A List of Environmental and Telecommunications Events and Issues

October 10 to October 17, 1997







Published, Edited and Written by George Mokray for
Information Ecologies
218 Franklin St #3
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617)661-2676
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Listings

Sunday, October 12

10:30 am
Two Great Disciples of Mahatma Gandhi: Gora and JC Kumarappa
contact 495-5529
Longy School of Music, 1 Follen St

Monday, October 13 - Tuesday, October 14

First International Wearable Computers Symposium
contact http://mime1.marc.gatech.edu/wearcon
Marriott Cambridge Hotel, Kendall Sq
Editorial Comment: I think this is going to be an important conference. So important that I'm going to pay to go since they wouldn't give me a press pass.

Tuesday, October 14

10 am - 12 pm
Loose Nukes: The Challenge of Controlling Nuclear Weapons
Paul Gray, MIT; John Deutch, MIT and CIA; Graman Allison, Graham Allison, Harvard; Jessica Mathews, Carnegie Endowment for Int Peace
contact 253-3656 or esdeb@mit.edu
MIT Building E51, Wong Auditorium (Memorial Dr and Wadsworth St)

10 am - 11:15 am
Forests and their Crucial Ecological Role
Joel Gerwein, UMass/ Boston and EarthWorks
contact salzman@umbsky.cc.umb.edu or http://hydra.cc.umb.edu/pages/salzman/ Science for Humane Survival
Room S-1-009, Univ of MA, Boston

11:30 am
The Cross of Auschwitz: Catholics and Jews in Conflict
James Carroll
Harvard, Rockefeller 2

12 pm
Depending on the Kindness of Strangers: A Psychological and Evolutionary Approach to Helping
Anne McGuire, Harvard
contact 495-8140
Harvard, Radcliffe Yard, Murray Research Center

25 Years of _Ms_
Marcia Ann Gillespie, editor-in-chief, _Ms_
Harvard, Taubman Building, Room 275

12:30 pm
Use of Clinical Computing Systems for Care Improvements
Jonathan Teich, Clinical Systems Research and Development
Harvard School of Public Health, Kresge Building, Room G-2

Beyond Market-Theory Management
Shintaro Hori, Bain and Co
Harvard, Coolidge Hall, Room 3

2 pm
Crosstalk Symposium: Applications and Requirements of the Next Generation Internet for MIT
Jeff Schiller, Steve Lerman, William Mitchell
MIT Building E40, Room 496

4 pm
A Passive Grand Strategy for the United States
Alan Tonelson, US Business and Industry Council
Harvard, Coolidge Hall, Room 2

Sonoluminescence: Classical Bubble Dynamics with a Twist
Michael Breener, MIT
contact 253-2021
MIT Building 5, Room 234

4:15 pm
High Speed Network Traffic and Self-Similarity
Murad Taqqu, BU
MIT Building 35, Room 225

7 pm
Sustainable Economic Development for Central Square
Sarah James, community planner; Jason Upshaw, 2nd Gear Bicycles; Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, Working Capital; George Mokray, writer; Barbara Brandt, author of _Whole Life Economics_
contact 491-1318
Central Sq Library, 45 Pearl St
There will be refreshments provided by local restaurants at 6 pm

Web-Net Meeting: Online Communities
Greg Stone, CyberEd
contact 894-6792, sudha@web-net.org or http://www.web-net.org
MIT Building E51, Room 345
There's Nothing In The Middle Of The Road But Yellow Stripes And Dead Armadillos
Jim Hightower, populist rabble-rouser and author
contact 267-8484 or http://www.jimhightower.com
Barnes & Noble/BU Bookstore, 660 Beacon St, Boston

Wednesday, October 15 - Saturday, October 18

IX International Conference on Human Ecology - the social and psychological impact of environmental change upon individuals; the dynamics of human adaptation to environmental and societal change; community conservation efforts; ecosystem management
contact Society for Human Ecology, 105 Eden St, Bar Harbor, Maine 04609 or massa@ecology.coa.edu
College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine

Wednesday, October 15 - Thursday, October 16

National Gas Purchasing and Utilization Expo
contact (770)279-4386
World Trade Center, Boston

Wednesday, October 15

11 am
DFB Laser Diodes Integrated with Electro-absorption Modulators for High Speed Long Distance Communications
Richard Sahara, Lasertron
contact 253-8504
MIT Building 34, Room 401B

12 pm
Bridging the Racial Divide
William Julius Wilson, Harvard
Harvard, Du Bois Institute, Barker Center

India's Energy Policy and National Security
Raju Thomas, Marquette Univ
contact 253-0133 or llevine@mit.edu
MIT Building E38, Room 615

Gender and Technoscience
contact 253-8844
MIT Stratton Student Center, Mezzanine Lounge

12:10 pm
Modeling Equatorial/Subtropical Exchange for the Pacific Ocean
Keith Rodgers, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
MIT Building 54, Room 915

1 pm
An Independent Magazine in Present-Day Russia
Alexander Poumpianskaia, editor-in-chief _Novoie Vremia_
Harvard, Taubman Building, Taubman Dining Room

3:30 pm
How "Asian Values" Can Contribute to World Technology Industries
Morris Chang, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co
MIT Building E51, Wong Auditorium

4 pm
Economics and Environmental Policy: The View from the Council of Economic Advisors
Richard Schmalensee, MIT
contact 495-1820 or 495-8833
Harvard, Kennedy School of Government, Room 332

The Political Aesthetic: Political Responsibility in an Age of Globalization
Beatrice Hanssen, Bunting Institute
Harvard, Bunting Institute

The Political Aesthetic: Political Responsibility in an Age of Globalization
Beatrice Hanssen, Bunting Institute
Harvard, Bunting Institute

Project BIFROST: Space-Geodetic Measurement of Glacial Rebound in Fennoscandia
Jim Davis, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
contact http://www.eaps.mite.edu/dept_sem.html
MIT Building 54, Room 915

The Violence of Language
Beatrice Hanssen, Bunting Institute
Harvard, Bunting Institute

Money, Votes, and Power in Russia
Peter Rutland, Wesleyan Univ
contact 495-4037
Harvard, Coolidge 215

4:30 pm
Brain, Mind and Spirituality
Ming Tsuang, Harvard Medical School
MIT Building 34, Room 101

6 pm
Towards a Global International System in the 21st Century
Martti Antisaari, President, Republic of Finland
Harvard, Kennedy School of Government, Starr Auditorium

Phillippe Starck, architect and designer
Harvard, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium

7 pm
Science Fiction Readings: Gregory Benford and Joe Haldeman
contact 253-3599 or http://media-in-transition.mit.edu
MIT Building 34, Room 101

7:30 pm
A Prograssive Majority?
Theda Skocpul, Harvard
contact 495-2727
3 Church St, Harvard Sq

Thursday, October 16

2 pm
Ozone Depletion: Stratospheric Ozone Depletion - Mario Molina; Ultraviolet B Radiation and Disease - Tom Fitzpatrick
contact 432-0493 or http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge
Cannon Room, Building C, Harvard Medical School, Boston

The International Politics of Rape: Rape and Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Iraq
Mia Bloom, Columbia Univ
Harvard, Coolidge Hall, Room 2

4 pm
The New Europe: How to Overcome 40 Years of Division
Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, European Parliament
Harvard, 2 Divinity Ave, Yenching Auditorium

Simulation of Airflow In and Around Buildings
Q Yan Chen, MIT
contact 253-7186
MIT Building 1, Room 350

Mode of Rupture Propagation on Faults: Enlarging Crack Versus Self-healing Slip Pulse
James Rice, Harvard
contact l_m@mit.edu
MIT Building 5, Room 234

The Meaning of the Zapatista Movement for Mexico
Gustavo Esteva
Harvard, Rockefeller Center, 61 Kirkland St

4:15 pm
Programmed Supramolecular Systems-Controlled Organic and Inorganic Self-Assembly Processes
Jean-Marie Lehm, Univ Louis Pasteur
Harvard, Pfizer Lecture Hall, 12 Oxford St

5:30 pm
Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics
Peter Galison
contact 253-5249 or authors@mit.edu
MIT Humanities Library

6 pm
A Talk with Candace Gringrich, Human Rights Campaign
contact 495-8290
Harvard, Kennedy School of Government, ARCO Forum

6:30 pm
Greater Boston Greens Meeting
contact 787-9521 or oggc@fcl-us.net
Community Church, 565 Boylston, Copley Sq, Boston

Brookline Bicycle Advisory Committee Public Meeting on ISTEA
Rep Barney Frank
contact Andrew M. Fischer 423-7904 (work), 738-8370(home), or 102523.3263@compuserve.com
Trustee Room, Main Brookline Library, 351 Washington St, Brookline
Editorial Comment: ISTEA is Federal transportation legislation but EarthWorks (erthwrks@thecia.net) reminds us that in our own Commonwealth An Act Improving Bicycle Transportation (H. 3581) is now in the House Ways and Means Committee and needs to be lobbied for. To help pass bill H. 3581 contact the Bicycle Coalition of Massachusetts at 491-7433 or EarthWorks Transport Action 983-9463.

7 pm
An Evening of Conversation with Noam Chomsky and Kathleen Cleaver
MIT Building 26, Room 100

Friday, October 17

12 pm
Cleveland's School Voucher Program
Peter Peterson, Harvard
TBA

Saturday, October 18

8:30 am - 4 pm
Better Bicycling Community by Community - Sponsored by The Bicycle Coalition of MA, with Reps Stasik, Paulsen, and Sen Tolman, workshops, and a bicycle tour
contact Schimek@volpe2.dot.gov
Natick Town Hall, Natick, MA

8:30 am - 5 pm
Women in Public Life: Past Perspectives, Future Challenges
conference featuring AFL-CIO vice president Linda Chavez Thompson
contact 287-5541
JFK Library, UMass Boston

9 am
Health and Security for the Next Millennium
annual statewide convention of Mass Senior Action Council
contact 350-6722
Clark University, Worcester

10 am - 4:30 pm
17th Annual EF Schumacher Lectures: John Mohawk, Seneca Elder; Greg Watson, Executive Director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative; Arthur Zajonc, Amherst College
contact (413)528-1737, efssociety@aol.com or http://www.schumachersociety.org
Clark Art Institute, South St., Williamstown, MA
$20 per person, $15 for members, and $7 for students

12 pm - 5 pm
Making our Campuses Sweatshop-Free!
A strategy planning session for high school and college students
contact 524-1166
Harvard, Phillips Brooks House

1 pm
Radio Free Allston (106.1 FM) meeting: what to do before the FCC calls
contact 562-0828 or http://www.tiac.net/users/error/radiofreeallston/
Brighton Police Station Community Room

Tuesday, October 21, 1997

8:30 am - 10:30 am
NBEN Breakfast Meeting: Utility Restructuring
Bill McBride, Mass Electric and Paul Levy, MIT
contact (978) 557-5475, execdirector@nben.org or http://www.nben.org
Massachusetts Electric, 1101 Turnpike St, North Andover, MA
Members: $15 Non-members: $30 Please respond by Oct. 17, 1997

Friday, October 24 - Saturday, October 26

Abolition 2000: NE Organizing Conference for Nuclear Weapons Abolition
contact 661-6130 or afsccamb@igc.apc.org
Registration: $30
 Saturday, October 25

Signature gathering for the Clean Elections Law
contact 422-0017 to volunteer

Environmental Worldviews and the Academy: a one-day student conference by and for Boston students
contact Jonna Higgins, Environment Chaplain, 496-8128
Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Ave

Sources for Listings:
MIT _Tech Talk_ :
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/www
Harvard _Gazette_ :
http://www.news.harvard.edu/hno.subpages/hno.calendar.full.html
Harvard Environmental Resources On-Line:
http://environment.harvard.edu
MA Executive Office of Environmental Affairs calendar:
http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/envir/earth.htm
Earth Day Network international/national listings:
http://www.cfe.cornell.edu/EarthDay/ednethome.html
Earth Day Greater Boston calendar:
http://www.earthdaygb.org

act-ma the Massachusetts activists mailing list:
subscribe by emailing majordomo@igc.apc.org, leaving the subject line blank and typing "subscribe act-ma" as the message

Peace and Justice Events Hotline at (617)787-6809

Computer Organizations of NE (CONE):
http://bcs1.ziplink.net/cone/sig - Special Interest Group list
http://bcs1.ziplink.net/cone/cal/index.html - calendar
Boston Webmasters Guild
http://boston.webmaster.org

Community Technology Center Network
http://www.ctcnet.org

Table of Contents



Building Green Buildings in Boston

Editorial Comment: Last week, Courtney Miller asked me whether I would be willing to publish an article of his on the Boston Convention Center. I said send it by and here it is.


The Next Green Elephant - The Boston Convention Center

Something has got to give.

Wall Street's economic juggernaut is marching into oblivion as more and more evidence every day seems to be building on global climate change. Am I missing something here?

Last summer, scientists from around the Boston area gathered at the Boston Public Library to discuss the urgency of global climate change, but offered no solace to those gathered nor a prudent course of action.

Boston is about to add a little momentum to the pace of the American economic engine by building one of the largest class of buildings on earth with its resultant power demand, the Boston Convention Center, which is due to be approved by the Governor in the coming months.

Could such a building become a green building? Totally preposterous, you say, gotta be kidding me, an oxymoron of the highest order.

Last year at the MIT Dimensions in Sustainablity conference organized by Professor Andrew Scott of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning, examples of green buildings on this scale were presented. Some of them were naturally daylit and ventilated. In fact, Alan Short, an English architect with an incredible command of engineering principles, awed the audience with a brewery building in Malta that used night-time air flushing to cool the facility by day. Malta has an arid climate ideal for large temperature shifts between night and day.

Can some of the same techniques work in a climate like Boston's? The next building Short presented was his building in Leicester, England, the Queens Building at De Montfort University, an area similar in humidity to Boston. It is also a building that is almost completely naturally daylit and ventilated using a similar sectional profile as the Malta building, a profusion of towers. Much like the wind towers of ancient Iranian architecture, the Queens BuildingÕs silhouette is adorned with masonry towers that act like chimneys to draw out stale, warm air.

These are some of the strategies that many of the greenest of green architects in Boston are considering for the Boston Convention Center. But even if this effort is successful and power demand from this building is cut in half, will this prevent the building from becoming a white ÒgreenÓ elephant? A convention center by definition requires extravagant international and intercontinental travel, particularly by air, increasing overall carbon emmissions. For further information, see Earth Island InstituteÕs latest issue on the air travel industry.

Despite all the contradictions, Architects for Social Responsibility has opted to do what all good sustainable architects must do - show the public what the adoption of green building principles can do, not only for indoor air quality, but for the City of BostonÕs massive longterm operating costs. Green building is taking off in a big way around the world. Can this community shift from making pronouncements about climate change to taking action?

For further information contact:
Courtney Miller, AIA
18 Porter Street
Somerville, MA 02143
(617) 628-0852
email: courtney@ecobuild.com
web: http://www.ecobuild.com

Architects for Social Responsibility
Co-Chairs:
Franziska Amacher, AIA 354-8707
Peter Nobile, AIA 423-1700

Editorial Comment: With Courtney's article in hand, I asked Henry MacLean (Timearch@aol.com) for information about the work he is doing with his class at Wentworth Institute of Technology on a green city hall design. Here is what he sent me, an introduction to the much more detailed work he and his colleagues are doing on the subject.


Developing a Model for Green Architecture

This report identifies two overarching possibilities or themes for the refurbishing of Boston City Hall which were developed from a Thesis Studio and a Sustainable Technology Seminar taught in 1996 at an accredited 5 year Architecture Program. We were invited to present our full report to the Chief of Basic City Services at City Hall this past April 9, 1997, and are being invited back to present the work to Mayor Menino's cabinet in late May.

* The first theme is a vision for the first Green City Hall in America. Through this study, we have identified specific economic, health and ecological possibilities which could help initiate a drive to create this country's most outstanding model in cutting edge sustainable architecture and landscape architecture for both the renovated and new construction proposed for the plaza.

* The second theme is visualizing City Hall as a keystone in the plan to revitalize the plaza by treating the building as a bridge between the marketplace/waterfront and the revived plaza. As part of this master plan link, we have explored some exciting architectural additions and alterations to City Hall which allow for significant pedestrian movement under, over and through the structure. We have also identified the possibility of reclaiming 100,000 s.f. of floor and garage space in the building for retail, office and demonstration activities linked to a proposed Ecological Research, Education and Monitoring Center for the City of Boston and the New England region. This facility would be open to the public, integrated with the revived commerce and redeveloped landscape of the plaza.

* We have been able to update material provided from the office of Property Management at City Hall by calculating the current Energy Utilization Rate (EUR) of the building at 277,000 BTU's /s.f. Comparing this to the Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS) of 110,000 BTU's/sf listed for a large office building in Boston, we identified substantial room and opportunity for improving the building's performance.

* The first phases of our proposal calls for repairs and computer retrofit work followed by a design/build contract to renovate the interior court of City Hall, providing a new insulated glass and panel skin on the exposed vertical faces of the structure and the roof opening, resulting in the creation of a fully conditioned space or winter garden made directly accessible from the new plaza and Faneuil Hall, transforming the building into one looped stack or continuous column of air.

* In addition to the potential possibilities that this new one looped stack or continuous column of air would offer architecturally, it would become a primary component of a state of the art mechanical heat recovery ventilation system which would reduce energy costs of the building in conjunction with the first two phases by 65%. (We calculate from the current sum of $1.6 million to roughly $600,000.) The building would also be given a new fresh air system as a result of this renovation. Ultimately providing a very generous improvement to 40 c.f.m. minimum of fresh air per person.

* In summary, we are suggesting that we can buy a sustainable building which demonstrates how to create more economic and healthy environments while teaching these issues to the city at large, all for the costs that would be otherwise spent on utilities alone. The million dollar savings per annum would pay for the $20-30 million renovation in less than a generation. What has been referred to as avoided costs are actually deferred or transferred costs to a demonstration center that can serve as an example to thousands of other structures in the city.

* Boston is a place where limits have traditionally been broken, from the time of the Sons of Liberty, to the leveling of hills to create 70% of the city from fill, to the recent initiatives of Boston as a national model in crime prevention. From this tradition it is only reasonable to assume that Boston (with more open space per capita than any other city in the country) can be THE city to set the example for our necessary transition to a restorative, green and sustainable architecture into the 21st century.

Editorial Comment: Since I had these two articles about green buildings, I thought it behooved me to gather some resources on the subject. I searched Hotbot (http://www.hotbot.com) for "Green Building" and got 2169 matches. Here are some places to start, each of which has their own reference and referral section for further sources:

Austin's Green Builder program (http://www.greenbuilder.com/) is one of the oldest and best programs in the country.
Steve Loken is president of the Center for Resourceful Building Technology (http://www.montana.com/crbt/) and a builder who has been working with and researching green materials for quite some time.
John Hermannsson is an architect who has produced a Green Building Resource Guide (http://www.greenguide.com/) in CD-Rom and print formats. The demo looks good and the product can be ordered from The Architectural Machine, PO Box 3808, Redwood City, CA 94064 for $34.95, book, and $89.95 for CD-Rom (Mac or Windows).
Environmental Building News (http://www.ebuild.com/) is one major publication in the area of green building.
William McDonough, a visionary ecological architect, has just inaugurated The Institute for Sustainable Design (http://minerva.acc.Virginia.EDU/~sustain/)
The United States Department of Energy has a Building Standards & Guidelines Program (BSGP) (http://www.energycodes.org/). I, of course, am old enough to remember the move for building energy policy standards (BEPS) back in the Carter Administration. I wonder how much oil we would be importing now, how much carbon we would be emitting to the atmosphere if we had instituted those standards 20 years ago.

Table of Contents



Two Conferences on Brownfields

Monday, October 27
Brownfields and Blue Skies - Current Issues in Air Quality and Brownfields Development
presented by the Air and Waste Management Association
contact (508)339-0136 for further information
Holiday Inn, Worcester, MA

November 14 - November 15
Vacants Lots to Common Ground: Strategies for Community-based Brownfields Revitalization
presented by Tufts Univ Environment and Community Development Program
contact 627-3162 or brownfields@tufts.edu
Tufts Univ, Medford, MA
$70 registration

Table of Contents



More News from Mars and Points Beyond

Editorial Comment: James O'Keefe (okeefe@tfn.com) read last week's review of Kim Stanley Robinson's Martian trilogy and added some other references which expand upon the ideas of ecological economics.


Hi,
I got the most recent A List... and noticed your reference to Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. Good set of books. Unfortunately, I had to put down _Blue Mars_ when school started. I don't know if you saw it, but KSR edited a new book called _Future Primitive : The New Ecotopias_ (Tor Books,1997 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0312863500/alistA/). I have been meaning to pick it up, but time is a scarce resource in my life. The stories appear to provide an interesting perspective on technologicalecological societies. Another book you may want to read is _Pacific Edge_ (St. Martin's Press, 1995 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0312890389/alistA/) (part of KSR's Three Californias trilogy.) It is much more of a personal story than the Mars Trilogy, but offers some interesting ideas of an ecological society in Southern California. If you are interested, I would be happy to lend you my copy. I should be at the Environmental Roundtable meeting this Thursday.

Some of the ideas in eco-economics are mentioned in Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel's book _Looking Forward: Participatory Economics in the Twenty First Century_ (South End, 1990 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0896084051/alistA/). I found it as part of a workshop on sustainable economics that Michael Albert and another person held at the Greens Gathering in Lawrence. It looks like an easy read, and it may be in the Cambridge or Boston Public Libraries. I know it came out in the early 90's.

Thanks a lot for A List...
peace
Jamie

Editorial Comment: I saw the end of a Discovery Channel program called "Anatomy of an Alien" on Sunday, October 5. It was all about the Epona Project (http://www.io.com/~stefanj/82Eridani/), an international effort to imagine possible extraterrestrial ecologies. Not ecological economics but certainly speculative fiction and a way to expand your conception of what forms life can take.

Table of Contents



Enviro Innovation, Big and Small

Editorial Comment: Steve Rice (rices@basf-corp.com) sent me this press release from BASF. I have run into other BASF environmental folks at various conferences and found them to be leaders in corporate environmental initiatives.


Here's a news release; feel free to use it in AList if you'd like. Big corporations CAN and ARE doing right things - it's just that these stories don't get quite the same press.

The 'uniqueness' with this process is that it breaks down rigid and flexible polyurethane foams, which are thermoset polymers (as opposed to thermoplastic polymers, which can just be remelted and reformed). The foams are 'dissolved' back into their original component molecules (polyols), then "re-produced" back into prime product materials. This closes the loop - the only losers are the landfill operators.

Hope this is useful to Alist and your readers.

Steve
BASF Environmental Opportunities
***************************

BASF, PHILIP SERVICES DEDICATE NEW POLYURETHANE RECOVERY PLANT IN DETROIT

The NAFTA region's first facility for recycling rigid and semi-rigid polyurethane is open for business in Detroit. The dedication of the 10 million pound-per-year facility, built at Philip Services' Detroit site, was held on September 16 and drew approximately 200 customers, reporters, employees and Detroit and Wyandotte officials, City of Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer.

The plant uses BASF Corporation's patented, proprietary "glycolysis" process to chemically reduce polyurethane into polyol, one of its two chemical building blocks. The process has the capability of recovering polyols from both flexible and rigid polyurethane, as well as from mixed feedstock polyurethane like those found in automobile instrument panels.

The news is good for manufacturers in several industries, including automotive, recreation and construction, who now have an alternative to landfilling process waste from the production of molded polyurethane products such as bumpers, wheel covers, other automotive body parts and an array of other finished goods.

Editorial Comment: This news comes from ECOCITY: Sustainable Urban Development (ECOCITY@SEGATE.SUNET.SE, to subscribe email LISTSERV@SEGATE.SENET.SE and type "SUBscribe EOCITY " as your message) by way of Simmons Buntin (BUNTIN@WAPA.GOV). Gary Hirshberg is an old friend, from the days when he used to work at New Alchemy Institute. I remember when Stoneyfield Farm was the Rural Education Center. Small companies can be environmental leaders, too.


Yogurt Company Puts A Lid On Global Warming

Small businesses can take action now to help reduce global climate change by following the "Stonyfield Farm Carbon Solution," according to Gary Hirshberg, CEO of national yogurt manufacturer Stonyfield Farm and longtime environmental advocate.

Hirshberg said the company has taken a comprehensive business approach to help tackle the global warming issue by measuring of offsetting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. To help others do the same, he has published a new guide that provides businesses with a concise, how-to plan to reduce their contribution to global warming.

Stonyfield Farm has been able to reduce its CO2 output while at the same time growing its bottom line by 30 percent and attaining a market share leadership position in several product categories.

"I want other businesses to know that they can do the same thing Stonyfield Farm did, and I urge them to do it," Hirshberg said.

"Macroeconomics are burning a lot of calories debating whether the U.S. should attempt to achieve 1990 emission levels by the year 2005, 2010 or even 2015. In the meantime, business and industry have the power to skip the debate and reduce carbon emissions today."

Contact: Susan McLean or Tricia Connolly, Cone Communications, phone 617-227-2111.
(STONYFIELD FARM RELEASE: 10/6)

Editorial Comment: And Rona Fried <rfried@bccom.com> wants me to remind you that the October Sustainable Business Network Journal is on-line at http://www.envirolink.org/sbn. She's quite happy with the response to the Sustainable Business Opportunities section and will be adding a Dream Jobs in Sustainable Business section in one or two months, too.

Table of Contents



Arguing Air Pollution at the TV Screen

I was clicking through the cable channels Sunday afternoon and caught the last few minutes of one of those interchangable pundit panel shows. This one was on PBS and I stopped to listen and watch Charles Krauthammer, an obviously smart and soured individual, a columnist for one of the various newsweeklies, hold forth on global warming. He averred that he'd studied the issue and believed that the lower estimates of damage from global warming were probably all that we had to worry about and that we shouldn't dismantle our roaring economy in order to protect the atmosphere, the climate, and the environment. He was magisterial in his disdain and the certainty of his opinion. There was an enviro on the panel who had a few seconds to say that business interests always moan and groan about the cost of environmental regulation but history shows that generally the economy makes out fine under the new regimen. Then the program was over.

I wonder why is it that I never hear the argument that I would make if I were up there on the T and V screen with Mr Krauthammer: the greenhouse gases we are talking about are wastes and that waste is pollution and that habit of waste affects the bottomline. You, Mr Krauthammer, are advocating waste, inefficiency, and laissez-faire laziness whether you realize it or not. Certainly bad business practice on the face of it and possibly criminal stupidity when you know that there are health and environmental effects associated with that waste.

In a true ecological economy, there is no such thing as waste or pollution and production is a zero emissions system, a concept such companies as Xerox and Interface are adopting on their own, ahead of environmental compliance pressures. These companies are using environmental considerations as a driver for innovation and profitable new products and processes. We know that we can be more efficient as Japan and Germany use half the energy we do per unit of production, thus releasing half the carbon into the air that we do for every nut and bolt, car and dishwasher, TV and stereo produced. By advocating the status quo, you doom us to a second-rate future and a degraded environment where the rising tides drown all coasts.

You, Mr Krauthammer, are arguing for an irresponsible wastrel economy and your children and grandchildren will not thank you for it.

Table of Contents



Get _Fear and Favor in the Newsroom_ on PBS

Editorial Comment: This comes from Steve Provizer (improviz@gis.net) of Radio Free Allston (106.1 FM).


This is an easy campaign to take part in, with huge implications. Please take a minute to read why this film should be shown, and then call or write your local PBS program director and * kindly * request them to pick up this film when it goes out on satellite November 9th...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Beth Sanders (206) 325-3744
e-mail: baker-sanders@juno.org

THE DOOR TO NATIONAL PUBLIC TELEVISION OPENS -- A CRACK-- FOR DOCUMENTARY EXPLORING M E D I A C E N S O R S H I P

SAN JOSE - After a year of negotiations, FEAR AND FAVOR IN THE NEWSROOM, a documentary on self-censorship within the American press, is going to be fed via satellite to PBS stations nationwide on Sunday, November 9th, 1997. It remains to be seen, however, how many local PBS stations will air this acclaimed documentary. Narrated by Studs Terkel, FEAR AND FAVOR IN THE NEWSROOM documents for the first time on film how corporate control of the press limits what Americans learn about controversial issues of the day.

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The Begging Bowl

One day, when I was a kid, there was a big snowstorm in my neighborhood. I went out to shovel the walk and had so much fun clearing the snow that I started cleaning up the sidewalk all the way down the street. When I got two houses away, the old woman who lived there told me she wanted to have some fun too and gave me a quarter to stop. I must have been really young - to feel that shoveling snow was fun and to think that a quarter was a lot of money.

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