There’s a lot of dire green news out there. Species dying. Glaciers shrinking. Fish better off snorkeling than breathing their own water.

So, when a book comes along that paints a sunrise on the smog-choked horizon, it merits a look.  Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Humes brings us Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet. In a nod to the Rockefeller and Carnegie-type Robber Barons who drove the Industrial Revolution, “eco barons” refers to the band of visionaries who are using their wealth, energy and celebrity to push the world in a green direction.

There’s Douglas Tompkins, the former founder and CEO of the Esprit fashion empire who uses his fortune to preserve Patagonian rainforest. There’s Roxanne Quimby, the founder of Burt’s Bees, who sold her stake on her multi-million dollar cosmetics empire to save the great Maine Woods. But not all the eco barons are wealthy emperor-types. There’s Terry Tamminen, a former pool boy who is now the head of the California EPA and Carole Allen, a single mother, who has marshaled an army of schoolchildren to save endangered turtles from extinction by fishing fleets.

Through inspiring stories of individuals making a difference, Humes presents a timely and hopeful book. Worth a read.

Ah, Earth Day!

A time when the world joins hands to celebrate the rise of eco-awareness and spread the message across the globe!

Or – a time for folk to switch off the lights for a bit, plant a tree and smugly pat themselves on the back that they’ve fixed the planet for another year! (Global warming is still going on? Must be all those slackers who left their lights burning).

So, which of these is the Earth Day we know? Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, the latter is more and more likely as time goes on. That’s the thing about novelty: it only happens once. The impact gets softer, the message gets diluted, and after a while it’s less of a wake-up call than a Snooze button.

Our friends at Grist are so worried about Earth Day and the law of diminishing returns that they’ve formulated a pithy new philosophy. It goes like this:

Screw Earth Day.

Earth Day raised the eco movement to the next level. It bridged the gap between government and grass-roots, and it was influential in the development of the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency.

But it’s been running for nearly forty years. It’s not an Event anymore. And Grist believes that because it’s just a yearly festival, it does precious little to change our habits – and anyway, what difference can one day (especially Earth Day) really make?

“One day is for amateurs. We can do better.”

– Chip Giller, Grist

It’s not about looking green. It’s about being green. Eco-friendliness isn’t a New Year’s resolution – it’s discovering a new lifestyle, bit by bit. It’s about lasting change, not gimmicks. For example, why not make Earth Hour last all year round so we can truly rediscover the dark?

If you’re looking for inspiration, we’ve got over a year’s worth of eco tips for you right here, but we can also recommend having a read of Grist’s brilliant and award-winning Wake Up And Smell The Planet, available for free here (free registration required) – and you’re even entered to win tickets to Bonnaroo.

How has Earth Day changed your outlook on the environment? And is Earth Day worth saving?

Image: James Jordan

A couple of days ago I revisited my childhood and caught up with my old friends Dr. Seuss and the Lorax. It was the least I could do, seeing that it was Dr. Suess’s 105th birthday. Of course, he is no longer with us, but The Lorax lives on and should be required reading for anyone aged from 1 to 101 or more.

You do remember the Lorax, don’t you? If not, let me remind you about this character created by Dr. Seuss in 1971. A strange gopher-like creature with a fluffy blond mustache and a sheepish smile, the Lorax battles a greedy businessman named Once-ler who arrives in the forest, builds a huge factory and then fells all the Trufulla trees to create a new product he thinks everyone needs.

He chops and he chops til there are no trees left, despite the Lorax’s warnings that without the Truffula trees, the forest will disappear. And disappear it did, for Once-ler would not stop and in the end the wildlife and the Lorax just had to leave.

The Lorax was ahead of its time with its story of environmental destruction and deforestation. It certainly is now considered a green classic – for kids and adults, too.

Last year, The Lorax was re-released on Earth Day, complete with a special environmental message and printed on recycled paper. The Lorax Project, a child-friendly interactive web site designed to raise awareness of green issues and inspire everyone to be more earth-friendly, was also launched.

Having re-introduced you to the Lorax, it’s only fair you hear what he says in the end…

“Unless
someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.”

Last month, Mike introduced us all to the Ditty Bops and their fabulous Grammy-nominated popup album. The Ditties have a deceptively innocent sound that combines gorgeous harmonies with a fierce environmental message. Their live shows are part kids’ variety show and part musical circus, mixing in genres as diverse as acoustic folk, bluegrass, and jazz. They’re both absolutely beautiful and hip, but devoid of any annoying hipster ennui. They have an inherent sweetness that makes them approachable. The shows are highly interactive pieces of art with puppets, story telling, costumes, props, and plenty of politics.

The title song of their new album, Summer Rains, has a lazy Hawaiian twang and notes as light as air, but the message is a heavy one about global warming. Their environmental cred is serious. The pair once toured the United States by bicycle and were instrumental in pushing San Francisco’s plastic bag ban. They married one another last fall. Congratulations Abby and Amanda! We recently we caught up with the Ditty duo and asked them a few questions about their music and their lives together.

Tell us how you went about concepting and designing the album and the process for actually getting it made.

We love popup books and wanted to make a popup CD. We thought since we are already producing this independent of a record label, and since most CD art bores us, and many people download songs from iTunes or illegally, we thought if we made some beautiful packaging art to go along with the music it would give people a good reason to buy it.

First we contacted a handful of paper engineers. There aren’t that many but we found someone in Los Angeles, Renee Jablo. We worked with her and our graphic designer, Rick Whitmore in designing the vision that we had. Finding green printers who can assemble popups is not easy.  But we did find someone to do it in California. It is much more expensive than doing it in China or Korea, which is where most popups are assembled, but it was important to us.

Who are your musical inspirations and why?

Abby: Inspiration changes for me moment to moment – the radical street art of Skateboarders, a book I pulled from the shelf at a new age bookstore, my childhood stuffed animals, the mystique of 1930s movie stars.

Things that were once inspiring can go flat. I think it’s wonderful and essential to really be honest about what excites you.

How long have you been playing music together and how did the partnership start?

We are lovers in life and life is our art project. 10 years ago our partnership began. We play music and create all sorts of spontaneous art in between.

What was your best gig ever?

Abby: The best gig ever was when I walked top-free for 5 miles through the streets of Los Angeles. It was truth to me. It was beautiful. I had enough of seeing men hiking my favorite trails on 95-degree days without shirts. One day I counted 12 shirtless men in one hour. That was it. I took my shirt off and walked. Amanda was with me and it was the best gig so far. It was also painfully revealing, not just in that my naked breasts were exposed to the world, that part was empowering beyond belief, but in the way our society says our women are free but we are chained. It was a transformative experience. I was singing and screaming life.

I’ve heard that you have lived in LA without a car. Can you give readers tips for getting around LA (or any city) without driving?

Amanda: We live in West Hollywood”¦centrally located, if you can say that about LA. We live in an area where there is a lot within walking distance so it is obviously a lot easier to get by without a car than for people who work far from their residence. We now have a car again. Abby was smacked by a car in November and broke her knee. She is walking again but we are not commuting as much by bicycle.

You turned your driveway into an edible garden. What’s growing there right now?

We have marjoram, thyme, rosemary, parsley, three kinds of sage, oregano, Swiss chard, baby lettuces, strawberries, edible flowers for garnishing salads, a tangerine tree that had five little fruits this winter, a lime tree that had one lime, and a lot of succulents.

Because I write about food and I know you think it’s important, I want to know what 3 edibles are always in your refrigerator.

We love yogurt. We always eat it. We were getting this really great raw goat yogurt from a raw foods club in Venice. Raw almond butter we love. We use it in desserts and also on celery as a snack. And we have sprouted toast with avocado. We always have a lot of people coming and going from our place and they love avocado on sprouted toast so we gotta have it for them.

Listen and buy here.

Images: Norman Jean Roy, Sachi Kato, courtesy of The Ditty Bops

A nearly $800 billion stimulus package passed by our lawmakers contains incentives for we the people not just to follow our hearts, but also good common sense in preparing for the future that awaits us.

The thinking is reducing energy waste and investing in alternative fuels go hand-in-hand with reviving our anemic economy.

The package goes a long way to target energy waste in federal buildings and homes across the country. $5 billion is set aside to help low-income families weatherize their living spaces with energy saving windows and improved insulation.

Another $4.5 billion is targeted for retrofitting government buildings to make them more energy efficient. According to Reuters, this could save $2 billion a year in lower energy costs. It also provides $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects and electricity transmission projects. Renewable energy is energy we generate from natural resources, including sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat. Related to this is the package’s $11 billion in loan guarantees to build a “smart grid” to move renewable electricity supplies and build 3,000 miles of transmission lines ($400 billion less than what Al Gore proposed to make this happen). The package also extends tax credits for producing power generated from alternative sources.

Naturally, hybrids also are part of the picture, encouraging the purchase of plug-in hybrid vehicles through a tax credit of at least $2,500 for consumers. Car makers are give the nudge with $2 billion to sell advanced batteries for vehicles, and gas station service owners would see a credit for 50 percent of their cost for putting in alternative pumps that dispense ethanol and other fuel choices. Meantime, the research for more fuels would bet a boost from $3.4 billion for fossil energy study and development and $2.5 million for researching renewable energy. And we consumers would receive rebates for buying greener appliances via $300 million in state matching grants.

All of this amounts to converting the lip service of past legislation into real action. According to Wikipedia, investment capital flowing into renewable energy climbed from $80 billion in 2005 to a record $100 billion in 2006. The dramatic surge is attributed to climate change concerns, high oil prices and increased government support – all factors in creating renewable energy legislation that can actually make a dent on our road to recovery.

Image: Hammer51012

Geoengineering. Now there’s a word to make you shiver.

We’ve had an unhappy history of manipulating our environment for our own benefit – or rather, successful for us in the short term. The shift from shortsighted plundering of natural resources to informed scientific trials – the exciting new field of applied ecology – has been a painful one, littered with devastating blunders that are still going on. But will it allow us to correct those mistakes?

This week a report from the England’s University of East Anglia, led by Tim Lenton, Professor in Earth System Science, concluded that the myriad methods of geoengineering could complement conservation techniques around the globe, although they alone couldn’t halt global warming. These techniques could include: the use of oceanic algae blooms to absorb C02 and the artificial stimulation of other natural carbon sinks; solar radiation management such as increasing the amount of reflective – or at least non-absorbing – material on and above the planet’s surface, such as making clouds reflect more sunlight by using fine water sprays, or most exotically, using space mirrors; and the creation of highly fertile soils by lacing them with charcoal, nicknamed “biochar“.

It’s a controversial topic, and to many hardline environmentalists, a very hard sell. Hasn’t anthropogenic climate change caused all our problems in the first place? Aren’t the stakes too high, the results too unpredictable? Or do the Earth sciences and our industrial ingenuity hold some of the answers we so desperately need?

School children across America, like the this group from Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco, gathered to sing songs like This Land is your Land and watch a historic moment in our history. Cheering, high-fiving and hugging, they celebrated not only the inauguration but a victory they badly need as a generation that has inherited a planet in peril and debt from sea to shining sea. The reiterated message has been clear: If someone with Barack Obama’s beginnings can end up as president, we can accomplish anything.

“When I grew up in D.C. it was a segregated city and today, we are swearing in the first African American president of the United States,” Brandeis Middle School head Neal Biskar told the students and parents crowded in the gym.

Many of those parents, like myself, grew up believing we shared a struggle with Black Americans. Jews were instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement, walking arm-in-arm with protesters in the South, and before that, forming the NAACP and Urban League. At the summer camps I attended, songs like We Shall Overcome and If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus were viewed as American anthems. Indeed, we shared a collective consciousness as survivors who have overcome great odds.

A day later, as I watched the national prayer service in Washington the music led me to tears, even though it wasn’t my music. The Rev. Sharon Watkins, the first woman to deliver the event’s sermon, urged the President to make the right choices, loving God by loving one’s neighbors. “Lead us there, Mr. President, she said. “That is a journey worth pursuing.”

While we all know the economy is his first stop on that journey, our country’s top environmentalists have suggested what should be done in the President’s first 100 days on the job to address our energy woes and move towards a sustainable future The green agenda, provided by Alternet, includes these steps:

• Stimulate the economy through investments in clean energy technology, energy efficiency, green-collar jobs, and training.
• Lay the groundwork for legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050.
• Work with Congress to end tax incentives and subsidies for high carbon-emitting technologies and projects.
• Enact mandates that 20 percent of the nation’s electricity come from renewable power by 2020 and at least 30 percent by 2030.
• Instruct the Securities and Exchange Commission to require publicly traded companies to disclose the risks and opportunities they face from climate change.
• Institute financial reforms to require honest accounting of the financial risks that companies and investors face from climate change and other sustainability threats.
• Direct the EPA to issue California’s clean car waiver, allowing it and 18 other states to implement stringent fuel efficiency standards.
• Re-engage and provide strong leadership in the international climate negotiation process.

It’s easy to see our President has his work cut out for him, perhaps inheriting more on his plate than any other American leader. Still, we have to think about what those school children will inherit if we don’t get the work done. Loving our neighbors can mean so many things, including caring for the land as a global community and exporting good will and food rather than weapons to those in need. Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall be the country we want to be.

As the eco-friendly movement matures and embeds into mainstream culture, the power of green iconography diminishes ““ and the greenwashers will move on. It’s already happening. The Law of Diminishing Returns tells us that the more companies try to Green up their act, the less unique it becomes as a sales pitch. Increasingly, being environmentally friendly isn’t a luxury ““ it’s a requirement.

That’s bad news for advertisers dealing in promoting the uniqueness of their products, notes Rebecca Swift for the BBC’s Green Room. And the imagery is becoming tired too: Swift’s team undertook a year’s research into Green advertising and found the two most popular colors ““ Kelly (or Kermit!) Green and Forest Green ““ being used to epidemic proportions. With the novelty worn off and, in Swift’s words, “out of the propaganda phase”, what happens?

First, green products get a lot more interesting. When the novelty value simply won’t carry it, the emphasis shifts to quality (aesthetic and utilitarian). Products become better than their competitors by being better. It’s the right climate for truly deluxe, truly eco-friendly consumerism, and good news all round. Second – and this is just my take – those companies who’ve authentically been green from the start will have earned something to show for it. Trust.
And third? Greenwashing slumps in favor of the Next Big Color”¦.

>“Environmentalism 2.0 is all about the planet and water. Those are blue images. We’re not saying green is going away “” it’s just going to be a subset of blue.” ““ Ann Mack, in Penelope Green’s Flash In The Can, New York Times.

Beware the bluewashers?