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Etsy is an online marketplace for buying & selling all things handmade.
Etsy's mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to
reconnect makers with buyers.
Etsy's vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice:
Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.
Usually not!
Green is a method of building that uses subtle techniques such as sourcing local materials, using non-toxic materials, including space for water conserving landscaping, and using solar heat, natural light, and natural ventilation effectively.
Those strategies don't look very different. Buildings have used bits and pieces of these smart building design and construction techniques for many centuries. Today's "green" building not only uses these techniques on the outside of the building skins, but internally. Energy efficient equipment reduces energy use. Low water flow plumbing reduces water consumption. Low energy lighting reduces energy use. Non toxic and recycled materials are selected for paints and carpets. Modular construction such as carpet tiles vs. wall to wall carpets reduce the need to fill landfills with old materials when they wear only in traffic patterns.
Most green buildings can't be identified from the street! So you might like to search online for green buildings in your community and identify some of them. They make great outings for visiting family and friends! Taking a tour will give you wonderful insights into local materials, technology innovations, and just smart living!
Ms. Migiro pointed out that the world is faced with an “unprecedented” rise of food prices, plunging many developing countries into a crisis that threatens to thwart efforts to achieve the global anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Highlighting some of the effects of the crisis, Ms. Migiro noted that families that do not have enough to eat are being forced to make terrible choices, such as deciding between food or medicine, or choosing whether to send their children to school or to the fields where they might earn money to help the family.
“And it’s women who are hit the hardest,” she said. “The development emergency engulfing whole communities is taking its heaviest toll on women.”
The crisis offers an opportunity to re-invest in agriculture in Africa.
“Helping African farmers can have a decisive impact on women’s lives,”
Ms. Migiro said, noting that for the most part it is women – who make
up 80 per cent of Africa’s farmers – that are out there under the hot
sun, tending the fields and harvesting crops.
“But the same women hit hardest by the food crisis are ready to hit
back,” she added, stressing that with the right support, they can move
their communities from subsistence farming to commercial farming and
even industry. This is crucial not only for the continent but for the
world, which is just not producing as much food as it consumes.
“We need to do much more… to empower women. Women can drive the Green Revolution in Africa. They hold the key to breaking out of the food crisis; to educating the young; to peace, progress and prosperity,” the Deputy Secretary-General stated.
SOURCE: UN.org
North Americans' top issues about sustainability include global change and the environment; which rank over 50%, but the top issue is feeling connected to friends, family and community: at 90%
Followed closely by:
Sense of personal well being 90%Other high ranking issues include Fair trade; Personal relationships and Buying local to support locally based business.
Balanced life 89%
Being paid a living wage 88%
Tips to stay connected... (Watch the videos)
Throw a block party with local food, of course.
Have a group yard sale.
Make a little extra food and share it with a neighbor who might be harried...like a new parent!
These are all also great for the environment!
Remember how your own mother just wanted you to be healthy and happy? You didn't need to make a fuss over her, just be good kids!
Okay, a fuss was okay...and appreciated -- but making a fuss wasn't enough if she caught you being naughty at the same time!
That's kind of how I look at Earth Day. Mother Nature just wants us to be healthy and happy. And stay out of trouble. So what can we do to be healthier and happier...and just get along? And what can we NOT do that will make us healthier, happier and kinder to our mother? Kinder so she doesn't have to clean up after us?
Here are just a few ideas of things to do that would make your Mama proud:
Eat your organic veggies.
Clean your room with nontoxic cleansers.
Use water sparingly.
Tell someone something kind and loving about your Mom!
And here are a few things NOT to do that will make your Mama equally proud:
Don't drive if you don't have to -- and drive a little slower! :-)
Don't throw all that great paper into the trash -- recycle it!
Don't use toxics. Remember, everything goes into our water supply...and you wouldn't want to drink that junk, would you?
Don't leave the screen door open! Or the refrigerator door!
Isn't it amazing that so many of your mother's lessons apply on the global scale? Hmmmm, maybe there's something to this living within our means, caring for others like we care for ourselves...and being responsible for our own mess!
Thank you, Mama!
Carolyn
Green-Collar Jobs in America’s Cities -- This practical strategy publication outlines strategies for developing green-collar job initiatives and pathways out of poverty at the local level. Co-authored by Green For All, this report describes a 4-step approach for local initiatives and highlights a dozen great efforts already underway around the country.
Green For All, in partnership with the Apollo Alliance, Center for American Progress, and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, recently released this guide to help cities across America develop strategies to spur the creation of green-collar jobs and opportunity in their communities.
The new guide, Green-Collar Jobs in America’s Cities: Building Pathways out of Poverty and Careers in the Clean Energy Economy, is a first-of-its-kind publication that addresses the demand for this information and outlines a strategic framework in which local policymakers and advocates can develop a green-collar job initiative that responds to the realities of their local economies and communities.
“Our green future will be invented at the local level,” said Van Jones, founder and president of Green For All. “This report offers those leaders some of the best thinking and models currently available for building green-collar jobs and the training pipelines necessary for city residents to fill those jobs and claim the promise of living wage careers.”
The guide encourages cities to take a four-step approach.
- First, set a baseline to start from. Identify your environmental and economic goals, and assess local and regional opportunities for achieving those goals.
- Second, develop a green economic development plan. Enact policies and programs to drive investment into targeted green economic activity and increase demand for local green-collar workers.
- Third, ready your workforce. Prepare your green-collar workforce by building green-collar job training partnerships to identify and meet workforce training needs, and by creating green pathways out of poverty that focus on recruitment, job readiness, job training, and job placement for low-income residents.
- And fourth, build on your successes. Leverage your program’s success to build political support for new and bolder policies and initiatives.
Launched at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2007, Green For All grew out of Van’s work creating a ‘Green Job Corp’ in Oakland, California, as part of a program at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Van founded the Center in 1996, which promotes alternatives to violence and incarceration, including its successful “Books Not Bars” campaign that has helped reduce California’s overall youth prison population by more than 30 percent.
Green For All
414 13th St, Suite 600
Oakland, CA 94612
510-663-6500
http://www.greenforall.org/
