Sustainable

Are you a writer and/or someone who is passionate about sustainability? If yes, then check out this great opportunity from Hannah Lee, a Conscious Lifestyle venture leader at Columbia University!

Editor-In-Chief Hannah Lee and the rest of the Editorial Board of Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development invite both undergraduate and graduate students to contribute to Issue II of the journal, to be published in November, 2008.

Consilience is the first student-founded, interdisciplinary, academic journal of sustainable development and is based at Columbia University in the City of New York. The aim of Consilience is to juxtapose different disciplinary approaches of students worldwide to confront the challenges of sustainable development.

Articles for submission may be:

Scholarly Articles: Original, research-based articles that fall between 1,500 – 5,000 words. Please include relevant graphs, data tables, maps, or any other supplementary material.

Field Notes: Fieldwork observations that make a broader commentary on the field of sustainable development. Submissions with relevant photographs in addition to the article are encouraged.

Photo Essay: Photographic work that offers a unique view on a particular challenge, issue, region, or population related to the study of sustainable development. All photographs should include an explanatory paragraph or two and citations for each photo. Ideally, the photo essay will portray a cohesive or thematic story regarding the material presented.

Opinion Pieces: Opinions concerning attendant challenges, strengths, and theories regarding sustainable development.

The website has important formatting and submission guidelines for each type of submission; questions may also be sent to contact@consiliencejournal.org. All articles should be the work of the authors, though writing done as part of previous class work is welcome. All submission pieces must be submitted in English. The Board encourages submissions from authors who have never previously been published in academic journals. In addition, it can aid writers for whom English is not their first language. All articles should be both relevant and accessible to a general population interested in the field of sustainable development. Authors should consider an interdisciplinary approach and promote further research and discussion about their chosen topic.

Submissions should be sent to submissions@consiliencejournal.org, and the final date for submission is August 15, 2008. First revisions will be due October 3, 2008; second revisions will be due October 27, 2008. The final draft will be due November 12, 2008.

Contact Hannah at hsl2103@columbia.edu, or another member of the editorial board at contact@consiliencejournal.org, with any questions about submission or Consilience in general.

con·sil·i·ence (noun): The joining together of knowledge and information across disciplines to create a unified framework of understanding.

Although I don’t think the Girl Scouts are going to be selling boxes of CFL lightbulbs instead of cookies any time soon—why change a good and delicious thing?--groups of other stripes are always looking for creative ways to raise money for their organizations. Now your group can choose to sell recycled paper goods, green home cleaners, energy-efficient showerheads, and yes, low-energy lightbulbs through several Web-based green fundraising organizations. You register your group on the Web site, tell your prospective buyers to visit it and make their purchases, and your group gets a check in the mail.

LetsGoGreen.biz and Greenraising.comoffer groups the opportunity to earn between 25% and 40% of the price on each eco-conscious product their friends and relatives buy. This percentage is not as high as on traditional fundraising items—typically 50% to 75%--because traditional items are mass-produced, often overseas, thus cheaper to produce, making it easier to pass on a greater percentage of the profit. But green fundraising contains an educational and pro-environmental aspect—for both buyers and sellers--that can make up for the lower profit.

And if consumers like the products, they can keep on buying through the fundraising websites, generating additional income for the group after the initial drive is over. So if your group can operate with a steady stream of income instead of a one-time payment as in the traditional model, green fundraising may be something to think about.

Now if only there were a way to keep on buying Girl Scout cookies…

The Presidential Forum on Renewable Energy is sponsoring a nationwide essay contest for college students between the ages of 18 and 24 asking them to submit a plan on renewable energy, sustainability, and conservation for America. Each of three winners will receive an educational prize of $10,000 to coincide with the celebration of Earth Day in April.

But hurry: the essay is due by February 1, 2008. You can enter online here.

Students are asked to write a four- to six-point renewable energy plan for America, laying out a strategy for the next five to ten years that will minimize our current dependence on nonrenewable energy sources.

The essay contest grew out of a November 17, 2007, forum in which presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Dennis Kucinich spoke about global warming and America’s energy future. The event, sponsored by Grist and PRI’s Living on Earth, was presented by the Presidential Forum on Renewable Energy in partnership with League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, California LCV Education Fund, Center for American Progress Action Fund, and NRDC Action Fund.

Good luck!

UPDATE: After we posted this story, we heard from the folks at Divide The Ride, a service that busy parents can use to form carpools for their kids. Parents enter their kids' activity schedule and invite families they know and trust to join the carpool. A carpool calendar is created and families who join the carpool will be emailed a complete schedule and reminders. Divide the Ride claims it's the only service designed exclusively for parents...and what parent couldn't use an extra set of wheels, for free?

My mother likes to tell a story about my father going to get gas for the car one winter’s night, long ago. Our regular gas station was about a half-mile away; under normal circumstances, a less-than-15-minute errand.

But there was nothing normal about the energy crisis of 1973.

Later – after two hours and one frantic call from my mother to a neighbor to go out and track him down – my father returned with a tale of going to our gas station, only to wait on line and watch the gas run out before he got any. He went from empty station to empty station, and was able to find some gas somewhere, eventually. Soon after that he joined a four-man carpool of co-workers for his daily 30-mile trip (one way) from our home in suburban Long Island to his job at John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens.

And here we sit, 35 years later, alone again in our cars, again running out of gas…

As we enter the era of post-peak oil production, carpooling is reappearing as a strategy to cope with dwindling supplies and sky-high prices. But instead of asking around at work to find potential co-riders (still a great option), you can use one of a handful of Internet-based companies to find or offer your ride. NuRide, Essex, Connecticut, matches potential carpoolers using profiles and criteria that users choose, and provides an email system so they can contact each other. Users can earn rewards such as gift cards to major retailers when they earn a certain number of points based on rides completed. According to NuRide, in 2007 its members arranged 400,000 carpools, traveled about 12.5 million miles less, and saved half a million gallons of gas. NuRide requires users to be affiliated with an organization such as a university or a business, so there is some level of security for users.

So pair up and start your Prius…

So we all know that on average, the things we buy from the grocery store have traveled about 1,500 miles to reach us. The solution: buy local. But is building a 30 story skyscraper-turned-farm in Las Vegas the solution? Should we be growing 100 varieties of agriculture in that city if most of them do not belong in the desert? Hasn't climate change shown us that diverging from natural ecosystems is the problem, not a solution? Check out this story and decide for yourself.

Vegas to Build Vertical Farm