In Honor of World Fair Trade Day, Mayor Gavin Newsom Proclaims San Francisco a Fair Trade City!
Saturday, May 10th in Dolores Park : 12pm-2pm
Join Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition in proclaiming San Francisco a Fair Trade City this Saturday in Dolores Park!
The event will feature speakers from the Mayor's Office, Adina World Beat Beverages and TransFair USA and highlight the broad community support for fair trade in San Francisco and the cities achievement of the national guidelines to be recognized as a Fair Trade City.
Entertainment will be provided by the Bayonics hip hop group, a Senegalese dance troupe and local DJs. Free samples from Adina World Beat Beverages, Alter Eco and other local Fair Trade Certified retailers and licensees; along with free Fair Trade Certified flowers for Mother's Day courtesy of 1-800-Flowers.
We will also join other Fair Trade cities around the country in attempting to break the Guiness Book World Record for 'World's Largest Coffee Break ? Fair Trade Style? and invite attendees to bring along a Fair Trade coffee from one of the many neighborhood businesses offering this option to help us break the record.
This event is sponsored by the City of San Francisco, the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition, TransFair USA, Adina World Beat Beverages, Global Exchange, AlterEco, ENGAGE, USF Students for Fair Trade and the dozens of local retailers who have made this milestone possible.
Help us spread the word! Please invite your friends and family to join us for this important milestone. Want to volunteer? We are going to need about a dozen hearty souls to help set up in the morning, break down in the evening and hand out all this free stuff!
Call Jamie Guzzi, 510-663-5260 x.309 / jguzzi@transfairusa.org to volunteer
More info: on the Bay Area Fair Trade Coalition and the Fair Trade Towns campaign please visit:
http://bayareafairtradecoalition.blogspot.com/
Experience highlights that the most socially excluded and economically insecure in any community are the ones who have least access to resources during and in the aftermath of a natural disaster. The report analyses the gender dimension of climate change and the policies enacted to mitigate and adapt to its impacts. The purpose is to develop gender sensitive approaches with regard to mitigation measures, adaptation projects and national regimes.
The fundamental goal of adaptation strategies is the reduction of vulnerabilities to climate-induced change in order to protect and enhance the livelihoods of the poor.
While women are generally more vulnerable to impacts of climate change, in many cases they exhibit surprising resilience. The report’s findings show that the gender aspects have generally been neglected in international climate policy. This is a major concern
given the emphasis of policymakers on general equity issues.
The framework of the study is represented, on the one hand, by the scientific assessment of climate change, with its impacts and associated effects on human and natural systems, and, on the other hand, by the international response to this challenge.
It is only during the last few years, on the occasion of the sessions of the Conference of the Parties (COP), COP-8 (held in New Delhi, in October 2002) and COP-9 (held in Milan, December 2003), that gender was tangentially broached. With regard to mitigation and adaptation policies, scientific andtechnological measures are preferred to "soft" policies addressing behaviour and social differences, particularly relating to incomes and general opportunities. The overall resilience of a society to climate change as well as its ability to change economic processes to achieve greenhouse gas reductions often masks important differences of adaptive and mitigative capacity of specific social strata.
Poor and marginalised men and women have a limited ability to cope with these challenges. As in most societies, particularly in developing countries, women have lower incomes and fewer opportunities than men.
Thus, their adaptive and mitigative capacity is lower than those of males. Climate policies are thus not automatically gender-neutral. The gender-specific differences in adaptive and mitigative capacity must be fully acknowledged and considered paying special attention to the design and implementation of response strategies.
Praise in Oaxaca: Mexican Farmer Reaps Prestigious Environmental Award - by Grassroots
International
May 2nd, 2008: Grassroots
International would like to salute Jesus León Santos, the leader of a democratic, farmer-to-farmer network in Oaxaca, Mexico, for winning the 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize – one of the most esteemed awards in the global environmental movement.
25 years ago, Santos co-founded the Center for Integral Small Farmer Development of the Mixtec (CEDICAM), which encourages farmers to return to traditional agricultural methods in the barren lands of the Mixtec Highlands. Santos was concerned about the region's severe soil erosion – caused by deforestation – which was preventing rainwater from soaking into the ground. The subsequent lack of adequate groundwater aquifers was leading farmers to either abandon their land for the cities or use pesticides or non-native seeds to try to recapture crop yields.
CEDICAM members began planting trees in the Mixtec Highlands as a way to stop rainwater runoff and provide people of the region with firewood. They learned how to build rainwater storage structures and engage in organic composting, passing along these skills to other farmers. They also started a seed bank where local farmers can find native varieties of corn and other crops. Today, most farmers in the Mixtec Highlands plant native seeds, and the region is nearly free of genetically modified crops.
On April 14, the 42-year-old Santos joined five other activists from around the world to receive a 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. The six recipients, honored as pioneering environmental activists, each received $150,000 to further their work.
Grassroots International has proudly funded CEDICAM over the years, sharing the network's belief in the power of local solutions arrived at through local knowledge and skills. You can read more about Santos and CEDICAM in the new book "The Other Game: Lessons from How Life is Played in Mexican Villages,"by Phil Dahl-Bredine and Stephen Hicken (Orbis Publishers). In this book, the authors "visit villages that have existed for thousands of years, meet their inhabitants, and talk with them about life, economics, work, and family. We see how their way of life presents concrete alternatives to our Western culture that we must take seriously in order to create a sustainable future for ourselves, our human race, and the other dwellers of the planet. Far from being a romantic throwback to a lost paradise, the indigenous society in this book -- so close yet so far -- offers us strong contemporary options at a turning point in our own history."
"It is time we recognize that traditional agricultural methods can make strong contributions to biodiversity conservation. We should encourage it and value it as a way to produce healthy foods that conserve and care for the environment.? - Santos
I hate when I make a point of gathering together all my tote bags, walking to the grocery store, spending the whole shopping process trying to buy local, organic food with the least amount of packaging, only to finish paying and then get handed a mile-long receipt, sometimes two separate ones if I paid with credit card or debit. I always recycle them when I get home, but still, it provokes a lot of that frustrated, Marge Simpson kind of grumbling.
The worst are the receipts that are twice as wide as the standard cash-register size, printed on glossy white paper and have so much useless information on them they end up running 10 times longer than need be — like this Walgreens one here, which has a personalized thank-you message from the employee who helped the person, an advertisement about the store’s phone-in prescription service, another ad about the survey you can go online and fill out in order to be entered for a cash draw, the entire thing printed over again in Spanish and the date and time printed twice.
I understand that some computers and high-tech registers are programmed to automatically spit out a receipt when a transaction is made, so it’s not always possible to decline one. And there are certainly purchases where it’s a good idea to get one if there’s a chance it’ll get returned or exchanged.
But from now on, whenever I buy something — especially if it’s something I’m going to eat straight away or that know I won’t be bringing back — I’ll at least ask for no receipt right when I step up to the counter.
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Yeah...
That's a pet peve of mine, too... but interestingly, I've learned that Apple stores have the option of not printing out a receipt and also give the consumer the ability to have one emailed to them. I love this feature! If everyone did this it would save time, money, resources and it would provide an organizational system for all the little bits of paper no one really wants to hang on to anyway.
Some of the worst are Blockbuster, Home Depot, Safeway, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Costco.
In addition, Most places print receipts on thermal paper, which if I remember correctly, is not recyclable (at least not here in my town).
If you do get a receipt, you can always save it for notes!
This article is really interesting: "Top 10 music acts going green with compost and biodiesel" -
Read on to see how The Roots, Radiohead, Serj Tankian, DMB, Jack Johnson, Willie Nelson, Mana, and Pearl Jam are keepin' it real).
Music publication Billboard published a list of 10 acts that have tried to make a difference to the environment over the past year:
1. JACK JOHNSON
Hawaiian-born singer/songwriter Jack Johnson, a lifelong surfer, recently built a recording studio insulated with used denim and powered in part by solar panels at the Los Angeles HQ of his Brushfire Records, a cozy single-family home. Trucks and coaches on his 2008 tour will run on biodiesel, and venues are required to comply with his rules on cutting waste
and recycling.
2. WILLIE NELSON
Country music star Willie Nelson's BioWillie biodiesel fuel, which is already sold in about six U.S. states, will add a key location when Willie's Place at Carl's Corner, Texas, opens this year. The truck stop, off the
truck route from the Mexican to Canadian border, is billed as the biggest green truck stop in the United States with all fuels having some percentage of biofuel.
3. MANA
Mexican rock group Mana's nonprofit Selva Negra foundation, launched in 1994, has projects ranging from saving endangered species like the sea turtle to reforestation efforts. The group's most ambitious proposal to make environmental and ethics classes part of the curriculum for all of Mexican schoolchildren.
4. DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
The U.S. rock band, through environmental nonprofit Reverb, has calculated the CO2 emissions from every stop on its upcoming summer tour and purchased the renewable energy credits to make up for the footprint left by each
venue, hotel, flight, tour vehicle and even fan travel. Fans can sign up online for a carpool.
5. KT TUNSTALL
Last September, Scottish singer/songwriter KT Tunstall partnered with record label Virgin to create a 100 percent post-consumer waste recycled and chlorine-free booklet for her CD "Drastic Fantastic." She also began work on the greening of her London home, as well as completing a carbon-neutral U.K. tour.
6. PEARL JAM
Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron last year played a January benefit for flood victims in Central Washington, while guitarist Stone Gossard helped plant vegetation in a Seattle park ravaged by English Ivy.
7. SERJ TANKIAN
The "System of a Down" frontman-turned-solo artist has founded Web site skyisover.net to connect fans to environmental and social justice organizations. He also founded a nonprofit, Axis of Justice, with former
"Rage Against the Machine" guitarist Tom Morello and is working with environmental nonprofit Reverb to ensure his current tour leaves only a small carbon footprint.
8. RADIOHEAD
Delivering their album "In Rainbows" as a price-optional digital download before putting a physical product in stores last year prevented the manufacture and disposal of thousands of CDs. The British band travels unwillingly and when they do leave home, Thom Yorke and his bandmates
partner with consulting firm Best Foot Forward to help reduce their carbon footprints.
9. MISSY HIGGINS
Australian singer/songwriter Missy Higgins spent two weeks traveling across the United States in a hybrid Prius this year, posting Web documentaries of stops at locations like the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and the Mountain View Montessori School, a green
elementary school.
10. THE ROOTS
The Roots have taken autographing to a new level. At this year's edition of their annual pre-Grammy Awards all-star jam session, the Philadelphia-based hip-hop crew gave away signed compost bins in an effort to promote the practice.
Know of any other bands who are doing similar work to be gentler on the planet?
