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Last Thursday and Friday, I was on the road again. This time, my travels took me to Bentonville, Arkansas… yep, the home of Wal-Mart. The company invited me down for its annual shareholders' meeting and the media events preceding it. Over the next few days, I'll devote a few posts to what I saw, and what I thought.

Thursday's media event was jam-packed with activities, starting with a tour of Bentonville's Sam's Club. Opened in September 2006, this store was a far cry from the one I remember going to with my parents years ago: as opposed to looking and feeling like a warehouse (which it basically was), the Bentonville store was bright and inviting.

Zeray Alemseged is an Ethiopian paleontologist who claims responsibility for an amazing discovery: the world’s oldest child skeleton. In northeastern Ethiopia, he’s discovered a skeleton of a three year old girl which is 3.3 million years old. The skeleton, called Selam, is a member of the species Australopithicus. The fossil he discovered comes from an enormously remote part of the country – driving from Addis Ababa, it took 27 hours to drive the first 400km, and four hours to do the last few kilometers. It’s an area rich in history – stone tools dating from 2.6 million years ago, flutes from 35,0000 years ago, and gorgeous beads from 75,000 years ago. When he arrived at the dig site, he was the first human to drive a car to the spot. Photos show us an incredibly remote, harsh desert – he reminds us that this land had very different carrying capacity in the past: “It is an extinct game part, where our ancestors weren’t especially successful” in hunting large mammals like elephants. Selam’s skeleton was encased in a sandstone block, because she was buried by the river. Alemseged speaks about the sense of wonder and responsibility of holding this block in… (more)

(Posted by Ethan Zuckerman in Pulling Back the Curtain at 7:34 AM)

Historian Kenneth Vickery is a pinch-speaker today, filling in for George Ayittey. It’s awfully hard to fill Ayittey’s shoes, but Ayittey has been well represented by early speakers, and Vickery has a useful set of stories to tell – historical stories from the continent from the past millennium. He starts with his own story – a young graduate student, hitchhiking from Nairobi to Arusha, and collecting stories from the man kind enough to pick him up and the people he encountered on the trip. He found “people with stories, intertwined with the stories of their ancestors,” and was convinced that there was a life’ss work in collecting these stories. He tells us three historical stories, points of inflection that could have radically changed the course of events had they played out differently, offering a story from Mark Twain, that “history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” He starts with the encounter between kingdoms in the early 16th century – the Portuguese, and the Kingdom of the Kongo, based in what is now northern Angola. The Kongo Kingdom is a “classic late iron age” society – it had a surplus production of food, organized pottery and textile industries, copper… (more)

(Posted by Ethan Zuckerman in Business at 7:31 AM)

Image source: Nature.comEditor's note: This week, Shirley and Jimmy take on the subject of radical environmentalism. Are acts of vandalism, break-ins and civil disobedience always wrong, or do they sometimes serve a greater purpose?

Shirley: Fake blood tossed onto socialites wearing fur coats. Late-night liberation of laboratory animals. Wholesale destruction of Hummers and gas-guzzlers in California parking lots. The lists of exploits by some radical animal-rights and extreme environmental groups reads more like rap sheets than a honorable curriculum vitae. For reasonable stewards of the Earth, breaking and entry, theft, destruction of physical property and other mayhem serve no purpose.

Or do they? I don't condone violence or criminal acts as a means of conveying a message, however well-intended the message might be. But I have to admit that, sometimes — just sometimes — a crazy or even slightly illegal (as if there is such a thing in the eyes of the law) act by a group like, say, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) brings to light a practice that's been kept in the dark largely because it's unpleasant, harmful or cruel. The act of sneaking hidden cameras into poultry processing plants, for example, opened a lot of people's eyes to just how unnecessarily inhumane the methods of turning chickens into wings and nuggets actually are. So is there an argument to be made that maybe, just maybe, the occasional whack attack by radical vegans or Luddites is a justifiable act of civil disobedience? I'd have to say, cautiously, yes.

Image source: Nature.comEditor's note: This week, Shirley and Jimmy take on the subject of radical environmentalism. Are acts of vandalism, break-ins and civil disobedience always wrong, or do they sometimes serve a greater purpose?

Shirley: Fake blood tossed onto socialites wearing fur coats. Late-night liberation of laboratory animals. Wholesale destruction of Hummers and gas-guzzlers in California parking lots. The lists of exploits by some radical animal-rights and extreme environmental groups reads more like rap sheets than a honorable curriculum vitae. For reasonable stewards of the Earth, breaking and entry, theft, destruction of physical property and other mayhem serve no purpose.

Or do they? I don't condone violence or criminal acts as a means of conveying a message, however well-intended the message might be. But I have to admit that, sometimes — just sometimes — a crazy or even slightly illegal (as if there is such a thing in the eyes of the law) act by a group like, say, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) brings to light a practice that's been kept in the dark largely because it's unpleasant, harmful or cruel. The act of sneaking hidden cameras into poultry processing plants, for example, opened a lot of people's eyes to just how unnecessarily inhumane the methods of turning chickens into wings and nuggets actually are. So is there an argument to be made that maybe, just maybe, the occasional whack attack by radical vegans or Luddites is a justifiable act of civil disobedience? I'd have to say, cautiously, yes.

Eaten in a school cafeteria lately? Chances are you'll be dining on processed, reheated food that helps tiny school lunch budgets stretch their pennies. In an attempt to make lunches healthier and more sustainable, the state of Oregon is taking significant steps towards increasing the amount of local food that goes into public school lunches.

One legislative bill, awaiting Gov. Ted Kulongoski's signature, that will limit caloric, sugar, and fat content of foods sold in vending machines and school stores. Three more bills currently being debated that would promote, among other things, utilizing food from Oregon farmers, bakeries, and other processors. HB 3476 allocates seven cents per meal served in Oregon public schools to incorporate Oregon agricultural products. HB 3307 creates a Farm to School program within the Oregon Deparment of Agriculture, and HB 3185 awards mini-grants to schools creating gardens and other agriculture/food-based learning. The three bills would cost the state approximately $10 million.

Yes, today is World Environment Day (the UN says so). Official theme is “melting ice”. Coincidentally, the G8 summit in Germany starts tomorrow. We’ve got a team on the scene, and you can follow their work here. But this update isn’t about Bush, Merkel or even Harper. It’s about the melting glaciers of the Himalayas, and the nearly 1 billion people whose water supply could be affected.

Recently a Greenpeace expedition went to the Himalayas to document the retreat of these glaciers. There’s a feature story here by a Chinese journalist who joined the expedition (along with an audio slideshow by the expedition photographer).

Or check out this mini-documentary (it’s under five minutes)….

Continue reading Happy World Environment Day G8 leaders!…

Always on the lookout for new green events, I’m excited to have found something that promises to be more than just networking (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) On Thursday, June 7th, the Los Angeles Net Impact chapter, in partnership with SustainLane, is hosting an event dedicated to sustainability.

The event features guest speaker Gillian Christie. As founder and CEO of Christie Communications, a communications and public relations firm, Christie works to promote the products and services of ethical companies. She will discuss her perspective on environmental messaging and the opportunities and challenges of differentiating green products in an increasingly crowded market. Christie will also share examples from Sri Lanka and Sudan, detailing how her company gives back in its global quest to promote sustainability and human rights.

Though Net Impact is one of the sponsors, you don’t need to be a member to attend. Both professionals and students are welcome, though there is a fee for entry ($25 for professionals, $20 for students). Dues-paying professional and student members receive discounts ($22 for professionals, $17 for students). Drinks and light snacks will be served.

Negotiations leading up to the Group of Eight (G-8) summit that begins in Heiligendamm, Germany on Wednesday stalled when the U.S. bluntly objected to the host country’s global warming declaration.

Germany’s proposal calls for limiting the global temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) and cutting global warming emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. But Bush administration officials rejected those mandatory emissions targets, as well as calls to raise energy efficiencies 20 percent by 2020. They also opposed a statement that reads, “We acknowledge that the U.N. climate process is an appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change."

So late last week, President Bush went on the offensive and proposed his own climate change goal. He urged 15 major nations – including China and India – to agree by the end of next year on a global target for reducing greenhouse gases. Rather than a specific goal like Germany’s 3.6 degrees reduction, Bush called for nations to hold a series of meetings, beginning this fall, to set a global goal and then each nation then would decide how to reach that goal. At the same time, the White House specifically registered its opposition to a global cap-and-trade program.

Although German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed Bush’s “new determination” to fight climate change, any goal must absolutely be part of a U.N. framework. Furthermore, she said in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that her proposals for a 3.6 degrees cut in emissions “are non-negotiable as far as I am concerned.”