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Whole foods are now heralded by leading nutritional authorities as the most effective dietary approach. This intensive course—with two additional trainings this year—includes in-depth diagnostic methods that assist you in making custom nutrition and lifestyle plans. You will be shown how to recognize imbalance and restore harmony, using the principles and information in Paul Pitchford’s classic text, Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition.

In addition to a wealth of nutritional information, this intensive features training that opens one’s mind to the experience of life force healing energy (Qi) and to the guidance by our highest intelligence (Spirit), creating a sense of unity in all aspects of life. This program is based on the assumption that to succeed in whole foods nutrition, mindful awareness must merge with diet so that one’s attitude, desires, and emotions support quality food choices.

From Healing with Whole Foods .com

The term “political ecology” was first coined by anthropologist Eric R. Wolf in 1972 in an article entitled “Ownership and Political Ecology,” in which he discusses how local rules of ownership and inheritance “mediate between the pressures emanating from the larger society and the exigencies of the local ecosystem” (Wolf 1972, p. 202). Other origins include other early works of Eric R. Wolf as well as John W. Cole and Hans Magnus Enzensberger and others in the 1970s and 1980s.

The origins of the field in the 1970s and 1980s were a result of the development of radical development geography and cultural ecology (Bryant 1998, p. 80). Historically, political ecology has focused on phenomena in and affecting the developing world; since the field’s inception, “research has sought primarily to understand the political dynamics surrounding material and discursive struggles over the environment in the third world” (Bryant 1998, p. 89).

Scholars in political ecology are drawn from a variety of academic disciplines, including geography, anthropology, development studies, political science, sociology, forestry, and environmental history. Some modern prominent scholars include:

• • Piers Blaikie
  • Harold Brookfield
  • Dianne Rocheleau
  • Richard Peet
  • Nancy Lee Peluso
  • Michael Watts
  From Wikipedia

Solar power is the generation of electricity from sunlight. This can be direct as with photovoltaics (PV), or indirect as with concentrating solar power (CSP), where the sun’s energy is focused to boil water which is then used to provide power. The solar power gained from photovoltaics can be used to eliminate the need for purchased electricity (usually electricity gained from burning fossil fuels) or, if energy gained from photovoltaics exceeds the home’s requirements, the extra electricity can be sold back to the home’s supplier of energy, typically for credit.^[1] The largest solar power plants, like the 354 MW SEGS, are concentrating solar thermal plants, but recently multi-megawatt photovoltaic plants have been built. Completed in 2008, the 46 MW Moura photovoltaic power station in Portugal and the 40 MW Waldpolenz Solar Park in Germany are characteristic of the trend toward larger photovoltaic power stations. Much larger ones are proposed, such as the 550 MW Topaz Solar Farm, and the 600 MW Rancho Cielo Solar Farm. Solar power is a predictably intermittent energy source, meaning that whilst solar power is not available at all times, we can predict with a very good degree of accuracy when it will and will not be available. Some technologies, such as solar thermal concentrators have an element of thermal storage, such as molten salts. These store spare solar energy in the form of heat which is made available overnight or during periods that solar power is not available to produce electricity.

From Wikipedia

The First Green Veterans Day.

San Francisco — Veterans Day had always been a day-off from environmentalism for me, but this year Veterans week was different. The Sierra Club was really, for the first time, a full participant — a story that has been building slowly

Several years ago, the Sierra Club published a book by Jonathan Trouern-Trend, an Iraq war veteran about his experiences bird-watching while on active duty –Birding in Babylon.(It just came out in German!) Then, as an extension of our long-standing effort to get every American child an outdoor experience, the Club began to help support the National Military Family Organization’sOperation Purple Camp.We discovered that, after an active-duty  tour, military families were eager to reunite in the wilderness, and we partnered with theArmed Services YMCA.We also linked up with Outward Bound to help support their work withVeterans Expeditions.

We thought we had a fairly robust suite of activities in ourMilitary Families Outdoorsportfolio,  when we heard about Homes for our Troops, a wonderful organization helping build housing for disabled veterans. The Sierra Club agreed to provide the necessary additional funding for these homes to be builtusing the latest green technology, so this week Sierra Club Foundation President Bob McKinney and Executive Director Peter Martin had the opportunity be present when Marine Corporal Visnu Gonzalez, a paralyzed veteran,received the keys to his new LEED-platinum home in Hillsdale, New Jersey.

And on Veterans Day itself, Sierra Club President Allison Chin and Military Families Outdoor direct Martin Le Blanc joined First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden for ServiceNation’s Mission Serve initiative kickoff in Washington, D.C. The purpose ofMission Serve: Forging a Continuum of Serviceis to unite the worlds of military and civilian service, tapping the energy, wisdom and experience of the millions of citizens –in uniform and out — who are dedicated to strengthening America.

Our next challenge?  We’re looking at how we can make sure veterans have a fair shot at getting green jobs!

People are often very surprised when I explain to them that the Sierra Club now proudly counts among its friends and partners a whole host of veterans organizations — as well as military families themselves. And certainly the Club had — and still has — a lot to learn from these new relationships. But is this really such a new thing? We too often forget that the first protectors of our national parks were soldiers. To remind us, the Club has just publishedGloryland,a novel based on the story of the African-American “Buffalo Soldiers” who were the first rangers at Yosemite — written by Shelton Johnson, the inspirational ranger many of us just watched on Ken Burns’s series,The National Parks, America’s Best Idea.As John Muir told us, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find that it is hitched to everything in the universe.”

Read more:http://sierraclub.typepad.com/carlpope/#ixzz0WxETAPOL

12 green-thinking cyclists biked 80-100 miles a day for 5 days straight to get to the Opportunity Green conference in Los Angeles.

Why buy offsets to fly to a green business conference when you can bike there instead — via a 5-day, 450-mile ride with fellow eco-thinking travelers? That’s what 12 cyclists decided to do by joining the Tour de OG in San Francisco to bike down to the environmental business conference Opportunity Green in Los Angeles.

“People told me it was insane and crazy to do this,” said Karen Solomon, cofounder and CEO of Opportunity Green, ”but I thought people will create a whole new level of networking. They’ll share, they’ll know what they’re up to, and then they’ll support one another.”

The intrepid cyclists arrived in Santa Monica just a couple hours ago for a small finish line party, which I got to on my bike. Notice in the photo above how one of the bikes just doesn’t belong? Yes, that pink townie would be my ride.

Tour de OGers included no original gangsters as far as I know, but did include some long-term environmentalists like Anna Cummins (left, with me) of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation and Bring Your Own. Despite the fact that she completed the JunkRIDE bike ride from Vancouver, Canada, to Tijuana, Mexico earlier this year, Anna said the Tour de OG was a tough ride, covering 80–100 miles every day. “That was ferocious,” Anna said, “I mean, there were some powerful bicyclists in this group.”

“It was pretty aggressive in terms of the miles covered,” agreed Nick Aster (above) of green business blog TriplePundit, who helped with some aspects of organizing the bike ride. But Nick already plans to ride again next year. “We can a little cheekily say we’re walking the walk or riding the ride.”

Last year, I felt like I was the only one who went to Opportunity Green without driving, but this year, at least a few of the attendees will be biking. All the Tour de OGers I talked to said they planned to get back on their bikes to get to the conference.

Opportunity Green happens this weekend, Nov. 7-8, at the University of California, Los Angeles. Featured speakers range from Mayor Villaraigosa to controversial major corporations like Nike and Johnson & Johnson to Annie Leonard of The Story of Stuff and James Sutandyo of Causecast. Registration costs $995 ($495 for students).

From Siel Ju