earn their keep and fill their plates. We romanticize the farm life from the fast-paced and crowded vantage point of the modern city, but the romance only goes so far. The reality of ceaseless hard labor and unpredictable profits makes a stable office job nice and comfy, which is why farmers have been moving cityward for ages, leaving the agricultural life behind and seeking more lucrative occupations. True, there’s been a resurgence of interest and enthusiasm for urban farming, but the reason for starting and maintaining urban farms still generally have more to do with either health benefits, gourmet cachet or plain survival, than with an entrepreneurial opportunity. Except, maybe, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where an urban couple, Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen, developed a well-defined, teachable farming technique they believe can function as a toolkit for a successful start-up business. They call it SPIN (Small Plot INtensive) farming — an approach that “makes agriculture accessible to anyone, anywhere.” They partnered with Roxanne Christensen of the Institute for Innovations in Local Farming to run a sub-acre test farm called Somerton Tanks, through which they demonstrated over… (more)

(Posted by Sarah Rich in Food and Farming at 3:21 PM)