In the spirit of Halloween, as we depart into that space between the living and the dead to fight werewolves and suck blood, we must beware of the Energy Vampires lurking in our homes.
Here’s a note from Energy Secretary (Energy Vampire Slayer-in-Chief?) Steven Chu:
“To date, there is no scientific evidence about the existence of Zombies, but what about vampires? Actually, when it comes to energy, they are all too real. “Vampire appliances” – from DVD players to stereos to desktop computers — suck up energy even when they are turned off. In fact, these vampires are responsible for adding 10 percent or more to your monthly electricity bill.
Garlic doesn’t work against these vampires. But by taking some simple steps – like using power strips or setting your computer to go into sleep mode – you can protect yourself, and your wallet. Learn more here: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=about.vampires”
“The average U.S. household spends $100 per year to power devices while they are off (or in standby mode). On a national basis, standby power accounts for more than 100 billion kilowatt hours of annual U.S. electricity consumption and more than $10 billion in annual energy costs.”
Joel Francis, the Cal State senior who challenged billionaire Charles Koch to meet him “anytime, anywhere in the state before election day” to debate Prop 23, shows up tomorrow afternoon at the office of Koch Industries in Wichita, Kansas.
Ding-dong.
“Hello?”
“Yes, this is Joel Francis, California resident and concerned citizen. On behalf of millions of young Californians, I’m here to talk with Charles about why he is meddling with our democracy by funding a proposition that would roll back progress on climate action and cause billions of dollars in new clean energy technology and green jobs to dry up. Is he in?”
“Yes. Just a moment, he’ll be right down.”
Then Joel proceeds to demolish Koch in a debate that is aired during prime-time in front of millions of eyeballs.
Here’s the challenge:
Well, it might now go down like that, but we’ll find out soon.
Joel is part of Power Vote CA, a project of the California Student Sustainability Coalition. The network of thousands of students are urging Californians to pledge No on 23. Opponents of Prop 23 have dubbed it the “Dirty Energy Proposition“ because both out-of-state oil companies and the billionaire Koch brothers (via Flint Resources) have chipped in most of the millions behind this attempt to kill clean energy investments and green jobs creation in California.
Alec Loorz, founder of Kids vs. Global Warming, began his career as a climate change activist when he was 12 years old. You read that right, 12! That’s when he saw Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” that “changed his life forever.” He became so moved that he has been speaking truth to power, organizing and empowering youth, and speaking to large audiences ever since. He’s now a junior in high school and a winner of a Brower Youth Award.
At Bioneers 2010 last weekend Loorz announced the iMatter March planned for Mother’s Day, May 8, 2011. He called it a “million kid march” for climate and energy action. He is calling on youth and supporters from all around the nation to organize and turn out on Mother’s Day to raise awareness about climate destabilization, our relationship with the biosphere, and to call for strong action on energy. Loorz understands that it is his generation that will have to live with the decisions made by today’s so-called leaders.
Alec believes that “youth have a unique sense of moral authority on this issue. It’s our planet now. And we are going to have to grow up and face the consequences of what the world does, or fails to do.”
If you haven’t had a chance to hear Alex Loorz speak, do yourself a favor and watch the TED talk video below. Loorz is a powerhouse of youthful exuberance and a born leader. It’s hard not to get pumped up by Loorz’s talk of revolution and a new way of living.
Next month iMatter will be launching a global map for organizers to register their actions and providing tools for leaders to turn their marches into reality. You can also get the iMatter app to help connect youth from around the world to one another and coordinate actions.
Join the LCEA for an open house/fundraiser to benefit the The Clean Energy Tour, a series of solar-powered concerts, press conferences, and student leadership trainings throughout California utilizing music, arts and culture to stop the Dirty Energy Prop. The tour is the largest transmedia GOTV (Get Out The Vote) event in this election and features hip hop legends Pete Rock and CL Smooth. It’s the official tour of the Communities United Against the Dirty Energy Proposition coalition, which includes over eighty social and environmental justice groups across California.
This will be your opportunity to meet and socialize with members of the Alliance while enjoying a light meal and supporting this historic music tour to stop Prop 23. This event is open to the public and we encourage all members of the Local Clean Energy Alliance to participate.
To RSVP please contact brenna@baylocalize.org
NO on Prop 23
When: Thursday, October 21, 6-8 pm
Where: Oakland Historic Building
436 14th Street (at Broadway) in Downtown Oakland (12th Street BART station)
Light refreshments and finger food
Each guest will receive a free ticket to the San Francisco Green Festival!
Once again, the 3-day Bioneers mother-ship has landed and departed, and a thousand pods of social and environmental change have dispersed across the globe, refreshed and re-energized. Or to use the less technological metaphor by Janine Benyus, founder of the Biomimicry Institute,
“This is kind of a seasonal migration ceremony, Bioneers. If we were migrating birds, this would be our staging ground, where we come and talk about what we have hatched this year and what breeding was like.”
The Bioneers Conference, hosted in San Rafael, CA on what is the ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok, is a leading-edge forum presenting breakthrough solutions for people and planet. Over its twenty-one years Bioneers has become a global community of some of the most dedicated, passionate, and creative thinkers and leaders facilitating a wiser way forward for the earth community.
Farmers, students, social justice workers, scientists, artists, musicians, writers, entrepreneurs, indigenous leaders, environmental activists, peacemakers, and a motley assortment of engaged citizens come together to learn, network, and re-energize their efforts in creating a just and resilient world. The topics discussed range from organic farming, green chemistry, and women in the media to cross-cultural education, traditional indigenous knowledge, and local democracy.
The experience is as intellectually stimulating as it is personally transformational. Over the next few days I will be discussing some of the most visionary and exciting projects, ideas, and people at Bioneers, including the Million Kid March, the new shift in environmental and community protection using a rights-of-nature framework that is taking root across the world, the Dreaming New Mexico local foodshed & fair trade work, the One World Youth Project that is creating a new paradigm for cross-cultural education, new models of clean energy, the transformation of urban landscapes and the work of Andy Lipkus and the TreePeople, Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots programs in 120 countries, the heroic ethnographic work of Elizabeth Kapu’uwailani Lindsey, the first female fellow of the National Geographic Society, and the move to amend the constitution to limit corporate person-hood and restore free speech for people alone.
Here I want to highlight what I take to be some of its core themes and messages and hopefully in the process capture some of the spirit of Bioneers.
1) Urgency of Action: All the signals from the biosphere and indicators from our body and economy are in: the time is past due for massive shifts in how we do things.
“This moment beckons us all to think big,” said Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons. “To match all we are each capable of with the needs of a planet” in peril.
Another panelist, Ami Marcus from Mt. Shasta, whose community is fighting corporate raiding of their water and manipulation of their weather, said, “It is not enough to feel it here,” she said, pointing to her heart, “we must codify it in our structures on the ground.”
And that takes the hard work of speaking out, organizing, speaking face to face with our neighbors about the issues, of challenging the status quo, saying yes to things not yet born but are in our imaginations, not accepting no, and of not waiting on leaders to come. It means scaling up the work we are doing already. It means moving beyond bumper sticker activism and clicktivism.
Bioneers co-founder Kenny Ausubel invoked Winston Churchill: “It’s no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”
The Four Years. Go campaign was presented, a global effort to awaken the best of our collective awareness and action. It is based on the premise that what we do or don’t do in the very short term will effect generations to come and that we have the solutions at hand, but we need all hands on deck. The mission is to empower “individuals and organizations to set and reach goals that will cause a positive global tipping point by 2014, setting humanity on a new path toward a socially just, environmentally sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling future.” As the video suggests, it is not a new organization, it represents goals for every organization.
We are urged to plug-in, co-create, and act with fierce determination. We are the leaders. As one speaker urged, “Whatever you do, wherever you are, find a way to be ever more involved.” Continue reading »
Founder Kenny Ausubel coined the word bioneers in 1990 to describe “an emerging culture of social and scientific innovators who are mimicking nature’s operating instructions to serve human ends while enriching the web of life.”
Of course I’ll be following up with a report back of the most inspiring and exciting ideas and projects.
RT @plantingjustice: Still time to register for an intensive aquaponics course in Oakland! Please join us!
Friendly Aquaponics, from... ht… 5 hours ago
In the spirit of Halloween, as we depart into that space between the living and the dead to fight werewolves and suck blood, we must beware of the Energy Vampires lurking in our homes.
