Lifestyle on THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

Where To Buy Fair Trade Chocolate

2011-02-14T10:22:00.001-08:00

by Janet Ritz Given chocolate's status as a conflict substance, it's important to know that ethical (and tasty!) chocolate is readily available. Why is this important? With Fair Trade chocolate: • Forced and abusive child labor practices are prohibited• Farmers earn a price that is adequate to meet...

Online Learning Challenges

2010-07-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Bray Teaching online is fundamentally different than teaching face-to-face. The design of effective online learning environments requires rethinking teaching practices. The rapid advances of educational technology encourages the growth of collaborative online learning experiences unconstrained by time and space. Even so, students may...

Building Trust in Online Communities

2010-06-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Bray, Learning Strategist There usually is one manager of an online community. The manager can be called a community manager, a team manager, or an eCoach. The members of your community will need to trust you to feel safe in your community. Here are seven tips to ensure a trusting relationship with the members of your community. 1....

Interview with Seth Godin about Education and Change

2010-04-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

by Barbara Bray I was one of the lucky few who was given an advance copy of Seth Godin’s book: Linchpin: Are you Indispensible? His book hits home for me especially involving education. To see all of the interviews, go to http://www.squidoo.com/the-Linchpin-Posts. I asked him how his ideas fit with schools today and how we can better...

That Age Mocking Super Bowl Ad

2010-02-10T15:18:00.000-08:00

by Sherman Yellen Okay, maybe I’ve lost my sense of humor in my seventies but there’s one Super Bowl ad that I hated, and it’s the one that is getting the most attention. It featured the elderly but ever game Betty White as a football player who gets tackled and trounced on in the field, only to be transformed into a youthful male...

Part III: ON THE GREEN CARPET with Greg Reitman: SUNDANCE 2010

2010-01-29T22:55:00.000-08:00

by Greg Reitman Part III: 'ON THE GREEN CARPET with GREG REITMAN' reflects on the 2010 SUNDANCE film festival and those filmmakers making conscious films and conscious choices. GREG REITMAN, a green correspondent and 2008 SUNDANCE Audience award winner, 'FUEL', reaches out to artists and filmmakers, seeing how these individuals are...

Part II: ON THE GREEN CARPET with Greg Reitman: SUNDANCE 2010

2010-01-29T22:47:00.000-08:00

by Greg Reitman Part II: 'ON THE GREEN CARPET with GREG REITMAN' returns to the 2010 SUNDANCE film festival. GREG REITMAN, a green correspondent and 2008 SUNDANCE Audience award winner, 'FUEL', takes a glimpse into artists and filmmakers own Health & Sustainability views and what they're doing to make a...

ON THE GREEN CARPET with Greg Reitman: Sundance 2010

2010-01-26T20:01:00.000-08:00

by Greg Reitman 'ON THE GREEN CARPET' ventures to Park City, Utah for the 2010 Sundance film festival. Greg Reitman, a green correspondent and 2008 Sundance Audience award winner, 'FUEL,' is returning to Sundance with his video blog, 'ON THE GREEN CARPET', which looks at how artists and filmmakers incorporate conscious based living into...

Hope for Esperanza in 2010

2009-12-31T10:07:00.000-08:00

by Sherman Yellen Today, right before the New Year begins, Esperanza and her two daughters came to visit my wife and me in our New York apartment. Thirty four years before today's visit, Esperanza was a runaway from a South American embassy in Manhattan that had virtually kept her a slave, having taken her to America from her native Peru to...

Commentary: The Journey to Individuation – and Responsibility - Part III

2009-10-04T03:01:00.000-07:00

by K.J. Wetherholt It is here that I am going to take a departure from simple commentary and get into something more substantively. In part I and part II, I described the issues with foisting adult responsibilities on children, the educational system failing students, and the need for adults to take up their rightful role as “elders” who are...

Commentary: The Journey to Individuation—and Responsibility: Part II

2009-09-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

by K.J. Wetherholt In Part I, I talked about the issue of kids and education, following President Obama’s speech to schoolchildren in Virginia following the Labor Day weekend. I discussed how children are truly deemed numbers by education, despite their protestations to the contrary. I talked about how kids are being forced to grow up before...

Commentary: The Journey to Individuation—and Responsibility: Part I

2009-09-11T15:17:00.001-07:00

by K.J. WetherholtOn Tuesday night, President Barack Obama stood before a group of students in Virginia to commemorate the first day of a new school year. His spoken remarks, and those found online here, show a president who is asking the students of this country to understand their role and their responsibility, not just to themselves, but as...

How to Build a White House Garden

2009-09-02T01:12:00.001-07:00

First Lady Michelle Obama and White House chef Sam Kass tell the story of the first garden on White House grounds since Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Garden during World War II: LABELS: ENVIRONMENT, GARDEN, MICHELLE OBAMA, WHITE HOUSE

Barack Obama, Please Stay Home--Healthcare Reform is Dying To Hear From You

2009-07-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

By Terry J. Leach, R.N. Esq. Barack Obama, welcome home. Now, please stay home. We need your undivided attention, and brilliance. We need your ability to connect with the American people. We need your wisdom to elevate the parochial concerns of lawmakers facing re-election next year, to craft something many American presidents have tried to do,...

And the Rains Came

2009-06-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

by Sherman Yellen This has been the wettest month of June in recent memory. Is it a coincidence that the word rain is a jumbled version of Iran where civilization has had a nervous breakdown? Is our climate having a breakdown as well? Climatologist's point to global warming as the cause of this rain, and my soggy mind has been occupied with...

My Eyes Are on the Prize

2009-06-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

by Sherman Yellen The other day I sent an email to the President of Bard College, my Alma Mater, protesting an award sponsored by the college that was restricted to novelists under 39 years old. It wasn't about my feeling excluded from that competition. I'm well over 39 but I am not an older novelist shut out of a chance for some prize money and a...

The Alzheimer's Project on HBO: A Caregiver's Response

2009-05-12T23:24:00.000-07:00

by K.J. Wetherholt Not too long ago, I had written an email to someone who had witnessed the love of a caregiver for his wife who had Alzheimer's Disease. It was in response to the awe the writer had for the compassion, patience and tenderness this man had for the woman who long before had succumbed to the last stages of what has come to be known...

How My Mother Fooled Me

2009-05-08T17:00:00.000-07:00

by Sherman Yellen I was one of the lucky ones. I had a great mother. The fact that I did not fully appreciate that until after her death makes me typical -- I fear -- rather than special among sons. She easily forgave my obsession with my work, more than I now forgive myself for not making more of that time we had together. I'm sure I sent her a...

Vision Power, Part 2

2009-04-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

by William S. Becker We are on the edge of a carbon revolution. Everything is going to change. This will matter to you…There is no high-carbon future. Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, Great Britain When we give voice to our visions, we identify the destinations we want to move towards. And by...

Vision Power, Part 1

2009-04-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

by William S. Becker Where there is no vision, the people perish. - Proverbs 29:18The best way to predict the future is to design it. -Buckminster Fuller For some time now I have been proposing a national vision project – a conversation among the American people about the positive future we can create if we put our minds to it. That idea may...

Lights at Night Linked to Breast Cancer

2009-03-14T22:19:00.000-07:00

by The Environmentalist Staff A study of NASA satellite data, overlaid with reported cancer statistics, has identified nighttime exposure to lighted areas as a risk factor for breast cancer: Women who live in neighborhoods with large amounts of nighttime illumination are more likely to get breast cancer than those who live in areas where...

Cats may lower heart attack risk

2009-03-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

by Janet Ritz A study from the University of Minnesota has discovered that people who have kept cats have a 40% lower risk of heart attack than their non-cat friendly counterparts. Researchers looked at nearly 4,500 adults and found that cat ownership was related to a 40% lower risk of suffering a fatal heart attack. The team speculated that...

Old? Me? The Politics of Aging

2009-02-27T12:06:00.000-08:00

by Sherman Yellen Last Tuesday when I went to bed I was just thirty three years old. Imagine my astonishment when I woke up Wednesday morning to find myself seventy-seven. I guess we all live out an episode of The Twilight Zone as we get older, finding ourselves adrift in that strange and mysterious land of the aging and not remembering how we...

Where to Buy Fair Trade Chocolate

2009-02-14T03:09:00.000-08:00

by Janet Ritz Given chocolate's status as a conflict substance, it's good to know that ethical (and tasty!) chocolate is readily available. Why is this important? With Fair Trade chocolate: • Forced and abusive child labor practices are prohibited • Farming families earn a price that is adequate to meet their basic human needs •...

Thoughts on Eco-Spirituality

2009-02-05T23:06:00.000-08:00

by Janet Ritz Native Americans have a tradition of dancing to bring forth rain. Whether their ceremony results in their thirst being quenched depends on which anecdotal story one chooses to believe. But the Rain Dance in its various incarnations or rather its more conventional equivalent -- the expression of prayer by the devout for a higher power...