Passover has many lessons, one of which is that a community must be able to provide for itself the necessities of life. When it can’t, a community is dependent on others for charity and support.

Haiti is a perfect example of a country that once supported itself, and then through free trade policies, became dependent on others. They lost food sovereignty.

Bill Clinton recently expressed regret over his free trade policies that flooded the country with cheap imported rice, “I had to live everyday with the consequences of the loss of capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people because of what I did; nobody else.”

So, sustainability is a condition that always must be satisfied in order to consider any economic goal worthwhile.

Source: Huffington Post

It is especially fitting that President Clinton’s mea culpa comes as the Jewish community worldwide prepares to observe Passover. The story of Passover is a stark reminder that communities cannot rely solely on others to provide for their needs. Until people are empowered to help themselves, in-kind assistance from the outside is useful only in the immediate aftermath of acute emergencies. Long-term needs must be met principally through a community-led approach. The lesson we take from Passover is that once the Israelites spoke out against slavery their prayers for freedom were finally answered.

Today, the people of Haiti are speaking as loud as they can. They desperately want a voice and central role in the reconstruction of their country, including the ability to meet the country’s nutritional needs with food produced by Haitians in Haiti. In fact, President Rene Preval, himself a rice grower, has asked for international food aid to be replaced by financial support for farmers and the re-development of the agricultural sector. Preval knows that sustained success in rebuilding depends on food sovereignty, or the ability for Haitian farmers to grow their own crops and feed their own communities.

From a survey performed in late 2009, the following list of Top 10 sustainable professions emerged. The responders of the survey had all been motivated to find or develop new skills in response to threats from Peak Oil.

Top 10 Sustainable Professions:

1. Farming
2. Activism/Volunteerism
3. Renewable Energy/Energy Audits
4. Teaching
5. Small Business Owner
6. Permaculture Design/Teaching
7. Sustainability consulting
8. Non-profit
9. Alternative health
10. Energy-efficient building/Architecture

Source: EcoWatch

Some survey findings that may help those working to accelerate awareness and action among the general public are:

• People are driven to act in the face of global threats largely by a sense of right and wrong – their conscience – with some encouragement and inspiration from books, movies, media programs and articles.
• Emphasizing the positive consequences of particular lifestyle changes, and focusing on health and wellness benefits and a simpler, more satisfying life may be more effective ways to encourage change than promoting financial savings.
• The lack of support from one’s community and family and lack of assistance with overcoming unhelpful personal habits and attitudes are more significant roadblocks to effective response than not having enough information on what actions to take.
• Growing one’s own food is a popular and transformative way to begin living a more sustainable lifestyle, and may lead to a new career opportunity and the development of more community support.
• Most people do not feel they need to measure the impact of their lifestyle changes, but some think such feedback would motivate and assist them with doing more. Setting goals, even without measurement, is extremely helpful.
• Nine out of ten people plan to make additional changes, including starting or expanding a garden, installing a renewable energy system, or working with others in their local community to make broader, more systemic changes.

A new book by Tim Jackson “Prosperity Without Growth” focuses upon our new reality: economics needs to shift its focus from growth and towards new definitions of prosperity.

Gross National Product (GDP) is one of the statistics economists have used for 50+ years to define economic growth and prosperity. However, there are alternatives to a definition of prosperity based upon growth. The tiny country of Bhutan, for example, measures economic progress by Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH)  and ignores traditional GDP.

Source: The Guardian

“Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must.” And that is the core mission of this perfectly timed book. Had he published it before the financial crisis, he would probably have been dismissed as another green idealist, at best. But in the wake of the crisis, more people are questioning the primacy of growth at all costs. President Sarkozy, the Nobel-prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz and elements of the Financial Times’s commentariat are among those now arguing that prosperity is possible without GNP growth, and indeed that prosperity will soon become impossible because of GNP growth. A new movement seems to be emerging, and this superbly written book should be the first stop for anyone wanting a manifesto.

Jackson, who is economics commissioner on the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission, skilfully makes the relevant economic arguments understandable to the lay reader. He is not slow to simplify where that is warranted: “The idea of a non-growing economy may be an anathema to an economist. But the idea of a continually growing economy is an anathema to an ecologist.”

This is the core of the debate. Endless growth is a ridiculous notion to the typical ecologist because we live on a planet with finite resources, the mining and use of some of which is undermining our planet’s life-support systems. But the typical economist believes we can “decouple” GNP growth from resource use through the increased efficiency that tends to be intrinsic to capitalism: that we can grow our economies and reverse environmental degradation too. Tesco, as it were, can keep building more stores for ever, provided they are increasingly resource-efficient.

Jackson argues compellingly that such “decoupling” is a myth. A key area of argument, as with so much else in the current world, involves climate change. If we keep growing GNP, Jackson explains, then we fail to cut greenhouse gases deeply. This means we stoke destruction of prosperity beyond the short-term horizons – “next quarter’s growth figures” and all the rest – on which we routinely put such emphasis today.

This is a great idea! Entrepreneurs can buy one of these containers that fold out into an off-the-grid food stand and have them shipped virtually anywhere in the world. These would be great in rural Hawaii (Molokai or the Big Island), national parks or any place that gets lots of sunshine and is not connected to the grid.

Source: Scrapbook

Daniel Noiseux is the man behind Mubox… a successful restaurateur with a background in architecture and graphic design. The business is positioned to sell self contained restaurant units made to order to the prospective restaurateur/operator’s gourmet menu offering. The “ready to ship” Muvboxes are easily transportable by rail, road or sea. The Muvbox has incorporated solar powered batteries, recyclable materials, and biodegradable packaging for customers. The notion of offering a sustainable restaurant solution to operators, coupled with healthy culinary menus, contribute to Noiseux’s ultimate mission: TO DELIVER A FUN EATING ENVIRONMENT THAT RESIDES COMPLETELY ‘OFF THE GRID’.

This has real potential as a solution to re-define wealth that calls back to an earlier definition:  a roof over your head, clothes on your back, running fresh water and fresh food grown nearby. And the concept is analogous to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) where many individuals invest in the health and prosperity of a nearby farm.

Source: Alternet

The goals and structure of the the [Slow Money] movement are fairly amorphous — cynics might say squishy — more on the philosophical than pragmatic level for the time being. Tasch’s recent book “Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered” (Chelsea Green) aims to spark and incubate investment at all levels in local or regional food systems. This means not only organic farms, dairies and ranches, but food processing facilities, food artisans (makers of jelly, cheese, etc.) and retail or distribution networks, restaurants and stores.

“It is two things: a new way of thinking about money at a macro level, in terms of philanthropy and social investing, and on the ground it is getting money into local food systems,” said Tasch. “Our objective is a very robust network at regional and local levels across the U.S. — many, many players who are all interested in the same goal: rebuilding local food systems.”

Butterworks Farm in Vermont practices "Slow Money"

“People joining CSAs and shopping at farmers markets is the beginning of this sea change. People think of those as consumer rather than investment dollars, but they are a kind of investment.”

How much Slow Money can raise remains to be seen. Rather than using a venture capital model they are seeking to mobilize hundreds of thousands of members contributing millions of dollars per year which will then be used to seed the nurture capital industry. Founding members — 150 of them — contributed at least $1,000 each. And the overarching goal, Tasch said, is connecting investors with food systems in their own regions.

Lazor said organic farms will likely never be as profitable for investors as more traditional stocks, but he thinks people are increasingly seeing such investments as an attractive option in the holistic sense.

“People’s perceptions of good [financial] risks are the traditional exploitative and extractive industries that are ruining the earth,” he said. “Folks that have the dough are going to need to be satisfied with a lower return on their dollar, and get their satisfaction from knowing they’ve made the earth a better place.”

Slow money involves the belief that investment in sustainable local food systems is likely to pay off financially in the long run, since it simply makes more sense and curbs the costly environmental and health damage wrought by industrial agriculture. But it may not pay off quickly — hence the “slow” — and the payoff may not come in direct dollars back to the investor but rather tangible or intangible benefits to food producers, the environment and the general public.

Slow money proponents see the economic crisis, paired with increasingly alarming news about the effects of climate change and environmental degradation, as an opportunity for a new economic and agricultural paradigm.

“Our historical experience with global industrial finance is now in question — people are not completely sanguine about the prospects of venture capital and investing in China as it has been practiced,” said Tasch. “There’s a lot of economic uncertainty, so just the idea of diversification, putting one percent of our money to work in local food systems, is more attractive. And the number of people just interested in food is at an all-time high, people are starting to understand problems with industrial agriculture, industrial food.”

Tasch is hoping to get thousands of signatories to the Slow Money Principles, which include, “We must bring money back down to earth” and “We must build a nurture capital industry.” Whether or not people invest or donate, he hopes people use the holiday spirit to forward the principles far and wide.

The 2010 Green Consciousness Guide is Montreal’s only Green Guide and Local Coupon Book.

Green Coupon Book

There are coupons for shops like Yoga Studios, Organic and/or Vegetarian Restaurants, Organic/Fairly Traded Tea & Coffee Houses, Independent Bookstores, Natural Health Practitioners, Local Gyms, Responsible Clothing Stores, Bike Shops, and far, far more.

The purpose of the coupon book is:

• To encourage local, Quebec and Canadian businesses.
• To promote environmental awareness.
• To promote health & self development.
• To replace the standard fund raising products with The Green Consciousness Guide, something that is beneficial to everyone.

$20 to order from Conscience Verte.

After a year and half of research and development, “ethipedia”, the online encyclopedia of sustainable business practices, is now available online.

This reference website hosts a database of documented practices adopted by organizations seeking to incorporate greater social and environmental responsibility into their operations. With an initial store of over 75 case studies from around the world, this is the largest free resource of its kind.

“The goal of this portal is to offer a library of replicable strategies for applying sustainability principles to one’s organization. By making this information accessible, this site hopes to accelerate the market shift towards sustainable operations,” says the site’s Co-Founder, sustainability consultant Brenda Plant.

To ensure a high degree of credibility, ethipedia’s administrators monitor and vet submitted practices according to a set of concrete social and environmental criteria made available online at the following address: http://ethipedia.net/criteria

ethipedia is online at the following address and offered in English and in French: www.ethipedia.net

This I have known in my gut.

A professor argues that in order to get sustainability, we will have to submit to a “new world order”. I agree that at the heart of sustainability is awareness for the health of the global ecosystem and everyone in it. That could be considered a “new world order”. However, the grandiose idea of one world government dictating the actions of everyone on the planet is a dream I call “green fascism”.

If we can live sustainably (and that’s a big “if”), local communities will trump global governments every day of the week. This is because unique local environments that have unique local challenges require unique local solutions that a world government can’t provide for.

Via: The Green Market

The current economic hardships serve as a catalyst for change. According to William E. Halal, professor emeritus of science, technology and innovation at George Washington University, “the normal level of social resistance and political stalemate is likely to oppose change. Thus, it may take an occasional environmental collapse, global wars and terrorism, or yet unknown calamities to force the move to global consciousness…Even with the turmoil that is sure to follow, this will mark the serious beginning of a unified global intelligence – a fine web of conscious thought directing life on the planet.” [1]…

“We need a unified one world order to replace the collectivity of nation states at the international level. The Euro-American model which now dominates the world systematically disables people, destroys the earth and creates dependency on wage labour.” [8]

“In this model, politics loses its left-versus-right conflict and moves instead towards a fundamental concern for the health of the ecosystem…Democracy remains a need within this model, at both local and global levels, but as one part of the whole system. “Participation” becomes more than people’s physical presence and deepens to contain a cultural and spiritual dimension…To implement these concepts, we start with bringing the community together and look at the land resources available. We decide how we want the community to evolve and decide who has control of the resources.” [9]

Likewise, the following statement from the Canadian federal government to the United Nations contains a similar thread — a sustainable world order based on complete world management. “Canada believes the establishment of an international financial and economic system that is conducive to sustainable development must be a cornerstone of efforts to implement Agenda 21. Canada strongly supports efforts to reform international organizations to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in the promotion of global sustainable development.” [10]

I think this would be a fabulous entrepreneurial opportunity in Quebec:

Source: PitchEngine

In the face of the added challenges brought on by the current recession, Vermont business now have another innovative resource available to them, the Vermont Sustainable Exchange. Vermont Sustainable Exchange (VSE) is a business-to-business barter-style marketplace that allows Vermont businesses to measure, grow, and coordinate their trade with fellow Vermont businesses. Founder Amy Kirschner explains that, “My objective was to create a bartering network that would be pragmatically, hard-headedly, business oriented. Vermont Sustainable Exchange is here to solve practical problems that any business can relate to: increasing sales, decreasing business costs, having access to loan capital to fuel growth, and retaining commerce dollars within our state.”

Dot & Lil is a small company making homemade bath & body products in Montréal. We try to use locally produced organic ingredients whenever we can, both to reduce our carbon footprint and bring you the best quality in our finished product.