Our final weekly roundup of stories in 2011.

Here at EcoSalon we’re filled with hope for the new year – specifically:

The New Year resolutions we hope you’re not making in the next few days.

The 2012 we hope you’ll have, specifically, every single one of us.

The 10 news stories of 2011 we hope you didn’t miss.

The 10 quotes about women that we sincerely hope you did miss.

…and in the coming year, we dearly hope we’ve all learned how to seize the moment - because life is short.

Happy New Year!

10 global events we were all intrinsically part of.

What makes an event memorable? How does a “happening” sear into our collective mindset and take up permanent residence in our hearts and in our souls? Most often, of course, we are not personally there to witness or directly experience occurrences of global importance.

How many of us were in Cairo’s Tahrir square as protests raged earlier this year?

Who among us lost a loved one or ate radioactive food in Japan, or suffered pangs of hunger in East Africa?

In our media-saturated world, memorable events – indeed memories themselves – are delivered to us via an increasingly wide range of words and pictures, bits and bytes, accounts that stream to our attention, some touching us for a moment, some for a lifetime. Here’s a look at our Top 10 (in no particular order), with links to the stories and accounts that made them indelible to us.

1. March of Horrors: Japan’s Suffering

A tsunami generated by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northeast Japan killed nearly 20,000, caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage and triggered a nuclear power plant disaster that unleashed radiation into the environment. Within hours, videos of the unimaginable waves crushing the Japanese shoreline flooded world consciousness via YouTube and other Internet outlets.

2. The Harder They Fall: Arab Spring

Beginning with a small demonstration in Tunisia that grew to topple a regime, flames of unrest spread to Egypt, ousting dictator Hosni Mubarak, and then to Bahrain and Yemen. Eventually Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi would be dead, and even today, Syrian protesters remain caught in a bloody battle with dictator Bashar al-Assad. Did social media enable and perhaps even spark these events?

3. European Disunion: Economic Crisis in the E.U.

The global economic downturn wreaked havoc in the European Union where austerity measures in Greece resulted in riots and protest, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was driven from office, and measures taken by Germany and France exacerbated an ongoing fissure between the E.U. and Britain. Meanwhile, disagreement about how to avoid a catastrophic meltdown flared across the Atlantic, as opinions about what to do remained as numerous as there are pundits and stakeholders.

4. Wanted Dead: American Operation Kills Osama Bin Laden

In May, American helicopters bearing a special operations team raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, whose followers carried out the 9/11 attacks. Within hours his body was buried at sea, and images of the corpse suppressed. Instead, a powerful and now-famous image of White House personnel – including president Barack Obama and Secretary of state Hillary Clinton – remotely watching the mission was made public.

5. The Fruit of Invention: The World Mourns Loss of Apple Founder Steve Jobs

The world lost some great minds to cancer and health issues as 2011 wore on, including writer and polemicist Christopher Hitchens and Czech playwright, dissident and politician Vaclav Havel. But, despite the sense that “it was coming,” the loss that seemed to most deeply move our high-tech world was that of innovator, inventor and Apple Founder Steve Jobs. As news of his death spread across the internet in October – in part via millions of his own inventions – biographer Walter Isaccson’s iBio hit the presses, eventually to set new sales records.

6. From Wall Street to Main Street: Occupiers Take a Stand

Beginning with a September protest in a New York City park near Wall Street, what became known as the “Occupy” movement quickly spread to many major American cities and beyond. The “leaderless” protests are said to represent “the 99 percent” against the richest 1 percent of Americans, who benefit from corporate and political corruption and greed at the majority’s expense. In November, images of a campus police officer at the University of California Davis pepper-spraying students went viral over the internet, instantly becoming a rallying point for the movement.

7. Us vs. Them: Obstructionism Paralyzes Washington

Despite being fractured between party traditionalists and Tea Partiers, a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives shackled the hands of Democratic President Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Senate. On issues ranging from the economy to the environment, American leaders reached a seemingly endless stream of stalemates. Most notably, the President unveiled a massive jobs bill that was labeled dead-on-arrival by members of both parties. The New York Times commented on the political gamesmanship, and EcoSalon presented the many rifts dividing America.

8. Weather, Weather Everywhere:  Climate Change Marches On

With drought in Texas, killer cyclones in the Philippines, and monster floods in South America and Thailand, 2011 was another year in what seems like an annual escalation of climate change and severe weather. Perhaps the most wrenching weather-related disaster was the return of drought to the Horn of Africa. Data continues to show the impact humans have on the world’s climate, yet deniers continue their war on science. In October, EcoSalon named names.

9. We are the World: All 7 Billion of Us

As the human population reached the 7 billion mark (with 3 billion more projected by the end of the century), debates about resources and birth control reheated. Can our planet sustain such exponential growth? In its inimitable way, National Geographic gave us the story in pictures.

10. Ask and Tell: End of Anti- Gay Military Policy in the American Armed Forces

After 18 years of controversy, the Pentagon repealed its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in September. After encouraging those who have been expelled under the policy to reenlist, President Barack Obama declared: “We are not a nation that says ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ We are a nation that says ‘out of many, we are one.’” An MSNBC story covered a historic kiss.

Images: TenSafeFrogs, Official U.S. Navy Imagery, S a l e e m – H o m s i, PIAZZA del POPOLO, bkusler, lwpkommunikacio, bogieharmond, Alex Barth, kevin dooley, woodleywonderworks, Beverly & Pack

Great stories this week from EcoSalon you may have missed.

Is the adored American aesthetic a la Ralph Lauren a joke? In Part 2 of our exclusive series, Made in America, fashion industry insider Louise Lagosi investigates the harmful environmental and economic consequences of our love for both “American” style and cheap prices.

Representative Weiner is only the latest in a string of political scandals. Do we have the right to know the details of our legislators’ personal lives – and further, to judge their indiscretions? News editor Andrea Newell argues that the answer is yes. Hell, yes.

Avocado slicers. Apple corers. The Rachael Ray garbage bowl (yes, really). Will our affection for single-use kitchen tools never end? Columnist Vanessa Barrington takes a look at the most ridiculous cooking gadgets.

Single? How fabulous, honey. Sex and relationship columnist Abigail Wick thinks you’re pretty lucky, sharing six smart, sexy reasons it’s great to be on your own.

The Box. $600 of designer eco-friendly goodies, from sunglasses to beauty products, for just $99. No wonder it sold out in only 11 hours. But fret not: there’s one Box left, and you can win it free by entering the contest at Refinery29. Go on, get!

News editor Andrea Newell reports from the Women in the World Summit.

I was pleased to be invited to cover the exclusive Women in the World Summit (#WiW11) in New York March 10-12 at the Hudson Theater. It is the second annual summit hosted by Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, and it brings together women from around the world to discuss issues affecting women both in the U.S. and abroad. The agenda included speakers such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, moderators such as Christiane Amanpour, Juju Chang, Mika Brzezinski, and Lesley Stahl, and panels with guests like Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condoleeza Rice, Ashley Judd, Lydia Cacho, Diane von Furstenberg, Sheryl Sandberg, John Donahoe, Amy Chua, and more.

Considering the host, the powerhouse speaker lineup, and the topic, I expected the summit to be bigger, but there weren’t more than 200 attendees. Although Newsweek and The Daily Beast had a significant news presence, I only met four writers from other online news outlets beside ours. I’m sure there were more, but we commented amongst ourselves about the lack of outside coverage. Indeed, it was puzzling. These women, many prominent ones among them, came from all over the world to tell their stories, but who’s listening?

Although the subject matter was, at times, heavy on the heart, the Hudson Theater is a stunning venue. The theater lobby was full of men and women in business suits interspersed with women in their colorful, native garb. A sea of dark grays, blues and black punctuated by vivid colors and metallic sparkle. The ornate carving is beautiful, the lighting is dramatic and it is an intimate setting to listen to these women and their amazing stories.

Although all the sessions are now available online, there was something magical about these moments “in real life”. Being there was to see Ashley Judd nearly dissolve into tears when she talked about her friend’s daughter, to feel her anguish from 75 feet away. Being there made women’s issues all the more real – walking past the women in their bright colors, hearing their beads clink, and listening to their lyrical voices as they connected with members of the audience in the lobby during the breaks.

At EcoSalon, we believe that women and green go hand and hand. We are concerned with all that is conscious, which means not only being concerned about the environment, but about how people are treated. We simply cannot have progress of a piece; you cannot have one conscious world without the other. That’s why we wouldn’t have missed the Women in the World 2011 summit and the opportunity to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing women – and men – right now. While all of these quotes have been captured in streaming video, the ones that left the strongest impression on me are the ones shared here.

“If you knew them, you’d care.”

Zainab Salbi, Founder and CEO of Women for Women International, talking about the women she met and photographed on her trip to Congo

“The role of women in the democracy movement is hammering home the point that the treatment of women in any society is a marker of its civilization, and its respect for the human dignity of every individual – in fact the very measure of democracy itself.”

Tina Brown, Editor-in-Chief, Newsweek and The Daily Beast

“We’re here because we believe. We believe in ourselves and we believe in our fellow human beings. We believe that justice will prevail over time, because justice has to prevail over time…Most of all, we’re all here because we believe in action.”

Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook

“I’m here to say that women matter.”

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director, World Bank

“We arrest the girl. We criminalize the girl. This is the only situation of child abuse where we put the child behind bars.”

Malika Saada Saar, Founder and Executive Director, The Rebecca Project for Human Rights, talking about child sex trafficking

“Women and girls around the world taught me this lesson: If you do not have real opportunities to exercise your rights, how can you choose freely? I know my rights. I have survived rape, incarceration, and an assassination attempt for exercising my freedom to be an echoer of other women’s voices. And here I am, making a free choice that millions of our sisters cannot make. Until we walk the path together, I’ll keep writing.”

Lydia Cacho, Journalist and Author, reading from her book, Slaves of Power: A Journey to the Heart of World Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls

“I design, but more importantly, I decide. I am a job creator.”

Divya Keshav, Owner, Krishna International, talking about the opportunity to own her own business

“A female college graduate earns $1.2 million less than her male counterpart.”

Statistic from The Marzipan Layer session

“[Marketers have learned that] girls really make a lot of buying decisions…so not only are we marketing more to girls, but we are sending messages to girls about what power really looks like…so what’s often being sold to girls is that power is about being sexual and looking sexy…Clearly this is a time where girls have more opportunity than they’ve ever had before, but at the same time, the messages they’re getting are deeply confusing.”

Rachel Simmons, Author and Co-Founder, Girls Leadership Institute

“Where women do not have the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential, it is far less likely that democracy and prosperity go hand in hand. It is far less likely that peace and security are present.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State

In the coming days, I will be sharing more about the summit, its topics and what we can take away from it. It’s not just about the hardships of women and girls in developing countries, but about identifying girls at risk in the U.S., encouraging all girls to be leaders, and becoming aware of the plight of women and girls everywhere. It’s about seeing our many similarities, rather than focusing on our differences. It’s not about being up with women (and down with men) but about recognizing how much women have to offer the world, yet how often they are not empowered to contribute.

From my vantage point in the press balcony before a session.

When I was in a college I had a friend named Henry. He wasn’t my closest comrade, by any stretch, but he was part of our little posse and was as friendly to me as anyone else in the group – eye-to-eye handshakes, hugs, pats on the back and pints of beer. Never a cross look or an ill word. Until one evening.

I was in the campus pub with the gang, our group holding court at our usual corner table. Henry entered swiftly, determined, his head darting around, clearly looking for someone or something. After a moment he turned to me. He had obviously found what he was looking for. Without hesitation, he pushed his way through the crowd, moving furiously in my direction. Suddenly he left his feet, diving through the air, up across the table, knocking over beers, screaming obscenities, every inch of his body dedicated to causing me harm. I pushed my chair backwards and crouched in the corner, stunned and mortified as my friends pulled him away, struggling just to hold him. As I saw him disappear back into the crowd, I looked for some hint of meaning from his eyes. I got nothing. I searched my own mind for a reason. I came up empty.

I saw Henry a few more times that semester. He seemed subdued, always moving slowly, never looking at me. He would immediately leave any room I entered. Before the end of the year’s classes he was gone. I later found out he was sick. Manic depression. Despite my usual “what did I do to deserve this?” it all had nothing to do with me. It turned out there was no “meaning.” There was only illness.

In the wake of the Arizona shooting, our nation has scrambled for meaning. Why did Jared Lee Loughner open fire on Representative Gabrielle Giffords in a rampage that killed six people and wounded 14 others at Tucson grocery story on January 8? What did Giffords represent that lead him to commit such a heinous act? What point was he trying to make? How does this reflect on national politics? How about gun control? There are so many questions and issues here, one hardly knows where to begin.

Of course, it’s entirely appropriate for an incident like this to spur debate on topics like gun control (I’m imagining now the transaction at Sportsman’s Warehouse and the moment when Loughner’s fingers first touched the deadly semiautomatic Glock ) and the impact of violent political rhetoric (what kind of imbecile uses crosshairs over names to make a political point). But if you’re looking for meaning here, consider these two things: First, the lives and loved ones of the dead and injured. And second, our nation’s dysfunctional relationship with mental illness – our lack of education around the subject, our stigmatization of those who suffer from its various forms, and our unwillingness as a society to address these illnesses in a concerted and informed manner.

There are a number of forms of mental illness that affect untold millions of our population. To gain a basic understating of the subject, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) offers a wonderfully informative site that would do us all some good to explore. Here are a few of the most common forms of mental illness that could lead to violent behavior, along with information on diagnoses and treatment.

• Bi-polar disorder
• Borderline personality disorder
• Dissociative disorders
• Schizophrenia
• Schizoaffective disorder

Our society’s failure to control the use of guns in crime continues to befuddle every civilized nation on Earth. Likewise, the entire democratic world is stupefied by the way we conduct our political selves. (Says “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart: “It would be really nice if the ramblings of crazy people didn’t resemble the way we talk to each other on TV.”) But the state of our mental health system – a system that is clearly failing to deal with the many Americans who suffer from the above illness – receives disturbingly little attention.

NAMI recently conducted a study on “The State of Public Mental Health Services Across the Nation.” The results today are the same as they were when the group conducted its last study in 2006: We received a “D.” (Note that the Virginia Tech shooting, where a mentally ill man murdered 32 and wounded so many others, occurred in 2007.)

“State by state, this assessment of our nation’s public mental health services finds that we are painfully far from the high-quality system we envision and so desperately need,” reports NAMI. “While some states are making consistent efforts to improve, the great majority are making little or no progress.” Their conclusion: “The state of mental health services in this country is simply unacceptable.”

Jonathan Cohn, writing for The New Republic, adds this: “Mental health, unfortunately, is probably the illness most likely to go untreated in the U.S. The stigma around mental illness isn’t what it once was, but it still exists. Private insurance rarely provides enough coverage for the seriously ill, overwhelming public systems to the point where people who could benefit from therapy, drugs, and community supports – frequently living totally normal, productive lives – instead end up without treatment and sometimes without homes. Inevitably, some of these people end up committing crimes, overloading a criminal justice system ill-equipped to handle them. We don’t warehouse the mentally ill in asylums anymore. Instead, we warehouse them in jails.”

A key word in Cohn’s astute assessment is “stigma.” Our lack of education (let alone understanding) as individuals and a society leads to myriad false characterizations of the mentally ill – and their families. These erroneous notions prevent many from seeking, being lead to or being required to receive treatment. This is not only to due the negative connotations associated with those who suffer – and the progenitors of those who suffer –  but also from a institutional world that remains underfunded and misguided in part as a result of those same stigmatizations.

So families and others (question are being raised, for example, as to what school officials who suspended Loughner from Pima Community College for bizarre and violent outbursts might have done to ensure he received treatment), continue to try to deal with a problem with what amounts to decreasing guidance and few protocols made available by a society that wants to sweep the issue under the rug.

But despite system failures, we can and should educate ourselves. There are things we can do when we become worried about a friend or loved one, and Arizona should be a wakeup call, says NAMI Medical Director Dr. Ken Duckworth. He offers a few suggestions:

• Maintain your support and connection with the person – if that is impossible then work to get help to understand why.
• Many people trust their general practitioner, who may help or find a psychiatrist or mental health professional who can help.
• Get support for yourself from people you trust or in a support group as you engage in the challenge to find the right path.
• Always see if you can find a way to get your loved one help with consent and collaboration. If you do need to put someone into an evaluation or treatment against their will, they may not thank you. But you may make a difference.
• Call the department of mental health in your state to get information about resources for services.
• Substance abuse can increase the risk of violence and complicates treatment efforts. Contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) for a substance abuse treatment facility locator.
• Most important, he says, “families and communities need to work together to create a situation where there is no prejudice against seeking mental health treatment or towards people who live with mental illness.”

In the aftermath of Henry’s attempted attack on me that night so many years ago, I wanted nothing more than for my “friend” to disappear. I didn’t want to talk to him or see him and, as it came to light that he had a mental disorder, I wanted to deal with him even less. Most of us know what to do with bullies (personal and political) because we have some orientation regarding their motives. Our responses can be framed in the context of those motivations, and outcomes can be measured. But we don’t know what to do with mental illness. We want it to just go away.

Unfortunately, it will never go away. But our first best hope is to inform ourselves – as individuals and as society– by taking the initiative to learn and teach. Only this way will the stigmas disappear and the right choices about treatment and institutionalization policies become clear. We will never be able to prevent instances like this from ever occurring. But we can prevent some of them. And that would be a lot. Just ask the victims’ families.

“Henry” is not my attempted assailant’s real name. I don’t know where he is today, or if he ever received treatment for his illness.

Image: Medill DC

“Real Americans Buy American.” Growing up in the Motor City in the 1970s, that ubiquitous message, proudly displayed on the rear bumpers of so many Mustangs, Caddies and Pontiacs led this young man to wonder what the problem was. If the red, white and blue declarative were true, why would the Detroit Free Press be running what seemed to be a serialized front-page obituary for our town and our industry? Why would that big black number in The News’ headline have so many zeros after it? (How many people were laid off yesterday?) As near as I could tell, there were plenty of Americans around, and if they did what those bumper stickers told me they do, why was Detroit blight central rather than the boomtown my parents grew up in?

Eventually I learned the truth: Real Americans don’t buy American. Real Americans buy what they want.

This bitter truth periodically hits Detroit hard, and each time one has to wonder if the American auto industry’s hubris has led to its final death knell. I watched firsthand the slow motion response of the Big Three to real world energy and design challenges and the resulting economic devastation of the mid- and late-70s, and again in the late-80s and early-90s (when my parents lost their home and the family’s electrical supply business). Today, watching from my safe haven of California, I read stories of urban dystopia and (literally) scorched earth, the only hope being an unusually creative, industrious and determined population.

But once again, and like always it seems, there’s a blip in the flatline. Could there be life?

As Detroit’s North American International Auto Show enters its 23rd year as an international event, the city’s hometown industry isn’t looking so bad. Last year, reports Business Insider , saw Ford get back its number-two U.S. automaker slot after having lost that position to decelerating Toyota, while the top three fastest-growing brands were from General Motors. “Even Chrysler — a company once left for dead — gained U.S. market share and closed the gap with Honda, despite having a dearth of new models versus its well-stocked Japanese competitors.” (Tangentially, Business Insider, probably a good idea to can the “Pearl Harbor in reverse” rhetoric. It’s a bad week for kill-the-enemy hyperbole.)

Here’s more good news from the Wall Street Journal: Ford announced that it’s going to hire 7,000 workers and is expected to report that 2010 was one of the most profitable years in its 100-plus-year history. Meanwhile, GM says it had a strong end to the year, finishing with more than $20 billion in liquidity and that it expects to hire more U.S. workers if annual sales meet their expected forecasts. As for offerings, reports the Journal, the “40 new vehicles that will be unveiled represent an increase from 27 new models that debuted at the 2010 edition of the show… Chrysler will show off 13 models in addition to the 300 that have been completely redesigned or significantly overhauled. GM will show the Sonic and a compact Buick. Ford will feature a compact minivan based on the European C-Max model, as well as a battery-powered version of its Focus.”

Could the Big Three be getting it? Are they finally giving Americans what they want? Consider that this better-than-okay news is emerging from a horrifying industry free fall that began in 2008 and featured the bankruptcy reorganizations of GM and Chrysler in 2009. “Last year’s show had a funereal feel—spartan displays, sparse attendance, few of the lights, loud music and theatrical unveilings that had become the show’s trademark,” reports the WSJ. So keep in mind from where this upbeat news is coming from. When there’s nowhere to go but up, you won’t be penalized for thinking that any movement is good movement.

It also remains to be seen if this upswing is the result of a slow but sure economic surge that has buyers beginning to make those big purchases they put off for so long. Whether or not new offerings and reconfigured corporate structures will have the impact everyone hopes for won’t be determined in the immediate future. But one thing’s for certain; the old adage is true: “when the nation catches a cold, Detroit gets pneumonia.” The thing is, for the infirm, pneumonia can be fatal. And for Detroit, that adage isn’t funny anymore.

Image: country_boy_shane

War, science denial and Fox News. It’s what’s going on in the world, but it’s not especially merry, merry. If you’re feeling anxious about the eco conversation turning an ugly shade of green at the family Christmas dinner, rest easy. It’s not all doom and gloom. (Besides, there will be plenty of time post-feast to take on Uncle Ulysses on Wikileaks, your sister Sue on why being green doesn’t actually make you a commie, and cousin Clive on the South Atlantic Gyre.)

So, for your dining pleasure, I submit to you three news items everyone can be happy about:

1. Good for flora…

How is this for a dream headline: “Amazon deforestation in dramatic decline, official figures show.”

This is from the Guardian, which reported this summer that data from satellites shows that large areas of forest destruction was about halved in the period between August 2009 and May 2010, compared with the same period a year earlier (to about 930 square miles from about 1860 square miles). The story notes that the Brazilian environment agency, Ibama, said “the drop was due to the increased use of satellite data to spot the felling of trees and new tactics to deter loggers, including ending their ability to hide under cloud cover.” Along these lines, we recently reported here that Google’s announcement this month of its Earth Engine will allow for even more monitoring and measurement of changes in the Earth’s environment. With its eye in the sky, the system will “function like a watchdog camera, supporting the development of ‘monitor, report and verify’ (MRV) efforts to stop global deforestation.” Go, trees!

2. Good for fauna…

Things are looking up for some pretty cool endangered species – you know, the sexy ones that get lots of press and for which even your most “who-cares” relatives have a soft spot. Consider first the mountain gorilla, the number of which in national parks of three African countries has risen by 26 percent in the last seven years, says a recent census. Next, how about those tigers, whose on-the-brink status has led to a recent summit among the 13 nations where the animals still exist in the wild. The takeway was $300 million raised to save the animals (including a cool million from actor Leonardo DiCaprio), as well as agreement to attempt to double their number by 2022. And finally, there’s the canary in our global coalmine – the polar bear – for which The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has just designated 87,000 square miles along the north coast of Alaska as protected “critical habitat” as part of a settlement in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups (although a lump of coal to the Obama administration for declaring polar bears merely “threatened” today).

3. And good for us…

Hooray for the home team on the emissions front. As a result in an increase in United States fuel economy standards, a new EPA report is showing a 14 percent per mile drop in carbon dioxide emissions over the last six years, and a 16 percent drop in gasoline use, with a rise of 3.1 miles per gallon to 22.5. In fact, “C02 emissions have decreased while fuel economy has increased every year since 2005, reversing the trend of the previous eight years.” This doesn’t mean we’re all to breathe easy and lose our discipline on this issue, but good news is good news.

So there. Eat, drink and be environmentally merry. A little more champagne, please! Go ahead and top off the glass.

Special thanks to the Great News Network (GNN) for reminding me that all’s not dire on the environmental front.

Images: Sara&Joachim, Johan J.Ingles-Le Nobel, wwarby, ^riza^

It’s hard to make generalizations about Americans. But here’s one I’ll buy: We tend to rush things. Especially our shopping. Right now, in fact, millions of us, having left our holiday buying to the last minute, are scurrying about picking up our remaining gifts, including those we planned on purchasing since we saw that Canon, Panasonic or Nintendo ad months ago.

What we don’t do is think a lot about stuff. Like the stuff we rush to buy and where the stuff that makes up that stuff comes from. For example, how many people in that insanely packed Best Buy I passed by this morning are going in thinking about where the tungsten in that cell phone they’re about to purchase comes from – and who’s making a load of cash on it way up the product’s food chain?

Well, somebody’s thinking about it. And they want you think about it, too.

The Enough Project is a group dedicated to “helping to build a permanent constituency to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity.” Their focus is primarily on Africa where, 15 years after the murder of more than 800,000 people in Rwanda, the global response to current bloodshed on the continent is pretty much the same today as it was then – way too close to nil.

And your next trip to Best Buy may play a starring role in this drama. A large percentage of high-tech gadgets in today’s marketplace are made using “conflict minerals” mined in the Congo (where diamonds are also at issue), the profits from which are fueling and encouraging mass murder and rape, and other atrocities throughout the region. (This is according to the U.N. Security Council’s “Final Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo” released last month.) As for the size of the problem, consider this: in the last 15-plus years, conflict in eastern Congo alone has caused more deaths than from any war since WWII.

The deal with the minerals is this, says the Enough Project: “Worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year, the conflict minerals trade [the ores that produce the ‘3Ts’ – tin, tantalum, tungsten – and gold] provides incentives for rebel groups, militias, and criminal networks within the Congolese army to control strategic mines and trading routes through patterns of violent extraction and deeply exploitative behavior.”

Tantalum, tin and tungsten are critical elements used in laptops, mobile phones and other common electronics most of us use every day. Electricity is stored in tantalum, tin is used in circuit board soldering, gold is essential to wiring and tungsten is used to make mobile phones vibrate.

Here are five product areas the Enough Project thinks we all should be asking manufacturers questions about:

Laptops

MP3s

Digital Cameras

Video Game Devices

Mobile Phones

To deal with the problem, the Enough Project recently began working with major electronics companies, engaging (or attempting to engage) 21 industry leaders to call their attention to the issue and inquire about the steps they are taking to ensure their products are “conflict-free.” Last week, it released a report called “Getting to Conflict-Free Assessing Corporate Action on Conflict Minerals,” which ranks the companies as to how well they’re doing in identifying where their minerals come from and taking action to eliminate or at least minimize the use of materials from the region. High marks went out to HP (the best of the bunch), Intel, Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft and Dell. Worst of breed on the issue were Canon, Panasonic, Sharp and Nintendo.

The group’s objective is to have companies at the top of the minerals supply chain “use their buying power to influence their suppliers, exerting pressure down the supply chain, a model of change that has had success in the apparel, forestry, and diamond sectors.” The project’s website reports that it has “seen dramatic changes” since the group began its work, including the passage of conflict minerals legislation in the United States.

The Enough Project is not attempting to instigate coordinated boycotts of certain companies or products, but the group is asking you to take action by learning about which companies are cooperating with efforts to end such blood profits and which are not, and is providing a easy way to engage in the latter in a coordinated campaign.

“We would hope that consumers understand that some companies are clearly taking positive steps toward becoming conflict free, however there is still a long way to go,” Enough Project Policy Analyst Aaron Hall told EcoSalon. “Consumer driven action is one of the most powerful tools for change in our country, and we would encourage people to visit our website, click on the ‘take action’ tab and contact your favorite companies as well as elected representatives and let them know your concerns. If they have been productive on the conflict minerals issue, thank them and ask them to continue to do more. If they are behind the curve, ask them why and demand action. The reduction of violence and mass atrocities in eastern Congo will not be possible without the momentum and pressure created by consumer based action.”

While putting the onus on you – the consumer – is debatable in terms of its ultimate efficacy, it seems that few companies are in any mood to police themselves and governments seem to have little to no interest in atrocities occurring in the region. In any case, maybe the next time the tungsten in your cell phone gives you that little bzzz letting you know so-and-so is calling, consider it a reminder to maybe take some time to better get to know your stuff.

Images: Axel Bührmann, MC4 Army, blogefl, Creative Tools, doobybrain, cloneofsnake

Owned. Fox News, like every news outlet is owned and if we’re going to keep our “fair and balanced” gyroscope upright we have to continually ask the question: by whom? With that, here’s some timely irony. In last weeks’ op-ed in The Australian, Wikileaks founder Juilan Assange wrote: “In 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide’s The News, wrote: ‘In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.’”

So here’s some truth for the media magnate Assange cites in his defense of getting real. During last week’s frenzy of leak speak, this from Fox News: A year ago, during the Copenhagen climate change summit, one of the network’s reporters said on air that the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was “on track to be the warmest [decade] on record.” Within 15 minutes, a senior network official issued a memo questioning the accuracy of climate change data and ordering Fox “journalists” to “refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without immediately pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question.” The memo concludes: “It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.”

The memo, leaked by watchdog group Media Matters, was written by Fox News’ Vice President of News and Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon. This is the same guy who instructed his network’s journalists during the health care reform debate to cease using the term “public option” and instead use “government option.”

The same night the climate change memo/directive was sent, on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier (“the number one cable news program in its timeslot”) correspondent James Rosen brought up the Climategate scandal and claimed that climate scientists “destroyed more than 150 years’ worth of raw climate data.” This at a time when it was already well-known that, taken in any light, the University of East Anglia “leaks” (there’s that word again) had nothing to do with the veracity of facts related to climate change.

Here’s the thing: In a world where nomenclature shapes perceived reality (and we all know what perception is), we have to ask what it means when we call a spade a, well, say a diamond. There’s the continued to use of the term “theory” around evolution and the “pro-life” litmus test language shrouding what might more accurately be called “anti-choice” sentiment. And how about the “death tax” nom de guerre assigned to taxing inheritance windfalls? The idea of climate change being assigned “notion” status by those interested in altering that perception/reality is not surprising. It must be tough when facts don’t do what you want them to.

Rupert and Bill, lest there be any confusion, here are a few facts, according to the National Cimatic Data Center (NCDC): the global surface temperature (including in the United States) is rising, sea level is rising, global upper ocean heat content is rising, northern hemisphere snow cover is retreating and U.S. climate extremes are increasing.

And there’s this: While no one can say if the reporter was fair and balanced, he sure was accurate. According to that tree-hugging and far-left-extremist organization NASA, the decade ending in 2009 was indeed the warmest in history. 2009 was also “the second warmest year since 1880, when modern temperature measurement began.”

So let’s close the loop here on the concept of “owned” and what’s so ironic about this coming down the Fox pipes. Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns Fox News, is under the gun right now to achieve its pledge to be carbon neutral by 2010. This promise was much ballyhooed at the time it was made (a result of Murdoch himself claiming to have undergone an eco-transformation in 2007) and, while it’s not clear if the organization is going to achieve its goal, the Murdoch PR machines have been busy working it hard over the last few years. So while his Fox News organization plays it fast and loose with the facts, it seems that Mr. Murdoch has two options: Fire Sammon and Rosen and anyone else involved in purposefully distorting facts related to climate change data – or live with this title: Hypocrite.

Image: dutchlad

Eyes on the prize: Google announces ‘Earth Engine’

Offering scientists and conservationists a better look-see at Mama Earth, Google Labs unveiled its Google Earth Engine yesterday at the International Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico. The product puts an “unprecedented amount of satellite imagery and data – current and historical – online for the first time,” says Google, allowing for monitoring and measurement of changes in the Earth’s environment. The images are designed specifically for environmental protection use, providing information on the “locations and extent of global forests, detecting how our forests are changing over time, directing resources for disaster response or water resource mapping,” among other data. One important value of the system is that it will function like a watchdog camera, supporting the development of “monitor, report and verify” (MRV) efforts to stop global deforestation. The company released an example image, generated in collaboration with Mexico’s National Forestry Commission, of a forest cover and water map of Mexico which is the finest-scale to date. The company says the map required 15,000 hours of computation, but was completed in less than a day on Google Earth Engine using 1,000 computers.

Happy birthday EPA!

Now more than ever is a good time to celebrate the Environmental Protection Agency. As the mostly on-our-side government agency is turning 40, it’s coming under severe attacks from a hostile new (corporate-sponsored) Congress, and other science and climate-change deniers around the the world. GreenBiz has it right when it says: “a testament to the scale and scope of the EPA’s successes over the past 40 years that they’ve faded into the background, or been woven into the fabric of daily life.” However, any take-it-for-granted attitude would be a grave mistake right now given the current political climate, and it’s good that sites like Green For All (ThankYouEPA.com), are out there helping to get the word out. There’s an informative quick take, too, from the Aspen Institute in a 10 reasons we love ‘em format. Among the highlights from the agency’s 40 years are banning the widespread use of DDT, addressing the acid rain problem, championing the reuse of waste, taking the lead on reducing vehicle emissions, cleaning up our water supply and being a  general conduit for public information.

Strange life forms found in (where else?) California!

While you would figure NASA would spend a lot time looking up, the organization just announced that one of its astrobiology research efforts that’s focused way down under one of California’s weirdest lakes has led to discovery that folks are saying will fundamentally shift the way we define life – and vastly expand the playing field in terms of how we look for life on other planets. These researchers have discovered the first known microorganism able to “thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism, which lives in Mono Lake, substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in the backbone of its DNA and other cellular components.” Quoted in the NY Daily News, Mary Voytek, director of NASA’s astrobiology program, says, ”It’s terrestrial life – but not life as we know it.” The story adds that “all life discovered so far, from teeny amoebas to enormous elephants, are composed of combinations of the same six elements: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur and phosphorus,” but the new bacteria (its catchy name is GFAJ-1) can live without any phosphorus and instead uses arsenic to build cells. Why do we care? “The implication is that we still don’t know everything there is to know about what might make a planet habitable,” says another NASA scientist. “Maybe we’ll be able to find ET now.”

Images: Google, jessica.diamond, NASA