It is a challenge to raise money for non-profits and this is particularly true if you are a non-profit that deals with consumption and you are serious about sticking to your mission (www.newdream.org).  We work hard to rid the world of junk mail so we could hardly feel great about sending out a flurry of letters asking for operating funds.  Likewise, we are unlikely to send out membership premiums because one of the reasons that folks join our organization is that they fundamentally believe that they already have too much stuff.  Yes, renewable energy d

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As I was reading my normal flurry of electronic news stories I hit the CNN site to see what they were saying about GM new Volt and the Toyota Prius—basically which in their view was better (http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/14/autos/volt_vs_prius/index.htm).  You can read the play-by-play y

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Yesterday my wife made me feel guilty for taking one of her favorite "disposable" plastic bags.  And I am sure it was not a casual comment.  She was really attached to that bag and the message was take it, wash it, and bring it back to me. 

It is the type of bag that American's casually throw away by the millions each day, while at the same time they are buying millions and millions to replace them.  Doesn't make much sense, does it?  The solution to this could be having a wife or husband like me and a "bag tree." 

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I told someone recently that I thought that bottled water was the pet rock of wetness. The person looked at me with a purplexed look.  And then I told him of a time long, long ago when people paid someone to buy a small pet rock.  It was a very silly item that lasted a short time during the 1970s.

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Many of us in the US and Canada are upset over the General Motors (GM) bailout.  Some wish it never happened and others are peaved by the way it was constructed.  But the fact remains that the citizens in the US and Canada own 72 percent of the remaining company.  While I am sure someone will be quick to point out that the terms of the deal make us majority stockholder but did not give us or our governments voting rights.  To that I answer: Hogwash.  We might not have shareholder rights per se but there are any number of pressure points readily available to us from exerting market pre

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Now that we own 60% of General Motors I think it is only fitting that we ask around and see what we want as majority stockholders in our company.  Here is my friend Gregor's take.  Please watch this video and pass it around.  We, the stockholders, need to be active and aware.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=231091355436&ref=nf

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My staff and I spent a little time with film maker John Degraaf (Affluenza) today to screen and comment on his new film about the economy.  Pretty sobering.  Lots of facts and figures as well as comparisons about our current state and how it compares with the Great Depression. 

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Since I have an interest in bottled water from a number of different perspectives, I was intrigued by the following tweet from Bottledh2OBabe:

@SustainableArch Did u know there's a national shortage of rPET? Ask ur local gov to expand programs & offer public space recycling.

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When I say geoengineering (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoengineering) a lot of you will probably just ask: What?  But it is another of a long line of bad ideas brought to you by the same type of folks who brought cane toads to Queensland and mongooses to Hawaii--i.e., those folks who think they understand the complexity of nature and think they are smarter.  GMO crops would fit in this camp as well.

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In the 2008 elections the vast majority of folks voted for change.  That was extremely clear, what isn't so clear is just exactly what change means.  We have not collectively communicated what we want.  I'd like to start that exercise by asking the Greenopolis community this simple question: What do you want American to look like in 2020? 

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