December 2011

The Holiday season is upon us, with the barrage of advertising inducing us to buy, buy, buy! What’s a socially minded citizen to do to still enjoy the giving season while being sensitive to the Earth and community? We turn to Occupy Wall Street for potential clues.

Occupy, the people-powered movement, has spread to more than 1,500 cities globally. In New Mexico, people continue in tents in the Santa Fe Railyard—a salute to dedicated folks as the weather gets colder. As part of “the 99%,” Occupy encourages us to work collaboratively, bottom up, minimizing the role of big business More >

The site is like a local version of Groupon, only better, according to co-founder Eric Luján. Forty small businesses and thousands of Albuquerque shoppers are already using the site. “You pay the business directly so that they make the money instead of the website making the money,” said Luján. “And you don’t have to use a More >

Supporting local businesses has become a way of life for many Americans. And independent restaurants—especially those that feature locally sourced, sustainable ingredients—stand to benefit from this trend, according to several recent studies.

A new survey from American Express Open found that 93 percent of consumers make it a priority to support local small businesses they value. Several factors seem to be at work here: hunkering down as a way to deal with a tough economy, a need to feel more like a community member, and a desire to make a difference.

Eight-nine More >

The Taos Green Chamber unveiled a preview of the very first Taos Thinks Local First Guide at a Release Party on December 1st at KTAO Solar Center. The Guide is part business directory, part green information and education, and part biographical, as it presents the stories of businesses embracing, developing and investing in green, sustainable practices. By sharing stories from area businesses, we are cultivating our awareness of what “sustainability” really means to us, and how to align business and commerce with this new awareness. Words like “green” and “sustainability” evoke many, many thoughts, feelings and opinions these days. More >

The decades have passed with barely a whimper of civil disobedience. The media, far less controlled in those earlier times, brought the Vietnam War into everyone’s living room every evening at 6 and 11 pm. Journalists were allowed on the front lines, vivid images of the ugliness of war penetrated our psyche, and there was plenty of suffering to go around. It fanned the flames of the anti-war movement. Now it appears easier to accept the agony of war when the portrayal is glossed over with slick packaging, a video-game perspective of robotic weaponry allowing human targets More >

A year after revitalizing Diné Biinanish Yá’át’éehgo Nooséél (Navajo Green Jobs), we held our first Community Green Awareness Day in Indian Wells, Ariz. on November 18, by partnering with the local Council Delegate, Navajo County Board of Supervisors, the chapters of Indian Wells, Dilkon, Teesto, Greasewood and Whitecone, as well as the Sierra Club and Black Mesa Water Coalition.

Why awareness? People in the communities still did not understand the term “green.” At one point, during a meeting, a community member stood up and asked if we could find another word for “green” because our people don’t know what More >

Sostenga comes from the Spanish word Sostener, which is a verb that Merriam Webster translates 1: to support, to hold up 2 : to hold : to hold a conversation <sostener una conversación 3 : to sustain, to maintain.

At Northern New Mexico College in Española, the ¡Sostenga! Center for Sustainable Food, Agriculture and Environment was established in the interest of preserving the natural heritage of northern New Mexico through hands-on learning and economic development ¡Sostenga! serves as a center for collaboration and research. As expressed in the indigenous metaphor “healthy environment, healthy people, healthy culture,” (Cajete, 1999) ¡Sostenga! supports projects that foster sustainable living based More >

One of the first steps toward actualizing food security might be an appreciation of one’s “foodshed.” The foodshed relates a person’s food source, kind of like a watershed defines a person’s water source. But where a person’s water source is likely bound to the watershed in which they reside, a person’s food source and foodshed can be anywhere in the world. The concept of the foodshed is then useful toward understanding our relationship with food in general. We can then tighten-up our foodshed by eating more locally. The concept of the foodshed also opens the door to many More >

Though we had a very dry summer, the wonderful October rains and summer-like temperatures simply reminded us that winter was right around the corner. And with winter comes the time to reflect on the past year’s accomplishments and failures, and also a time to think about the future.

As we look through the 2012 seed and nursery catalogs, though our bodies might still be sore from this past season’s work, our minds start to nudge us to start planning for the new year.

Recently in this publication, I wrote that in the More >

On November 18, the nonprofit New Energy Economy filed Entries of Appearance on behalf of numerous organizations that will testify in support of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Law at upcoming hearings before New Mexico’s Environment Improvement Board (EIB). The EIB is considering a repeal from PNM and the oil and gas industries to reverse the law.

The law’s proponents say that the most up-to-date climate science tells us that we must break our dependence on fossil fuels and transition rapidly to renewable energy if we hope to avoid the most catastrophic effects of More >