Here is a great interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont conducted by one of the best interviewers around—Bill Moyers.

Here's a TED talk that explains in plain, easy to understand language the future we are facing. We can continue to bury our collective heads in the sand and blindly walk off a cliff, or we can face it square on and work on major solutions collectively. It's well worth 15 minutes of your time.

Sonoma Biochar Initiative

It's been a LONG time since I have blogged here, but I will start posting updates more regularly this year.  In 2011 I finished graduate school, earning a Masters degree in Sustainable Enterprise (a Green MBA) from Dominican University of California.  This is why I stopped blogging. From January through May I was totally focused on my Capstone project—co-writing a business and financial plan for a proposed renewable energy/biochar project in Sonoma County called Sonoma Green Energy—and every other activity ground to a halt. After the big presentation and graduation my photography work picked up again and I was able to enjoy a few weeks off before starting up the High School Senior shooting season in June, which brought me out of the heavily cerebral space I was in and put me right back into the visual space I've loved for all these years.



During this time I also ramped up my involvement with the Sonoma Biochar Initiative, a non-profit whose mission is to educate people about and promote the local use of this potentially game-changing organic material. I currently serve as Director. In October we submitted a proposal to plan and host the 2012 USBI National Conference and we won the bid—a huge undertaking for our small group.  I have been heavily involved in the coordination of this project ever since and will be reporting on our progress as we go.  The Conference will be attracting 300 + of the top biochar scientists, academics, technologists, entrepreneurs, and media from all around North America and the world to Sonoma County, and you can find out more about it here: USBI Conference.

Biochar

As some of you know, I've become very interested in Biochar, a particularly promising soil amendment that can increase productivity and build soil health while sequestering carbon for hundreds or thousands of years. As a short primer on the subject I offer the following video.

Raymond

Plastics from Mushrooms

Instead of trying to lure the same old Big Box stores to Petaluma or Santa Rosa in the (short sighted and mostly incorrect) belief that they will increase the tax base (they really just help destroy the local small-business economy), our leaders should be looking for businesses like this to invigorate our local economic fortunes. Wake up folks! There are SO MANY business opportunities like this that actually help restore the planet and provide employment instead of encouraging wasteful and unsustainable consumption.

Eben Bayer, co-inventor of MycoBond, an organic adhesive that turns agriwaste into a foam-like material for packaging and insulation, reveals his recipe for a new, fungus-based packaging material that protects fragile stuff like furniture and plasma screens.

Chris Jordan's Awesome Imagery

I just watched this powerful TED talk from photographer/artist Chris Jordan and was moved to share it. His work is brilliant and very effective at helping us gain insights into our wasteful and self-destructive practices. He's also a very engaging speaker. Chris shows how photography can be used to educate and inform, and his illustrations are breathtaking.

Reinventing Fire: Amory Lovins Makes the Case