This is a piece I recently wrote on my blog Greendig. I think its important because it demonstrates how corporations can actually take the lead in the environmental movement.

For decades, the green movement has misplaced its focus on a question of failed policy: “when will government agencies step in and force companies to be more green?” This question of policy misses the boat. Yes, government incentives are important, but many corporations are voluntarily driving change simply because it makes great business sense.   Read more...

Check out this new book, The Tactics of Hope (www.TacticsofHope.org), which inspires and supports individuals by providing strategies and tactics that will help transform personal concerns into meaningful actions that address critical personal, social and environmental challenges.

It tells 27 stories, in their own words, of individuals from around the world - as diverse as the Amazon Rainforest, Himalayan Mountains, New Orleans, and Silicon Valley - who have succeeded in moving from passion to action around a social or environmental challenge, creating solutions and opportunities that are innovative, business-oriented, and often profitable.   Read more...

When Melissa Etheridge and Junoon performed last December at the Nobel Peace prize ceremony in Oslo, we were doing sound checks before the show at the Oslo Spectrum in Norway. Listening to her sing just from a few feet away, I was blown away by the power of Melissa's voice and the unity of vibrations contained in it. She gave me goosebumps. Later that evening Al Gore and the Nobel peace prize gathering of Hollywood stars and moguls, rock stars, King, Queen, Prince, Princess of Norway's, politicians, business leaders and environmentalists all agreed with my observation.   Read more...

It's been over a month now that I've been on this quest to spy joy (ispyjoy.com) and I've noticed a few things.

1) Joy is most easily and most often found in children. Children are quick to run and laugh and play. They do not hesitate to have a good time. I used to think this was because they aren't worn down by the pressures and stress we adults shoulder every day. That's not fully true. Children have their own pressure and stress and although we can see missing recess for a day is a trifle, to them it's monumental. The difference is they let it go. They sulk and pout for 20 or even 40 minutes, but then it's gone and forgotten and they've found another game to play. And children are transparent: feel joy, smile and laugh; feel sad, cry and pout.   Read more...

Bharat Renewable Energy, a firm based in India, announced today that it will invest up to $480m in the development of more than a million acres of jatropha plantations in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Ode predicted back in July of 2007 that jatropha held more promise as alternative fuels than corn and sugarcane. Jatropha grows rapidly in even the most arid climates, requires little in the way of fertilizers or other agricultural input, reverses desertification and produces valuable byproducts after the fuel is extracted. Moreover, it can yield up to 1,000 barrels of biodiesel from a single square mile of otherwise inhospitable cropland each year. It also required no annual replanting as it is a shrub that lives 40 to 50 years, and it is a low-energy consumer

This fall, step into the lives of an estimated 42 million people worldwide who have fled their homes to seek refuge from war or conflict in places such as Sudan, Colombia, and Iraq. "A refugee camp in the heart of the city" is an outdoor, interactive exhibit organized by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Experienced aid workers (doctors, nurses, and logisticians) will guide visitors through an outdoor reconstruction of a refugee camp, asking them to imagine that war has broken out in their home town. Visitors learn how refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) confront the challenges that threaten their survival, including those of building shelter, finding food and clean water, and enduring disease.   Read more...

Craig McNamara reads from the California Agricultural Vision Policy Statement while Alice Waters' outlines her school lunch plan in a panel at the Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco, CA on Aug 30th, 2008. Both policies use sustainable agricultural practices, but differ in interesting ways.   Read more...

Water is something we take for granted here in the US - so much so that we pay for it when we can get it for free. Instead of buying bottled water we should be focused on cutting down our own consumption and using that money instead to bring clean drinking water to nations that have for too long been taking dirty, bacteria-laden water home for cooking, drinking and cleaning because no other option exists.

Thankfully, someone is doing something about it in a big way. Charity:water founder Scott Harrison began the September campaign last year to encourage people to give much needed funds to his new non-profit rather than give him gifts on his birthday. This year, the stakes have been raised. Hundreds of people are asking the same thing of their friends and relatives. Over $800,000 has been raised - but the work isn't done!   Read more...

I’m not an economist, but I, like many Americans, have been trying to understand and develop a cogent opinion about the economic crisis we are facing. A $700 billion dollar taxpayer bailout of Wall Street investment firms doesn’t sit well, although I’m convinced that speedy action is necessary to avert economic collapse. During the great depression, President Roosevelt offered the United States a new deal; he did not bail out Wall Street.

Our country’s infrastructure is in shambles. We face a desperate need to develop clean, viable energy sources. We need more schools and more humane educators so that classes are reasonably-sized, and students receive the education that will help them become citizen problem-solvers. We need more farmers producing food in a sustainable and organic manner. And people need jobs in order to pay their mortgages.   Read more...

Last May, Ode featured a story called "I defeat my enemy when I make him my friend where we featured Simon Atem, who escaped a civil war in his native Sudan at the age of seven. Now 19, he has moved to Calgary with a mission to go back to Sudan one day to build a school where kids can learn the difference between right and wrong to prevent what had happened to him years ago.

His dream has finally come true! Simon Madhol Atem and several volunteers from the For Love of Children Society will be leaving for Aweng, Sudan on Friday, October 3 to begin Phase 1 of the construction of the school in his home village and to reunite with his family. Thanks to the support of the many staff and students, they have raised more than $40,000 for Simon to go back home to build his school.   Read more...