A look at 10 powerful men who have grown to become better people who in turn, better our lives.

We continue to seek leaders among movers and shakers capable of making a difference. Who is out there, we ask, in these bleak times to govern, protect and prosper? Here is a look at some men who have proven able to rise to challenging tasks, become better people with stances of substance, and capable of changing our world in a myriad number of positive ways.

1. Steve Jobs

We can’t help but think of Apple founder Steve Jobs, the single most important figure to date to spring from Silicon Valley, who leaves behind an enormous legacy after losing his battle with pancreatic cancer at 56. Likened to titans Ford and Edison by The Globe and Mail, he lives on in downloaded songs, finger swipes and sleek white headphones – “a man whose vision ended up disrupting almost every creative and commercial industry on Earth” thereby changing the earth as we know it. While cynics have said there is a special place in hell for technology peddlers who insure gadgets are readily replaced, Jobs gave us the convenience factor which made it easier to do what we do most: cyber speak.

It appeared everything he touched turned to gold, from the Macintosh and mouse to the iPad and Pixar. True, he changed the world with his visionary acumen but also the world changed him as he confronted his mortality, telling a graduating class of Stanford University grads that the notion of dying was the biggest catapult in following his heart. “It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

He also cited his firing from Apple at age 30 after taking the company from a fledgling computer brainstorm built in a garage to a $2 billion giant with over 4,000 employees as the best thing that ever happened to him. “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. ”

2. Louis Rossetto

The co-founder of  Wired Magazine  has been called a Fair Trade Willie Wonka for his success of adapting Silicon Valley start up tools to the chocolate industry. Rossetto became the first investor and then CEO of TCHO, launched in 2005 on the premise that chocolate should be measured by flavor and not percentage of cacao content, using the Flavor Wheel approach established by NASA contractor Timothy Childs and chocolate industry veteran Karl Bittong.

Shifting the focus to taste and flavor labs and cutting out notorious slave labor practices on plantations in the Ivory Coast and elsewhere, TCHO collaborates with growers and co-ops in cacao-producing countries like Peru, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic, teaching growers how to improve methods and secure better prices. “It’s the lowest-cost, most-efficient technology to get the job done,” Rossetto says about the labs, adding it’s not unlike grape growing in Napa Valley where growers can either sell commodity table grapes or get top dollar for premium wine grapes for really good wineries.

The producers now sell from 75 cents up to $8 and margins, boasting big customers like Whole Foods and Starbucks. Across the globe, the chocolate is sold at famous restaurants like Mario Batali’s chain and at Paul Young in London and Fresh and Fresh in Japan. It’s also sold on its website. In 2010, sales were up eight percent across the spectrum and expected to reach double-digit millions and beyond by 2012. First revenues for TCHO started below $1 million in 2009 and tripled last year – demonstrating that fair trade and organic is viable if well supported by believers. Rossetto got friends and family to invest. Today, TCHO produces 10 to 20 tons of chocolate every few weeks from its factory in the heart of San Francisco.

3. Blake Mycoskie

Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS Shoes was a kid kicking around in Argentina when the light went off – footwear is a basic need like water and air, and many are without the coverage to protect their feet from harsh environs. He not only launched a fashion movement (the new must-have uniform of school girls) but a charitable movement – distributing over 600,000 pairs of new shoes in 2010 to kids in need through giving partners around the globe.

What changed in him in 2006? Prior to that he demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit starting five businesses before TOMS including a national campus laundry service. Most visionaries see a  hole needing filling, but with TOMS, he changed the way much of the industry sees its role – the ability not to just churn out profits but also to help children around the world. As a result, others are following suit with programs like the Good Shoe Project introduced by Payless ShoeSource and World Vision and the Shoes2Spare project.

The bottom line for the man behind the little shoe that could? Stuff doesn’t make you happy. “When I started distributing shoes in Ethiopia, South Africa, and South America, I saw that the people had so little, yet seemed to worry so much less than my friends and family back home,” he says. “Instead of stressing over gadgets, they were talking around the campfire.”

 4. Michael Moore

Clearly not everyone’s cup of tea –  Michael Moore can rub audiences and subjects the wrong way with his overwrought hubris, and that is entirely the point. But as he ages, he is learning to be a less obnoxious man of the people, something that has overshadowed supporters and detractors alike as his provocations drew attention away from the filmmaker with a focus on the film character. As one of his fellow filmmakers sees it: “Moore is a genius, who created an entire genre of documentary film making using the reflexive mode, and I view him as a pamphleteer, say a modern Thomas Paine, who says provocative things that aren’t always meant to be taken literally.”

Not the academic ilk of a Kevin Burns nor the inconspicuous diplomacy of Michael Apted, Moore has changed in the way he doesn’t so much get in your face and slap it silly but continues to rock the boat like no other documentary film maker, not exposing tainted meat and animal cruelty as much as exposing our inexcusable apathy in accepting corporate crime, insurance fraud, imperialism via drummed up invasions and tolerance of school bullies.

Is it any wonder he joined protesters staging Occupy Wall Street? Coming to their aid, he said “What you see here, and what you’re seeing across the country, are millions of people who’ve had it.” Moore promised to donate proceeds from his book, Here Comes Trouble, to their effort and to deliver wi-fi to the park and to other demonstrations being held across the nation. “I’ll do what I can do,” he offered, “because these bankers overplayed their hand. They were already rich, but filthy rich wasn’t enough. They are trying to turn our democracy from a democracy into a kleptocracy.”

The Flint native and so-called poster boy for the working class does boast nearly 900,000 Twitter followers who have been stirred and shaken by his bawdy cocktails like Stupid White Men and Fahrenheit 911. And while critics have tried to expose Moore as a hypocrite for owning a million-dollar apartment or sending his child to private school,  Moore remains a bigger than life figure who gets us to think.

 5. Dr. Mehmet Oz

“Who is the new great and powerful Oz?” asked the New York Post about the heart surgeon in scrubs who has taken over Oprah’s time slot and the health-bound viewing audience by storm. Described as a genuine medical folk hero in the making by turning genital warts and controversial diets like HCG into entertainment, the TV doc goes further than Dr. Phil by bypassing tabloid tactics in favor of a bare bones anatomy lecture. Like most successful physicians, he started out wanting a good career without fame, but has become the ear for a world obsessed with dieting, aging, longevity and stress, spending 40 minutes answering studio audience questions which many other arrogant doctors would dismiss out of hand or tell patients they don’t need to know the answers.

“Folks are desperate to have a relationship with their healer,” he says. “Marcus Welby is dead today, and they want a regular doctor who they can have a dialogue with and get truthful answers from. I reach a whole lot of people this way.”

As close to a regular guy as a rock star TV celeb can get, he lives in New Jersey with his wife and four kids and considers himself a hermit who shaves rarely, plays basketball with friends and meditates.  One of his assets is his listening skills – which shouldn’t be undermined as most of us are starved for listeners to our complaints and concerns. A big sign of his ability to change us – patients quoting his advice when visiting their own internists. If Dr. Oz thinks something is kosher, then it probably is kosher.

6. Douglas Holtz-Eakins

Who doesn’t love a conservative who changes his course when needed? Among the new directions in the sails of the conservative economist, praising the once debunked American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 as a stimulus that operated exactly as intended, growing the economy and spawning millions of jobs. The former Congressional Budget Office director and former chief economic advisor to Sen John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, pledged in August to throw support behind the bill.

Meantime, while the Tea Party elements insist global warming is a science fiction concept, Holtz-Eakin is now working with the New Hampshire-based Clean Air-Cool planet, addressing the economic benefits of addressing the very real issue. One proposal that entices him is tax-swapping, imposing a levy on carbon emissions while eliminating the payroll tax.

“We have watched with foreboding as powerful forces in the Republican Party want to close down this debate and reject the idea that this is a problem that needs to be solved,” says Brooks Yeager of the climate policy advocacy group. “Our interest in working with someone like Douglas, who has enormous credibility in conservative ranks and economists and agrees with our fundamental position that needs to be solved, is that he is exceptionally well positioned to reopen this debate.”

7. John Stewart

First, he changed his name from John Leibowitz, then he changed his game from his breakthrough comedy role on The Larry Sanders show to the serious business of changing mainstream media. The Daily Show with John Stewart is highly respected for its moxie in telling it like it is while everyone else tiptoes through the tulips and kisses the backsides of corporate sponsors. Or, as aptly put by Hub Brown of the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University: “The stock-in-trade of The Daily Show is hypocrisy exposing hypocrisy and nobody else has the guts to do it. They really know how to crystallize an issue on all sides, see the silliness everywhere.” A prime example was second guessing the war in Iraq while mainstream press was towing the line of national leaders. Stewart decided to take them to task, lampooning Bush policies.

The Comedy Central staple has scored nine consecutive Emmy awards  validating that yes, perhaps the industry has a liberal slant, but also that the truth hurts less than we think when it comes to bashing the Tea Party or even criticizing our leaders, including President Obama’s failure to make inroads with a ridiculously stubborn congress. “Conditions are what they are and Obama is president,” says the host. “You are judged by how well you negotiate those conditions, not by how excusable the shitty end result is based on that it’s difficult.”

 8. Brad Pitt

While some of our moms refuse to forgive him for what he did to Jen, Pitt has revamped his image from willing victim of a home wrecker to determined home repairer in New Orleans. There has been much banter of him there switching to politics, as he rubs shoulders with Nancy Pelosi and the Chief on the New Orleans Housing Project while his better half works for UNICEF.

It’s an accepted fact no one wields more clout than celebs like Pitt who have huge followings among all age groups and tremendous visibility. While Dave Eggers’ poignant prose draws attention to the flood aftermath in Zeitoun, Pitt is allegedly considered a great mayoral candidate of the city – but it is one of many causes he embraces which led Newsweek Magazine to list him as one of 15 People Who Make America Great. Among his contributions is shedding light on neglected causes in Africa as cameras follow him wherever he and his extended family travel. This was the thinking when he and Jolie say they sold the first picture of their daughter, Shiloh, to People magazine for a reported $4million saying all proceeds would go to charity.

“Knowing that someone was going to hound us for that first photo — and was going to profit immensely for doing it — I just couldn’t live with it,” Pitt told the magazine. “We were able to turn that around and collect millions for people who are really going to need it.” Now as he makes the round to plug his film Moneyball, interviews on NPR and elsewhere highlight the intellectual Pitt – whose sensitivity emerges in the film, just as it did in Benjamin Button illustrating old dogs can learn new tricks at any time.

9. Warren Buffett

Read his lips: Yes, new taxes!!! And please let my rich friends step up to the plate. Billionaire Buffett- who inspired Obama’s millionaires’ tax – challenged owner of Fox News Rupert Murdoch to make his own federal tax returns public, after admitting he pays a lower rate than his secretary and the government should stop coddling the super rich “as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species.” A recent CBS news poll showed most Americans agree with Buffett including many who have taken to those Wall Street protests. Militant conservatives are up in arms about it – no doubt viewing Buffett more of a trader than hero, but hero he is for more ways than one.

His stock went way up when joining forces with Bill Gates to urge the wealthy to join the campaign Giving Pledge and to give away at least half of their fortunes during their lifetimes or after their deaths. The 80-year-old Berkshire Hathaway CEO who wants to work past age 100 is famous for maintaining a frugal lifestyle – living in the same home he bought in Omaha in 1958. But his change has come in the way of being much more bold and out there, so to speak, despite how he might be viewed by fellow rich guys and their heirs. As a philanthropist he has set the bar and in seeking more revenues to fund programs, he shows not all billionaires are out for personal gain.

 10. Van Jones

There were such high hopes when Jones became the top green man in the White House – only succumbing to a malicious Tea Party campaign and resigning. “It has been a tough couple of years,” Jones  confessed. “We went from hope to heartbreak in about a minute…We have the wrong theory of the presidency.”

So he is a changed man for the better in terms of seeing bureaucracy only muddles progress. He is now the leading evangelist of the American Dream Movement in partnership with his own organization, Rebuild the Dream – something he told Alternet was for real progressives in 2012 with the goal to train a million new leaders.

“We’re just glad that the volcano is starting to erupt,” he shares. ” We just want to fight. And there are some pre-existing grassroots assets that need to be re-aligned or redeployed; we’re trying to do that here.” The plan calls for house meetings (with real leadership) as well as protests, networking leaders online and locating dream candidates.  Jones sees his new mission as a social battle like no other in history.

“This is thrilling stuff! The dream-killers on Wall Street — who are so disgusting and so despicable; they are ingrates who are sitting up there laughing at us. I mean, every other bloc of capital that has this much weight, they try to do something to make you like them. Even the polluters, they say, ‘We’ll get clean coal.’ They try to do something. But these people on Wall Street – they just don’t care. So it’s just going to be an epic battle now between the worst people in America, the most selfish people in America, and the most selfless. And that’s going to be amazing.”

Images: Acaben; TCHO; Kwaku Alston; Shankbone; Nayrb7; Atlantic; The jointsstaff; Giving; Tedizen; Americanprogressaction, gadgetdude

The post 10 Men With the Capacity to Change the World appeared first on EcoSalon.

What came first, the depressing women’s book clubs or the morbid books?

Remember the trances and travels afforded by pleasure reading? You couldn’t wait to lose yourself in the next chapter of that murder mystery, royal court espionage or love tryst – you were a voracious reader who deeply mourned the loss of your new character friends once the final page was devoured and downloaded into your fiber.

But somehow, that pleasure has become elusive to the women’s book group, the reading less an armchair cruise than an academic grind. The inevitable prerequisite is the agreed-upon selections must be meaty enough to spark evocative feedback for eloquent sharing round the coffee table. As a result, our picks are highly wrought works of historic, political or cultural significance perpetually mired in sadness. Or, as a fellow member recently commiserated, “Can’t we move on from the holocaust and women in pain?”

“People going through misery, the good women and bad men dynamic – that was an Oprah thing,” observes Bill Dito, an employee of the popular Books Inc. shop in San Francisco, where staff specialists write their own book reviews for customers. He has a bird’s eye view of the victim trend in fiction the last decade, one that has forced us to endure an excruciating trip through a time machine or suffer female bondage of one brand or another – which only further marginalizes us as women.

Then there is the entire cottage industry one might call “victim books” from rape to exploitation to the toast of the Oprah Book Club, author Wally Lamb with big guns like Couldn’t Keep it to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution. In the collection described as both utterly depressing and a real page turner, inmates describe in their own words, tales of abuse, rejection, self-destructive impulses long before they entered the criminal justice system. This followed other works like She’s Come Undone and Drowning Ruth – bereft titles that speak for themselves.

When The Color Purple and Joy Luck Club came out, they were rare rather than part of a steady diet of underdog angst and could be easily digested. Now, the question remains: Are there any other stories being told?

“As someone who has written about ‘women in pain,’ women dealing with the death of a child, for example, I think that the premise of your question is problematic,” novelist Ayelet Waldman tells me. “All interesting stories are about someone in crisis – in ‘pain’ if you will. Who wants to read about happy people doing happy things? Story is conflict, conflict is story. The Corrections was about people in crisis. Does that fall into your category of ‘victim-literature?’ If it doesn’t, then I think you should take a good look at the question you’re asking, and consider whether it isn’t inherently sexist.”

When she puts it that way, I do feel I’m turning my back on the movement. Men deal in pain, too, as she aptly points out.  The Kite Runner was all about the pain.

The fact is I cherish my women’s book group and our time reviewing, catching up, sipping wine and grazing on grapes and cheese. But it is time to lighten up, or at least look around. Even read about happy things. So sue me. Can’t drama tinged with humor a la Capote, Sedaris and McInerney be book group material? We have even drifted from titillating historic fiction such as Phillipa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl series.

I’d like to shirk my duty to remember and never forget (Sarah’s Key, The Invisible Bridge, The Book Thief, Jacob’s Courage, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society). I’ve hit my saturation point for the empathy we must extend to our unfortunate, ill-fated sisters still under tutelage of warlords, meddling Indian parents or Southern patriarchs (Little Bee,  Sister of My Heart, Shanghai Girls, Secret Life of Bees, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Eat, Pray Love, Life of Venus, Cutting for Stone). 

How might it be different if men were members? I have no idea, since I have only belonged to all women book groups.

In my group, which focuses on contemporary fiction, it would appear the lists are stocked with Sophie’s choices – just as films have waves like the one witnessed in 2008 with an abundance of Third Reich themes: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Reader, Valkyrie, Adam Resurrected. The onslaught had New York Times contributor A.O. Scott questioning the trend, as I have questioned my book group’s thematic selections:

“The near-simultaneous appearance of all these movies is to some degree a coincidence, but it throws into relief the curious fact that early 21st-century culture, in Europe and America, on screen and in books, is intensely, perhaps morbidly preoccupied with the great political trauma of the mid-20th century,” he wrote. “The number of Holocaust-related memoirs, novels, documentaries and feature films in the past decade or so seems to defy qualification, and their proliferation raises some uncomfortable questions: Why are there so many? Why now?”

I can’t say I don’t glean knowledge, picking up more details than what I acquired or remember as a history major in college or as an impressionable kid at Communist Jewish summer camp exposed to the soul-flogging images in films like, Let My People Go, the 1965 story of Israel containing graphic footage of the remains of my ancestors being scooped up from piles at the camps after liberation. It was important to watch. Nonetheless, I wanted to run back to the arts and crafts table and make another God’s Eye. 

Sarah’s Key informed me of the French betrayal and the Vichy collaboration and the wrenching view from the eyes of a child; The Invisible Bridge eloquently told the Hungarian artisan’s story of survival. And the highly literary, exquisite novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, allowed me to visit the British Isles during occupation where defiant members of a book group take great risks to meet and eat and break German curfews.

I benefited from all of these reads, but aren’t we ready for an expanded library, a richer experience?

“My in laws came from Poland and Hungary and they ask me about the books we read, but they can never read them and have no interest in going near them,” says another member of my group. I get it. While I didn’t live it, my grandmother was the only one of seven children in her family to escape and survive the Polish slaughter.

While I identified strongly with Jonathan Saffran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated – which recounted one man’s yearnings for his ancestors’ experience of being hidden from the Nazis in a uniquely entertaining voice – I struggle with each depiction of the hiding like animals in the woods, the mashing like cattle into jam-packed train cars, the starvation, the fear, the digging of their own graves before dropping into them. No wonder we found relief in the uber-violent Inglorious Bastards.

The same frustration is suffered in the downtrodden female tales, which produced two centuries after Jane Austen, rarely offer a happy mid-18th century way out via a beneficial marriage around the maypole or sudden death of a piggish heir. Instead, we find ourselves steeped in the relentless bellicosity of the neanderthals entrapping them, classic male withholders of the basic needs we women require to thrive: love, money, property, liberty, suffrage and great sex after 50.

Why now are we spending our free time moaning vicariously in wartime hellishness or flinching through a deranged arranged marriage when we could cuddle up in bed on a Sunday with a steamy romance epic, bone-chilling murder mystery or a young professional’s playful romp working at a style magazine or publishing house or paying dues in some hick town? Now that is chick-lit I can wrap my overloaded, burned-out brain around – reads that I won’t equate with the daily drudgery of paying bills and managing schedules.

If we must endure yet fresh pain, perhaps it might be framed not in 20th century Europe but, say, 21st century New Orleans, as in Dave Eggers’s Zeitoun. At least, as in The Help and Eat Pray Love, it is fresh stuff chronicling our own times. The Depression-era Water for Elephants, too, provided a historic perspective while still offering something totally new in the journey of a would-be vet who joins the circus. It certainly wasn’t free of struggling female characters, but the suffering didn’t dominate the theme and the redemption was a gift.

The same dearth of freshness clearly exists in in play writing, as well. How else can you explain the barrage of revivals in the last decade? If I see an ad for Annie Get Your Gun one more time, I’ll shoot myself and take Wild Bill with me. It’s the old Disney strategy of when in doubt, produce a remake or sequel. And novelists suffer from the same syndrome by focusing on what sells.

Perhaps one remedy would be to not rely solely on the New York Times lists and peruse book stores for the employee recommendations. Oftentimes, you will find sparkling little stories that didn’t cut the mustard with the corporate giant, but are worthwhile nonetheless.

“We pick and choose ones we want to read and then write it up if we like it and also accept customer reviews,” explains Dito. “You would be amazed how many people come in here to look at our reviews. That’s why there is a need for book stores. You can’t talk to someone from Amazon.”

Among the Books Inc. favorites: Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard (author of  The River of Doubt ) which examines the the madness, medicine and murder of James A. Garfield; The Elegance of the Hedgehog a quirky French story by Muriel Barbery; The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell, focusing on a war-ravaged Dutch East Indies company; and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami,  a romantic Japanese woman’s coming of age.

Another staff reviewer, Chris Lutes, adds that there are certainly a plethora of Third Reich era reads such as Laura Hiderbrand’s World War II survivor dramas including the recently acclaimed Unbroken.  But there are plenty of alternatives worth book club consideration.

“It was a pretty trying time in history so it’s easy to revisit because even though we are removed from that drama there is such humanity to those stories and it’s easy for people to get into that mindset. Still it’s staggering how many books are published each month – so there’s a lot of other stuff out there,” he says.

Images: imdb; Skinny Chronicles, shutterhacks; Squidoo

The post From Chick Lit to Victim Books: Problems with the Woman’s Book Club appeared first on EcoSalon.

 Why must everything come in packaging that’s seemingly ready-made for nuclear meltdown?

The clamshell isn’t finished, but perhaps it has met its match in the flesh-eating Pyranna, a wrap rage coping tool with teeth to cut ridiculously over-packaged goods. Evidently, manufacturers are more focused on anti-theft and cost saving plastic than consumer convenience. We are especially reminded of the wasteful abundance when seeing the hordes of back-to-school shoppers lining up at Office Depot with carts of protractors and mechanical pencils housed in impossible chambers of reconstituted petroleum – which includes anything related to a computer, music device or phone.

Instead of weapons for assaulting a plastic seal with the zeal of man eating fish, how about an industry wide replacement of wasteful packaging with containers that let us get to the goods without wrenching our necks, as I once did with an envelope of sliced turkey on a lunch break. Who knew fowl dangers lurked beyond the occasional Cargill Inc. bird?

I’m ashamed to admit I find myself at times relying on my teeth like some kind of primitive cave babe, emulating the piranha to no avail as the kid looks on with disdain.

We all curse those hermetically sealed ester-oysters that seem immune to ripping and stabbing, the ones that send well intentioned consumers to the emergency room for gashes, sliced fingertips and severed tendons. As we seek more responsible and sustainable packaging technology, it doesn’t appear to yet be a priority of the manufacturing world, which instead focuses on anti-theft measures at the lowest possible cost.

“History shows consumers will pay for convenience and if you eliminate difficulty opening packages at the same time you reduce the amount of package materials consumed in manufacturing, you’re winning on multiple fronts,” observes Bill Perell, whose company, PopPack, offers manufacturers an eco-friendly, Bubble-in-the-Seal® solution, a seal alternative engineered to give consumers, especially kids and seniors a break. Perell’s own father, a surgeon, resorts to a medical knife to cut his way through products.

His methodology of popping eliminates both challenging cartons, caps and wasteful tabs. “We did a study of Kellogg and General Mills and weighed the film tab on the cereal boxes and it is a third of an ounce and in the aggregate that creates a lot of waste,” he says.

The following is our list of the worst offenders.

Item: Audio CDs

Best Tool: Open Smart – One of several teethy tools on the market for slicing CD shrink wrap.

Solution: There are still people who have not learned about iTunes? Help these poor souls.

Item: Sauce Packets

Best Tool: Common, newly sharpened scissors  – which you may or may not have with you when eating sushi on the run.

One of the downsides to getting sushi to go is wrestling with those sauce packets which are torture unless you can find the sweet spot that may or may not indicate you should “tear here.”

Solution: Opt for sustainable sushi splurges prepared fresh at your nearest Japanese restaurant.

Item: Sliced Packaged Cheese

Those sealed 36-packs of cheddar are impossible without a pair of sharp scissors handy, so if you drag these to that family reunion picnic, better bring sharp scissors. This container is only rivaled by string cheese packets.

Best Tool: Sharp scissors

Solution: High quality cheeses from the local natural foods store or farmers’ market wrapped in wax paper or less plastic. It’s really not so hard to slice, is it? Certainly easier than getting those string cheese packs open.

Item: Oral B Electric Toothbrush

No one gets a charge out of trying desperately to crack open these packages to simply brush your teeth with that new dentist-recommended tool. Gillette opted for the ridiculously stiff plastic clamshells, but Procter &  Gamble has since created a cardboard box alternative. Arthritis sufferers must be overjoyed to be able to get to the product at last.

Best Tool: Sharp scissors

Solution: A standard tooth brush works just fine for most pearly whites. Go for a recycled plastic variety.

Item: Green Light Bulbs

It’s just so counterintuitive when you need to order a tool from Amazon to open your green light bulb. The light is on but nobody is home at the factory, as it were.

Best Tool: Zipit battery operated device from Amazon

Solution: How about simple recycled cardboard like the housing for the conventional bulbs?

Item: The Common Computer Mouse

Whether wireless or for the desktop PC, it shouldn’t be this hard to get to the mouse. The trap? The ubiquitous clamshell requiring tearing and cutting.

Best tool: Zipit battery operated device from Amazon or Pyranna

Solution: Bribe a child to open it.

Item: All Natural Frontier Sea Salt

So what could be so daunting about this little shaker of fine grind? The grinder is a nightmare, composed of a thick rim of impenetrable plastic with a small hole that must be punctured with anything but the human body. Jeez, I just wanted to flavor my chard.

Best tool: A sharp little knife, a steady hand and accurate eye

Solution: Luck.

Image: Pyranna; Amazon; Pink Moose; Peyri: Costco; Oral B: Zipitopener, dylancantwell, nioxxe, espensorvik

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In two words? Canada executes.

Having just returned from extraordinary Vancouver, I can appreciate how its greenness extends beyond the pristine meadows of Stanley Park to thrive in the souls of its dwellers who witness their slightly higher taxes at work in the form of a well-maintained, pothole-free environs. It’s not just bells and Whistler. It’s beauty that exists down deep, even in the success of enacted laws that put the U.S. and its stagnating bipartisan representatives to shame.

No wonder Vancouver’s goal of being the greenest city in the world by 2020 gives it yet another edge in livability. Sure, San Francisco and Portland are weaning off the foreign fuel nipple, but our neighbors to the north might outwit and out play us by focusing on the most winning survivor tactic of all: spawning green jobs like rabbits – some 10,400 in the next eight years.

According to the Vancouver Sun, the city is now moving ahead in 10 key areas that range from greening the economy by securing the city’s international reputation as a mecca of green enterprise, improving food production, cutting greenhouse gases and making walking, cycling and public transit the preferred transportation option for its citizens.

In terms of the jobs, some 300 are linked to expansion of the city’s district energy program, while another 900 comes from clean tech trade missions spurring the relocation of companies. Another 600 are predicted in the farming sector – urban growing, farmers’ markets, food processing and street food vendors. While Canadians agree being greener is a matter of conscience there is nothing like the promise of income to perk up commitment to conservation.

The good news is the green strides are not just limited to Vancouver. Throughout the country, progress is being made and used as a benchmark for what is possible if civic leaders go the distance. Here are some of the initiatives:

Switching Off the Coal

The province that has become a teenage girl destination because of Justin Bieber might now be better known for a reliance on green energy as it shuts down four coal-burning power plants even before its 2014 target date. It’s part of a 10-step transition to generate all of its electricity from fuel sources such as biomass to cut nasty carbon dioxide emissions. So far, coal production has dropped 5% while wind generation rose 80% – a reduction of pollution equal to the annual emissions of seven million autos.

Sparing the Trees

One of Canada’s largest media corporations, Quebecor, is making a sizable dent in its newspaper, magazine and book publishing distribution through its Concrete Actions initiative – the switch to printing on 100% recycled paper will spare more than 79,000 trees and 215 million liters of water. Meanwhile, it planted more than 210,000 trees as part of a program to plant roots for every Videotron customer who participates in online billing.

Victoria’s Dockside Green

While Vancouver sets out to lead the world in green building design and construction, Dockside Green in the heart of downtown Victoria, B.C. is setting records as a green development – earning its second residential LEED platinum ranking through the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) for two towers called Balance. Comprising 171 homes, it matched Phase I in earning a record 63 out of 70 points, serving as a model for sustainable community development. The high score was based on several key factors, including: biomass gasification using wood-waste to create heat and hot water; improved insulation, green roofs, exhaust air energy (heat) recovery, reduced lighting power densities with energy-efficient fixtures and occupancy sensors.

Boosting Subway Systems

Ottawa has coughed up $1 billion in funding to improving the public transit in the Greater Toronto Area to “cut the commute, clear the air and drive growth.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said traffic congestion had become a top issue – blamed on a $2 billion a year loss in productivity. Across the country, refurbishing and improving public transit has become a cause célèbre according to HuffPo Canada. While leaders look for ways to get people off the streets and on nicer, roomier subways, they are netting results through simple, targeted incentives. Examples cited: The Toronto Transit saw sales go up 57% by giving monthly pass customers a small incentive for buying a year’s worth of passes in advance: Meantime, Montreal has a huge response when offering s small incentive if customers bought their monthly passes off-peak and off-line from a participating retailer rather than transit ticket booths.

Giving Edge to Organic Food Producers

Canada’s organic producers now can circumvent red tape to expand their products locally in grocery stores and to export to Europe through an international agreement giving the country an edge in the European Union, the single largest market for organic products in the world. A result of an extensive analysis of the Canadian and EU organic production and certification systems, The Canada-European Union Organic Equivalency Arrangement allows the healthy exchange of imports and exports of certified products without need for additional certification.

Embracing E-Waste Recycling

It appears everyone is getting into the act, including the annual Live Green Toronto Festival where visitors recycle nearly 3,300 media items in one day – swapping good DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs and records to keep them out of the landfills. Since 2004, Canada-based Sony, Panasonic, Bell and other companies have stepped up their own recycling programs, recognizing that while technology enhances our lives the downside is the short life cycle and ultimate disposal of products that can break down in landfills and poison the environment. As members of Product Stewardship Canada which implements recycling solutions for end-of-life electronic products, the companies participate in take-back programs in Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Nova Scotia, and will soon expand to other provinces.

Making Way For More Bikes

Not all commuters are thrilled about it, but Vancouver’s mayor, Gregor Robertson, who peddles to work each day, is making way for bike lanes in the bustling city. Gregor recognizes that a true commitment to being the greenest includes letting more bikers share the streets – yes, even those bikers who forget to wear helmets or signal when they change lanes. Does it make the city a better place to live? Well, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper, biking improves cardiovascular health which makes people happy, reduces gas and bills and makes the air cleaner – which pleases Fraser Valley, where Vancouver’s pollution blows.

Images: Coolin Sights; Mediamag; Lightrailnow; CBC;The Globe and Mail, alexindigo

The post 7 Lessons from Canada’s Environmental Pragmatism appeared first on EcoSalon.

A celebration of men’s urban street wear.

Fashion for the urban man’s newfangled eclecticism is defined by shortcut tailoring of preppy classics paired with offbeat hats, bespoke and on-trend sneakers, designer shades and the accessory fixture that has witnessed high speed travel from Paris this summer – the essential neck wrap.

If it first took its cue from the skater-sneaker culture and hipsters on New York’s Lower East Side, the more refined hybrid still harnesses youthful flair while appealing to the 30-something working man. Metro eco means pulling off fashion jewelry and solid perfume balm by adding the edgy factor to trump any preconceived girlish references.

“Skinny style bow ties, watches, and masculine bracelets are some of my personal favorite ways to deepen my own look right now, and walking the streets of New York every day, it seems others have come to the same realization,”  shares Dan Mims, founder of The Ethical Man site catering to the upscale working man. He adds that style for men is on the march.

“Men are so much more psychologically open to it now and also the economy is tight and men have realized they need to up their game in new ways to keep the job they like and to get the one they want. The urban working man is really going for looks that can be described as sophisticated, unique and confident. This means balancing universal tenets of style with personal tastes. ”

We’ve marched out a few looks to this end:

1. The Tightly Cut classic Suit

Skinny silhouetting tweaks the Brooks Brothers classics in new sexy tailoring for suits like designs by Topman – a  leader in color and fabrications in this category.

2. Hip Sunglasses

The Proof is in the bamboo and sustainably harvested woods in the break out shades by Proof, which has a mission to look good and do good. For every pair sold, a portion goes to causes such as aiding an eye clinic in India and replanting depleted forests in Haiti.

3. The Skinny Bow Tie

Bow ties are always a statement for young men, so make sure you’re ready for the heat that comes with them. These gingham checks are handcrafted from preppy Pierrepont Hicks.

4.  Canvas Slip-Ons

Nail nautical chic with these kickers from Generic Surplus.

5. The Unisex Wristband

Bracelets, I mean wrist bands by The Ethical Man are billed as less 80’s gym class and more gladiator contest. Each piece is comprised of both software and hardware like this gray faux suede and black accent wire with a worn brass chain and hook.

Tough and cool.

6. Vintage Chambray Scarf

This chambray scarf from by Steven Alan is our top pick for cool nights.

7. Military Watch

This classic military watch by Citizen called the Eco Drive is made from stainless steel, is water resistant and never needs a battery.

8. Sustainable Sneakers

Macbeth Matthews Vegan shoes in black and grey can suit up or denim down with thin soles that are more office ready than their boarder bound cousins.

9. Skinny Neckties

Jaan J’s skinny neckties are vegan and versatile. Pluck from variety of patterns from wide stripe to tartan to a solid.

10.The Fedora

Boxcar Willy’s Fedora from Sturbanclothing has sustainability topped. The trend has no end in sight. Expect to see the fedora through to fall and flannel.

Images: The Ethical Man; Topman, iwant Proof, American Apparel, Citizen Watch, Amazon, Alternative Outfitters, Jaan J Culturata

The post 10 Fashion Finds for The Sophisticated Urban Man appeared first on EcoSalon.

Sure, tying the knot can be done responsibly with low carbon travel and free range fare, but what about severing the bonds?

Worst case divorce scenario? A dark comedy such as The War of the Roses portraying a couple caught up in the kind of ’80s opulence that got our planet in a heap of trouble. They wrangled fiendishly over their manse and Stanfordshire figurines in a turf tussle which ultimately led to their tragic deaths. Hey, their lawyer warned them to go more gently into the fight, but who knew from green back then?

The current climate begs us to seek a more civilized split and sustainable truce with the one we once chose as a life partner. To this end, don’t look to a family lawyer to get you to greener pastures unscathed. They will tend to prolong discoveries and disclosures and red tape to rack up legal bills. You will probably squander too much of your treasured nest egg or kids’ college funds, cling to objects that can’t keep you warm at night and internalize the kind of stress that kills cells and makes you too haggard to attract a date.

Instead, suck it up and take the high road to being free at last. You can’t recycle the romance but you can empower yourself to move past fury and pain to a peaceful resolution, using lawyers as your clerks to process the fair settlement and custody plan you devise. Here are some tips for making that divorce even eco-friendlier than the wedding.

1. Be as Efficient as a Prius

Fire up that sluggish engine and act quickly to devise a settlement plan, which is easier to do in states like California with community property laws. Arrange amicable meetings with your ex over lunch to talk over dividing his and hers. Decide if you need to sell your property or do a buy out and write up your own proposals. The quicker you move, the quicker you can move on.

2. Agree to Let Go of Superficial Attachments

Follow the way of the Buddha. If you aren’t married to the sofa (don’t confuse this with the couch potato glued to Weeds on the sofa), then let him have it. Toss in a couple of throw pillows with a smile. Don’t quibble over the accumulation by deciding there is no material object that supersedes your chance at a new and better life.

3. Chill Around the Children

Chances are your little eco babes Gore and Eartha have already been overexposed to the harmful rays of friction that are causing the split. Now that you are ironing out the details, refrain from bickering and talking about loaded issues around the kids. Instead, help them heal by showing them you still have that core of friendship and can laugh with one another. Don’t dis your ex when you are with the kids because they’re bound to internalize this and spend too much of their inheritance on shrinks.

4. Keep up the Heavy Petting

Share the pet care! Our dogs and cats are part of our families and they need time with both of their parents, providing pets are allowed in our dwellings. Devise a custody sharing plan for the dog too, since it isn’t fair to let one parent get all of the love – and the walks and the poop scooping.

5.  Choose Selling over Storing

When dividing your junk, agree to sell what you cannot use rather than storing the stuff and paying monthly rentals for a space – money that could be used more wisely on dinner dates and charitable donations. Hold a sale together and split the earnings. This includes unloading sentimental objects that force you to live in the past rather than marching to your present. Take out $100 and enjoy a nice meal together, perhaps homemade in the crock or at your favorite haunt for old time’s sake. You will sleep better at night knowing you are carrying a lighter load.

6.  Take Public Transit to the Mediator’s Office

Conserve on fuel – and stress – by riding to work out the grievances. You will feel more relaxed when you arrive at the table to do battle and feel better about yourself for doing your part to spare emissions. No searching for a downtown parking space. No texting your new hottie and risking a ticket while waiting at those long lights.

7. Create a New Picture

Clinging to the old picture is what typically keeps us in a dysfunctional dying marriage. The romantic courtship, the impressive wedding pageantry, the happy family holiday greeting mailed out on December 20th each year. While validating, they keep you living in the past. Visualize a new picture, one in which you are loving your body and treating it right with good, fresh organic food, exercise and massage, thriving at work and in your relationships and giving unselfishly of yourself to your community. You’ve learned the hard way you can’t control your partners or your outcomes, but you can work on being the best you.

8.  Have the Heart to Keep Out of Each Other’s Affairs

You no longer have to check in about personal issues and it can often hurt the one you once loved. You don’t need to hear about her foray into online dating or his enviable weekend getaways. Don’t share financial statements unless it affects your settlement and avoid any co-dependency that could drag you back into a caretaking role. He was never your child. She was never your mother. You made a stab at being lovers and equal partners but it didn’t work. Now it is time to separate it all out and keep it clean with set boundaries.

9. Don’t make Friends Take Sides

Your families will automatically side with each of you but your shared friends are another story. Don’t force a weird disconnect by trashing your ex or looking to double date with the couples in your community, save for your best women and male friends who also had issues with your spouse and supported you through the process. Otherwise, try to share and share alike. It’s a groovier, more evolved approach.

10. We Are Family

You have ended a marriage and set up two households but that doesn’t mean you are no longer a family. School kids are told the politically correct message that families are different – there are ones with two mommies and two daddies, ones like Brad and Angelina’s with ethnically mixed adopted babies or with grandparents raising children. Obviously there are families with moms and dads living apart, but you can soften the blows by getting together for family occasions and playing nice. Birthdays, Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, important holidays and occasional Sunday dinners are all good chances for family time. Does this mean you still have to have your irascible, cigar-puffing father-in-law as a house guest? Hell no! Divorce has its privileges.

Images:Listal; Amazon; Goldberg; Chaquetadepollo; Summeer Poquette; Shearforce; MGifford; Carolj1; Leo Jeje; Cali4beach; Fancy This, Zero Emission Resource Organization

The post The Green Divorce: 10 Tips for an Eco Friendlier Finale appeared first on EcoSalon.

Keep plastic out of the landfill with a clever gift card alternative.

Plastic gift cards: those little irresistible envelope stuffers are everywhere – markets, book shops, warehouse stores. Thousands are being printed up for Father’s Day, alone.

Add that batch to the 1.6 billion cards made and shipped across the country each year, prompting sites like Treehugger to question if these are the new bottled water.  Arguably the most convenient and least creative gift to pick up, this new currency is often coated with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a known human carcinogen. After being swiped and spent they are usually tossed out, since few recipients are aware of online alternatives or take part in gift card recycling programs aimed at reducing our plastic jungles.

Among the forward-thinking alternatives: GiftRocket, an entirely digital email-based gift card recently launched as a start-up venture by three founders who decided it was time for the redemption process to go digital. You simply go to the site and purchase a customized and personalized gift for a friend, perhaps $50 for the coffee shop in their neighborhood. The recipient is notified of the gesture via email or Facebook. They stroll to the shop for breakfast, click a button on their phone to redeem, et voila, free scones and cappuccinos! The money is instantly transferred to spend as you like.

“A way that we are different is we send out reminder emails to make sure they are used, a feature you would never get with a physical gift card,” explains co-founder Kapil Kale. “At my college graduation, I received so many gift cards they ended up being lost. I’m sure I still have a drawer full of them at home.”

Kale argues going digital curbs the no-brainer physical act of grabbing a card on the run and instead adds some thought to the process, since another cool feature is the giver isn’t limited to businesses enrolled in a gift card program. They can choose any business they like and GiftRocket will manage the money in an escrow account until it is redeemed.

It’s a good way to go, consider just how wasteful some of those printed plastic cards are, such as the iTunes card which can be gifted and downloaded electronically. This way, there is nothing to lose. And nothing to get swiped by a sister or roommate. Best motivator: No wallet filing. It’s hard enough keeping track of those frozen yogurt cards that reward you with a freebie after buying a few dozen you probably don’t need.

Images: Apple; GiftRocket

The post Cool Card Trick for Avoiding Plastic Gift Giving appeared first on EcoSalon.

An in-depth look at the trend of American men following a modern Buddhist path to serenity – while women flock to churches. What’s going on?

“Life is bigger than you,” sang R.E.M. in Losing My Religion, a title that rings more true now than ever when it comes to men swapping organized faith for Buddhism.

Call it the new black when it comes to spirituality. The modern Buddhist path, which has long had inroads in the West, is attracting a new wave of male practitioners seeking wisdom to navigate the Prozac age – a daunting and often bleak time distinguished by affluenza, economic and environmental mayhem and the no-escape reality show Blitzkrieg. Those quiet nature retreats stilling the mind offer the alchemy for exhausted egos seeking to shrug off superficial attachments.

Online dating sites reflect the moral Zeitgeist. In their profiles, it seems one in five available men describe themselves as “spiritual but not practicing” in the religion category. Even an overwhelming number of those affiliated with Judaism and Christianity clarify that they ascribe to Buddhist philosophies and answer to a higher calling which connects them to  humanity.

Online Buddhist Leanings

One such match seeker is J. Ren who tells a common story. The 50-year-old Berkeley man looking for love on Match says he was raised Lutheran but has an affinity for Buddhism. “I enjoy riding a bike almost everywhere and enjoy pondering that all religions are similar and that Buddhism speaks to that really well.” He adds that “goodness is everywhere except on the local news.”

Another Match seeker, 39-year-old Sirius of Mountain View, California says everyone in his family is Christian but he explores Buddhism and Zen philosophy and “it would be great to find someone who is spiritually aware along with being very tolerant of all beliefs.”

Meanwhile, 36-year-old Okay I’m Already Stuck is an entrepreneur in Santa Cruz who is spiritual and has studied Buddhism for 15 years, attending teachings and meditations weekly. “I’m motivated and stay pretty busy and don’t lead a materialistic lifestyle, and prefer to focus on non-material things,” he says. “I’ve learned already that a lot of money won’t make me happy and want a lifetime student and someone who values health, fitness and whole food.”

These reinventions of self as Buddhist in midlife seem wildly attractive to men as a way to stay grounded and identify with others outside of their born faith. If you are going to identify with a faith, this one seems to offer intellectual exploration and stimulus while avoiding the need to attach to cultural distinctions or a shared heritage.

Making Buddhism Their Own

“If you take the non-self and compassion notions taught by Buddha, you get rid of separation between egos and realize we are part of one whole, which is a more accurate picture,” explains 47-year-old Scott Adelson, a Jewish Marin County writer and EcoSalon contributing editor, who has been practicing Buddhism for the past five years. As an atheist, he found that the idea of God as creator in Jewish doctrine never spoke to him, but continues to be drawn to the idea of community-based faith and enjoys that with fellow Buddhists in the Bay Area.

“You can go to hear teachers and join group sits and retreats,” he explains. “There are talks on Monday nights at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and we spend time together in meditation. It varies from a very structured tradition – hearing the gong and everyone comes to meditate – to a less structured environment.”

But is the environment a true brand of Buddhism or a hybrid concocted by Jew-Bu’s like Adelson? Buddhist scholars argue western converts to the teachings and tenants have contributed to the “Protestantization” of modern Buddhism as they minimize the orthodox elements of monks such as ritual, mysticism and the devotional worship of Buddhist deities, focusing instead on meditation and philosophy.

As Adelson sees it, this is simply reflective of the Indian philosophy reaching the west in the last century and interpreted by a melting pot culture.

“My sense is that it is an amalgam drawn from different schools and takes on the colorations of the culture it penetrates and encounters. A lot of people are practicing in different ways, some adherent to traditional Tibetan of Thai and an increasing number of practitioners integrating it into their own broader, philosophical and religious sensibilities, so it gets altered through the lens of the practitioner. There’s a flexibility that lends itself to a modern culture that demands flexibility.”

It is also a culture that demands psychotherapy.

The ability to work on yourself without a shrink  is another reason Buddhism is attracting an increasing number of men, according to Bay Area therapist Dana Iscoff, who says women make up the bulk of the clientele regularly visiting therapists. “Men are much less comfortable seeking therapy than women and through the Buddhist teachings they are able to do the work on themselves in a very personal and non-threatening way.”

For men already grappling with intimacy issues, feeling safe being locked in a room with a therapist for fifty minutes is also a struggle, while women are accustomed to divulging personal problems whether in therapy or over a small plates dinner with a group of pals. Opening up can be vital to working through these problems, getting past anger and pain and thriving, but as Iscoff tells us, many men have been socialized to believe harping about work and marriage is a sign of weakness.

It is this touchy-feely sensibility, or the perception of it, that is also turning men off to conventional houses of worship. That’s according to congregation leaders in the United States who link the so-called “feminizing” of the church and synagogue culture to an alarming decline in male attendance. Meantime, women are flocking to organized affiliations as never before, gaining dominance just about everywhere but the priesthood.

Is Church for Sissies?

Buddhists don’t have to sport ties, link hands and eat jello molds with chatty neighbors to form a relationship between the individual and the divine. In fact, the whole social aspect of worship is seen as inherently feminine by many observers of the hold women now have on congregations in the U.S and abroad. 

Television writer and producer David Murrow signaled the need for the church to call men back to the fold in 2005 in his book, Why Men Hate Going to Church. Murrow, a Presbyterian elder in Anchorage, argued the church has become a hostile environment for manly men who are turned off to the feminized atmosphere of the typical house of worship. Murrow cites alarming statistics showing women comprise more than 60%  of the adults in the typical worship in America.

Other quick facts cited by Murrow’s Manly Mission:

* On any given Sunday, there are 13 million more adult women than men in America’s churches. This Sunday, almost 25 percent of married, churchgoing women will worship without their husbands.

* Over 70 percent of the boys who are being raised in church will abandon it during their teens and twenties. Many will never return.

*Churches overseas report gender gaps of 9 women for every adult man in attendance.

*Christian universities are becoming convents, the typical college in the U.S. enrolling almost 2 women for every 1 man.

“From the decor to the rituals, the ministry opportunities to the language, churches are designed to appeal to their greatest constituency – women,” observes Murrow. He adds that while the leadership is often male, women constitute the backbone of most churches and even more of the volunteer force.

Murrow started the website Church for Men to call attention to the trend as a harbinger for a gender gap in organized Christianity, blaming it on the trappings of contemporary culture. He says what drives men away are the very aspects which lure women to what he terms “spiritual sorority houses.”

What makes it girly? “Church is sweet and sentimental, nurturing and nice,” he insists. “Women thrive in this environment and men do not. Everything from the compulsion to participate in singing to the pastel tones, frilly accouterments, the modern sanctuary spells trouble for keeping men in the fold.”

Synagogues Also Missing Patriarchs

The notion of feminine frills driving men out is echoed by Stephen S. Pearce, D.D., Ph.D., the senior rabbi at Congregation Emanu El in San Francisco, who argues men have been displaced by the feminization of liberal churches and synagogues as opposed to more male-dominated congregations.

“I think we need to focus on making the religious experience more meaningful for men,” says Pearce. “Our society is not nurturing men the way they ought to, beginning with boys who experience education that is more geared towards girls. If I were running a school, the boys would have recess every hour in a half and get their energy out. Now, boys have to sit in a chair and not wriggle even though they have a lot of energy at an early age and when forced to conform, they don’t succeed. It goes against their natural instinct. I’m not against women, I think they’re terrific, but not to the exclusion of men.”

Pearce has started a men’s group at his temple for members ages 20 to 70. They meet monthly to study Torah and bond socially and also attend weekend retreats which advocate a stillness of the mind to better allow a connection with the human experience – the suffering, the euphoria, the attachments and the constantly changing world around us. Did the rabbi take his cue from Buddhism?

“I once gave a sermon comparing Buddhism and Judaism and I got ripped apart because I said that the end goal in Buddhism is extinguishment- never to come back again – and in Judaism it is to perfect the world,” remembers Pearce.  “We are diametrically opposed theologically, but most people don’t give a damn about theology. They care more about ritual and what makes them feel good.”

Countering the Feminization Argument

Seeking what makes men feel good has less to do with being turned off to feminine surroundings and more to do with a generational focus on self, according to Rev. Dan Christian of St. Luke Presbyterian Church in San Rafael, California, who boasts a thriving and progressive congregation including male filmmakers and heavy metal band leaders. He says people born in 1960 and after have had little religious exposure and focusing on the self is endorsed by society.

“Churches are by and large primarily run by women so the emphasis is on feminine issues and ideas, but this isn’t going to push men away from the Christian faith, ” figures the pastor. “Any tendency towards Buddhism comes more from the connection to the self which is a generational philosophy embraced today. Buddhism is a place you can go where the whole emphasis is on you.”

This makes Buddhist teachings a no-brainer for atheists. Christian points out that unlike Judaism, Islam and Christianity, Buddhism makes no claim on a higher power. “If you are in conflict with that or an atheist by default, the issue won’t be challenged in the Buddhist setting,” he says.

But is that the best place to be? When we are serving ourselves rather than a higher power or a community, are we more in harmony with the planet or moving further towards isolation, the same phenomenon of spending countless hours with the computer for social interaction?

“In my opinion, it works to the detriment when there is such emphasis on the self,” Christian says. “Any migration to Buddhism is a reflection of that. The emphasis is not on your connection to the greater community and an expression of your faith to your neighbor but solely on you and your own satisfaction.”

Even if that’s true, it seems to have followers succumbing less to corporate brainwashing which has taught men they can elevate their spirits through distractions like expensive toys, legal drugs and flawlessly beautiful soul mates. Depressed? Take a pill. Bad relationships? Buy a high performance car. Research now shows meditation cures depression better than many pharmaceuticals. And while accumulation and big spending once defined success for men, simplicity and restraint are now associated with sustainability.

Buddhists, like Adelson, are thinkers who are after much more of what life has to offer.

“What I’m after on some level is clarity, self-awareness and a certain level of serenity, a better sense of what is going on around me and a more accurate view of my life experience and my relationships, how I travel through this world, and certainly, a level of peace,” explains Adelson. “At the end of the day, that’s what we’re all after, right?”

Images:  Spirit Rock Meditation Center; Church of Men; Bobistraveling; Akuppa; Hutchike; Luanne Bradley; Martin Roell; Dospaz

The post Why Buddha Is Man’s New Best Friend appeared first on EcoSalon.

Must-know terms for switching gears from gas and emissions to alternative vehicles.

Don’t get left behind while the future charges forward. We’ve created a definitive list to charge your knowledge of electric as the auto industry gears up for a hybrid vehicle forecast filled with plug-in and battery options. Here’s a list to help you brush up on the lingo and fuel your thirsty intellect.

Battery Electric – a vehicle powered by a device that stores electrical energy. Unlike gas in the fuel tank which only powers the gas engine, an electric motor on a hybrid car can put energy into batteries as well as draw energy from them.

Bio-Diesel – A diesel fuel comprised of vegetable oil or animal fat base.

Biomaterials – Car seats made of soy-based foam or soundproofing using old denim is an alternative interior material used by Ford’s engineers and others to furnish their new fleets with sustainable sources found in nature.

Butterflies – Used to curb range anxiety, the feedback screen in the 2013 Ford Fusion displays butterflies as an indicator of the additional range beyond your selected charge point destination. The more efficiently you drive, the more butterflies you see and the greater your battery range.

Carbon Efficiency – The cost of driving a vehicle in terms of emissions generated.

Charging Station – Why is San Francisco rushing to set these up outside City Hall? To encourage use of plug-ins of course. The stations, like gas station counterparts, are publicly accessible terminals to recharge your EV.

Chevy Volt – The 2011 Motor Trend car of the year, GM released the Volt in U.S. in December of 2010 and is considered by the EPA to be the most fuel-efficient car in its class with an internal combustion engine sold domestically. The Volt can travel up to 50 miles on its lithium ion battery before needing a charge.

Clean Coal – Is there such a thing when it comes to the environmental impact of coal energy generation? This term implies coal can be made a viable fuel source low in carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants. Techniques include chemically cleaning the minerals and impurities, gasification, treating flue gases with steam to remove sulfur dioxide and other methods to aid the efficiency of the conversion into electricity.

CNG – Acronym for Compressed Natural Gas, also known as methane.

Diesel Electric – A transmission system with a diesel engine connected to an electrical generator. It creates electricity that powers electric traction motors. Considered as a class of hybrid electric vehicle when electrical energy is stored in rechargeable batteries for high efficiency applications.

Electric Motor – A hybrid’s electric motor lets it act as a motor and generator sot hat it can draw energy from batteries to accelerate the car. When serving as a generator it can slow down the car and restore battery energy.

Electro Pollution Smog – A new kind of pollution often associated with cell phones and high tension cables, e-smog derived from electricity + smog is a term for all artificially produced electrical and magnetic fields and electromagnetic radiation. According to Ford, the Middle East has among the highest restrictions to reduce any dangers.

EV – Electric Vehicle

Feedback Concepts – As with the Ford butterfly display, feedback provides vehicle data to help drivers with range, navigation, phone, radio or other information.

Fisker Automotive – An American automaker that plans to release its Karma in the summer of 2011. It’s billed as the the world’s first true EV with extended range of 300 miles. The first 50 miles are on tailpipe-emission-free-electric-only charge. After 50 miles, a gas range-extending engine turns the generator to add an additional 250 miles of range. The Karma debuted at the 2008 North American International Auto Show and established the premium green car segment, one most major companies have since pledged to follow.

Ford Fusion – the 2013 plug-in exemplifies Ford’s new commitment to convert to affordable electric.

GM Impact – New green car concept introduced by GM at the Los Angeles Auto Show in the early 1990’s. The EV was touted for a driving range above 80 miles, a top speed of more than 100 mph and acceleration from 0 to 60 in 8.0 seconds.

HEV – An acronym for Hybrid Electric Vehicles.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell – This electrochemical cell consumes hydrogen to generate electricity.

Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) – Hybrids have a dual system that uses a small internal combustion engine and an electric motor to power a vehicle. The ICE refers to an engine with intermittent combustion of a fuel (usually a fossil fuel), as occurring with an oxidizer such as air in a combustion chamber.The expansion of the high temperature and pressure gases from the combustion applies direct force to a component of the engine such as pistons and moves the component over a distance generating mechanical energy. 

Lithium ion Battery – A rechargeable battery accommodating the flow of electricity by the movement of lithium ions from the negative terminal to the positive terminal.

NiCad – a type of rechargeable nickel cadmium battery using metallic cadmium as a cathod (electrode or terminal by which a current leaves an electrolytic cell).

Nissan Leaf – The 100% electric Leaf has been reserved by 2,000 customers  in limited U.S. markets – nearly 7,000 getting dibs in the first 65 hours Nissan opened the reservations.  “People are ready” says Nissan about the vehicles that spare  some 700 gallons of gas per year.

Overhead lines –Wires used to transmit electric energy to trains, trams, or trolleybuses at a distance from the energy supply point.

Parallel Hybrid – Combining two power sources (fuel tank and batteries) this way means both the engine and electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time and the transmission turns the wheels.

Mercury Switches – Their use has become controversial recently in terms of environmental restrictions on safe recovery and disposal of heavy metals by manufacturers. Such metals are used in automotive batteries and fluorescent lights and are present in factory waste or contaminated waste sites. A mercury switch consists of a sealed glass tube with two unconnected electrodes and a small amount of liquid mercury. When the tube is moved past a certain angle the mercury will pool between two electrodes and a connection is made, allowing electricity to flow through a completed circuit. Mercury is hazardous so many manufacturers are replacing switches with other mechanical methods of disruption electrical current.

Range Anxiety – Some of the new plug-ins need charging every 50 miles and this can produce anxiety in drivers worrying about running out of power.

Series Hybrid – Unlike parallel, the gas engine turns the generator and the generator can charge the batteries or power the electric motor driving the transmission. The gas engine in this type of hybrid does not directly power the vehicle.

Shielding Radiation – Are hybrids dangerous to our health? Scientists continue to study the effects of surplus radiation generated by the electromagnetic field from the AC current flowing from batteries to the engine and back again. Known as ionizing radiation, it is widely used in industry and medicine and presents a health hazard to living tissue. Numbers of acceptable levels vary, according to experts.

Toyota Prius – Now in its third generation, the Toyota hybrid hatchback went on sale in Japan in 1997 as the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle – and is considered the real McCoy by purists. Available worldwide in 2001, sales reached 1 million in September 2010, spurred on by rebates to reduce gas consumption. The U.S continues to be the biggest market.

Wireless Energy Transfer – The process in any system where electrical energy is transmitted from a power source, most commonly devices that convert one form of electrical energy to another. Wires are used to bear mechanical loads and carry electricity to telecommunications systems. Wireless transmission is useful in cases where instantaneous or continuous energy transfer is needed but interconnecting wires are hazardous or impossible.

Images: Justin Pickard; avinc; Chevy; EMF, Futureatlas, TechShowNetwork, Dustin Reynolds

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How a film about children sold into slavery reveals the plight of those working daily to restore broken lives.

“I realize what I’m doing is just a ripple in the larger scheme of things,” says filmmaker Jody Hassett Sanchez, who is traveling the world to promote her documentary Sold. The film is a horrific yet hopeful window into adults who sell and traffic children and the modern day abolitionists  risking life and limb to end the $27 billion-a-year industry.

A ripple perhaps, but the small film is leaving audiences devastated in its wake at screenings across the globe, from formal showings to the British Parliament to warm meet and greets at St. Luke Presbyterian Church in San Rafael. It poses the question: Can one person make a difference when it comes to ending child slavery today? Three inspirational activists including a Hindu in India, a Christian in Africa and a Muslim in Pakistan are each doing their part to combat the buying and selling of humans, which has flourished under globalization. We see what they are up against in the harshest of settings where blood is not always thicker than water when faced with starvation.

Desperate parents must make a Sophie’s Choice of sorts in allowing a trader in their village to whisk away one of their children with the promise of a reunion in four years or so. The parents are reassured the children will be treated well, a delusional bargain at best.

In reality, boys as young as three have been ripped from their homes in Pakistan and sold to the UAE as camel jockeys for sport and entertainment. Fed water and crackers to stay underweight, the boys have suffered permanent genitalia damage when strapped on the camels and forced to ride 14 hours a day on desert racetracks.

But because of the political and diplomatic rescue efforts of attorney Ansar Burney in Karachi, the Saudis have enacted new laws to outlaw the brutal practice pledging to only use riders age 18 or over. Burney is one of three abolitionists starring as the main characters of the film and emerges a hero as he reunites the boys with their families and to repair their broken spirits.

“I’m not sure if they can be totally restored because of what they have been through and the idea of therapy is a western notion,” says Sanchez about what happens to these children once returned to schooling or household duties back home. “But there is a feeling of hopefulness and they do receive a great deal of love from the people around them.”

It seems no one is more loving than former Hindu nun Dr. Sunitha Krishman, a social activist and co-founder of Prajwala, an institution rescuing trafficked women and girls and helping them find shelter.  She organizes brothel raids and oversees 17 schools for young girls she rescues from forced prostitution in India. The film has us cringing when describing how the youngest virgins reap the highest prices. Krishman evokes the image of Mother Teresa as she embraces the girls who are given new identities and a fresh start. The brave crusader admits she has been shot at several times and is deaf in one year from the violence inflicted by traffickers.

And in rural Togo, Symphorienne Kessouagni gently helps to re-socialize and educate former slave children. Most tell the story of their parents sending them away to live with distant relatives only to end up in the hands of brokers who smuggled them across the border to do heavy labor, doing work even strong adults would find grueling.

The film is clearly faith-based, relying on religion as a healer and unifier as witnessed in the first Abolition Movement and throughout history. What’s missing from the film is the exposure of the sinister elements, ambush interviews with brokers or underground footage of rich Saudis delighting in child jockeys. Sanchez, a former ABC News producer, explains she made the deliberate choice to omit the “other side to the story,” arguing it wouldn’t add a thing.

“This is not another movie about what is wrong in the world but one that focuses on those who are making a difference trying to solve the problems,” she says. “We want our audiences to be outraged that there is more slavery than ever before in history, but we also want them to move from anger to action.”

Images: Emirates 24/7: Hyderabad Burpp; Jodyhassettsanchez; Ansar Burney

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