What Would Rachel Say?

Scientists and experts from around the world have warned that global food wastage must be halved by 2025 to meet the challenges of feeding the rapidly-growing population and preserving global water supplies. 

• Wasted Food Is Also Wasted Water
• Conserve Water Through Food Efficiency, Report Says
• Food, Biofuels Could Worsen Water Shortages, Report Says
• China and India biofuels could threaten food output

Greenpeace teamed up with Mark Fiore, celebrated political cartoonist to make this animated short featuring Kleer*E who gobbles up forests and spits out boxes of Kleenex!

is about balancing our impact and more wisely managing our natural resources. The United Nations describes it as commitment to "the provision of a secure environmental, social, and economic future."
-- quote from Max Gladwell's Ten Ways that Social Media and Sustainability Align.

Practice Greenhealth is featured in the cover story of the current issue of Hospitals and Health Networks.  There are several articles; please follow the link below to see the articles online.

 

http://hhnmag.com/hhnmag_app/ jsp/currentissue.jsp

Facing the Ogres of Progress
By Tom Peterson
Before we can end hunger and poverty, we must first face down the ogres within ourselves that stand in the way.

http://www.heifer.org/

/press_releases/2615

21 ^st Century technology is reviving a centuries-old relationship between people and food. Cultivating the Web, a new publication from Eat Well Guide, shows how digital tools are being used to do everything from support local farmers to lobby giant players in the food industry, as virtual communities reject virtual food.

In a self-aware attempt to cash in on the Olympics, the Alliance for a Clean and Healthy Maine staged a race today at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland to showcase the "Chemical Olympics". The stunt highlighted the comparative efforts of various countries to keep their citizens safe from chemical pollution.

Another Kind of Silence
The List - UK

If the environmental movement in the US has a progenitor and figurehead it is marine biologist and nature writer Rachel Carson. Her writing and research in the late 1950s/early 1960s brought attention to the then unfashionable issue of conservation, most famously the problems caused by synthetic pesticides.

This one-woman show, written and performed with steely gusto and control by Liz Rothschild revisits the life and times of this remarkable woman. Rothschild traces Carson's journey from a contented outdoors loving Pennsylvanian childhood through her work as a biologist for the US Bureau of Fisheries, the publication of her bestselling books, her testimony to the US Congressional Committee on pesticides to her death in 1964.

Director Sue Mayo's production is pitched just right and Carson's scholastic, spinsterish traits are well represented by the rusticity of the set, which is well realised by designer Sue Condie. Sound designer Joseph Young also does a great job with the fragile soundscape of birdsong.

As undeniably wordy and worthy as this is (and as her subject necessitates), it is to Rothschild's credit that you leave the auditorium determined to invest in Carson's collected works.

Hill Street Theatre, 226 6522, until 24 Aug, 3.40pm, 

Breaking the Silence is a play about the life and works of Rachel Carson, probably the most influential ecologists of the 20th Century, She took on both the US government and the agro-chemical industry in her ground breaking book  Silent Spring  published in 1962. This show is not a history lesson, it's not about fear and despair, it's a love story which reverberates with the world we face today.

Foundation for a Green Future hosts Boston GreenFest 2008 on Boston City Hall Plaza on September 26 and 27. The festival celebrates ways we can create greener neighborhoods and communities throughout Boston and features movies, art exhibits, virtual interactive experiences, youth talks, and displays and demonstrations on energy- and money-saving products and systems available today. Volunteers meet Wednesdays at 10:00 am at Boston City Hall, 5th floor in either the Piemonte or Curley Conference Rooms. Contact Karen Weber of Foundation for a Green Future at karen@ foundationforagreenfuture.org.