Do you know where your pension coming from? For some US teachers, it’s Chinese coal.

The Chinese coal industry is known for its lucrative returns: the China Shenhua Energy Co. gained 65% from July to September, and many investors claim they can’t afford not to be in China. In fact, 20% of Shenhua’s stock is held by U.S. investors — one of whom is the Teachers Retirement System of Texas.

But China’s coal is also a huge polluter. According to the New York Times, China uses more coal than the US, the EU, and Japan combined, contributing an enormous amount of CO2 to the atmosphere. Coal-fired plants emit more than 60 different hazardous air pollutants. The large amounts of sulfur dioxide produced by Chinese coal cause acid rain, which pollutes water sources. But because of China’s rapidly advancing economy, the country needs energy — fast and cheap. Coal-fired plants are much cheaper and quicker to build than natural gas, nuclear, or hydroelectric plants, and it’s widely available.

China’s booming coal industry is also harmful to its citizens, producing so much sulfur dioxide that the World Bank estimated 400,000 premature deaths happen each year due to pollution-related illnesses. Not only that, but as much as 40% of air pollution in South Korea and Japan is believed to originate in China, and many experts believe that pollution from China is reaching the western part of the United States.

Do Texas teachers know where their pensions are coming from? For that matter, are other teacher retirement systems investing in Chinese Big Coal? I checked out Missouri’s Public School Retirement System, in which my husband and I have each invested. With my little financial knowledge, I was able to determine that PSRS has invested with Merrill Lynch, which is a shareholder in Shenhua. Just how much of my money is in coal remains to be seen. Looks like it’s time to work towards divestment…

Source: Associated Press

On April 14, 2007, Step it Up 2007 facilitated over 1400 different rallies in all 50 states urging Congress to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050. It was the largest day of citizen actions on global warming in history, and it truly was citizen action. Although Step It Up 2007 was the brainchild of Bill McKibben and several former Middlebury College students, the success of the event was contingent on grassroots efforts by everyday people concerned about the environment.

In McKibben and the Step It Up Team’s new book, Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community (Henry Holt, $13.00), the authors show how normal, everyday people, without any community organizing background, were able to create successful events to rally support for addressing climate change. Reflecting on the success of Step It Up allows the authors to repeat what worked–and discard what didn’t. Their seven tips (make it credible, snappy, collaborative, meaningful, creative, wired and seductive) are a framework for understanding how community organizing works in the 21st century.

The book is a quick read written in simple, conversational tone that empowers the reader. Really? Is it that easy to organize a rally? McKibben and group seem to think so, and highlight many anecdotes from the first Step It Up to show how novice activists can create powerful events. These anecdotes also serve as a type of scrapbook of the first Step It Up 2007, illuminating the hundreds of events and thousands of individual experiences. Just in case you might need some help with your own event, the authors clearly outline areas for concentration to establish credibility, drum up publicity, and finance your event. There’s also a resources page directing you to further reading on both climate change, activism, and other resources necessary for creating your own successful event. From online networking to how to create aeriel art, from media attention to attracting politicians, someone who did it for April’s Step It Up has advice for you.

McKibben and team make it seem so simple. How else can they get people to realize that we have everything we need to be activists? We don’t need to sit around and wait for Al Gore to organize a carbon-spewing concert. We all have within us the ability to lead, to create, to organize. They’re just providing a little push. If you’ve ever wanted to organize, but never thought you could, this is a must-read that will give you the tools you need to call yourself an activist and organizer. Step It Up is happening again on November 3rd. It’s never too late to get organized. In fact, the theme for November’s event is "Who’s A Leader?"

Fight Global Warming Now was released October 22nd.

Sustainability is making its way into mainstream periodicals. It seems like almost every magazine in the past year has featured a "green" issue, some credible, some not. My friend just gave me the green issue of a magazine targeted at the marketing industry. So it’s no surprise that Edutopia, an education magazine for teachers and administrators published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, used sustainability as a theme for their October issue.

Kudos to Edutopia; this issue ain’t no puff piece. Every teacher looking to go green, or those already greening their classroom, can find something of use to them in this jam-packed issue. The editor’s note in the issue is penned by guest editor Bill McKibben of Step It Up fame, who skillfully explains why all teachers should and can incorporate sustainability into their curriculum.

Edutopia listens to McKibben’s advice by provided several ideas for sustainability lesson plans and projects for all ages. Not only are there many useful ideas in the magazine, but there are more on the magazine’s website. There are also tips for teachers, by teachers, about how to green up their own classroom practices: some helpful, some fairly obvious.

Sara Bernard highlights Clackamas High School in Clackamas, Oregon, one of the first LEED-certified schools in the country. Not only is their building green, but their curriculum highlights sustainability, and students all participate in experiential learning. In teacher Rod Shroufe’s sustainable systems class, students do nothing but focus on making their school more sustainable. They run their own recycling center, investigate energy use and waste disposal, and analyze food waste. Shroufe then offers his own tips for making schools more eco-friendly.

Richard Rapaport reports on school gardens and playgrounds. I’ve written about schoolyard gardens before, but the nature-based "alternative playgrounds" highlighted here were new to me — and quite fascinating. For example, at the San Francisco School in the Bernal Heights District of San Francisco, the alternative playground has a dirt plot with a water pump that creates mud with the perfect consistency for mud castles and pies.

There are also articles on student environmental research, experiential learning, and environmental defense efforts. It struck me how much students can accomplish when they become passionate about something. These articles paired nicely with two pieces on the nuances of talking to kids about something as urgent and pressing as global warming. Edutopia also has Ann Cooper’s opinion on local eating, something often avoided in green magazine issues in favor of more benign lifestyle changes (like the ubiquitous CFL). Cooper not only explains the benefits of local eating, but provides the laundry list of local eating books for those looking for more information. And, of course, what green magazine issue would be complete without the seemingly-requisite interview with Ed Begley, Jr?

Edutopia’s green issue is legitimate and will hopefully bring the message of sustainability to a greater crowd who may just have more influence on the future than our politicians: our teachers. Of course, I’m biased, but climate change and environmental destruction will impact future generations more than they will impact us. Our children deserve to hear the message and feel empowered to make positive changes.

When I talk to people about thinking sustainably, they inevitably ask for books to read, and although there are several books I love about sustainability, they’re all very specific to one area of sustainability. Want to read about food? Try Michael Pollan, Peter Singer, or the new Barbara Kingsolver book. Climate Change? How about The Weather Makers? Looking for the classics? Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold are a good starting place. But I haven’t yet found the primer, the comprehensive text that really gets into why humanity desperately needs to embrace a greener way of life.

The Future of Nature: Writing on a Human Ecology from Orion Magazine (Milkweed Editions, $18.00), just might be that book. A collection of thought-provoking essays selected and introduced by Barry Lopez, The Future of Nature includes writings by such heavy-hitters as Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, and Derrick Jensen, all originally published in Orion, the seminal magazine covering the intersection of culture, nature, and the environment.

Released this past Thursday, the book is divided into six loosely-themed sections. Actions runs the gamut of activism, from small suburban grassroots efforts to stop construction on a SuperTarget store to bailing out direct-action activists in Appalachia. Refugees discusses those displaced by humanity’s interactions with the environment, giving a face to the faceless victims of climate change and the unending hunt for resources. Boundaries addresses the idea of the wilderness and our relationship with it. Reverence discusses how appreciation for nature, a love of and respect for it, is the essential guidepost for sustainable living. Monsters lays out just exactly what sorts of devastating things we’re doing to our only home, and Native leaves the reader with both hope and guidance for living in harmony with our ecosystem.

Highlighting both theory and practice of sustainable (and unsustainble) living, the causes of our ecological crises, and a vision for a lasting future, The Future of Nature provides a plethora of contexts for understanding just why we desperately need to change the way we live. Elegantly written and compiled, this book should be required reading for those interested in sustaining our future on Earth. The themes balance each other nicely; the reader understands the reality of the direness of humanity’s situation but is left with hope that good things are happening everywhere, those little pockets of positive change that will lead to a more balanced way of life. It immediately made me want to go read not only Orion, but every other piece of writing by this insightful group of writers.

Do you know a teen who wants to change the world? By Kids For Kids and their social networking site for teens, Idea Locker, launched a new contest for teens. The Going Green Challenge, a partnership with The Weather Channel, asks teens to create new products or services that could aid is solving global environmental problems, including climate change, drought, and famine.

The teen with the winning idea will not only win $10,000, but will win an "connection to reality" prize: an opportunity to blog on the "11th Hour Action" website, a tie-in to Leonardo DiCaprio’s climate-change film, The 11th Hour. The winner will also get to shadow one of the experts from 11th Hour Action in their work environment. The challenge officially runs from now until December 31st, and all youth under the age of 19 are eligible to participate. Teens who want to enter must do so via BKFK’s website.

"The connection-to-reality prize is especially exciting for us at BKFK, " said BKFK Founder and CEO Norman Goldstein. "As it empowers the winner to have their idea heard along with one of the most captivating movies of our time."

Idea Locker is a social networking site marketed towards teens that allows them to add friends, chat, and share ideas online. It is the brainchild of By Kids For Kids, a global marketing, branding and licensing company dedicated to make teens’ ideas a reality.

When giving your kids, "the talk", it always helps to have a book as back-up. It justifies your broaching a sensitive, potentially uncomfortable topic like…global warming. And although conservation and environmentalism is a topic for all ages, those children in pre-adolescence are just about ready to hear about the big guns of climate change. Three recent children’s books broach the topic of climate change to your middle-grades children (ages 9-12); two were penned by celebrities of the green world.

Following on the heels of the successful An Inconvenient Truth of almost the same name, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming (Penguin Young Readers, $23.00), aims to present the same ideas from the documentary to a younger audience. The text of this book is excellent: it simplifies the ideas of the original film without talking down to young readers.

An Inconvenient Truth producer Laurie David and Cambria Gordon’s The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming (Scholastic $15.99) aims to educate kids about why global warming is happening, how it is affecting our planet, and what kids can do to protect our earth. The book is packed with gorgeous photos, graphs and charts, making it accessible to visual learners, and little jokes scattered throughout the pages might be amusing to adults, as well. The Guide is even printed with soy ink on 100% FSC-certified, post-consumer recycled paper.

Finally, Gas Trees and Car Turds (Fulcrum, $16.95), written by Kirk R. Johnson, curator or the Denver Natural History museum, and illustrated by Colorado naturalist Mary Ann Bonnell, is a quick read that breaks down the science behind global warming and carbon dioxide so that children can understand it. While not as high-profile as the other two books, it does focus on explaining carbon dioxide as an invisible something that connects almost everything.

Imagine my shock when I opened my mailbox to find the latest issue of Newsweek sporting a fire-glowing orb and the headline "Global Warming is a Hoax.*" It’s hard to believe (particularly for the GO family) that there are still people who deny that climate change is happening and caused by humans. With the influx of pro-green exposure in the media, many greens saw this past year as the tipping point in awareness and activism on global warming. Yet, "deniers" still exist, and Newsweek’s cover story (complete with tongue-in-cheek headline) aims to track the foundations of the denial movement, the major players behind it, and the motivations behind the well-coordinated effort to keep the American public doubting that global warming is real. (That asterisk? It noted "Or so claim well-funded naysayers who still reject the overwhelming evidence of climate change.")

"They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry," says former senator Tim Worth, quoted early in the article. The key tactic? Creating doubt in the minds of both policymakers and the public by disputing the science behind global warming. As soon as then-senator Al Gore brought global warming to Washington’s attention in 1988, groups with benign names such as the Global Climate Coalition and the Information Council on the Environment, which were actually lobbyist groups from the petroleum, steel, auto, and utilities companies, began an all-out war to contradict the overwhelming body of science that supported global warming.

The rhetoric changed as the science supporting global warming grew more and more conclusive. It started with "the science behind global warming is wrong", moved to "global warming is happening, but it is not the fault of humans", and ended with the current denier mantra, "global warming is happening, and we may be causing it, but it’s effects are hardly anything to worry about."

Also impossible to ignore in the article is the amount of money and power changing hands between lobbying groups, policymakers, and scientists. One Exxon-Mobil-backed group has offered $10,000 to scientists willing to speak out against global warming. And that might be what’s so depressing about the "deniers": it seems that from day one, their motives were entirely based on the acquisition or preservation of money and power. As Gore demonstrated in a graphic in An Inconvenient Truth, what’s more important: bars of gold, or the entire planet?

The article is fascinating and puts a face (and clear strategy) on the campaign against the planet. This issue of Newsweek is on newsstands now, and the entire article can be found on Newsweek’s website.

Ontario's Liberal Party unveiled its plan for statewide environmental sustainability education, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne announced yesterday. "We must help students build on the knowledge and leadership they have already shown on climate change issues," said Wynne. "Our government is committed to reaching every student with an environmental education that inspires them to take positive action."

The Canadian province's plan infuses environmental education in all grade levels across disciplines, as well as creates an optional Grade 11 course focuses exclusively on environmental education. Ontario previously had mandatory environmental education, but that initiative was eliminated in 1998. The new initiative will cost $4 million.

The plan was partially in response to a report issued by the Ontario Ministry of Educations's Curriculum Council and their Working Group on Environmental Education that recommended the standardization of environmental lessons and inclusion of parents in that education. The report, titled Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future, is available online.

The plan is just part of a string of environmentally-friend initiatives the Ontario government has supported, including the EcoSchools program, two green-themed websites targeting high school and elementary students, and a Clean-Air and Climate Change artwork and essay contest.

Image Credit: Rolling StoneRolling Stone joins about every other magazine on the planet (score!) by publishing an environmental issue, specifically, a "special report on climate crisis". Apparently, that warrants a sleeveless Sting, along with the rest of The Police, gracing the cover, but I kept reading anyway. In any event, Rolling Stone's environmentally-focused content runs the gamut from clueless rock-star flightiness (sorry, Roger Waters, but I'm looking at you) to downright scathing allegations against Bush and Cheney and their attempts to mislead the American public on global warming and is well worth the read for those of us involved in green lifestyles.

RS uses an article on Live Earth, the worldwide series of concerts promoting global warming awareness set to take place on July 7th on all seven continents, to lure it's music fan readers into a green frame of mind. Set to be the biggest concert in history, yet drawing fire from many environmentalists because of the massive energy resources involved in staging ten large-scale concerts (technically nine…the Antarctic show, and there is one, will probably be an intimate affair) and the real purpose of the shows. To some, they seem like just, well, big concerts. However, the article gives some reassurance from organizer Kevin Wall: "You can't depend on your governments anymore. We have to mobilize an army, and that's what we're going to start doing."

RS follows the Live Earth article with its traditional celebrity-focused pieces. In one, singer/songwriter Jack Johnson's attempt to build a green record label, Brushfire Records, and recording studio is profiled. This is followed by brief interviews on sustainability with several Live Earth musicians such as Dave Matthews, Melissa Etheridge, and John Legend. Let's just say some really know what they're talking about, and a few seem, well, still clueless. Perry Farrell's eco-style is profiled in the regular Style profile (including a very cool organic-cotton hoodie from H&M).

Just before RS gets into the meat of their issues — three features on climate change — they take a page to introduce these articles and to announce that they are the first mass-marketed magazine to be printed on carbon-neutral paper from Catalyst Paper, although they've received considerable flak for the recycled content (zero) of the paper.

To start, Eric Bates and Jeff Goodell (whom you may remember I saw a few weeks back at Wakarusa) interview Al Gore. Although Gore interviews are hardly rare since An Inconvenient Truth, Bates and Goodell do a fine job. I enjoy Gore interviews much more than any other eco-celeb, mainly because I feel he is able to combine knowlege of climate change with extensive knowledge of our political system, making him an ideal leader in the fight for real change.

RS juxtaposes the Gore interview with, ironically, an all-out assault, condemning the Bush administration, specifically Dick Cheney, and its refusal to take any type of real action on climate change. Writer Tim Dickinson goes even further, citing multiple examples of the current administration's attempt to downplay climate science and censor government scientists. Included in the article is one clever insert showing the revolving door of conflicted interests that is the environmental advisors to the Bush administration, and another chart documenting statements Bush has made about environmental policy, and the reality of what happened after those statements were made.

The trio of features ends with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s proposal for what must be done to cut carbon emissions. The five big things? Establish an emissions cap along with a global carbon market, eliminating new coal plants that don't sequester CO2 underground, build more efficient cars, ban incandescent light bulbs, and make net metering nationwide, with Kennedy explaining these ideas more fully throughout the article.

In conclusion, Rolling Stone's issue is worth the read, particularly if you were already going to check out the review of the new White Stripes album. It is more big-thinking than some other green issues, taking on policy and larger changes than just changing your light bulbs. If only it was printed on recycled paper with soy-based ink…a girl can dream, can't she?

Renowned University of Alberta ecologist David Schindler said in a speech Friday that children are our best hope for slowing climate change.

Speaking at the Trails To Sustainability conference on environmental education near Calgary, Schindler said,

"By the time people who are six to 12 years old now are grown up, we're going to see a different political landscape and a different environmental one."

A world-renowned expert on climate change and fresh-water ecology, Schindler was the 2001 winner of the NSERC Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, Canada's highest scientific honor. Schindler also noted,

"We're all pretty set in our ways and I think looking at people who really don't get it - who leave their cars idling while they're in the grocery store for an hour in the winter and things like that - we're not going to reach those folks. We can reach their kids."

Schindler, who also teaches environmental decision making at the University of Alberta, also said that while today's generation and their elected leaders have refused to deal with looming water shortages and global warming issues, unavoidable change is coming.