Update on BJ Green Drinks

here's a post taken from treehugger.com

Beijing Green Drinks Returns, We Rejoice

by Rachel Wasser, Beijing, China on 05. 2.07

Take Action (events)

TreeHugger loves Green Drinks, and we are excited to report that Beijing loves them, too! The first ever Beijing Green Drinks, held last month, was a resounding success. More than 100 people showed up to rock the Stone Boat Bar with green-tinted talk, including people from government (China's State Environmental Protection Administration was represented), from NGOs, and from the private sector. Organizer Jenny Chu is looking to turn Beijing Green Drinks into a regular monthly event, and the second one will again be held on the second Tuesday of the month. So if you're living in Beijing - or if you can make it here for the [social] good time this promises to be - come out to the Stone Boat Bar for round two: Tuesday, May 8th, 7-9 pm.

If you're not in Beijing and can't make it here (we wouldn't want you to have to fly in), and if you don't have a Green Drinks in your town, why not start one? For more info and tips on how to get a Green Drinks going, and to find out if yours is one of the 223 cities where the concept has already taken off, check out the website. Photo courtesy of Brian Chang.

Looking the next generation in the eye

Aside from the thrill of seeing Benjamim, I must admit I've been feeling a mounting sadness as Rome heats up in early Spring. I'm trying my best not to be alarmist and maybe I'm simply in the wrong line of work. All the same, bad news just keeps popping up. A journalist from Mother Jones interviewed the Gold Standard and sent a complimentary copy of Mother Jones magazine as a thank you (some of you know that I don't buy magazines). The cover slogan reads, "In 93 Years, half of all life on Earth will be extinct." If you want to read the Gold Standard offset piece, as well as that uplifting article on how a person dying from dehydration mirrors, in some ways, the way a species goes extinct, I can email you a scanned copy. It's not online yet.

All the same, I know the risks of being consumed by negativity, so I watch the Benjamim video on repeat (such good music, such a cutie patooty baby) and read Colin Beaven's blog, No Impact Man. His post over the weekend, "On Not Getting Down" really moved me, and I wrote a comment which you can see if you scroll way down to the bottom.

I wish that we were all in the cool dark reading room in London to mull over an adequate response to rising temperatures and declining biodiversity. In the absence of room S21, I'll settle for thinking out loud here.

Colin Beavan writes that the unexpected benefit of his No Impact Man experiment is a sort of renewed faith in people and and our destiny. Sounds good, but -- honestly -- very far away. Working for Gold Standard involves a lot of travel and exposes me to a lot of business bottom lines. I feel grateful to have purpose-driven work but the nature of the job involves a great deal of activism, anger, politics, negotiation. The defender, critic, and fighter in me is getting a lot of air time. My friend was telling me that in order to really be effective as an environmentalist, a serene, connected voice need also be present. I think this is the voice Dena wanted to identify in all of us, "Why are you an environmentalist in the first place?" Beyond my disgust at current air quality, the withering Tiber, and Roman traffic jams, I do realize that what really drives me isn't negative at all. Instead, I'm happier when I buy local foods at the farmers market, the best times of my life have occurred in the mountains with a sleeping bag, and I maintain there is no stress therapy more effective than cuddling a different species, preferably a labrodor puppy or (a girl can dream) a baby panda! And yes, I know, it is wrong to confuse cuddling charismatic megafauna with environmental stewardship, but I do like baby pandas and baby anythings.

It's time for my personal habits to reflect again the energizing aspects of being environmentaly concerned. I'm going to do a little no impact experiment myself, nothing so ambitious or admirable as Colin's project but maybe it will cheer me up. For now, I commit to buying nothing new for a year (excluding medicines, toiletries, aquarium supplies, and food stuffs). I also commit to spending as much time as possible outdoors.

I'll let you know if the commitments grow, and how they do. I really do miss all of you, our scattered eco-tribe.

Jasmine.

Benjamim!

if you're happy and u know it...

clap your hands.

clap clap.

i likey my friends. social calendar---for the most part gets filled up without angst of what am i going to do on the wkd, and who am i going to do it with. new faces are still being sprinkled into the mix. the what do you do in beijing question, has amazingly kept its freshness for me. i have even met enough greenies to try and organize beijing's first green

drinks.

i'm hoping this once monthly soiree can be a new venue where presently scattered sustainable hedonists congregate and complain about how smoggy the air is. and ponder how the hell we can play a role in creating a "harmonious" society on different fronts. fingers crossed that i might even meet a boy who recycles. or better yet, a boy who knows what offsetting his carbon footprint means. one can dream can't they? i am afterall, still an idealist at heart.

.work. despite the anticipated changes, it appears the big boss is staying. the plus side is he's trying to stop ambushing us with his second hand smoke. so things in the office at the very least, are looking less hazy in one sense.

more encouraging is the fact that i do not feel like i have been locked down by the golden handcuffs. for a while, i had thought. shiet. am i stuck in this job pretending that the private sector can and does have a virtuous role in environmental protection? that even though a major client happens to be a huge mining corporation with an agenda to alter the beautiful landscape and lives of rural tibet for a quick buck, i can allay my guilt knowing that another client truly cares whether seabuckthorn helps to alleviate poverty and combat desertfication? have i sold myself out for a thousand more kuai each month in income? need i go back to the non profit world to cleanse the conscience?

well, i have decided that i still have it in me to move on if i ever do reach a point where i can't go to sleep at night. however, right now i do see purpose of where i am, and i continue to learn and grow in my understanding of china and its nebulous relationships with society and nature. and at the end of the day, i have found a job where i get to read things sprinkled with words like " sustainable forestry management and bio-diversity protection" with the hope of transforming such phrases into action sometime in the future. private-public partnerships do have a role china, so in the time being, private is where i'll stay.

plus, i've reached a point in my life where i don't feel guilty of earning myself a sustainable income while keeping my career in focus. i won't deny the fact that i like getting weekly massages and stuffing my face at the newest restaurant in town.

so yeah, one and a half months more and it will be a year here and i'm happy to say the initial euphoria of living in china has not died down completely. and that in itself, is worth a clap clap me thinks.

Stadio Olimpico Suberb Saga, part 1

We always knew Akif was the perfect gentleman, but here in Rome his rugged perserverance and survival skills have a chance to shine...

* * *

hi

just to let you know i am now in possession of our tickets for the roma-lyon game next week.

in true italian style there is a story that goes with it. firstly, the day they were supposed to go on sale moved from monday to wednesday and i couldn't find out why. then, i went down to the tabacchi at 1600 yesterday and duly collected my number for the queuing system. i was 46 (couldn't work out how 45 others had got there before me as i was there right on time, still, never mind) so i decided to go back to work and return in an hour hoping it would be approaching my turn. of course, in the meantime the machine broke down and so they had only reached number 6 by 1700, with loads of people milling around outside wondering what's going on. so i gave up at that stage and thought i would try again later since i'd be walking past in the evening. at 2000 they had only reached number 30 with a queue of people still outside, so i had to leave it.

anyway, i went in again on my way to work this morning and managed to get the 11 tickets for our group. it wasn't possible to get 11 close by in distinti sud, so i went for distinti nord and we are across two rows, as a group of 6 and a group of 5. what cracked me up this morning was how the guy behind the counter was totally totally oblivious to the queue of about 10 people behind me (lucky no one there when i arrived) all waiting for tickets....he was absolutely content chatting to his mate whilst sporadically filling in the details of our group and printing off the tickets.

it's superb how you can get a saga out of a simple operation like buying tickets....great!!


speak soon

akif

* * *

But then we were off to the Champions League!

Switch Off

Thanks to Romolo...

"Eric Prydz, the DJ of the 2004 monster club hit “Call on me” (the one with women in leotards) has remixed Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”, to give us Proper Education"

Inuit Observations of Climate Change

Hi!!! Sorry I've been nearly absent - but I'm an avid reader even when my voice is silent for awhile. I'm beginning to think our blog may be made up of a silent majority, as a matter of fact :-)

I'm in Santa Cruz, CA now, and head to San Francisco to see friends for the weekend. Jenny, I'm sad you won't be around this time! I'll be channeling you and Jasmine while I'm in the Bay area for sure...

Have had an exciting week of talking about everything marine at a TNC conference here. Surrounded by scientists, I was starting to wonder where I fit in, until I had an amazing conversation with someone who runs one of our programs in Indonesia and we bonded over the need to remember that, at its heart, conservation is really a social science in so many ways. It was lovely :-) Anyway, I wanted to pass on a link to this document someone just told me about yesterday in a workshop on marine issues and climate change. It's called The Earth Is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change. I haven't even read it yet, but it looks fascinating so didn't want to wait to share!

Oh, also, I don't know if you're reading this, Anthony, but had lunch today with a woman who lives in Guam, and she and her husband are volunteer scorekeepers for rugby tournaments. I'm not sure of her name, but she's lived there for 13 years and works for TNC. Sound familiar? What a fun connection - rugby brings the world together!

I'm listening to waves outside my room and missing all of you!!!!

Sarah

The anti-library

Today I went to the National Library in Rome after a nice lunch with Akif at FAO.

I was planning to read some articles on environmental markets, write a bit, send some emails from my lap top. A humble plan for which the library seemed logical. I didn't expect much trouble.

But then, I should have known better. I've lived here for almost 6 years. It's the can't do society.

The National library in Rome has two main anti-library devices.

First, a very clear rule: no bringing in books, no taking out books.
Second: no internet access, anywhere. If you want to research on the internet, well, you can't.

??

I spent half an hour trying to get a library card (with photo). After that I had to put my stuff in a locker, buy a transparent bag for ten cents, put my pens and phone and laptop in the bag (no lap top bags mind you, my macbook must rattle against my locker key). Nevermind the long process of signing in for the locker key and signing out. All in all, it took me a full hour to get me into the library and all of my books, gum, and study accessories out.

Just to be clear, the restricted library items are:

1. books
2. lap top bags
3. water bottles (somewhat logical, but there are no water fountains so I spent the whole time in there dehydrating)
4. thick notepads that look like books.

and no internet access in the whole place! Only research through the card catalogue and only microfiche files!!!

I kept laughing to my friend, "how do they manage to make this not a library but a library museum? We're back in the 17th century. I can't believe this is the national library...." He was laughing too.

And then we had the most productive, silent, prolific day of the year.

I love it here.

Baby Pandas!

Click here for a slideshow of the most charismatic mega fauna (next to penguins)

green weddings

for those of you planning on ringing those wedding bells....and want to use potato derived forks and eat organic cake
here's a great article i read in the new york times....

Direction and dialect

Contrary to Chhavi's theory about large cities in developing countries converging...

Climate stunts

John Quigley and assisted by Carter Brooks of SpectralQ
with a team of a scientific and cultural researchers from the Ice Lady Patagonia on behalf of Global Green USA.
February, 2006.

(All of this ripped off of their website, but I don't think it matters as it is just credits?)

Carter Brooks is now at Redefining Progress in Oakland, the same folks who did the Ecological Footprint and other Neumayer favorites.

Carbon markets...

10 Seconds of Fame!

(click on the film on the far right of the screen)

Photos of the grand capital (thus spoke Anthony)!!!

So, those are the photos from DC finally! Jasmine took most of the photos, and she was on a mission to get Sascha's fiancee from every angle :) I guess that explains the amount of photos of the lovely couple... Enjoy!

Happy New Years!!!

A CHINESE dog slippping and sliding on the frozen lake in Beijing.....








And a few of the famous orangutans of Borneo as I promised!

lovely sarah

lovely sarah, originally uploaded by sarah jazza.

Staying with Sarah and Dave was lovely and relaxing (what more would you expect?) and their house felt like Berkeley, i.e. home

DC Reunion

The full photo set is hopefully coming from Sonja (including shots of her civics tour ala Anthony... apparently he took Sonja on a 4 hour march through the capital, down through the constitutional archives, the white house, the capital hill. She knows the difference now between the 17th and 19th amendment). Sonja! Anthony!

We had a dinner reunion with Sascha, Alejandra, Sonja, Anthony, Sarah, Dave and me as well. Also, Sascha's fiancee! It was sooo good. Unfortunately, no batteries in my camera (Dave even went home to pick up my camera, just as Leon did in Sao Paulo, a troubling theme in requesting courrier favors of my girlfriend's husbands).

Anyway, we need those pictures from Sonja.


But instead, here's Sarah and Dave waiting for our dinner.



The cocktail menu was very hip, and in a globalized language -- the esperanto of cool. Robert Wade would surely have something to say on ambiguous latin language sexifying the end of the alchohol value chain...



They were delicious.



As a Japanese tourist in DC we thought it only right to make peace signs. I want to go back to Asia! Jenny, we have to find a way.

IMG_2324.JPG, originally uploaded by sarah jazza.

What about photos of the monuments themselves? I couldn't manage it. My sense of direction and history is getting worse with time. I thought the Treasury Building was the White House! Dammit. I was with a colleague from the Carbon Conference, and belligerently and forcefully insisted, "This is it! It just looks bigger on TV. Here we are!"

In the DC train station, I was back in my comfort zone learning about colon cancer prevention.

IMG_2342.JPG, originally uploaded by sarah jazza.

Also got a surprise trip to California but I won't blog about that because no one else from LSE was there -- so far as I knew. I did, however, eat dim sum with my parents and thought of Jenny. J-chu, it's your turn to put some borneo and china photos up here!

dim sum at Jade Villa, originally uploaded by sarah jazza.

photo news

dear all, i will write soon, this is just some views of my super duper belly very recently...

having a "mumy workshop" with my friend rosana, david and noah...

hot mummy danny at the beach - new year´s

since everyday i get bigger and bigger, i will post new ones soon. and then write a little about how everything is going.

love and kisses to everybody!

dani

Sao Paulo sublime

So... I feel rather sheepish that me and Dani started this and then, nothing from me at all. A forlorn abandoned idea. The truth is, I couldn't figure out how to sign in with gmail not googlemail for a good month. Banal but true.



The work part of the trip




Getting to see Dani and Leon in their town was such a thrill. I felt like that kid who gets taken out of class early on Friday to go for iceskating lessons or skiing at Lake Tahoe. They are already giving off a parent feeling!



We went to a trendy place for dinner.





morning at Dani's









Wouldn't this be a good color scheme to base a living room or a bedroom?



The Testaccio of Sao Paulo (Dani's old neighborhood, villa Madelena) -- Akif this area is very you



Saturdays you can have fejoida



There were musicians and they gave us a CD



We thought we should do something cultural so we went to the modern art museum.



I don't have enough photographs (or blogging stamina) to do their generosity justice, but Dani and Leon drove me to the airport and took me through the neighborhoods for an off the scenes tour. We had a midnight mango snack and did a photoshoot of Dani's belly (where are those photos?). I really fell in love with Sao Paulo, but maybe that is only because I was so exhilerated and joyful to spend the weekend with the two of you. Thank you!

New job excitement!

Hello, all!

Just a quick note to try to keep this brilliant idea running. Happy 2007! Hope everyone's holidays were relaxing and filled with just the right combination of family, friends and/or orangutans :-)

My recent exciting (to me) news is that on Friday I'll be starting a new job at The Nature Conservancy as their Program Coordinator for Marine and Freshwater Policy and Parternships. That's a lot of words in the title and I hope the job lives up to all that! Ha ha ha. Jasmine, will be fun to discuss my first week with you in person (I can't wait to see you!!!!!). So looking forward to continuing my education in international water issues, and really feel like this job will be almost like a second masters degree for me! Also looking forward to going back to the mission-driven world of NGOs, although perhaps I'll miss the relative efficiency of my private-sector government contractor. All I really know so far is that I'm headed to Guatemala at the end of January to take part in a "conservation audit" of TNC's Mesoamerican reef project. And to CA for a meeting of people working on marine issues for TNC all around the world in mid-February. Will undoubtedly be overwhelmed by all I don't know, but kind of can't wait for it! :-)

Anyway, just wanted to tell you the news!

And hope you're all doing fabulously!!
Sarah