Archive for March, 2011

GREEN FESTIVAL CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY APRIL 9 – 10

Mar 7

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The nation’s largest green consumer living event returns to the San Francisco Concourse

SAN FRANCISCO - March 7, 2011 The largest sustainability event in the world celebrates 10 years, one million attendees at the San Francisco Concourse Exhibition Center April 9 – 10. This one-of-a-kind weekend experience offers opportunities for community members to meet their favorite authors, actors and community leaders; shop more than 300 eco-friendly exhibitors; participate in educational workshops; enjoy live music and local vegetarian cuisine; and sample organic chocolates, wine and beer.

Ten stages and pavilions feature more than 125 inspirational and educational speakers, including Amy Goodman, The Fabulous Beekman Boys, John Perkins, Dr. Sharif Abdullah, Zoe Weil, Favianna Rodriguez and Mark Hertsgaard, to name a few.

The Green Festival marketplace showcases more than 300 green and socially-responsible businesses and organizations. Attendees browse organic eco-fashion, green pet supplies, fair trade décor, nontoxic children’s products and much more.

Green Festival gives back GF Bucks to individuals who purchase tickets online or at the door. GF Bucks are the local Green Festival currency, and can be used the same-as-cash to shop in the Green Marketplace.

“Last fall, Green Festival stimulated the green economy by giving back $44,000 to local, regional and national sustainable businesses through the new “GF Bucks” admissions policy,” says Global Exchange and Green Festival Founder, Dr. Kevin Danaher.

Green Festival enables individuals to volunteer or donate to various local nonprofits in exchange for complimentary Green Festival admission through the “Pay it Forward, Get it Back” campaign. Engage with Green America, Global Exchange, San Francisco Food Bank, SF Education Fund, Green For All, San Francisco Green Film Festival, East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse and Bay Localize to receive free Green Festival tickets. Also, Green America and Global Exchange members always receive free admission to Green Festival.

The San Francisco Food Bank and KPIX CBS 5 host a food drive at Green Festival, in which community members bring nonperishable cans to donate for free admission. According to the Food Bank, 197,000 people struggle each day to feed themselves and their families in San Francisco.

“The generous donation of food collected at Green Festival will aid the SF Food Bank in delivering nutritious and delicious meals for over 35,000 families throughout San Francisco and Marin,” says Events and Food Drives Manager, Jessica Brittsan. “Every donation helps in the fight to end hunger in our community.”

A joint project of Green America and Global Exchange, two leading nonprofit organizations dedicated to environmental and social justice for more than 27 years, Green Festival inspires and promotes the connection between change and sustainable progress for people, communities and businesses. Green Festivals empowers people to live healthier lives—socially, economically and environmentally.

“Whether you go to shop, learn, try new organic foods or experience art and music, Green Festival has it all, with the goal to motivate every person to think, participate and make more planet-friendly, sustainable choices in their every day lives,” says Green America and Green Festival Founder, Denise Hamler.

Thank you to Corporate Innovators: Ford and Bon Ami. Receive complimentary tickets when you visit your San Francisco area Ford Dealer. Test drive one of Ford’s new green hybrid and electric vehicles right at the Green Festival.

Thank you to Green Festival partners: Clif Bar, KPIX CBS 5 and KCBS Alice Radio 97.3.

Engage with Green Festivals online at www.GreenFestivals.org, www.Facebook.com/GreenFestival and www.Twitter.com/GreenFestival for the latest news about San Francisco Green Festival and additional Green Festivals in 2011.

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About Green America

Green America is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1982, providing the economic strategies, organizing power and practicing tools for businesses and individuals to address today’s social and environmental problems. Its Green Business Network is the largest national network of businesses screened for their social and environmental responsibility.  www.greenamericatoday.org

About Global Exchange

Global Exchange is a membership-based international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world. Since its founding in 1988, Global Exchange has successfully increased public awareness of root causes of injustice while building international partnerships and mobilizing for change. www.globalexchange.org

About Seven-Star, Inc.

Seven-Star, Inc. is the nation’s premier green full-service event company focusing exclusively on green events. Since 1999, Seven-Star has provided turn-key green event services for environmentally Responsible and socially Respectful (eR/sR) festivals, trade and consumer expositions, conferences and concerts. From the greening of the 2007 International Live Earth events, to the 2008 Democratic National Convention events, to producing the nation’s largest consumer Green Festivals, Seven-Star has defined itself as the company for eR/sR event production. Seven-Star is the first event company to have won the EPA’s Gold Waste Wise Award for Excellence in recognition for their proprietary system of event waste diversion, which has consistently achieved greater than 92%.www.sevenstarevents.com

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Feast Your Eyes: The Atlas of Genetically Modified Crops

Mar 7

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“Yesterday, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications, a nonprofit organization funded in large part by the biotech industry, issued a new report on the status of genetically modified crops around the world.

The Economist has used ISAAA’s data to make a map showing where in the world GM crops are grown. As you can see, the United States is by far the leader in the field, with 165 million acres (66.8 million hectares) of GM crops under cultivation, an increase of nearly 7 million acres on 2009 levels.”

Feast Your Eyes: The Atlas of Genetically Modified Crops via Nicolla Twilley – GOOD

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Chicago Drops $2.5M on Trash Compactors

Mar 7

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“Garbage collection in the Loop will soon change thanks to a new purchase.

The city bought about 400 solar-powered trash compactors for streets in downtown Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Each unit compacts the trash using solar power, and it holds about five times the garbage of a normal trash can.

The compactor also contains a built-in sensor to alert when it’s full.”

Chicago Drops $2.5M on Trash Compactors via Sandra Torres – NBC Chicago

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Retired cop honored for decade as teacher's aide

Mar 7

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“Weidinger was a police officer for the California State Police and then the California Highway Patrol for a combined 27 years. When he retired, he knew he wanted to work with young children so he could have a greater influence on their morals and academics.

He also knew he wanted to focus on math and science to try to make the subjects more accessible and engaging than when he was in elementary school. The San Francisco Education Fund’s volunteer program connected Weidinger with Cleveland.”

Retired cop honored for decade as teacher’s aide via Heather Knight, SF Chronicle

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Northwest Wind & Solar Installs Major Solar System for Magnuson Park Housing

Mar 4

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SEATTLE— March 4, 2011 Northwest Wind & Solar has installed an 11.96 KW photovoltaic (PV) solar system on the Brettler Family Place/Magnuson Park Housing community building. The three-building, 52-unit complex will provide permanent housing with supportive services and is owned and operated by Solid Ground, It will be completed in March 2011.

Designed by Tonkin/Hoyne Architecture & Urban Design the complex, especially the community building, is symbolic of the project’s interaction with nature. The community building utilizes sustainable materials, especially those that can be reused, and showcase how the buildings interact with nature and relate to the park. With funding from Washington State, the buildings are designed to the Evergreen Sustainable Design Standard (ESDS), a standard mandated and certified by the state.

The Magnuson Park Community Building PV system is a combination of high-profile tilt, and a flush mount array of panels using standing seam metal roof clamps.  The array design elevates and spaces the solar panels to optimize solar exposure. The panels are mounted using specially-designed and custom built structural roof curbs.  The system uses microinverters, which provide maximum power point tracking and increase energy harvest from each solar module, to maximize production.

According to Solid Ground, the housing is being built with environmentally friendly materials and energy conservation features; provides opportunities to increase the already successful collaboration with neighbors and community groups within the neighborhood; contributes to the region’s 10-year plan to end homelessness; and creates a model for how communities can reuse surplused military facilities to help end homelessness.

About NW Wind & Solar:

SME Inc. of Seattle brings more than 39 years of electrical construction experience to its newest business unit – NW Wind & Solar. A natural extension of SME’s electrical prowess, NW Wind & Solar’s professionals are estimating, designing and installing solar electric systems and wind turbine installations for residential and commercial clients throughout the Pacific Northwest. Recent projects include: a 5.2 kW PV system for the Construction Industry Training Council in Bellevue, an 8.28 kW PV system for a residence in Buckley, Wash., and a 68 kW PV system for the Seattle Housing Authority’s Lake City Village development.

Photo caption: NW Wind & Solar installed an 11.96 KW photovoltaic (PV) solar system on the Brettler Family Place/Magnuson Park Housing community building.

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Business of bringing clean water to world

Mar 3

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“Shakira Niazi is grateful for the life she has lived.

Having escaped Afghanistan as a preteen, Niazi, now 40, has since lived the American dream. She received an MBA, drove a Maserati, earned an average of $250,000 a year in the mortgage banking industry, and both her children attend private high school De La Salle in Concord.

Then, last March, during World Water Day, she stumbled upon a report released by UNICEF about access to clean drinking water that changed the course of her professional life. In the report, she spotted a map with a little pink dot.

“That is my country of Afghanistan, and that color means that more than 52 percent of its entire population doesn’t have access to clean water,” she said. “Up until last year, I really had no idea. I knew this was an issue, but not to the level that I had just found out.”

Niazi remembers her father subsequently planted the seed by telling her she had to figure out how to build water wells for those in need.”

Read More: Business of bringing clean water to world via David Morill – Contra Costa Times

Note* Salvare La Vita waiter will be exhibiting at the San Francisco Green Festival April 9-10 at the SF Concourse

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2011 San Francisco Green Film Festival Preview

Mar 2

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San Francisco Green Film Festival 2011 Trailer from SF Green Film Festival on Vimeo.

Bag It Intro Preview of Opening Night Screening Premier at the San Francisco Green Film Festival.

1st San Francisco Green Film Festival Opening Night Gala
Thursday March 3, 2011

San Fancisco – March 2, 2011 Wednesday, March 3rd marks the launch of San Francisco’s newest, ‘greenest’ Arts event, the San Francisco Green Film Festival. Following the Bay Area Premiere screening of “Bag It,” festival filmmakers and special guests will mix and mingle at the beautiful Bently Reserve. Attendees will enjoy local sustainable savories and sweets courtesy of local restaurants and food purveyors; sample local wine, beer and zingy cocktails; take in art from Recology and Surfrider Foundation; and dance the night away to Brazilian samba funk from the Bay Area’s Tropicali!

The San Francisco Green Film Festival Opening Night is presented in partnership with the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance of individuals, organizations, and businesses working together to stop plastic pollution and its toxic impacts on humans, animals, and the environment.

EVENT DETAILS

7:00PM ~ “Bag It” Premiere
Landmark Theatres Embarcadero Center Cinema
One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level

9:00pm-Midnight ~ Green Carpet Gala
Bently Reserve
301 Battery Street
(across from the Cinema at the Promenade Level).

To find out more information or purchase tickets, visit www.sfgreenfilmfest.org.

Guests must be 21 or over to attend. Festive attire is appropriate.

All proceeds benefit the programs of the San Francisco Green Film Festival – linking film and media arts with environmental action and advocacy to build a greener future.

Opening night sponsors include: Plastic Pollution Coalition | Tropicali| Blue Heron Catering | One Big Fish Green Events | Aidells Sausage Company | Bison Brewing Company | Chilayo | Choice Catering | Eel River Brewing Company | Frey Vineyards | Mixt Greens | Pretzel Crisps | Save Our Young Culinary Academy | Specialty’s Cafe & Bakery | Straus Family Creamery | Trinity Oaks | Veev

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ABOUT THE FILM ”BAG IT”:
Americans use 60,000 plastic bags every five minutes, disposable bags that they throw away without much thought. But where is “away”? Where do the bags and other plastics end up, and at what cost to the environment, marine life, and human health? “Bag It” follows “everyman” Jeb Berrier as he navigates our plastic world. What he learns quickly grows far beyond plastic bags…  http://www.bagitmovie.com/

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The First-Ever San Francisco Green Film Festival Launches March 3 – 6, 2011

Mar 2

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First festival of its kind on West Coast to link Media Arts With Environmental Advocacy; includes screenings of more than 60 Premiere Films from around the Globe, special events, parties, panels and educational programs.

San Francisco, CA – March 2, 2011- The San Francisco Green Film Festival will launch March 3-6, 2011 and will be the first-ever festival of its kind on the West Coast to presen inspiring programs and discussions that link films and media arts with environmental advocacy and activism.

The Festival will include screenings of over 60 premieres from around the globe and kicks off with an Opening Night Green Carpet Gala on Thursday, March 3rd at the beautiful, LEED-certified Bently Reserve (formerly the City’s U.S. Federal Reserve).

Highlights include live satellite feed Q&A with iconic writer and environmentalist Margaret Atwood, the West Coast premiere of Werner Herzog’s new feature documentary, visiting filmmakers from China, Sweden, UK, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and across the USA, a spectacular Opening Night Green Carpet Gala and more.

In celebration of the Opening Night’s “plastic pollution theme,”  the Festival will screen the Bay Area premiere of the award-winning film BAG IT, in partnership with Berkeley’s Plastic Pollution Coalition.

“San Francisco is universally regarded as an epicenter of both the global Green Movement and as an activist and issue conscious film community,” says Rachel Caplan, the Festival Founder and Director.

“This amazingly diverse city has many film festivals but none that directly and solely addresses these issues and audiences – The San Francisco Green Film Festival grew out of the need to fill that void,” she adds.

Festival screenings and events will take place at the Landmark Theatres Embarcadero Center Cinema and the Bently Reserve. These venues, in close proximity to each other, will create a dynamic hub at the Embarcadero, with an exceptional inaugural line-up including Bay Area premieres of award winners and audience favorites from the world’s top film festivals, including: Sundance, Berlin, SxSW and Toronto.

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the San Francisco Green Film Festival website.

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Clothing Industry Giants Launch Sustainable Apparel Coalition

Mar 1

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“The fashion industry has a huge impact on environmental, social, and governance issues.  Crunch the numbers however you may like, and the textile and fashion industries score high on the amount of energy, chemicals, and resources from cotton to petroleum consumed to manufacture clothing.  The factories in which textiles are woven and finished have their effects on workers from Southeast Asia to Turkey.  Finally, with the convoluted supply chain upon which many apparel companies rely on to turn raw materials into products that line the shelves of retail stores, one errant supplier or contract manufacturer can cause a huge headache for the folks in the central office.

With the challenges that apparel manufacturers and retailers confront on a daily basis, a coalition of retail companies, apparel and shoe manufacturers, fashion houses, non-profits, and the EPA launched a new organization that seeks to reduce the environmental and social impacts of the clothing industry across the globe.”

Clothing Industry Giants Launch Sustainable Apparel Coalition via Leon Kaye – Triple Pundit

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Flipping the Switch: See the Wild, Find Yourself

Mar 1

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“Our ability to understand and study the human mind has expanded in recent years and with it follows a stream of new ideas about happiness, empathy, love, gratitude, creativity and our relationship with nature. This isn’t rainbows and unicorns stuff, we’re talking science: prefrontal cortex, amygdala, neuroimaging and neuron function with real world implications for education, public policy, health care and business.

To put it simply, it’s entirely possible that after tens of thousands of years of human evolution, our abrupt separation from wild nature is making us kind of crazy. Richard Louv calls it “Nature Deficit Disorder” and his book Last Child in the Woods may change how you think about your future and your children’s future.”

Flipping the Switch: See the Wild, Find Yourself via Wallace J. Nichols – Huffington Post

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