Greenest City in the World and more...

As of now will be London. Over the next 20 years, they plan to cut their carbon emissions by 60 percent:

read more about their comprehensive plan

Al Gore demonstrates how one can convert their home to Green power:

Gore purchased 108 blocks of “green power” for at least each of the last three months, according to a summary of bills from Nashville Electric Service.

That’s a total of $432 a month spent to pay extra for solar or other renewable energy sources. NES power – outside this program - is derived largely from coal, which emits carbon, a green house gas.

The green power purchased by Gore in those three months is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans, or recycling 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on the utility's Web site.


(Of course, you can conserve more than Mr. Gore by not driving an SUV (hybrid or not) and having an enormous home to heat)

You can easily save the environment by:
-carpooling
-walk or biking riding to local stores
-buying local products (save on carbon emission from trucks would otherwise need to bring in goods from other areas of the country)
-using energy saver light bulbs
-recycling bottles, cans, paper
-picking up trash, instead of just stepping over it

UNCENSORED-Another artist againt the war...kinda

My friend showed me this video today, by Madonna, entitled, "American Life." Essentially, she is bashing not only the war our president started, but the way some of our more wasteful, self-centered, American citizens live, while also giving an accurate view of the pain and death that war causes.

Quite a truthful look at the situation, filmed even before the war started. Unfortunately, she did not release it in 2003, stating that it would be disrespectful to the troops.

Actually, you know what is disrespectful to the troops? Sending the off to die in a war that was started by lies.


Anyway, check it out: American Life

Art is Resistance

It is very exciting when artists, in any medium, use their power and popularity to project a positive message. Especially like the one that Trent Reznor is spreading as a precursor to his new album "Year Zero." All over the world, Reznor is leaving little clues that magnify the shift into totalitarianism in America. Added up, it's a call for a revolution, of non-violent resistance and art.

Check out Art is Resistance

and the message board for more details, clues and revelations.

See you in the frontlines.

why teaching for tests DOES NOT WORK

Apparently, students test scores are rising, but their ability to read is declining (see article )

Why? Because now teachers are so preoccupied with meeting the National Standards (set by President Bush, who, as one of my fifth graders fondly recalled, was a C student), that they are teaching specifically for the tests, and not for the students.

So, instead of releasing well rounded individuals into the world, we are sending out adults who are only capable of regurgitating "facts" and have no capacity to think beyond the box or question what they are told. But this is to be expected when politicians and corporations are running the show. All they are concerned with are profit and products. In this case, our dumbed down students are the product, becoming the malleable workforce of tomorrow, reaping in ridiculously high profits for our CEOs, while their own children are run through the same appalling education system.


The only way to end this is to take education back into the hands of the community, the teachers, the parents, and most importantly, the children.

Here is a great essay on this topic by Jonathan Taylor Gatto, former teacher, now turned education activist: Against School

Or if you really want to make a difference, get into the education system and help us change it from the inside out!!!I can guarantee some good professors here: Undergrad/Graduate Studies in Education
Or check out the Complete Listing of Colleges offering Educational Studies

Union of Concerned Scientists

Urge the U.S. Department of Agriculture to fulfill its responsibility for protecting our food by banning drug-producing safflower and other “pharma” food crops grown outdoors. Send a letter here: Keep Drugs out of our Food


And here is another letter to send, courtesy of the Union of Concerned Scientists, urging the Bush Administration not to produce new nuclear weapons: No New Nuclear Weapons

French President calls for revolution?

President Jacques Chirac opened a Paris conference on world environmental governance with a call for a green "revolution" to meet the challenges of global warming.

"Soon will come a day when climate change escapes all control. We are on the verge of the irreversible," Chirac told the meeting.

United Nations scientific report on global warming.

"Faced with this emergency, the time is not for half measures. The time is for a revolution -- a revolution of consciousness, a revolution of the economy. A revolution of political action."

Chirac opened the two-day gathering flanked by

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the UN General Assembly Sheikha Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa and Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I.

"Our international political system is inadequate for dealing with the vital challenge of the 21st century -- the question of the environment," Chirac told the gathering of some 200 delegates, including environment ministers and scientists from more than 50 countries.

Warning that "in this area too, unilateralism leads to a dead-end," Chirac argued that the existing UN Environment Programme should be transformed into a full-blown United Nations Environment Agency (UNEA), with more far-reaching powers and greater means.

"This UNEA will carry the environmental conscience of the world," he said. "With a strong political mandate... it will give greater strength, greater coherence to our common action."

Chirac said the Paris conference aimed to build a coalition of support for the creation of such an agency, an idea widely backed in Europe but opposed by the United States, as well as emerging powers Brazil, China and India.

"We are, and rightly so, proud of our intelligence and our technical achievements. But in the space of a few centuries we have burned resources accumulated over millions of years," he told the gathering.

"We are destroying eco-systems that sheltered a biodiversity lost for ever, depriving ourselves of vital keys for the future. We know all this: so what are we waiting for to take the necessary measures?" he asked.

He called for a "radical transformation of our methods of production and consumption," calling for a break with past technologies and a massive shift towards clean energies such as solar power, and bio-energy.

"But to do so we need clear and loyal rules of competition. Either the international community works to create them, or we face 'ecological war'," he warned.

He said the effort must be "fairly shared," saying "northern countries, first to build their wealth on the mass exploitation of natural resources, must accept their responsibilities."

The assessment released on Friday by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said global warming was almost certainly caused by humans, and carbon pollution disgorged this century would disrupt the climate system for 1,000 years to come.