“Change doesn’t happen because of how we invest our money. Change happens because of how we invest our human energy, and it always has since we came down from the trees.

Everyone’s got a margin of discretionary energy — ten percent, twenty percent — that isn’t used up making their way in the world. That’s the energy that’s available for social change.”

Daniel Taylor of Future Generation. Via.

How do you use your energy, and how much do you have left to help us move on to a next, more sustaining level?

Managing energy is one of the most important thing in our current times – we must each day, more and more, consciously choose to whom and how we’ll share this precious resource, our energy, which was for years sucked out without us noticing.

Managing energy means to carefully select our activities, manage our time, our health, our creativity. As a freelance or full time worker, it is a question we’re all facing: how much money are worth your hours? How much money is worth your energy? Your health and well being? Are all these hours worked really worth? Is there not a more creative and healthy way to spend your time and energy?

Among the most common time and energy sucking activities are an employer needing you more than 35 hours per week, friends or family meetings leaving you empty, shopping in a quest to find something that will fill the emptiness, over cleaning the house every week inside and outside, and tv watching.

All this precious time could be used in a creative way, to make small and big changes.

As i wrote some days ago, our present culture does not emphasize free and quiet time. Instead, we are pushed to fill the agenda until there is not a minute left to be alone in silence, or to have some time to think and take new actions, on a personal or community level, towards a brighter future. Having a lot of free time might be seen as not usual, wrong, as if someone would be out of a system, not worthy, slacking and even depressed.

You must ask yourself, who is ruling your life?

Become your own authority, be more aware of where and how you want to spend your energy, your health, and your time. We’ll all have to make choices, what will yours be?

If you are about to plan your next holidays in Central and South America, it’s a must to have a look at Whole Travel, who’s mission is:

To provide the best travel opportunities to unique and authentic destinations that preserve the environment, support local cultures and promote sustainable lifestyles.

This sounds promising – take a look at their sustainable tour search engine.

Via CITIZENShift.

Et voilà Guylaine dans mon inbox qui me demande “pis pis, c’était comment Pecha Kucha?”… Dommage qu’elle n’ait pu y être, elle aurait adoré.

C’était mon baptême, car en toute honnêteté, j’ai bien de la misère à me déplacer dans des événements mondains c’est temps ci (le confort de ma maison, et les périodes de créativité où je dois incuber sont très nombreuses dans ma vie…) et la SAT avec son environnement sombre ne fait pas partie de mes endroits préférés, mais bon, un bon coup de pieds au derrière et moi et mon beau étions sortis de la maison.

Le concept Pecha Kucha grosso modo: une soirée “démo et présentation” où 15 créateurs de tous les domaines viennent présenter leurs projets – urbanisme, développement durable, design, science, etc. – et ils n’ont droit qu’à 20 diapos (slides en bon français) de 20 secondes. Cela fonctionne à merveille, empêchant que les présentations deviennent trop lourdes. Mentionnons aussi que chaque présentateur est debout au micro, pas caché derrière une table en train de nous endormir tous.

Ce fonctionnement me fait unpeu penser à une dégustation, un genre de all you can eat, un buffet où l’on peut prendre une bouchée de tout ce qui nous intéresse, et jeter le reste à la poubelle sans trop se sentir mal – et cela va sûrement de pair avec notre société de consommation en 5ième vitesse. Mais rassurez-vous, l’image d’un buffet de sandwich mou ne représente aucunement l’événement d’hier soir, car le contenu de cette soirée Pecha Kucha Montreal était à la hauteur et de qualité, loin d’être superficielle, avec des présentateurs engagés, quelques fois éclectiques, et passionnés.

Une occasion en or de voir ceux qu’on entend pas assez souvent, nos Movers & Shakers locaux.

Un compte rendu détaillant les présentations se trouve ici.

I have to admit, we often hear about ground-breaking innovations and most of the time the product is far from being ready to sell, but in this case it seems that MDI is taking it seriously. One of the investing companies is the Indian car manufacturer Tata. Production should start in September 2008 in France, and a US company is about to license the concept to produce similar cars in the US in 2010. Possible uses for the air car are taxis as well as hybrid cars.

But what makes me really think is that it is obviously possible to create a car which runs with air! I mean if this is possible, then I guess that there must be many other alternative solutions available for problems which we are facing nowadays (not only environmental problems). I think the only show stopper for these alternatives must then be companies and lobbying organizations which have the power to decide over markets… I cannot explain it in a different way for myself.

So, did you get my point? Throw 100 million dollars of research money at them and they will build a car which drives on air forever… without filling any tank or whatever.

Links for more infos:
News article (in german)
Air Car Factories

Pendant qu’on est dans les achats écolos, voici ma sélection écosanté du mois: déo Weleda à la sauge pour lui, Wild Rose déo pour moi, dentifrice végétal Weleda et savon à linge écofriendly de chez Lemieux. J’ai aussi déniché le livre ‘Tout sur le Compost‘.

Je suis une consommatrice aguérie des produits Weleda depuis ma tranche de vie Allemande, moment où j’ai découvert l’anthroposophie et son fondateur Rudolf Steiner dont je vous ai déjà parlé.

Voici un court résumé sur l’origine de la marque, ainsi que l’inspirante signification derrière le nom Weledas, ou déesses aux mystérieux pouvoirs de guérison…

Weleda Company was founded in Europe in 1921 in collaboration with Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), Austrian born scientist, educator and philosopher. Steiner conceived the philosophy known as anthroposophy which, in very broad terms, sees the human being as a totality of body, soul and spirit standing between nature and the cosmos.

A group of European physicians became interested in Steiner’s teachings, which also touched on the causes of illness. After a series of study courses and lectures beginning in 1920, an anthroposophical clinic was founded along with medical laboratory in Arlesheim, Switzerland. Medicines were made based on guidelines supplied by the doctors. This laboratory quickly expanded. Franchises were soon opened in Germany, England, France, Holland and other countries and given the name Weleda. In America, Weleda was incorporated in 1931. Since 1994, Weleda, Inc. is a subsidiary of Weleda AG, Arlesheim, Switzerland.

“Weledas” or “Velledas” were Celtic wise women who guided their followers to an understanding of nature. Traces of them are found in Ireland, Germany and France.

The last individual to bear the name “Weleda” was mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus. According to Tacitus, Weleda was a healer priestess who, at the beginning of the Christian era, lived near a famous shrine by the river Lippe. She was a seer and prophetess respected by the Germanic tribes. She was taken prisoner by the Romans and died in Rome about 80 AD.

The United Arab Emirates began to build on the Masdar City project, which will be a zero-carbon, zero-waste city using cutting-edge solar power technology in the middle of the deserts of Abu Dhabi.

Finished by 2015 this city will be inhabited by 50,000 people and a showcase of how cities will look like in the future.

Critics say that the 22 billion dollars used by this project should rather be invested in the “greening” of existing cities. Nevertheless this project will be an important information and experience hub – not only for the building companies – but for everyone interested in sustainability and environmental issues.

Via Telepolis
More info

Cette image vaux bien plus que 1000 mots… Déniché sur Le teritoire des sens.

I’ve been scanning through the changes i’ve done over the last years to participate in the healing of our planet, and re-reading what i wrote, i see that i sound quite pessimistic, and i’m sorry for that, it’s just really hard not to get confronted to issues which are really pushing my buttons. I love our planet, and when i look at what was done over the last 100 years, i feel hurt and saddened by how quick we destroyed what we should cherish. Our planet, the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms, and of course ourselves.

Still, i hope my answers can inspire some of you to move on, make changes, share and help other changes – and most of all, stay positive and joyful about the great opportunity of change that lays before us!!

* * *

I support local agriculture
Since a year now, i get my fruits and vegetables delivered by Le Jardin des Anges – this way i support local organic agriculture, and get my food delivered with love and care by a friendly human being.

You can do the same, and either get your basket delivered or you pick it by yourself. You can find a listing of organic agriculture producers here;

I buy organic
Yes it is not the least expensive choice, but local and organic products are often much healthier.

Think that what you buy in food chains and so called groceries might be cheap, but you’ll pay of your health sooner or later. Nature is already paying the price for each and every mass produced food that you buy in the average grocery chains, so do humans wondering why cancer is now an epidemic.

A good rule of thumb i use before buying goods or food is asking myself if LOVE, meaning a careful and passionate human touch, was put into what i am about to buy – more than often the answer is pretty clear about if i should or not buy!;

I do not consume meat
I am vegetarian since 2000, i love animals and i do not wear fashionable animal skin, might it be shoes, clothes, bags, belt, and so on. Thus, i am not contributing to a system which exploit and slaughter animals in savage ways, in the same way that it is destroying our environment.

If you are thinking about becoming vegetarian, the web is full of resources about why we do not need to consume animal products anymore, here are some highlights:

A major 2006 report by the United Nations summarized the devastation caused by the meat industry. Raising animals for food, the report said, is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity. Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale ….”

Growing all the crops to feed farmed animals requires massive amounts of water and land—in fact, nearly half of the water and 80 percent of the agricultural land in the United States are used to raise animals for food.6,7 Our taste for meat is also taking a toll on our supply of fuel and other nonrenewable resources—about one-third of the raw materials used in America each year is consumed by the farmed animal industry.

Farmed animals produce about 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population of the United States, and since factory farms don’t have sewage treatment systems as our cities and towns do, this concentrated slop ends up polluting our water, destroying our topsoil, and contaminating our air.9 And meat-eaters are responsible for the production of 100 percent of this waste—about 86,000 pounds per second!

You can read the complete article here and also ask google.

I try to inform myself and be a responsible consumer
We heavily research on finding ways to be independent from a system which makes each of us consumers participating in exploiting the planet.

More than ever, i think before i buy – who created this product, at which cost, in which conditions?

My wish is to get out of a system who made us dependent on energy, unworthy goods and most of all, a system that industrialized the alimentary chain, not for our good health, but for profit – this, at a terrible cost. Also, we respect water and dont over-use it.

Word of mouth
I think the best way to change our world is little by little, and by word of mouth, sharing with family and friends what i know about sustainable practices, changes in our way to consume, eat and live. I know they trust and love me, so my words have much more impact than those of any politician;

Diva Cup
I’ve made the switch to the Diva Cup a year ago – so i’m not part of this ‘feminine care product’ industry anymore.

If you are not aware of it, please know that in 1998, 7 billion tampons and 13 billion sanitary pads and their packaging made their way into landfills and sewage systems in the USA alone – so for each women making this change, we’ll all benefit, and nature too;

I ride my bike and walk
I do not own a car, i rent one if i need it and i am really careful with my use of this vehicle. I ride my bike and walk from april to november;

I recycle everything that can be recycled
and have lately gave up on the green recycling basket, switching it for huge transparent recycling bags, this to stop polluting with recycling goods flying around our streets on recycling days;

I carry my own reusable bag
I refuse the bags offered when i shop;

Composting
Unfortunately, we are not yet composting. We tried last year, but not owning a garden makes it impossible to compost on a balcony. But the experience we had with composting was really uplifting – and i advise you to do it if you have a small square meter of grass on which can land a composting box. To see organic waist turn out as super healthy earth was a magical experience, so was it to reduce our trash waist at half a plastic bag per month!

I have a short resource post on how to do your Urban Composting, read it here.

I am supposed to tag some other people, but i wont, i suggest you just go on and post your own green challenge – and let me know so i can read it!

We are now waiting for the city of Montreal to figure out a solution for a new recycling box system – but until then, i think we’ve got to figure out a solution by ourselves to stop the mess and pollution created by the winds blowing out all content from our green recycling boxes.

We opted for the New York style transparent recycling bags, available at your local PJC for about 3$ a box of 15 (i think the box should cover the year, at a rate of 1 bag per month).

Anyone really care? Can hype make you blind?

My first ipod did not even last half the lifetime of my portable cd player. And there was no way to have it repaired, no way to recycle it.

Most Apple buyers (see the iPhone owner, using the latest and trendiest apple powerbook, designing cool websites for Greenpeace, browsing Treehugger, eating bio and living the green life) dont even want to think about, or see, under which conditions Apple products are produced, and at which cost.

I’ll wait for a nice, green, eco-friendly Mac…

Combating climate change, therefore, is not simply about applying green technologies, such as changing from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs. Robert Weissman, editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor and director of Essential Action, points out that what is needed is a broad public understanding of how the present system of making, transporting, selling, buying, using and disposing of things is trashing the planet.

I remember Bruce Sterling and his future vision of the “wrangler” in his book “Shaping Things”.

The problem of climate change is not simply a question of economics and social models, however. At the heart of the matter is the need for a change in social attitudes prevalent in the western, industrial world, one based on insularity and greed. An excellent reflection of this is “The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard” (StoryofStuff.com), a short film which can be viewed on the Internet (about 20 minutes) that explains the “materials economy” and how it works.

[...] western industrial civilisation is destroying itself because it’s determined to disregard all limits in all areas. It has broken all the aesthetic rules in art, given birth to absolute totalitarianisms, and declared that there are no longer any physical or ethical limits. Likewise, there are no longer any limits on consumption or the exploitation of nature. Our obsession is that we must always have more. Modern society is, as it were, set on holding the position of the “almighty creator”. This attitude goes hand in hand with the Judeo-Christian view of the world which puts human beings in a privileged position above all else in the world.

That’s what I always say (and will continue to say ), WE ARE ANIMALS (or just beings, since there are no “animals”). There is no reason to call ourselves “human beings”, to create an artificial border between “animals” and us. This border creates only problems on earth.

Ironically, the Judeo-Christian view of the world, which is prominent in all western, industrial nations, also contains a warning in the story pertaining to “the tree of knowledge”. Contrary to the view of many who use this as an excuse to rationalise that ignorance is bliss, the problem with taking a bite of the forbidden fruit is not the acquisition of knowledge itself but its application. In other words, we are too immature to handle certain types of information.This doesn’t mean we need to adopt a Luddite view of the world. Rather, it should be used as a guide for adopting the precautionary principle more often. Unfortunately, we seem to be relying too much on technological progress as a panacea for our ills.Technology is often regarded as cure with no side effects. Yet the 20th century is full of examples of how the double-sword of technology has led to more problems than solutions: radioactivity, CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), DDT, asbestos, hydrocarbons, nuclear power, and the list goes on.

It seems our consciousness is just not evolved enough to handle all the means of technology available to us.

The dilemma for many is that our reliance on technology is such that we have become increasingly isolated from reality and the outside world. This can be clearly seen through the advent of the so-called “information society”. Computer-mediated communications has become simply another technology in which the promises of a greener, brighter future have turned out to be superfluous. The Internet especially was supposed to deliver a “new economy”. Moreover, the “paperless” medium of the Internet would help save trees while the tele-working would cut down on traffic congestion and emissions. It has since turned out to be the opposite: the economy is the same as it ever was, more paper is being used than ever before, and with so many people online computers now cause more emissions than civil aviation worldwide. It’s not just about household computers: the Internet requires huge server and data storage facilities, and as the flow of data doubles every four months, electricity consumption grows with it.

In the end, regardless of the technology at our disposal, it’s quite clear that the only way to combat climate change is a thorough and radical change in the way we live and consume resources. However, given the close relationship between our lifestyles and our personal values, such a fundamental change is only possible if we make alterations to basic ethics. For instance, we rarely take into account future generations or distant populations when making important decisions. Moreover, western societies are structured so as to enable each person to maximise their own interests. As a result, it’s only to be expected that the ultimate objective of western, industrial society is to produce and consume more and more.

That’s why I don’t like “marketing” and the word “consumer”. WTF! I am not supposed to consume! And don’t tell me about your new shiny products! Not on the street and not on the internet (facebook, google etc.).And I don’t believe that perfectly targeted advertising is “pure” information. At the end of the day it is only about making more profit. Nobody thinks about the environmental impact of that product in 10, 20 or 30 years! But it is up to you, just go and buy and slurp that trash into your body. You will see what happens with your children, who drink from your breast milk and are prone to allergies. Maybe that’s the way to stop that circle. People will be forced to buy less since their body is not capable of taking more shit.I can decide by my own feelings what I need and what I don’t. My credo is REDUCTION. I reduce the amount of goods I buy and own.In the future it will be hopefully insulting to call someone “consumer”.

Environmental degradation and climate change has shown that this is clearly no longer sustainable. The free organisation of society is showing itself to be at odds with the management of shared environmental assets. There is now an urgent need to invent new methods of economic and political regulation. This includes branding certain aspects of our lifestyles as criminal.

It is criminal to sell all that stuff to us! New computers, new iPods, new clothes, new furniture, etc. etc. I don’t want to be too negative about that issue but I think only pain can help ourselves to change our habits and minds. Think of extreme weather conditions and illnesses.
Link to complete article
Excellent video summary “The Story of Stuff” (takes 20 minutes to watch, but it is worth!)