Avatar Green Lessons for us all?

So you finally saw the much anticipated and popular Avatar movie, hopefully in 3D! If like many of you, you felt envious of their pretty much perfect bond with their planet... then we learned something right?

Pandora was an amazing world to experience and thanks to James Cameron we were shown a variety of cultures including Native American, African, Mayan, Maoris as a blending of indigenous tribes of the Earth in the blue coloration of the Na'Vi. Even the chief of the village was a famous Native American actor (Wes Studi) in all the great Indian films.

What the film lacked in original storyline it made up for in visual effects, creative landscapes and a wonderous connection to their vivid intense home planet. Earthlings have come so far from their world that even the jungles scare them, as I can attest to living now in the jungles of Maui.

What have you taken away and learned from this new environmental film?
How has it changed your perception of your connection to your own planet?
Who is our Eywa?

SF's 529 acres of underutilized city into a network of green spaces.

What if SF could create green spaces with all it's underutilized areas of development...?

As we have reported, Berkeley Professor Nicholas de Monchaux's Local Code proposal for activating San Francisco's "Unaccepted Streets" called for transforming the patchwork of 529 acres of underutilized alleys, street-ends, and pathways into a network of green spaces. Were San Francisco to build out the more than 1500 identified sites, de Monchaux estimates that the city would save $4.8 million in air pollution mitigation, $6.9 million in energy savings, and a staggering $1 billion in stormwater infrastructure.

From the proposal:

The final outcome of our proposal is a pedestrian network of places, and a virtual network of spaces as well. A focused web threaded through real and virtual fabric; our systematic interventions turn away from the idea of urban infrastructure driven by cars and highways to a more robust, and perhaps natural, notion of urbanity. Instead of the old metaphors of lungs and circulation, we propose a robust, networked logic of health and social welfare, a distributed immune system for the 21st-century metropolis.

While the project didn't win UCLA's WPA 2.0 design competition, Professor de Monchaux and the five other WPA 2.0 finalists were afforded an audience in late November with President Barack Obama's Director of the Office of Urban Affairs Adolfo Carrion and HUD Deputy Secretary Ron Sims, who both apparently showed great interest.

"My goal now is to initiate some of those conversations with local agencies," said de Monchaux. "I think a very interesting next step would be to implement some of the designs locally, create a community based laboratory to see how these designs would perform."

http://sf.streetsblog.org/2009/12/15/quantifying-the-value-of-san-franciscos-unaccepted-streets/

HUMANS- The next Endangered Species!

Are we the next species to be on the endangered species list... experts are starting to say yes! Yet our population is not dwidling, it may near 9 Billion in 20-30 years at this rate.

So maybe we should be regarded as a pest or virus and the earth is our host-carrier. The carrier is getting sick and may expel us from it's back soon, 2012 perhaps? Would it wake folks up to know that we are killing species at a rate of 1000 times the norm?

Should we be having more kids?
Who should be born, 1st world consumers or 3rd world developing nation poverty strains?
Does China have the right idea controlling the birth rate?

Are there too many people on the earth now...
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/videos/focus-earth-too-many-people.html

Local Resilience for All Workshop

Building an Inclusive, Justice-Centered Movement for Regional Self-Reliance

This six-hour workshop, designed by the Catalyst Project (see below), is based on the belief that anti-racism can be a catalyst for building powerful, effective multiracial movements that can create real justice in this country. It is designed to support white social justice activists in building an analysis of white supremacy and white privilege and developing anti-racist/pro-justice organizing skills.

Looking at historical and current institutional racism and how white privilege impacts social justice activist work, the workshop will introduce us to anti-racist organizing principles that we can bring into all of our efforts to build a healthy, sustainable, and just society. We will connect these topics to the challenges and prospects of building a truly inclusive movement for regional self-reliance that's centered in social justice.

WHEN: Saturday, October 17th, 10 am - 4 pm

WHERE: Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakland (between Telegraph and Broadway)

COST: $50 - $100 (sliding scale) + $10 local/organic/veggie lunch (optional, but restaurants are sparse near the Hall)

REGISTER TODAY!

• SEND A CHECK for the amount you can afford ($50-100 plus $10 for optional lunch), made payable to "Earth Island Institute c/o Bay Localize" with "10/17 Workshop" in the memo line. Address it to: Bay Localize, 436 14th Street, Suite 1127, Oakland, CA 94612
  
  OR
  
  
• REGISTER ONLINE below by making a donation for the amount you can afford ($50-100 plus $10 for optional lunch) AND e-mail us at rsvp@baylocalize.org to let us know you want the donation to cover your workshop tuition.
• https://www.earthislandprojects.org/bayLocalize/donate.html
  

Ghandi the non-violent Warrior!

Ghandi is 140 today and we should listen to his wisdom, inspiration, knowledge and encouragement to ACT!!!

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.” ~MG

Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947. So let’s just move on to some of my favourite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.

http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2008/05/09/gandhis-top-10-fundamentals-for-changing-the-world/

Some of my favorites that keep me thinking!
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
&
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
&
“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
&
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

You're Invited to a film screening and fundraiser!!

BE THE CHANGE...

You're invited to come and watch the Academy award winning for Best Documentary feature film in 2005 "Born into Brothels- Calcutta's Red Light Kids" as a fundraiser for the new Hope House in India!

Film Synopsis- In 1997, photographer Zana Briski was assigned to capture female images of brothels in Sonagachi, Calcutta, India. While the women were reluctant to let her into their lives, the children quickly responded and Briski became a resident of the brothel for five years. During that time, she provided the children with point and shoot cameras, set up classes in photography, and trained them to document the harsh reality of their daily lives. The result is the inspiring Oscar winning documentary "Born Into Brothels," a film that takes us inside the squalid brothels and allows us to see the world through the eyes of some of its most vulnerable residents, five girls and three boys, ages ten to fourteen. Shot in dazzling color using a digital camera, we get to know the children through their photos.

This worldwide Oct. 2nd screening is a fundraiser for the new Hope House current planned in India. How can you help to break the cycle of poverty and make a difference in the lives of more children like those portrayed in Born into Brothels?

Kids With Cameras (started by Briski) plans to break ground in late 2009/early 2010 to construct Hope House (Asha Niwas). This will be a nurturing safe haven where up to 100 GIRLS from Calcutta's red light district can come to live and develop the strength and skills to change their own circumstances while remaining connected to their families.

The children who live in Hope House will receive a free, first-rate education through high school, courtesy of the Buntain Foundation, which owns and operates 100 schools in India. The Buntain Foundation will also manage and staff the home. For more information and future plans please visit:
http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/school/

We are accepting all donations for the Hope House and do encourage about $10-30 per person at entry. There will be wine, popcorn, giveaways and other treats will be available. Please come early for a set chair or bring a low seat/chair for the floor. We hope to pack the house...India Style!

The auspicious date is the 140th Anniversary of Ghandi's birthday... as way to "Be the Change we want to see in the world!"

Please RSVP on Facebook and invite generous friends...
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138028995414&index=1