Week 9 Earthjustice

Another environmental activist organization. Decided to make use of the match available up to July 15th.

Earthjustice http://earthjustice.org/about is essentially an organization made up of...wait for the oxymoron...a group of lawyers concerned about the environment.

What caught my attention is that earthjustice is taking on the EPA for approving he use of a certain pesticide - sulfoxaflor. Sulfoxaflor is a type of neonicotinoid pesticide which are connected to colony collapse in Bees (there are other factors too including other types of pesticides..however). These pesticides also harm butterflies and possibly songbirds. Neonicotinoids have been banned in Europe. Banning them in the US is not only the right thing to do it is the smart thing to do.


Earthjustice has been successful at getting the EPA to disallow other pesticides for example, vinclozolin, which in lab tests showed "sexual behaviors of the offspring of the male rats exposed in utero were impaired"...sometimes I wonder about the EPA....but I will continue to hope especially if carbon trading becomes a reality.

I'd love to see the end of synthetic pesticides. Perhaps I yearn for some utopia, perhaps I am naive. A CSA farmer I know commented that pests on crops is most often a sign of poor soil or imbalance in the ecology. Our current farming practices are scary. Small farms produce much more food per acre than large "mono crop" farms. The system seems so wrong.

People are waking up to this (wholefoods!), mostly from the concern of what we put in our bodies rather than what we are doing to the environment, but really these two things go hand in hand.

Week 8 World Food Program Quiz

Good news, we have enough food in the world to feed everyone. So to help out this week I took a quiz on the World Food Program, in return they will feed a hungry kid for one year.

https://quiz.wfp.org/

Hunger kills more people than AIDS+Malaria+TB, and is prevalent most countries including the US. Here is the comment at the end of the Quiz..

"...
There is enough food today for everyone to have the nourishment needed for a healthy and productive life. The problem is access.
Thanks for taking the quiz!
....
"

week 7 Enviromental Defense Fund

Back to the environment and virtual tree hugging. I've previously supported EDF http://www.edf.org/ in years past but I'm taking advantage of a 2 for 1 match available at the moment.

It's a charity run by proactive scientists. Among other initiatives they lobby congress, its nice to have folks like this in Washington DC rather than the usual Bankers, Oil industry, Big Pharm....etc. In addition to lobbying they work in commercial markets also.

Success stories include fighting AB32 which was a California proposition that would curb the state carbon cap and trade. They also collaborated with Wal-Mart for safer chemicals in their products.

When I'm wondering how well a non-profit handles its money I check out Charity Navigator. EDF scores well.

Proof for this week

Week 6 World community grid

I have my laptop on constantly, mostly because I work for a software company....OK, so maybe its also that I'm online wayyyy tooo much! However, for much of this time the heavy duty computation is done by whatever terminal server I'm logged into. My laptop is essentially idle; simply acting as a portal. I'm sure a lot of people are only using a faction of the computational power at their fingertips.

How could this extra computation capacity be put to good use?....Well world community grid from IBM is a pretty awesome way of using that computer power.

From the web page  www.worldcommunitygrid.org

"World Community Grid enables anyone with a computer, smartphone or tablet to donate their unused computing power to advance cutting-edge scientific research on topics related to health, poverty and sustainability. Through the contributions of over 650,000 individuals and 460 organizations, World Community Grid has supported 22 research projects to date, including searches for more effective treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS and neglected tropical diseases. Other projects are looking for low-cost water filtration systems and new materials for capturing solar energy efficiently."

It is free. It is IBM so I trust I'm not going to get some virus or have some other nasty event/blue screen situation.

I installed it earlier this week (it was quite painless) and, up to now, has been looking at potential cure for Aids and markers for cancer. It is nice that they let you know what the computer is looking at. 

Week 5 Fossil Fuel Divestment

Climate change scares me. Particularly when it seems no one is doing anything about it.

There is hope. Things are changing although change seems slow....When I think about it, it is not so slow. Since I've been in the US - 10 years - it seems people now, in general, believe Climate Change is real. That's an important step (yes, sarcasm). There is more change happening. Notice all the smaller cars lately!? Notice all the building trying to get LEED certified?

However it seems that most of Congress is still in deep denial. Or perhaps too busy being wined and dined by the fossil fuel industry. What's happening in Australia and Canada, namely the leadership of those countries, is a huge cause for concern...

Last year I attended a rally "do the math" tour by 350.org that followed a Rolling Stone interview of Bill Mckibben. The article laid out the problem in very clear way - we can't let the planet warm by more than 2 degrees. Not if we want to survive as a species. We don't have a lot of time left to make sure this does not happen.

One idea put forward was to get organizations to divest from fossil fuels. Including college endowment funds, city retirement funds etc. Most of this is organized through fossil free movement.

http://gofossilfree.org/

Divestment helped to end apartheid  and the hope here is increase the unpopularity of fossil fuel and hit them where they pay attention - and they only seem to pay attention to money.

For the last couple of years this movement has grown and some colleges have divested - recently Stanford has decided to divest from coal. Many cities have divested. Personally I've added my name to petitions and sent a letter to my alma mater to ask that they consider divestment and stating that I will not give to the annual fund until the college divests...My old college prides itself on its sustainability efforts - all the programs in place monitoring the college campus itself, making changes to promote sustainability, and also all the research efforts. I hope they make this next step.

I will send another letter with the directions given on the link. Basically sending a donation check that can only be cashed if the college divests. In the mail box Monday.

http://act.350.org/signup/GFF_Alumni/

My photo as per directions:

 

#donors4divestment 

 

Unfortunately it looks like I may be naked in this photo....hehe...it's a strapless dress and I'm too tired to retake the photo.

In addition, going forward, I've decided to up the ante on this. I've decided to divest my own little nest egg. Certainly with what I invest from now and also with the funds I have. Unfortunately I can only do this with my IRAs but I can at least talk to the accountants at work to think about changing or adding to the 401k options.

Interesting funds found:

Managed funds, usually I try to avoid!
Portfolio 21 (PORTX) very big on alternative energy - female fund manager, cool!
Parnassus Equity Income (PRBLX)
Modified tracker 
TIAA-CREF Social Choice Equity (TICRX)  0.6 expense ratio
iShares KLD Select Social (KLD)  0.5 expense ratio
Vanguard FTSE Social Index  0.29 expense ratio. Love Vanguard but this index has not done so well. Will keep my eye on it.

There will be more posted on this. Over the last years I have tried to make many changes to lower my own carbon footprint. I'm very happy to be a tree hugger. I would love to spend more of my time simply enjoying nature.

Week 4 Heifer International

www.heifer.org

"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime"

As the name suggested the "donation" started out as a cow.  Over the last 70 years Heifer international has added to the types of gifts that can be given: goats, sheep, water buffalo, rabbits, trees, chickens, bees! and a lot more. Bees were my choice.

Never heard of this organization until reading the book "Give a little" http://www.amazon.com/Give-Little-Small-Donations-Transform-ebook/dp/B002SVQCX8. All the programs in this book are well researched and chosen for their ripple effect.

The ripple effect for this one is direct. Every family that gets a donation makes a promise to pay it forward by giving gifts to other families in their communities. So when the goat has kids, the kids are given to the neighbors...cool!

 

I also love the fact that Heifer also supports sustainability such as sustainable farming.

Week 3 Kiva (microfinancing)

www.kiva.org

At times I've hesitated donating to charities since I've not been sure if the money goes where it is needed, I worry that it ends up being spent on red tape. In addition, for some instances, I'm not sure about "hand outs" (yup, that old jaded negative voice I can't seem to shake).

I'm always interested in a longer term solution.....if one is available...

Kiva is not about donating, it is about investing in people who don't get the opportunity to access capital; known as Microfinance. Microfinance can play a role in alleviating poverty and is effective in empowering women. Poor people have difficulty getting loans and often credit available is relatively expensive.

I'm already invested in 3 Kiva projects and intend to re-invest the money that is paid back. That's another great point, the small amount of upfront money can do good again and again.