One of the joys of promoting the ideals of Global Patriot is running across other organizations that are in alignment with our vision. FOUR YEARS. GO. is a recent find that echos a common desire to create a sustainable world.

FOUR YEARS. GO. is a campaign to catalyze and empower a fundamental shift in the direction of humanity, inspiring collaborative action, connecting individuals and organizations, and amplifying best practices and successes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A question often posed is, “How much longer can we continue to ignore the needs of the planet?”  What we really want to know is if we’re getting close to any significant tipping points, a moment at which it’s too late to react, like heading toward a brick wall at 90 miles per hour and crossing the point at which the brakes might save us.

The extent of mounting crises is daunting—profound climate disruption, wide and deep poverty, global water shortages, loss of topsoil, depletion of fisheries, erosion of democracy, unsustainable population growth, mass extinction of plant and animal species, economic breakdown. And these crises are in fact completely inter-related.

Watch the video, join the cause, make the next four years count!

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For the majority of Americans, the days when meat came from the local butcher who purchased animals from a nearby family farm are a distant memory.  Due to the growth of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) most meat products now comes from so-called factory farms.

How concentrated has this production process become?  Today, 54% of US food animals are concentrated on only 5% of the farms.  As of 2000 four companies in the United States produced 81% of our cows, 73% of our sheep, 57% of our pigs and 50% of out chickens.  Globally, 43% percent of the world’s beef is raised on factory feedlots, and over half of the world’s pork and poultry is raised on factory farms.

“Every day, doctors use antibiotics to treat thousands of sick children and adults. Humans depend on these life-saving medicines for their personal health. But did you know that as much as 70 percent of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are being fed to cattle, swine, and poultry on industrial animal farms, for purposes other than treating disease?” Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP)

Have you seen The Meatrix?

Click here to view the embedded video.

The subject is not a simple one.  Increases in productivity and efficiency have allowed a smaller number of workers to produce meat products for an increasing population.  For example, since 1960, milk production has doubled, meat production has tripled, and egg production has increased fourfold.

But the methods employed in these operations are having unintended side effects.  The environment has suffered greatly through increased pollution of the air, land and surrounding water ways, while public health is also threatened by the appearance of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.

“The waste management practices of Industrial Farm Animal Production (IFAP) facilities can have substantial adverse affects on air, water, and soils. Another major risk stems from the routine use of specially formulated feeds that incorporate antibiotics, other antimicrobials, and hormones to prevent disease and induce rapid growth. The use of low doses of antibiotics as food additives facilitates the rapid evolution and proliferation of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria.” Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP)

Photo Credit: Factory Farming Campaign of the Humane Society of the United States

Evidence of the biological threat to humans continues to make headlines.  Half a billion eggs were recently recalled due to an outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis linked to Hillandale Farms of Iowa and Wright County Egg and sold by retail food stores such as Albertsons, Farm Fresh, James Farms, Glenview, Mountain Dairy, Ralphs, Boomsma, Lund, Kemps and Pacific Coast.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad-cow disease, resulted in the slaughter of 4.4 million cattle during the United Kingdom eradication program put in place.  Unfortunately, close to half a million BSE-infected animals had entered the human food chain before controls were introduced in 1989.

As the world population continues to increase, along with the rising affluence of the middle class in countries such as China and India, the demand for meat products follows suit.  Beyond the severe environmental degradation, many in the scientific community feel we’re heading for an outbreak that won’t be as easy to stop as the ones we’ve encountered to date.

Can factory farming become sustainable, or is it fundamentally flawed?

Reference Sources for Further Reading

Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP)

Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE)

Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)

Food & Water Watch

Meatless Monday

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I recently attended a San Diego Meetup to hear Greg Cominos speak about GE’s Ecomagination Challenge.  As a senior leader for GE’s Energy Services’ Digital Energy business Greg called the challenge a $200 million experiment in innovation focused on developing new smart grid technology.

In a creative partnership arrangement, GE has teamed up with venture capital firms Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, KPCB and Rockport Capital, who will help back the most promising ideas submitted in one of three categories.

• Challenge 1: Create – Renewable Energy
• Challenge 2: Connect – Grid Efficiency
• Challenge 3: Use – EcoHomes/EcoBuildings

What kinds of technologies or processes do you think will maximize penetration of renewables into the grid?  What do you think are the best means to help us realize greater gains in grid efficiency and outage management?  What new technologies, processes or business models can help consumers use energy more wisely and improve our energy balance?

So why create this challenge in the first place?  As Greg explained, the grid is old, much of it decades old, and like any infrastructure, the grid needs to be moderized taking into account the rising costs of fossil fuels and the need to include energy generated from renewable technologies in remote locations.

Ecomagination Entry Statistics From Facebook

How Does It Work?

Selected Ecomagination Challenge entrants will be offered the opportunity to develop a commercial relationship with GE through:

• Investment: the $200 million capital pledge of GE and its partners will be invested globally into promising start-ups and ideas
• Validation: evaluation of entrant’s business strategy through in-depth discussions with GE‘s technical and commercial teams
• Distribution: exploration of partnership opportunities with GE to scale a business and create global reach
• Development: leveraging of GE‘s technical infrastructure and GE Global Research Centers to accelerate technology and product development
• Growth: exploration of opportunities for utilizing existing GE customer relationships for your go-to-market strategy

Submitt an Ecomagination Smart Grid Idea

Watch Ecomagination on YouTube

Follow Ecomagination on Twitter

Friend Ecomagination on Facebook

I can’t say how this will turn out 10 years down the road, but I do applaud GE and their venture capital partners for taking a step in the right direction, for not waiting on regulations or government funding, but instead sponsoring innovation in the free market.  They’ve made the decision to play a part in shifting our society toward a sustainable path – a potential model for future innovation!

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The worst monsoon floods Pakistan has seen in 80 years has now affected more than 14 million people across the north west of the country, 6 million of them need food, shelter and water. Whole villages have been washed away, hospitals destroyed and critical infrastructure severely damaged.

Merlin is airlifting medics into areas cut off by floods, setting up health clinics and sending mobile teams out to treat survivors.  Ongoing and planned activities include:

• Establishing and deploying mobile teams to the worst affected areas.
• Distributing hygiene kits.
• Implementing nutrition programmes.
• Running diarrhoeal diseases units to provide replacement fluids and antibiotics to the seriously ill.
  

  Photo by Merlin’s team in Landakai, Swat Valley

Merlin’s Operation Manager Marinella Bebos warns “the death toll is rising every hour and Merlin’s main concern right now is to contain the spread of disease amongst homeless survivors. Diarrhoea and communicable diseases will claim large numbers if we do not act fast.”

Merlin is currently scaling up operations in the following areas:

• In Swat district, Merlin is already running 12 functional health facilities. In the Upper Swat area of Madyan valley, where the infrastructure was completely destroyed, three health teams have been airlifted in to provide urgent medical care.
• In Nowshera district, Merlin is providing health services in Jalozai camp – one of the biggest camps in the country for internally displaced people. As more people seek shelter in the camp, we are looking to establish an additional four mobile teams to cope with the increased demand.
• In Buner district, Merlin has ten health facilities and three mobile health teams, reaching as many people as we can.

The main problem remains accessibility due to the destruction of roads and bridges. There is also a desperate need for medical care as well as clean drinking water, additional sanitation and shelter to avert a public health crisis.

You can help flood victims with a donation to Merlin USA!

Merlin is a global medical charity working to save lives in countries devastated by disaster, disease and conflict. We deliver emergency medical aid and lasting health care wherever it’s needed most. Merlin has over 15 years of program experience in 40 countries. This includes 12 years in the Democratic Republic of Congo, emergency aid and a leadership role in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, and most recently disaster relief in Haiti.

Merlin’s Response Team is a dedicated team of experts with extensive experience in delivering critical disaster relief in some of the world’s most difficult humanitarian and health environments. Merlin is a recognized leader in the field for implementing an integrated approach to disaster aid and longer-term health systems rebuilding in some of the most remote and challenging regions in the world.

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On August 3rd The New York Times published an article by Michael Barbaro and Javier Hernandez that talked about the controversy surrounding plans to build a mosque near ground zero.  While I don’t agree with those who are opposed to the project, I understand why some residents are bothered by the construction of a mosque so close to the site of the former World Trade Center.

In that article, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted as saying, “we would betray our values if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.”

In my mind, this is the crux of the issue.  Will we uphold the principles that America was founded upon, or will we become as hateful and intolerant as the terrorists who destroyed thousands of innocent lives on September 11, 2001?

What I wasn’t prepared for, was a subsequent Times article published on August 7th featuring the picture below, taken at a protest in Temecula, CA, just a 30 minute ride north from where I live.  Members of a local Tea Party group had organized the protest of a proposed mosque in this small suburban community.

Residents in Temecula, CA Protest Against Proposed Mosque. Mike Blake/Reuters

I could only think, “Are they serious?”  The sensitive nature of NYC was one thing, but this was California, and it shocked me to realize that religious discrimination was alive and well, here in my own backyard.  The article went on to quote one of the protesters, and her words saddened me further, as they highlighted the fact that religious ignorance is also alive and well in America.

“As a mother and a grandmother, I worry,” Ms. Serafin said. “I learned that in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented. My children and grandchildren will have to live under that.”

“I do believe everybody has a right to freedom of religion,” she said. “But Islam is not about a religion. It’s a political government, and it’s 100 percent against our Constitution.”

Can we uphold the principle of religious freedom,

or will we perish by the sword of discrimination?

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I’ve written about ultra runner and endurance athlete Sarah Stanley before, featuring her Run, Ride, Inspire project, but Sarah is doing something very special for her birthday this year – cycling over 300 miles from Washington, DC to New York City with additional stops at Annapolis, MD, Baltimore, MD and Philadelphia, PA to raise awareness about childhood obesity.

Sarah’s Celebration Ride starts on Tuesday, September 14, 2010 and will wrap up on Monday, September 20, 2010.  Check out the route map for each of the segments.  Partnering with the ING Run For Something Better, Sarah’s goal is to raise awareness and funds for the program.  You can help at the Celebration Ride Fundraising Page.

A passionate advocate for being fit, healthy, happy, and pursing your dreams, Sarah’s mission is to inspire others to get moving and pursue an active and healthy lifestyle.  Nowhere is this more apparent than her dedication to children’s health, with explains why school visits will be a major part of the project – inspiring kids to live a healthy, active and happy life.  Learn more about Sarah Stanley Inspired.

Imagine if childhood obesity didn’t threaten the health of so many children across America. Imagine if we could give our nation’s children a way to get moving and a reason to get excited about physical activity!

We can and we are! ING Run For Something Better is helping kids learn that exercise is fun and fostering their desire to exercise before obesity even begins.

Help make Sarah’s birthday wish come true, ending childhood obesity!

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This post was written by Rob Reed. He is the founder of MomentFeed, a location-based marketing, strategy, and technology firm.

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:

1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing—or almost nothing—but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information—a moment—is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises…real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information…based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Author’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell‘s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.

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When you study the development of civilization over the past 10,000 years it becomes readily apparent that mankind’s lifestyle has shifted from one of respecting nature to one of consuming nature – not a sustainable trend!

The Global Oneness Project has produced a very thought provoking video featuring Julia Butterfly Hill, in which she speaks of how modern society has sadly embraced the habit of living a disposable life, and the consequences of our doing so.

Click here to view the embedded video.

How often do we think about where trash ends up?  And do you ever consider where that trash came from in the first place?  Julia brings such questions to light and gives us pause to consider how our waste is, in turn, wasting the planet itself.  Spend five minutes watching this video, then reflect on your own lifestyle for a moment.

• Have you added your name to the National Do Not Mail List?
• Do you diligently practice Reduce, Reuse and Recycle?
• How efficient is your method of transportation?

Julia Butterfly Hill

Julia Butterfly Hill brought attention to the plight of the world’s last remaining ancient forests when she climbed 180 ft into the branches of a thousand year-old redwood tree and refused to come down.  Her protest of the environmental destruction that was caused by the clear-cutting of ancient redwoods culminated after 738 days with an agreement that provided permanent protection for the tree known as Luna and a 3 acre buffer-zone around it.

Julia Butterfly Hill

Julia Butterfly Hill is an activist, a writer and a poet. She is the author of the national best seller The Legacy of Luna and the co-author of One Makes The Difference. Julia founded the non-profit organization, Circle of Life to promote the sustainability, restoration and preservation of life, speaks regularly on university campuses, has addressed the United Nations and lobbied congress, and has continued to stand on the front lines of environmental and social justice issues all over the world.

Are you living a life based on disposablility consciousness?

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America celebrates the Fourth of July to recognize our country’s freedom.  Originally that meant freedom from the British rule of King George III, but that spirit has evolved to include all of the freedoms contained within the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

Founding Fathers Sign Declaration Of Independence

From a Global Patriot perspective, however, this day also gives us an opportunity to consider the universal freedoms that everyone on this planet should openly enjoy.

While much progress has been made around the world, the sad reality is that some 234 years after the signing of this landmark declaration, millions of our global citizens still seek many of the basic freedoms listed below.

Freedom from Violence
Freedom from Discrimination
Freedom from Persecution
Freedom from Hunger
Freedom from Poverty
Freedom from Oppression
Freedom from Disease
Freedom from Injustice
Freedom from Pollution
Freedom from Harassment
Freedom from Fear
Freedom from Ignorance
Freedom from Censorship
Freedom from Inequality
Freedom from Immorality

What Freedom is most important to you?

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I just finished Delivering Happiness, A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com.  Equal parts biography, business story, and corporate philosophy, it often speaks to Tony’s entrepreneurial spirit, which ultimately created one of the most successful companies in history.  In the end, however, it’s also an education on how each of us should live our lives.

Tenacity, Learning, Humility

I won’t recount the book, as you should grab a copy and read the story for yourself, but what came through for me were the concepts of tenacity, learning and humility.  While Tony walked away from endeavors that simply didn’t work, he understood the potential that Zappos possessed and never gave up on his vision for success.

At every turn he was humble enough to realize three things:

1. He didn’t have all the answers
2. He needed a team of dedicated people to succeed
3. Each day was a learning experience

Valuable lessons we should all incorporate into our daily lives.

Tony’s approach to business is there in the company tag line: Powered by Service.   And this ideology extends beyond servicing customers, as employees, vendors and investors should all be served in the process of building a business.

Zappos Core Values

As we grow as a company, it has become more and more important to explicitly define the core values from which we develop our culture, our brand, and our business strategies. These are the ten core values that we live by:

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

“Only a life lived in the service to others is worth living.” Albert Einstein

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