Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Now two new high-profile books probe our need to eat in search of deeper meaning.

Michael Pollan's view ("In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto") is that industrial manipulation of food almost always makes it worse and that food can be a way to save the world..........Meanwhile, the the trash-talking ex-fashionistas Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin ("Skinny Bitch in the Kitch") make veganism seem as glamorous as any cosmopolitan ever guzzled on "Sex and the City."

The issue nobody wants to talk about -- Human overpopulation

We have to consider how we will live tomorrow on a resource-depleted and climate-compromised planet.

At the end of the day, the most fundamental issue is growth. If we want to meet our goals for the development of human culture and the increase of well-being, the first prerequisite is that we change our attitude about the growth of human population. We live in a culture and an economic system that promotes growth as the ultimate and greatest good. On a finite planet, this amounts to suicide. Growth was good for a certain time. At the beginning of the Industrial Age, it was good to grow our capacity, but with oil - the prime mover of that Industrial Age - running out and also causing grave life-threatening, species-threatening, world-threatening problems of global warming and toxic pollution, growth is no longer good, especially growth in the quantity of goods and the quantity of people.

Population is projected to rise to nine billion by 2050, but as recently as 1929, when my parents were born, there were only about two billion people on the planet. That's exactly the number that our best scientists say we can support on this planet with a comfortable lifestyle, not a poor scrabbling starvation lifestyle, living on a dollar a day - the way the majority of people on this planet live today - but a comfortable lifestyle. If we want to meet all the goals for development of human society, nine billion people are too many for that to happen. The ecological limits of the planet say that, and there's really nothing we can do about it.

That doesn't mean that we have to do anything violent or drastic or genocidal or inhumane, but we do need to think about a social and economic system that will move us to that point as quickly as possible.

Read the full article:

    Abortion and the Earth
    By Kelpie Wilson
    t r u t h o u t | Environment Editor

    Tuesday 29 January 2008

The Power of Unreasonable People

There is a theory that what social entrepreneurs have in common is that they are "unreasonable people" - and this meant as a compliment! The idea is inspired by playwright George Bernard Shaw, who once said,

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

This week's special report in The Economist explores the growing impact of these social entrepreneurs. Who are they? Some examples:

• a French woman who runs a company that provides childcare to parents with unusual working hours
• a Czech woman who set up a helpline for victims of domestic violence and then campaigned to change the law so that perpetrators rather than victims have to leave the family home
• a Chilean founder of an organisation that provides coaching for at-risk families
• a Mexican who has built a for-profit company that provides free movies to poor people on inflatable screens, funded by advertisements from big companies.

Check out the article HERE.
Check out the new book "The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets and Change the World."

Check out GOOD magazine

Welcome to GOOD, media for people who give a damn

We see a growing number of people tied together not by age, career, background, or circumstance, but by a shared interest. This revolves around a passion for potential mixed with fierce pragmatism and creative engagement. We sum all this up as the sensibility of giving a damn. But to shorten it, let's call it GOOD. We're here to push this movement and cover its realization.

While so much of today's media is taking up our space, dumbing us down, and impeding our productivity, GOOD exists to add value. Through a print magazine, feature and documentary films, original multimedia content and local events, GOOD is providing a platform for the ideas, people, and businesses that are driving change in the world.

Buy a TEE, make an impact

check out this great company.........and get a fabulous TEE in the process!

 

We are: A company that asks, "What if?" As in, "What if capitalism and social good can co-exist?" New, Fresh, Different We hand over a big chunk of our revenue, 40% on average, to the people who need it most. The good news is that we're not in competition for dollars you donate to other worthy non-profits. We just sell you stylish stuff and support meaningful causes along the way. Buy a t-shirt and help build schools in India. Or send bed nets to prevent malaria in Africa. Or plant trees in our forests. See the difference you can make exercising your purchasing power. A catalyst for change TONIC partners with secular non-profits working around the globe who make huge differences in four key areas – the environment, education, social welfare and poverty. All of our cause partners have proven track records in what they do best, are committed to action now, and ensure that support reaches its destination quickly and efficiently. A driving force for the greatest amount of good in the shortest amount of time. TONIC is run by a team of professionals who all care about social change. By harnessing market forces for social good, Tonic provides a refreshing way of accomplishing both. And we're having fun doing it. Are you in?

Merry Christmas!

Pope Makes Appeal on the Environment

 

 

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI reinforced the Vatican's growing concern with protecting the environment in the traditional midnight Christmas Mass on Tuesday, bemoaning an "ill-treated world" in a homily given to thousands of pilgrims here in the seat of the world's billion Roman Catholics.

On the day Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ some 2,000 years ago, Benedict referred to one early father of the church, Gregory of Nyssa, a bishop in what is now Turkey. "What would he say if he could see the state of the world today, through the abuse of energy and its selfish and reckless exploitation?" the pope asked, according to the Vatican's English translation.

 

He expanded on the theme briefly by saying that an 11th-century theologian, Anselm of Canterbury, had spoken "in an almost prophetic way" as he "described a vision of what we witness today as a polluted world whose future is at risk."

In recent months, Benedict has spoken out increasingly about environmental concerns, and the Vatican has even purchased "carbon offsets," credits on the global market to compensate for carbon dioxide emissions, for the energy consumed in the world's smallest state, Vatican City.

 Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/world/europe/25pope.html?hp

Aerobic exercise = boost your brain memory!

Jogging your memory
By Anne Underwood | NEWSWEEK

Dec 10, 2007 Issue

excerpt:
"With a reasonable amount of effort, you can improve your memory 30 to 40 percent," says Dr. Barry Gordon, founder of the memory clinic at Johns Hopkins. In the past year, research has shed new light in particular on the benefits of both mental and physical activity. It's been known for a while that aerobic exercise increases levels of a brain chemical called BDNF, which encourages neurons to form new synapses and strengthen existing ones. "I call BDNF brain fertilizer," says Carl Cotman, director of the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia at UC Irvine. But in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this year, Small at Columbia showed that exercise in 11 volunteers did even more. Aerobic exercise—an hour a day, four days a week for three months—led to changes on brain scans that seemed to indicate the birth of new neurons in the hippocampus. "My lab members are dusting off their sneakers," he says.

Check out GreenDimes

Have you heard about GreenDimes?!

GreenDimes is the trusted leader in stopping junk mail and unwanted catalogs.  In the US alone, over 100 million trees and 28 billion gallons of water will be lost this year to create junk mail.  GreenDimes has stopped over 2 million pounds of junk mail, and planted over 350,000 trees, all in just over a year.

GreenDimes cuts up to 90% of your home's junk mail and plants 10 trees through our non-profit tree-planting partners, all for a one-time fee of $15.  Included is our easy-to-use Catalog Screener where you only opt out the catalogs that you want stopped.   We have over 3,000 different catalogs in our opt-out database.

To save even more trees and simplify your friends' lives, please create a GreenDimes account and refer your friends from the GreenDimes Friends page.  You will get a $5 Referral Bonus for every person who signs up for a GreenDimes service.

Also, read our fun and informative green blog at http://blog.greendimes.com

GreenDimes makes a great inexpensive holiday gift!
http://www.greendimes.com

Cut your junk mail up to 90%
and we plant 10 trees!

Just click to help!

Just click on a link at The Hunger Site and a donation goes to charitable groups that work on issues like child health, breast cancer or animal welfare. It costs you nothing. Just look at the ads.

The Hunger Site

This, the original click-to-donate site, is the perfect gift for those of us with literally no holiday shopping budget at all. If you can't buy a holiday heifer on behalf of your best friend, you can send a New Year's note to everyone on your email list telling them about this site, which receives sponsorship from advertisers in return for delivering users who will see their ads.

It's almost too simple to be true, but trust us — it is: All one does is click a button on the Hunger Site once per day, and that click results in a donation equivalent to 1.1 cups of food to needy families in impoverished countries. Most recently, the charities that have delivered the food are America's Second Harvest and Mercy Corps, which this year distributed the equivalent of more than 500 million cups of staple food as a result of the daily clicks from concerned citizens worldwide.

Visit the Hunger Site at www.thehungersite.com; then — even if you never give Christmas or Chanukah gifts — forward the link to everyone you know, with a "Happy Holiday!" greeting that will keep on giving.

OTHER IDEAS FOR HOLIDAY GIFTS: http://www.fineliving.com/fine/favorite_things/article/0,1663,FINE_1425_5732445,00.html

Clorox buys Burt's Bees

I don't know if any of you use Burt's Bees products, but please be aware that they were bought out by Clorox, who, notoriously uses animal testing on it's products.  Please take the time to encourage Clorox to maintain the integrity of Burt's Bees original policy not to test any of it's products on animals,AND, if possible to discontinue animal testing all together.  Whole Foods informed me today that Burt's Bees did NOT sign a contract to maintain the integrity of this product, so if you begin to see Burt's Bees products in your local grocery isle, in a big display, as I did tonight in Safeway, know that they are now part of the Clorox Bleach clan.