Oberlin College New Sustainability House Featured in NYT Times

I was thrilled to see that my alma mater, Oberlin College, was featured on the front page of the May 26th NY Times, in an article and video (click on "This Green House" in archives) by Sara Rimer that highlighted the college's new sustainability house - SEED (Student Experiment in Ecological Design). In the article, "How Green is the College? Time the Showers," the SEED house was called a microcosm of a growing sustainability movement in college campuses nationwide.

"While previous generations focused on recycling and cleaning up rivers," the article states, these students want to combat global warming by figuring out ways to reduce carbon emissions in their own lives, starting with their own colleges. They also view the environment as broadly connected with social and economic issues, and their concerns include the displacement of low-income families after Hurricane Katrina and the creation of green collar jobs in places like the South Bronx. The mission is serious and yet, like life at the Oberlin house, it blends idealism, hands-on practicality, laid-back community and fun.

Life is certainly different there. The appliances are disconnected, the showers are short, rainwater is repurposed, and organic gardens abound. Call it innovative now, but this may just be a dress rehearsal for the way we really have to live in the near future if the global warming climate crisis is not reversed.

Additional Oberlin "eco" news is a completely "offset" carbon footprint for its 175th green commencement, held last weekend, including the use of all local foods for commencement activities, composting, recycling, and the use of "bioware" plates and flatware. Wow!

An Amazing Pangea Day

   

Sunrise Advisors was thrilled to take part in the San Francisco Pangea Day celebration held at Architecture for Humanity in downtown SF. Several hundred people gathered to watch the live 4-hour screening, which was shared with over 1,000 screenings, events, and parties throughout the world. In 2006, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim won the TED Prize, an annual award granted at the TED Conference. She was granted $100,000, and more important, a wish to change the world. Her wish was to create a day in which the world came together through film. Pangea Day grew out of that wish. 24 short films were selected from an international competition that generated over 2500 submissions from over 100 countries. We found them amusing, entertaining, at times heart wrenching, and throughout, fulfilling exactly what they set out to - making us feel connected to humanity through our experiences, emotions, and the details of daily living. Perhaps the expression, "I laughed so hard I cried," was never so fitting for this occasion. 

from the Pangea Day home page....

"Pangea Day's fabulous line-up of thought-provoking, inspirational speakers produced no less stellar a collection of memorable quotes and priceless bits of wisdom. A small sampling of what we heard:


"By sharing stories, we've started the process of turning strangers into friends." - Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, TED Prize winner and founder of Pangea Day

"We have a repsonbility to expose ourselves to our world, to see our common humanity, to learn about other people -- not only in times of war, but in times of peace. " - Ishmael Beah, former child soldier and advocate for peace

"When we look at the earth from space, we can see ourselves, our species, in its brave struggle. Yes, we're troubled inhabitants of a small planet, but we're also dreamers of dreams." - Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco

"Humans are -- and must be -- sensitive to differences. But we should find hope in realizing how rich and numerous our commonalities are." - Anthropologist Donald Brown, author of Human Universals

"If we are to prosper together in our increasingly small world, we must listen to -- and learn from each other's stories" - Queen Noor of Jordan

"When we laugh, we change. And when we change, the world changes." -- Dr. Madan Kataria, founder of the International Laughter Club

"I feel like a hack... I feel I could be doing more... I feel sexy... I just want to feel alive for the first time in my life... I feel so much of my Dad in me that there isn't room for me." -- A selection of feelings, sampled live from the Internet, by conceptual artist Jonathan Harris

"We have the capacity and tendency to separate 'us' from 'them.' Once established, we're more tolerant to those we call 'us' and more brutal toward 'them.' But increasingly, science shows there's no limit to who we define as 'us.' Eventually, someday, there might not be any more 'thems.'" - Psychologist Robert Kurzban

"How can films change the world? They can't, but the people who watch them can. By changing minds, we change the world." - Actress Cameron Diaz

California Clean Technology Event at SRI

We were thrilled to attend the California Clean Tech event held in Menlo Park at SRI headquarters on Thursday evening. Several hundred people ranging from entrepreneurs, to students and scientists interested in entering the upcoming Clean Tech Competion, came out to hear speakers from several leading laboratories and research facilities, who discussed their upcoming initiatives, ranging in innovations in lighting, to water treatment and filtration, to maximized use of solar power. On the program were:

Opening Remarks by Ben Matteo, Innovation Partners Program Chair
• Speaker Introductions by Mark Goldman
• Alex Beavers, SRI International
• Denise Koker, Sandia National Lab
• Leah Rogers, Lawrence Livermore National Lab
• Robin Johnston, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
• Meg Arnold, UC Davis InnovationAccess
• Luis Mejia, Stanford University OTL
• Mike Cohen, UC Berkeley OTL
• Tom Anyos, Technology Ventures Corporation
• Nitin Parekh, Palo Alto Research Center
• Ammi Amarnath, Electric Power Research Institute

In a highlight of the evening, Sunrise co-founder Emmett Pickett was interviewed about Sunrise and its activities by Ke Yuan, reporter for New Tang Dynasty Television, and the segment was scheduled to air the evening of Friday, May 2. We will have a link available shortly to share with those who would like to view it.

The California Clean Tech Open is an independent effort by entrepreneurs, researchers, environmentalists, investors and others to create economic growth and environmental sustainability by sparking a clean technology cluster in California.