Hi All - I'd like to introduce you to an exciting initiative that I thought would interest this community, especially those involved in the nonprofit sector. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, obstacles faced by nonprofit organizations in achieving maximized social impact is money.

Ashoka's Citizen Base Initiative www.citizenbase.org works with these nonprofits and social entrepreneurs to free their reliance on traditional foundation grants and government aid by inspiring them to tap into a broad citizen base. How do they do this? You can read inspiring success stories on our website. Please pass this on to anyone you know who works in the nonprofit sector and faces this challenge of lack of resources!   Read more...

It's easy to be caught up in today's world problems. We are constantly reminded of terrorism, abuse, and greed. And, we don't have to look far to see their results.

Have you ever felt powerless over what's happening around you? It's easy to feel like that. What can one person do when so many others are acting crazy and insane? How can one person possibly do anything that could affect a change anywhere? It's hopeless for one person to do anything that might make a difference. Or, is it?   Read more...

The coolest new book out there is "We Think: Mass Innovation Not Mass Production" by Charlie Leadbeater, a British consultant who's been working on the very cool topic of self-organization. I interviewed him a year ago for a cover story in the May 2006 issue of Ode.

He was summarizing the idea of the "new spirit of collaboration" this way:   Read more...

Here is another brilliantly simple concept that is fun and useful at the same time. PlayPumps International's mission is help improve the lives of children and their families by providing easy access to clean drinking water, enhancing public health, and offering play equipment to millions across Africa. To do this they have created patented water pumps powered by children at play. While children have fun spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round, clean water is pumped from underground into a 2,500-liter tank, standing seven meters above the ground. A simple tap makes it easy for adults and children to draw water.   Read more...

Dear EarthTalk: As an online gamer, I spend a lot of time in front of my computer. What's the environmental impact? And are "greener" PCs available? -- Bob Grant, Burlington, VT

Online gamers and other heavy computer users are definitely leaving an environmental mark. Depending on when it was made and how it was designed, a standard desktop PC can use anywhere from 60-300 watts when in use, while an inefficient gaming PC with powerful graphics card, multiple hard drives and optical drives, flash memory reader and a 30-inch LCD might consume as much as 750 watts, or about as much as a typical refrigerator. Until July of 2007, government Energy Star requirements only measured a computer's energy use while in standby mode, which allowed the majority of brands to carry the label.   Read more...

A Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet flew yesterday from London to Amsterdam with one of its fuel tanks filled with a bio-jet blend including babassu oil and coconut oil.

Together with partners Boeing, GE Aviation and Imperium Renewables, Virgin Atlantic is helping to pioneer renewable fuel sources for aviation.   Read more...

For those who believe laughter is the best medicine, now there is a way to measure the dosage. Researchers at Kansai University have developed a machine that can scientifically measure the quantity of a person's laughter, as well as distinguish between the real and the fake.

Read full story: www.pinktentacle.com/2008/02/laughometer-measures-ah   Read more...

Going to School (www.goingtoschool.com) is a creative non-profit media trust that creates magical media to inspire children to change their lives by going to school.   Read more...

Alternative living styles are expressed in innumerable ways, today. The range could vary from neo-paleolithic to New Urbanist chic. An approach somewhere between the two is found in the Ecovillage Movement which focuses on lifestyles which can be sustainably maintained into the indefinite future. In an ecovillage neighborhood the edible landscape of a privacy buffer zone might consist of heirloom grains that are manually harvested which you grind as an ingredient for home made breads. Your indoor environment could be heated by a combination of passive solar design with lots of glass to invite the sun in to shine on rock for thermal mass, as well as a radiant in floor heating system that is wood powered via a 1093 deg C gasification chamber. These two images of landscape and home illustrate an important aspect of ecovillage thought. Take the best from past and the present and weave them into a sustainable matrix.   Read more...

Our world of senses is the world of effects. What works in each being produces an image in others just as plucking a string produces sound. Each being is a harpist on someone else's strings and at the same time a harp for someone else's fingers." -Robert Hamerling, poet, 1830-1889

The harp is an ancient instrument associated with healing, comfort and relief. Because of the unique qualities of the harp for healing, many harpists or musicians use the harp in healing situations and are designated as Certified Therapeutic Harp Practitioners.   Read more...

At Goonj, every inch of cloth is used, nothing is wasted. We experienced firsthand how this unique organization transforms one person's waste into a resource for another at the headquarters in New Delhi, India.   Read more...

Dear EarthTalk: Everybody says stop using plastic bags, but what about all the plastic, cellophane, cardboard and other materials used for packaging the food itself? What can we do to reduce how much of this unnecessary stuff comes wrapped around our food? -- Sunil Sreedharan, Mumbai, India

Yes, food packaging is a big problem in North America as well as elsewhere around the world, with landfills filling up and recyclers facing a glut of materials to process. It's hard to say just how much of the 130 million tons of paper, plastic and metals that get tossed or sorted for recycling in major U.S. cities is from food packaging, but the percentage is no doubt sizable. The main problem is in the psychology of marketing: Manufacturers know that products in big flashy-looking packages attract more buyers.   Read more...

Bhubaneswar, Feb 19 (IANS) Orissa will soon provide 24-hour free transport facilities to all expecting mothers for institutional delivery, a move that aims at reducing maternal deaths, an official said Tuesday.

The new initiative called 'Janani Express' will be implemented in 124 blocks of the state's 314 blocks next month onwards in the first phase, a health official told IANS.   Read more...

A global banking and investment firm has taken an unusual route to corporate environmental responsibility: through the promotion of bird-watching.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC), which has been running its

The Tesco (www.tesco.com/greenerliving) chain ($63 billion in revenue) sells Britons one quarter of their groceries, among other things. Its CEO, Terry Leahy, announced his firm will halve its energy use within two years. In that period it also intends to reduce all packaging by a quarter. It has launched a "Green Card" that rewards customers for green behaviors; it will dramatically reduce the number of products it moves by air, and will imprint airplane symbols on those that are flown. Perhaps most important, Tesco will develop a system of labels quantifying the life cycle carbon imprint for each of the 70,000 items Tesco carries.   Read more...

Exxon posts sets a new record for profits in 2007, the Water Cube embraces the idea of bubbles, and scientists clone cats that glow in the dark.   Read more...

Just recently I got an e-mail from a friend asking me to participate in the European Parliament petition. Here is the story:

'It costs European taxpayers approximately 200 million euros a year to move the Parliament once a month from Brussels/Belgium and Strasbourg/France and vica versa.   Read more...

Villagers in tiny communities including Guayabo, Sawacito and Mahor, in the rainforest of northeastern Honduras, used to take part in the rampant illegal trade in mahogany, but recently they have formed a cooperative and learned to harvest the prized wood in sustainable ways. Now, they mostly use trees that have fallen naturally or harvest them in a sustainable way from around the fringes of the nearby Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, and remove planks from the forest, first on their backs, then on muleback to avoid the disruption caused by heavy machinery.

Read full story: web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/itw-honduras-tt0213.html   Read more...

In December I read one of the "Letters to the editor" that appeared in an issue of Ode where Chia Seed was mentioned. I did some online research and decided to order some to try and felt a difference in energy right away. I had also seen online that Chia seeds helps eye infections, so because I have dry eyes I started putting one Chia seed inside the lower lid of each night before I go to bed and removing it in the morning. I started doing this the beginning of January and when I saw my eye doctor the end of January, he said I have more moisture in my eyes than he had seen in a long time. I still have a few dry areas, but I had only been using the Chia seed for a month. My eye doctor was impressed enough that he said he would do some research of his own to try determine how it works. I had been ordering my organic Chia seed from www.amazon.com, if anyone is interested. This site explains about the seed: www.rawveganbooks.com/product_info.php?products_id=1001333   Read more...

Dallas area residents are lucky to have a group of dedicated musicians who offer classes on traditional African drumming to children and adults.

The goal of Drums Not Guns (DNG) is to create a peaceful community through African drumming. Besides offering free drumming workshops in McKinney, TX, they offer community drum circles and events all over the DFW area.   Read more...

This is a fascinating world 'clock' of a number of statistics (such as population, global temperature, oil pumped, forest lost, and so on). Click on 'now' to get the best view on how these numbers are clocking up.

www.chippynews.com/worldclock.htm   Read more...

I just came across a blog called Liberia Stories (liberiastories.blogspot.com) and would love to share with you part of Elma Shaw's recent post:

"As I drove past the Temple of Justice today, I saw something that made me gasp, shout, screech to a halt, and make a quick U-turn. I had to see it again. Could it be true? It was! The phrase I have detested ever since I could read was being hacked off the face of the building, letter by letter. LET JUSTICE BE DONE TO ALL MEN is, at long last, being rearranged to say LET JUSTICE BE DONE TO ALL. I wanted to cry. I wanted to leap for joy. I wanted to twirl aound like Fraulein Maria and sing ''The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music.'' What I did do was smile and praise the construction supervisor as if it were his idea to make the change. No small steps here - This is one giant step for women, and one giant leap for Liberia."   Read more...

The image of Fangorn forest in the Peter Jackson screen version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was a renewed powerful energy to many. The interconnectedness of all things rang true even though it may have seeped into Western minds from Eastern and traditional cultures.

The immensity of Nature and it's intricate majesty often leaves one simply without words. What if you could walk in a large forest similar to Fanghorn with 2000 year old trees 20-40 feet in diameter, today? How would it feel? It's worth the journey. web.unbc.ca/~wetbelt/index.html   Read more...

Last week, the New York Times reported the soaring growth of the California solar industry, which has recently added several thousands jobs. Between 2006 and 2007, California's installed solar generating capacity increased 50%, and venture capital investment in the state's solar industry grew from $253 million to $654 million. That's about half of all U.S. venture capital investments in solar.

SunPower expects revenues of over $1 billion this year, up from its 2007 revenue of $775 million, which was in turn more than triple its 2006 revenue. Nanosolar, an innovator challenging the dominant crystalline silicon photovoltaic technology, has 18 months of backlogged orders from Germany.   Read more...

After moving into our beautiful house overlooking a nature preserve, we realized the cost of heating and cooling our dream home would be phenomenal. It was like living in a greenhouse, with all the wild swings of temperature one finds in a desert. Our cold nights were very very cold and our hot days were sometimes too much for our A/C to handle.

home.woh.rr.com/coffeyrush/WindowB.htm   Read more...

A man's home is his castle.

The aphorism holds literal truth for Academy Vice Chairman for Europe, Dr. James Cusumano. With his wife Inez, Jim restored a ruined castle an hour's drive northwest of Prague. Last year they opened the 24-room Chateau Mcely luxury hotel, resort, and conference center.   Read more...

After many days of hatred and acrimony, Kenyans are now rooting for peace and reconciliation. While blogs and other online forums had become new avenues of channelling tribal prejudices, bloggers are now using the same avenues to express the need for peace and justice.

The major highlight has been the starting of the website, I have No Tribe, where all traffic at Mashada forum is being directed to. Most blogs are now exploring peace initiatives and avenues.   Read more...

Revealing the intriguing mindsets and winning strategies of some of the world's most unconventional entrepreneurs, The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World, a new book by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan (published by Harvard Business Press, February 5, 2008), shows how these social entrepreneurs are solving some of the world's most pressing economic, social, and environmental problems -- and in the process are creating growing markets across the globe.

The book describes how unreasonable entrepreneurs build their enterprises

SAGE (www.sagepub.com) publishes more than 485 journals in Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine. The SAGE Full-Text Collections are award-winning, discipline-specific research databases of the most popular peer-reviewed journals in Communication Studies, Criminology, Education, Health Sciences, Management & Organization Studies, Materials Science, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Urban Studies & Planning published by SAGE Publications and participating societies.

These comprehensive databases include more than 256 journals, 360,000 articles, book reviews, and editorials, with all the original graphics, tables, and page numbers. The Collections provide researchers and students with a research environment that is easy to use and complete with the most up-to-date content and backfiles back to volume 1, issue 1.   Read more...

Mama Mikes (www.mamamikes.com) is small Nairobi business founded in 2001 that takes a unique approach in facilitating incoming remittances. The company's mission is to enable Kenyans living abroad to send love and help to family, friends, and significant others still living at home in East Africa. Sending gifts from abroad into Kenya is both difficult and expensive, but Mama Mikes provides a solution to this long existing problem. Through the website customers can order vouchers for prominent Kenyan supermarkets such as Nakumatt, and Uchumi, buy cellular airtime for loved ones, pay electricity bills or school fees, give culturally relevant gifts for special occasions such as a goat, or even buy cakes, flowers, and jewelry, among many other items and services which are constantly being updated.   Read more...

Stephen M.R. Covey, the son of Academy Fellow Stephen R. Covey, has just published a new leadership book, The Speed of Trust: the one thing that changes everything. Having worked as CEO of the Covey Leadership Center, the younger Covey observed "13 behaviors of trust-inspiring leaders, such as demonstrating respect, creating transparency, righting wrongs, delivering results and practicing accountability."

The book outlines 13 behaviors of trust-inspiring leaders, such as demonstrating respect, creating transparency, righting wrongs, delivering results and practicing accountability.   Read more...

Some 9 million dairy cows produce 400 billion pounds of unmentionables (It ain't milk!) each year in the US. What good can come of this?

The answer is, a great deal. A California firm called Valley Air Solutions has created seven large scale poop-to-methane facilities at dairy farms. They economically capture the methane generated by the cow manure, and pipe it directly to furnaces and boilers that heat barns and water tanks that would otherwise be powered by conventionally generated electricity.   Read more...

Don Alverto Taxo is a master Iachak of the Atis people from the Cotopaxi region of Ecuador. During a gathering of Andean Elders in 1989, he was given the responsibility of sharing the ancient Andean wisdom with the United States and Europe. He has since traveled to the US and Europe several times where he has taught and lectured. We met with Don Alberto in the village of Membrilla in the high Andes where he lives with his wife and children.   Read more...

This unique learning center is located on 7.5 acres in pastoral Fairview, Texas. The curriculum is based on Robert Muller's World Core Curriculum but has grown to include Teaching Stories created by founder/director Vicki Johnston, M.Ed.

This school teaches peace, lives peace and works to educate our children about the diversity of the Earth, people and cultures. I hope Ode readers will find some hope knowing such a place exists for our children. This school offers love and individual attention, organic gardening, problem-solving skills, Sacred Geometry, environmental and sustainability lessons, social responsibility and spiritual lessons.   Read more...

Americas largest oil spill seeps up from the New York sewer system and we talk about easy ways to save water. ZapRoot, helping you go green.   Read more...

My father came from Germany around 1925 and at that time they were burning trash and using the heat to heat apartment houses plus they were cleaning waste and recycling, if nothing else composting farm land. Nothing ever went to waste.

My mother came from Czech and said if a tree was cut down a new one was planted right away and the forest floor was clean because it was picked up and used, not wasted.   Read more...

Kenyan musicians make a music video for peace: "Musicians from around Kenya join to create a music video and song to help stem the violence in Kenya."   Read more...

It's pretty simple to mend a shirt when it gets a tear, but when it comes to shoes, there is not much you can do to bring them back to life when they fall apart.   Read more...

Dear EarthTalk: What are some of the best online sources of environmental information? -- Hip2bGreen, Seattle, WA

One of the best places to start in venturing out into eco-cyberspace is the website of a green group you already know--perhaps one for whom you have donated money or volunteered. Most groups use their websites to keep their supporters updated on the issues they cover, and provide links to many other green websites. Beyond such groups, several independent "third-party" sources also provide useful information on a wide range of environmental topics, from consumer tips to news to action alerts.   Read more...

I recently discovered Global Giving (www.globalgiving.com) which describes itself as "a marketplace for goodness" - where you can browse ways to help others around the world, pick the ones you are most passionate about, and support the solution.

Global Giving's mission is to build an efficient, open, thriving marketplace that connects people who have community and world-changing ideas with people who can support them. And as far as I can tell it's delivering in spades.   Read more...