Wendell Berry's Interview with Bill Moyers

The Invisible but Critical Role of Ownership Design in Food Systems

Marjorie Kelly, Fellow at the Tellus Institute and Author of Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, talks here at a special address to the Slow Money 4th National Gathering.

Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Lao1LDR48 

Steve Howard: Let's go all-in on selling sustainability

The big blue buildings of Ikea have sprouted solar panels and wind turbines; inside, shelves are stocked with LED lighting and recycled cotton. Why? Because as Steve Howard puts it: “Sustainability has gone from a nice-to-do to a must-do.” Howard, the chief sustainability officer at the furniture megastore, talks about his quest to sell eco-friendly materials and practices -- both internally and to worldwide customers -- and lays a challenge for other global giants.

Steve Howard leads the sustainability effort at Ikea, helping the low-price-furniture giant to bring sustainable products to millions of people.

The Koch Brothers & Climate Change

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has posted a PowerPoint presentation on the Koch brothers and their efforts to spread disinformation on climate change. Taking a cue from Naomi Oreskes' Merchants of Doubt, USC is attempting to spread the word through the more popular outreach provided by their website. They write,

"The Koch brothers want to use their vast oil, coal, and natural gas wealth to buy up our newspapers, and that is bad news for clean energy and climate change coverage.

First up on the Koch's wish list: Tribune Company newspapers read by millions daily, including the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Hartford Courant, Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel, and South Florida Sun Sentinel.

We need strong independent journalism that focuses on the facts about climate change and renewable energy, not more fossil fuel fiction.

As a new UCS investigation shows, a number of Koch-funded climate contrarians are the same corporate front groups that Big Tobacco used to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking. How do we know? We have their playbook.

The media has a big role to play in exposing this kind of disinformation, and that job will not get any easier if the Koch brothers get their way.

Tell the Tribune Company not to sell out to the Koch brothers.

Please make your letter personal by adding in your own thoughts and concerns. Every letter makes a difference, but customized letters have the greatest effect!

For more information, see our recent media analysis Unreliable Sources: How the News Media Help the Koch Brothers and ExxonMobil Spread Climate Disinformation."

How would you evaluate the Union of Concerned Scientists' argument? Totally persuasive? Somewhat persuasive? If you see reasons to doubt the information they're providing, please share that with all of us. 

The House that Teaches: Derek Ouyang at TEDx Stanford

Create Your Own Map

How well do you know the streets in your neighborhood? Channel your inner cartographer and make a map. You can do it the old-fashioned way—walking around and constructing a drawing as you explore—or take advantage of free digital tools like Stamen's awesome new MapStack. If you want to test yourself, try to draw a map from memory and see how far you can get before you need to look up the next street. Get creative—if medieval maps can have dragons, so can yours—and include your favorite neighborhood haunts. Post a photo on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #fortheloveof and #yourlocation.
To design your own map, go to http://mapstack.stamen.com

Arctic Methane: Why the Sea Ice Matters

Lisa Margonelli: The Political Chemistry of Oil

In the Gulf oil spill's aftermath, Lisa Margonelli says drilling moratoriums and executive ousters make for good theater, but distract from the issue at its heart: our unrestrained oil consumption. She shares her bold plan to wean America off of oil -- by confronting consumers with its real cost.

Lisa Margonelli's work examines the promise and possibility of a post-oil world. She has studied California's opportunity to benefit from new technologies and policies, and is looking at the unexpected complications of alternative fuels and energy efficiency.

Margonelli has been published in The Atlantic, New York Times online, Washington Post, Wired and other publications. Her book about the oil supply chain, Oil On the Brain: Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to Your Tank, was recognized as one of the 25 Notable Books of 2007 by the American Library Association.

"Lisa Margonelli has a rare and precious talent. She has drawn a wonderfully readable portrait of the fascinating and surprisingly little-known human face of Big Oil."

Simon Winchester

Quotes by Lisa Margonelli

• “I highly recommend that you get a chance to see crude oil burn someday, because you will never need to hear another poli sci lecture on the geopolitics of oil again. It’ll just bake your retinas.”
  
• “It’s much more important to have a car that runs, to have a job and keep a job, than to have a GED. That’s actually very perverse.”
  
• “We need to remove the perverse incentives to use more fuel. We have an insurance system where the person who drives 20,000 miles a year pays the same insurance as somebody who drives 3,000. We actually encourage people to drive more.”
  
• “You might notice that many gas pumps, including this one, are designed to look like ATMs. I’ve talked to engineers. That’s specifically to diffuse our anger, because supposedly we feel good about ATMs.”

Amory Lovins: On Reinventing Fire--A 40-Year Plan for Energy

In this intimate talk filmed at TED's offices, energy theorist Amory Lovins lays out the steps we must take to end the world's dependence on oil (before we run out). Some changes are already happening -- like lighter-weight cars and smarter trucks -- but some require a bigger vision.

Alex Laskey: How behavioral science can lower your energy bill

The Lexicon of Sustainability

Our understanding of how others name the foods that we eat and the processes that come with their growth and harvesting, makes a difference in what we choose to support.

The Empathic Civilization

What if we weren't all hard-wired for aggression and self interest? What if, instead, we are soft-wired for empathy and compassion? How would that change the way we see the world and our place in it?