Recycled Electrons

September 2005    #60
 

Thanks to Solomon, Norma, Terry, Julie, Noel, Doris, and Janine!

 

Cool Vehicles for Hot Times
Thanks to Solomon Harvey

Tired of gas price fluctuations?  Buy one of these!

Just click the link below...

 

 

 

Wanted to buy:  fuel efficient hatchback/wagon with power steering ($100 - $2000)  Please call me at 517-336-7840. 

 

 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF PEACE
Bill Re-introduction:  September 14th, 2005
from Julie Woodward

http://www.thepeacealliance.org/main.htm

On September 14th, 2005, legislation to establish a U.S. Department of Peace will be re-introduced in the House of Representatives. We need your help to show our elected officials that there is a broad and growing movement to support the creation of a Dept. of Peace. We must make it clear that we the people want our government to invest in the structures and systems necessary to promote a culture of nonviolence...  more here.

 

Walk-Up Call
from Norma Bauer

In my certainly biased opinion, a higher price on gasoline is a good thing for a variety of reasons:

1. It will encourage people to walk.

2. It will encourage people to take public tranportation where available (CATA ridership is up).

3. It will encourage people to ride bikes, motorcycles, and use hybrid (gas-efficient) vehicles.

4. It will encourage people to stay home or move closer to their workplace.

5. it will encourage people to drive in fuel-efficient ways (no jackrabbit starts, etc.)

6. It will encourage manufacturers to build more gas-efficient vehicles.

7. Most of all, demand for cheaper transporation will cause urban planners to consider enhancements to public transportation. This, in turn, will help to meet the growing demand for it that comes from another sector: Baby Boomers who will age out of a population that can safely operate a motor vehicle.

It only seems like some kind of tragedy, folks. They call gas a non-renewable resource because there's only so much of it. Since our country seems to export its gas-guzzling ways to other parts of the world, the day has to come when we need to explore other ways of doing business and getting around. For some, it takes a crisis to act. Welcome, walk-up call, I say!

The perspective of a disability rights activist...

 

The Gasoline Song
from Janine Sinno and

(play this, with sound)

http://www.atomfilms.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=cant_afford_gas&track=0p
 

 

House for sale (on Mount Vernon Ave.) next door to me!  Hey, if you're looking for a house to buy in E. Lansing... check out this one.  I think it's listed in the mid-150's. Visit the neighborhood: www.southeastmarble.org
*SOLD*

 

 

Eco-Friendly Jute Bags from India
- from Doris Siegmann

http://www.jmalexander.com/

 

Sustainable Pittsburgh
wants to Green Everything

From Terry Link and a newsletter of Alan AtKisson

And why not? Pretty much everything needs it. Our long-time clients Sustainable Pittsburgh, a coalition NGO supported by a variety of regional foundations and dues-paying affiliates, has launched two action programs with potential for significant mainstream change.

First, their "Sustainable Communities 500" project aims to collect at least one example of a project or initiative supporting sustainable development in every single one of the over 500 towns and cities in the Southwestern Pennsylvania region. This cataloguing of good works is being sponsored in part by the State Government, and should help to make it clear that sustainability is not just something everybody can work toward ... it is something that nearly everybody is already working toward, in some way, everywhere in the region.

Their second project is more specific: an effort to help a local mall go green. After first building trust with the local mall management (which is not currently very green at all, but rather could be used as a poster-perfect example of typical American sprawl-mall), they began gathering a group of regional experts in energy, water, building, community engagement and the like. They will kick off the whole enterprise with a party first (very smart ... very Amoeba), and then the experts will go to work finding things the mall can do to become greener, more sustainable, and more profitable.

More at http://www.sustainablepittsburgh.org/ .

 

Quote of the Week
-By Daniel Mulhern (excerpt from "Reading for Leading")

"Schools, like workplaces, and like authorized leaders, create structure and order and system to promote work.  Yet these dimensions of order may not promote what we most need to foster.  Increasingly we're realizing that we need to foster a passion to learn in workers and students alike - not just people who have knowledge; computers have plenty of that.  And there's a big difference.  So the question must continually arise:  to what degree do our structures, systems, and order foster learning, and passion to learn?"

 

Stressed? 
from Noel Copiaco and Caroline Myss

This will help...Go to http://www.myss.com/vismed.asp# 
and click visual meditation.

 

Sep 10:  Radical Collaboration

attend the Sustainable Community Dialogue Series

 

Sep 21:  Scott Russell Sanders
Teaching for the Seventh Generation:
A Conservationist's Manifesto

Thanks to Terry Link

UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development lecture series. This is free and open to the public. Please post and share.
Please join us September 21, at 7:30 pm in 158 Natural Resources for Scott Russell Sanders and his address "Teaching for the Seventh Generation: A Conservationist's Manifesto"
 

Cool and Green Events

I'm developing a calendar of interesting, "green" events for an Intro to Alternative Energy Class I'm "facilitating" this term.  Please send me ideas or links to your calendar.  I'll post them at www.re-news.net/energy

 

 

Please send me your words of wisdom, thoughts, questions, and suggestions.

Thanks,

LeRoy

leroy@leroyharvey.net
www.leroyharvey.net