September 27, 2009

Simulating and Stimulating Climate Hope

Andrew Jones from the Sustainability Institute delivered a truly inspiring speech at the Ted Conference in Asheville.

If you want the background behind this talk, he has written a detailed post explaining how we can succeed at cutting our carbon footprint enough to sustain life on our planet.

September 25, 2009

Shipping Industry - Cap & Trade is the right answer

Not to be outdone by this week's commitment from the aviation industry to halve emissions by 2050, several leading shipping industry bodies have confirmed they too would support efforts to cut emissions through a global cap-and-trade scheme.

The seaborne sector accounts for nearly three percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and pressure has grown for cuts ahead of December's climate change summit in Copenhagen.

The national ship industry associations of Australia, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and the UK on Wednesday jointly launched a discussion paper arguing that a cap and trade scheme was best for the whole industry.

"We firmly believe that a trading solution is the right answer," Jan Kopernicki, vice president of the UK Chamber of Shipping, told a news conference.

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE58M48W20090923



Human impact crosses three boundaries



Humanity has dangerously overstepped three of the planet's nine key natural thresholds, and are on track to cross the remaining six in coming decades, according to a new warning from an international team of scientists.

The three areas in which people have passed the limits of safe operating space are climate change, biodiversity loss and the nitrogen portion of the nitrogen/phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and ocean. The world is also approaching the safety limits for land system change, ocean acidification, global freshwater use and the phosphorus portion of the nitrogen/phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and ocean.

This report is the subject of Nature Magazine's feature article for this month.

According to the conclusion of Nature's editorial on this report:

"...this is a creditable attempt to quantify the limitations of our existence on Earth, and provides a good basis for discussion and future refinement. To facilitate that discussion, Nature is simultaneously publishing seven commentaries from leading experts that can be freely accessed at Nature Reports Climate Change (see http://tinyurl.com/planetboundaries)."



September 24, 2009

Sydney turns red in huge dust storm

The Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge all tinted red by one of the worst dust storms in years.

"It was amazing. I've never seen it. I'm 72 years old and I've never seen that in my life before, its the first time ever. "

It is yet another reminder that this country is battling one of its worst ever droughts. Many say it is the effects of climate change making themselves felt.

Updated: Here is a picture from space of the same storm!


G20 Warning





Google Earth Climate Change Tools

In December of this year, representatives from nations around the globe will gather in Copenhagen to discuss a global agreement on climate change. The objective is to reduce global warming emissions sufficiently in order to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change and to support the global community in adapting to the unavoidable changes ahead. Denmark will act as host for this fifteenth Conference of the Parties under the United Nations' Climate Change Convention, known as COP15.

In collaboration with the Danish government and others, we are launching a series of Google Earth layers and tours to allow you to explore the potential impacts of climate change on our planet and the solutions for managing it. Working with data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we show on Google Earth the range of expected temperature and precipitation changes under different global emissions scenarios that could occur throughout the century. Today we are unveiling our first climate tour on Google Earth: "Confronting Climate Change," with narration by Al Gore. Stay tuned for more tours in the coming weeks!


September 22, 2009

Barack Obama's Speech on Climate


Excerpts from Barack's speech at the UN Climate Change Conference today.

Our generation's response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it – boldly, swiftly, and together – we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe.

The security and stability of each nation and all peoples – our prosperity, our health, our safety – are in jeopardy.

...the United States has done more to promote clean energy and reduce carbon pollution in the last eight months than at any other time in our history.

I will work with my colleagues at the G20 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies so that we can better address our climate challenge.

We know what needs to be done. We know that our planet's future depends on a global commitment to permanently reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

So let us begin. For if we are flexible and pragmatic; if we can resolve to work tirelessly in common effort, then we will achieve our common purpose: a world that is safer, cleaner, and healthier than the one we found; and a future that is worthy of our children. Thank you.

September 21, 2009

Hottest Ocean Temp Ever

The National Climatic Data Center, which is overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), announced throughout the summer that the world's oceans experienced record temperatures. The ocean temperatures have been recorded for approximately 130 years and this past summer was the warmest of any of the months or years previously recorded.


September 18, 2009

Shai Agassi Announces 100,000 EV Purchase

Silicon Valley startup Better Place has signed a deal with Renault to put 100,000 electric vehicles on the road in Israel and Denmark by 2016. That is a staggering number of cars in remarkably little time, and it underscores how committed the two companies are to seeing EVs take off.

September 16, 2009

Doctors & Business Leaders demand action on climate


It was an interesting day today with both doctors and business leaders writing letters to demand action on climate change.


The doctors' letter stated -




"Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.'
"This is one reason why doctors must take a lead in speaking out. "
"We declare that we have no conflicts of interest."

The signing physicans represented medical institutions from around the world - Click here for a complete list.

The business leaders' letter stated -

"A rapidly changing climate is reshaping the American landscape and poses a long-term threat to our nation's economy and to our children's future."


The letter was signed by Dell, DuPont, Google, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss, Nike, PG&E among others. Excerpts below:

"The U.S. Senate is about to begin an historic debate over whether to pass comprehensive legislation to create a clean energy economy and combat climate change. We are writing this open letter to urge the Senate to pass a bill this year that will reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases and harness market forces to spur technological innovation, invest in effective solutions, and jumpstart a clean energy economy – both in the U.S. and around the world."

We have reformed business practices in order to curb emissions. In our experience, these changes have not only been good for the climate, they've been good for business. We are now urging Congress to undertake comparable reforms on behalf of our nation, for the benefit of all nations. In June, the House of Representatives did its part by passing the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

We now ask the Senate to pass its own legislation to build a 21st century clean energy economy and address the global challenge of climate change. We need to ensure that U.S. climate legislation makes major reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions in an economically sound way across the U.S. economy.


September 11, 2009

Nicholas Stern endorses 350


Bill McKibben reports that Nicholas Stern has endorsed 350 ppm.


"Nicholas Stern is the most important climate economist in the world. After a stint as chief economist at the World Bank, he was asked by the government in his native Britain to conduct the most thorough review of the economics of global warming yet undertaken.

Released in October of 2006, the Stern Review drew praise from many of his brethren in the field–and it also drew gasps of shock and horror from anyone who bothered to read it. It laid out, quite clearly, the cost of doing too little or moving too late on climate change: economic damage that would be greater than WWI, WWII, and the Great Depression combined. In April, he published a powerful popular account of his work, Blueprint for a Safer Planet, and he’s been one of the leading forces preparing for the Copenhagen meeting.

So that’s the background. Today in Berlin, a reporter from one of the city’s papers, Daniel Boese, asked him about the 350 target–which goes well beyond the numbers he was using in his book even in April.It’s a sign of how quickly the tide is shifting, and also of Stern’s intellectual integrity, that he said: ”I think it’s a very sensible long-term target.” He went on to explain: “People have to be aware that is a truly long-term target. We have already passed 350ppm, we are at 390 ppm of Co2 and at 435 ppm of Co2-equivalents right now. It is most important to stop the increase of flows of emissions short term and then start the decline of flows of annual emissions and get them down to levels which will move concentrations of CO2 back down towards 350ppm.”

Stern is right, of course–even if we do everything right at Copenhagen, we won’t be back at 350 soon. But unless we do everything right we’ll be back at 350 never ever. His call will help stiffen the push for real measures at the conference.

And in case you’re keeping score, here’s where we are at the moment. The world’s foremost climatologist, James Hansen, first calculated this number with his NASA team. The world’s foremost climate politician, Al Gore, endorsed it nine months ago. The UN’s chief climate scientist, and with Gore the only other man to win a Nobel for work on climate, India’s Rajendra Pachauri, endorsed it late last month. And today the world’s foremost climate economist.

But here’s the thing: none of this would have happened if you hadn’t endorsed it–if you hadn’t worked to build the largest movement about climate change ever. Onward!"

A Sustainable President


Obama is the first president to articulate both the why and how of the sustainable vision — and to actively, indeed aggressively, pursue its enactment. And that is why he is likely to be remembered as the green FDR.

Here is a partial list of what Obama has achieved in his first 100 days, laying the groundwork for him becoming the Green FDR:

  1. Obama began the process of blocking the vast majority of new coal plants. The EPA has stopped one new coal plant in South Dakota (Obama EPA blocks South Dakota Coal Power Plant), reversed the Bush EPA’s effort to ignore the Supreme Court decision that determined carbon dioxide was a pollutant (and hence that CO2 emissions from new coal-fired power plants needed regulating), and initiated the process of regulating greenhouse gases for the first time in U.S. history.
  2. He began the process of dramatically increasing the efficiency of our vehicles, by ordering EPA to quickly give California and a dozen other states the right to put in place tough emissions requirements for tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases — and by ordering the Department of Transportation to quickly issue and phase-in toughrt fuel economy standards to comply with the 2007 Energy Bill, the first overhaul of the nation’s fuel efficiency standards in over three decades (see here).
  3. He appointed a first-rate Cabinet and then unleashed them to start inconvenient-truth telling to the public after 8 years of Administration denial and muzzling of U.S. scientists (see Steven Chu: “Wake up,” America, “we’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California,” and“This is a real economic disaster in the making for our children, for your children”).
  4. In every single major speech, he has focused on the urgent need for the clean energy transition, for a price for carbon (cap-and-trade and “closing the carbon loophole”), and the unsustainability of our current economic system (see Obama gets the Ponzi scheme: “The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline.”)
  5. He signed into law the tax credits needed to achieve his ambitious goal of 1 million plug-in hybrids by 2015 — the key alternative fuel vehicle strategy needed to avert the worst consequences of three decades of successful conservative efforts to stop this country from dealing with the energy/economic security threat of rising dependence on imported oil and the inevitably grim impacts of peak oil (see “Why electricity is the only alternative fuel that can lead to energy independence“). He also enacted into law $2 billion in grants and loans for R&D into advanced vehicle batteries, a tenfold increase over current funding. Plug-ins and electric cars, of course, are a core climate solution, since electric drives are more efficient, easily powered by carbon-free energy and indeed far cheaper to operate per mile than gasoline, even when running on renewable power. In the longer term, plug ins and electric cars can also help enable the full renewable revolution.
  6. He signed into law a massive investment in mass transit and train travel — and laid out an aggressive vision for a high-speed rail network. The 70% boost in funding is a crucial effort needed to prepare this country for a time when air travel simply becomes too expensive for most people (and then a slightly later time when air travel is seen as simply too destructive of a livable climate) — a time not very far away — one that the vast majority of readers of this blog will live to see.
  7. He signed into law the tax credits needed meet his ambitious goal of doubling renewables in his first term (see “Another big win for renewables in the stimulus bill“).
  8. He signed into law the funding needed to jumpstart a 21st smart grid that is critical to enable the renewable energy, energy efficiency, and plug-in hybrid revolution. He also made what may be his most important appointment, Jon Wellinghoff for Energy Commission Chief, who understands the future is not filled with new coal and nuclear plants (see “We may not need any, ever”), and who has already begun jumpstarting the new, green grid (”Huge ‘Green Power Express’ wind grid gains federal rate incentives“).
  9. He signed into law the single biggest investment in the deployment of energy-efficient technology in U.S. history, along with strong incentives for state governments to fix their inefficiency-promoting utility regulations.
  10. For the first time in three decades, he more than doubled the annual budget for advanced energy efficiency, renewable energy, and low carbon technology after Reagan slashed federal efficiency and renewables investments 80% to 90%, which launched decades of vehement ideological opposition to clean tech by even so-called moderate and maverick conservatives (see “Is a possible 60th Senate seat worth a not-very-green GOP Commerce Secretary?” and “The greenwasher from Arizona has a record as dirty as the denier from Oklahoma“).
  11. He put forward, the first sustainable budget in U.S. history, one that invests in clean energy, included cap-and-trade revenue, and seeks repeal of fossil industry subsidies. Yes, he made a serious tactical mistake by tentatively pursuing the possibility of trying to pass a climate bill through reconciliation, which allowed conservatives to score some meaningless tactical political victories and thereby confuse the media into thinking Obama was himself not serious about this issue (see George Stephanopoulos, Nate Silver, and Marc Ambinder all seem confused about global warming and budget politics and Obama says his energy plan and cap-and-trade “will be authorized” even if it’s not in the budget “and I will sign it” — Washington Post confused. In fact his budget and every thing he has done as president shows the reverse is true, that he understands the fate of his presidency and the health and well-being of the American public rests on his success in passing serious energy and climate legislation.

Years from now, long after the economy has recovered, this may well be remembered as the time that progressives, led by Obama, began the climate-saving transition to a sustainable low-carbon economy built around green jobs.

Clean Energy Bill saves $5,600 per household



The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA's) recent analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) includes the first government estimates of the legislation's impact directly on oil imports.

Overall oil imports would decline by 590,000 barrels per day by the year 2020 under ACES, according to EIA . This is roughly equivalent to the total amount of oil we imported from Iraq in 2008 (620,000 barrels per day).

Over the next twenty years, America would save $650 billion on foreign oil (cumulatively through 2030). This is in constant 2007 dollars, and is calculated by applying EIA's forecast of oil prices to EIA's projected savings in oil imports.

Veterns for climate change legislation

Yesterday, more than 150 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — real ones — visited the White House and the Congress to argue that "climate change legislation is absolutely critical." E&E Daily (subs. req'd) has the full story:

President Obama welcomed to the White House yesterday some 150 veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who are lobbying members of Congress for passage of a comprehensive energy and global warming bill.

The former soldiers and officers met with top Obama administration aides in the Old Executive Office Building as part of a broader messaging campaign aimed at taking the climate debate beyond its traditional audience.

"What you bring is what is vitally needed," former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) told the group. "I don't mean to disparage environmentalists who've carried the torch on this for so many years."

But Warner, a former secretary of the Navy, said the war veterans add a human face to the global warming debate as military leaders take into account the increased risks of famine, human migration and water shortages that come with climate change.

Robert Diamond, a Navy lieutenant, urged his fellow former soldiers to write op-eds for their local newspapers and to get on the radio for interviews about energy issues.

"People listen to you," Diamond said. "People instantly give you credibility. You are the most powerful messenger out there."

Several veterans now serving in the Obama administration also spoke at the event, including Thomas Paul D'Agostino, the administrator for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, Joe Riojas of the Department of Veterans Affairs and Mike Parker from the Labor Department.

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) also sought to link climate change with national security threats during a speech yesterday at George Washington University.

The former Democratic presidential nominee said there is a connection between the scientific alarms raised about global warming and the intelligence that U.S. officials had warning them in the days leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.

"The real lesson of the day before, ladies and gentlemen, is that when we see a threat on the horizon, we can't afford to wait until it arrives," Kerry said. "Unless we take dramatic action now to restrain global climate change, we risk unleashing an aggressive new challenge to global stability, to the livelihoods of hundreds of millions, and yes, to America's national security."

Warner's is a remarkable story — a hard-core conservative Republican aggressively supporting the climate and clean energy bill. He is "trying to build grass-roots support for congressional action to limit global warming," asPolitics Daily reports. "He is traveling the country to discuss military research that shows climate change is a threat to U.S. national security, and this fall he'll testify to Congress on the issue for the fourth time." PD has a long interview with him, which I excerpt below:

PD: How did you get involved in this cause and what are you hoping to accomplish?
JW: There are two events. In 1943 I was 16 years old. . . . I got a job with the U.S. Forest Service as a firefighter on the border of Montana and Idaho. I worked that summer for three months in the most beautiful, pristine forest you've ever seen in your life. Five or six years ago I went to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, to give a speech. I asked the Forest Service to take me back to those camps. I was just absolutely heartbroken. The old forest, the white pine forest in which I worked, was absolutely gone, devastated, standing there dead from the bark beetle. I said to the forest ranger, "This is such an emotional, distressing trip for me — what is the problem?" He said, "Our climate has changed so much out here. We don't have the cold winters which used to curtail the level of the bark beetle. So it's decimating the white pine and many valuable species." That sparked my interest.
PD: Does the responsibility fall to us to respond to the consequences of climate change?
JW: Not exclusively, but we're often in the forefront of response to these things. We're the nation with the most sealift. The most airlift. We have more medical teams which are mobile, more storehouses of food and supplies to meet emergencies. And throughout our history, from the beginning of the republic, America's always had to respond to certain humanitarian disasters.
PD: What are some examples of destabilization due to climate?
JW: One clear case of it is Somalia. [In the early 1990s] the prolonged drought began to tie up the economy, the food supplies. There was a certain amount of political and economic instability. Where you have fragile nations . . . a serious climactic problem will come along, with a shortage of food or water, and often those governments are toppled. And then they fall to the evils of . . . terrorism or others who try to exploit these fallen governments. You saw it in Darfur. You saw it in Somalia. This political instability and weakness is given the final tilt by a problem associated with climactic change.
PD: Is your purpose to get national security into the forefront of the debate on climate change?
JW: Two years ago I teamed up with Joe Lieberman. The Lieberman-Warner bill was the only climate-energy bill that got out of a committee and actually got to the floor of the Senate. We debated it for three or four days. It had a cap-and-trade system [to limit carbon pollution]. . . . It was a very broad-based bill, a 500-page bill. The Bush administration felt they did not want to support it on their watch and it collapsed.
PD: What is your sense of the Senate at this point?
JW: The leadership of the Senate, primarily [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid, made a very wise decision at this time. All the committees that have a part of the jurisdiction are putting in their own recommendations for legislation. Therefore six committees are now preparing a bill to be submitted to Senator Reid the last week or so in September.
PD: Will senators give this issue the level of attention that you think is warranted?
JW: We just got back from Florida. They are very responsive there for two reasons. They have so many military bases. The men and women on those bases are affected by the additional missions they could be called on. . . . Public awareness should be raised. This is not just a private debate among environmentalists. The Department of Defense is really beginning to shoulder a good deal of the responsibility.
Here's the second thing that got Florida's attention, and that is sea rise. You raise the mean level of the oceans about two to three inches and it has a profound multiplying effect on hurricanes and other violent storms, and Florida is in the path of these storms. Also you've got so many military bases in South Carolina and Virginia. If there's a significant rise of the sea, you put military installations at risk.
PD: Are senators paying attention to you?
JW: I think so. Very much so. Certain chairpersons [John Kerry of Foreign Relations and Barbara Boxer of Environment and Public Works] are very interested. I haven't been as successful as I had hoped to engender the military committees to get involved. I have no means whatsoever under the ethics law to even call a senator or staffer. There is an Iron Curtain. But I can testify.
PD: With environmentalists already on board, are you trying to interest other types of people?
JW: That's quite true. People think climate change is solely an environmental campaign. And I . . . consider myself strongly in support of the environmental goals of this country. But a lot of people look with a different view on that. This says, "Hey, wait a minute, irrespective of your feeling about environmental concerns, here's a practical effect. Your sons or daughters or next door neighbor might be sent out on a military mission."
PD: Are you trying to reach out to conservatives?
JW: I'm not trying to identify them as conservatives, liberals or independents. I'm basically trying to tell the American public that if we're going to make progress with regard to climate change, it's got to start at the grass-roots level. President Obama is quite committed. Certain elements of Congress are quite committed. But it's going to take a significant grass-roots education program so the American public can decide: Is this something we should do for our nation? And I think there's going to be a price tag. There's going to be some cost, and I want to make sure people understand what's behind the need for it.
At the same time I was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. More and more [retired military] people would say to me, "We've got to take a look at this climate change. If it continues as it is and worsens, we're going to be called on in more incidents to provide troops for humanitarian causes . . . or where governments are toppled as a consequence of lack of food or water or energy or all the other things associated with natural disasters." I said all right. I studied it.

EPA puts the brakes on Mountain Top Removal


EPA puts the brakes on Mountain Top Removal
Takes an Important Step to Protect America's Waterways From Coal Mining Waste

WASHINGTON (September 11, 2009) -- In a step toward protecting America's waterways from mining waste, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that it will continue to review the permits of 79 proposed surface coal-mining projects in Appalachian states. The EPA stated that it will work with the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure compliance with the Clean Water Act and the protection of the nation's public health and environment.

Following is a statement by Rob Perks, Campaign Director for the Natural Resources Defense Council:

"The EPA is taking welcome steps to protect Appalachia from the hazardous impacts of mountaintop removal mining, one of coal industry's most dirty and destructive activities. The EPA should not permit mining operations based on regulatory loopholes and lax enforcement practices that have allowed streams in the Southeast to be treated as waste dumps.

"The people in Appalachia deserve to have clean streams, rivers, and waterways -- and it's up to the EPA to look out for their interests. We expect the EPA and the Corps to follow-up with the necessary actions to halt the practice of mountain removal mining and protect America's waterways."


I sent a note to the White House thanking them for their action on this issue.

You can as well by clicking here.


September 7, 2009

Our Oceans & Our Food


The chief scientific advisor to the British Government gave an important speech yesterday on the challenges we face over the next 20 years.

It is well worth reading, I've attached a short excerpt about an idea that I hadn't heard before. He makes the connection between ocean acidification and our ability to feed ourselves.

As many of you know, when we increase the CO2 in the atmosphere, the oceans absorb an increasing amount of CO2 from the atmosphere and this acidifies the ocean. Coral reefs are very sensitive to the acid levels in the ocean.

Here is the quote from Professor Sir John Beddington.

"The other area that really worries me in terms of climate change and the potential for positive feedbacks and also for interactions with food is ocean acidification….

As I say, it's as acid today as it has been for 25 million years. When this occurred some 25 million years ago, this level of acidification in the ocean, you had major problems with it, problems of extinctions of large numbers of species in the ocean community. The areas which are going to be hit most severely by this are the coral reefs of the world and that is already starting to show. Coral reefs provide significant protein supplies to about a billion people. So it is not just that you can't go snorkelling and see lots of pretty fish, it is that there are a billion people dependent on coral reefs for a very substantial portion of their high protein diet"



September 6, 2009

Humanities Greatest Challenge

Kim Cranston suggests that - Climate change is not humanity's greatest challenge (even though scientists predict it may unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration in 20 years, and increase the global surface temperature up to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100).

Neither are pandemics, nuclear proliferation, water scarcity, the Middle East conflict, or many other things you might think.

Our greatest challenge is that our institutions can't resolve any of these challenges, let alone prioritize climate change as the challenge that poses the greatest threat if we don't act immediately. Until we address the crisis of the failure of our institutions to resolve the significant challenges we face, don't expect progress on any of them.

In order to address climate change (and give it the priority it demands), as well as the other significant challenges we face, we must rapidly evolve the capacity of our institutions to make better decisions than the ones that have put our survival in jeopardy.

September 3, 2009

Michelle's Garden

The Story of the White House Garden
Posted by Jason Djang

Since ground-breaking and initial tilling in March, we've been documenting the progress of the first garden on White House grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Garden during World War II. This new garden was planted with the help of local elementary school children and has yielded a constant supply fresh produce for the First Family and White House events. Hear and see the story of the garden first-hand from First Lady Michelle Obama and White House chef Sam Kass.

Global Warming Ice Sculpture



Ice sculptures in the shape of humans are placed on the steps of the music hall in Gendarmenmarkt public square in Berlin September 2, 2009. Hosted by the German World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 1,000 ice sculptures made by Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo were positioned on the steps in the German capital at noon, to highlight climate change in the arctic region.



REUTERS/Tobias Schwarz

September 2, 2009

The People's Grocery

In poor neighborhoods, getting access to healthy food such as fruits and vegetables can be difficult. Poor nutrition has been linked to a variety of social problems, among them behavioral disorders in school children. In West Oakland, California, where liquor stores have replaced markets, People’s Grocery is creating a healthy alternative, offering access to organic produce. Through urban gardens and local farms, People's Grocery supports a culture based on connection to the land, sustainable agricultural practices, and regenerating community.



The people's grocery

Amory Lovins - Zero Carbon Home

Click on through to watch the video tour of his house