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Archive for 'sustainable future'
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Finding Our Strength
Posted on January 22, 2013 by Kathryn Alexander
 When I first moved to Colorado, fourteen years ago in 1998, the winters were fierce. I remember walking my dog, Jake, in blowing snowstorms, with wind so strong it would take your breath away – latterly. I walked with double layers of pants, long underwear, heavy boots and socks and a scarf over my face so I could breathe. As I walked I pictured the paintings I’d seen of American Indians on the prairie in blowing snow, backs to the wind. Those days are gone.
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The Purpose of Vision
Posted on June 4, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 I stumbled upon a blog by Steven Gans where he Quotes Isaac Asimov as saying, “What is really amazing and frustrating is mankind’s? habit of refusing to see the obvious and inevitable...
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Money – It’s All About the Budget – Right?
Posted on March 5, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 One of the elephants in the room, in this case the closet, is the cost of climate change. Ask the insurance companies, they keep excellent records, as you know. As storms of every shape and size increase and become more destructive the cost of repair goes up
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The Future of Democracy and the Middle Class
Posted on March 2, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 Is capitalism the cause or destroyer of democracy and the middle class? Are they in trouble? If they are can we save them? Should we save them?
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Brave New World
Posted on February 29, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 I’ve always paid reasonable attention to what I put in my mouth and since my dance with liver cancer (no chemo, no radiation) in 2005-2006 I’m mostly organic. I cook – so there are no processed foods to speak of. I live in Boulder...
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Our Thinking Shapes Our Reality
Posted on February 26, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 I often talk about ‘thinking differently’ and people sagely nod their heads, but I always leave feeling that no one understood. ‘Thinking differently’ is a little like pulling one’s self up by the proverbial bootstraps. How do you do it and were do you stand?
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What can Business Learn from the New Cities?
Posted on February 24, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 The wise use of technology, sustainable values and common sense can resurrect cities and with them give the human species a new chance at Life.
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The Heartland Institute’s Climate Change Debacle
Posted on February 21, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 Chicanery in the name of free speech to undermine science is dangerous, corruptive and confusing. Why would people play games with other people's lives in such a fashion?
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Limits to Charity
Posted on February 18, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 Which will save the world: charity or capitalism? Neville Isdell, former CEO of Coke a Cola, says it's going to be "Connected Capitalism."
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Triple Bottom Line – CSR & Greenwashing
Posted on February 17, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 The Triple Bottom Line and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are pieces and parts - when will we begin to see the whole so we can keep our integrity intact?
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Whitney Houston and Viktor Frankel
Posted on February 12, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 People say they want to live, but their actions are all about ‘being saved,’ they are not taking action from their own convictions, and in some cases they even avoid acting in ways that would heal them. Why? Why does life seem devoid of meaning?
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Water - Bastion of Life
Posted on February 9, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 What 'counts' more - financial value or our religious and emotional feelings? What works best to help us resolve this horrible tension between "I want" and "I need?"
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Green - Really?
Posted on February 8, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 I’ve long felt that there is a sort of collusion as the Fortune 500 get ‘recognized’ for being 'green' but no one else seems to be doing anything. I also have some huge concerns about these big folks really doing much.
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Culture: The Secret to Success
Posted on February 6, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 Culture, leadership, success how do they fit together?
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Greenwashing from Green Mountain?
Posted on February 2, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 Profit or the Precautionary Principle? When will we take ourselves and the Planet seriously?
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Growth – the Holy Grail of the 21st Century
Posted on January 30, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 If we stopped growing and chose to evolve instead - what would that look like? Growth is something we must get a handle on. We are chasing a disaster.
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Restoration, Resilience, Rethinking
Posted on January 28, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 When will we learn that our wealth is tied up in the land and that we only thrive when the land is healthy?
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Greenwashing - Again - Still?
Posted on January 25, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
Why oh why do we NOT get what it means to be sustainable? "Smart Planet" my foot!
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Reciprocity
Posted on January 23, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 Does providing value to humans trump true sustainability? Dassault Systèmes President and CEO Bernard Charlès sums it up simply: What a company takes from the planet’s resources to create and deliver a product must be surpassed by the value that product or service delivers to the people it serves.
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Laws and Ethics
Posted on January 20, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
Is the "Rule of Law" enough? What happens when laws are immoral? Immigration as a case study.
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Can Beauty Save Us?
Posted on January 18, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 What are we sacrificing for the love of oil?
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Remembering
Posted on January 15, 2012 by Kathryn Alexander
 Dr. Martian Luther King, in his talk on the Network of Mutuality, speaks most eloquently on the need for peace. His sentiments apply equally well to our treatment of the Earth.
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Stepping Out Against, and Stepping On - GMOs
Posted on September 16, 2011 by Kathryn Alexander
Boulder is a county that has made a reputation for valuing and loving nature and health. This particular issue (GMO planting) has some poignant aspects: farmers have given their land to open space expecting to be able to farm it;
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Market Issues and a Sustainable Economy
Posted on August 5, 2011 by Kathryn Alexander
 With corporations discovering the value of sustainable business practices, it is time to bring the benefits of sustainability to the broader economy. Business prospers when the larger economy resets its priorities to ensure a robust middle class, when stable and transparent financial markets exist, when
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Can We be Sustainable without Reverence?
Posted on June 28, 2011 by Kathryn Alexander
Posted by Kathryn Alexander on Mon, Jun 28, 2011 @ 02:43 PM
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I've been watching a DVD made to share the wonder that was Thomas Berry. The first Geologian, he spent his life working to bring back or reignite the wonder of nature that lies latent in our hearts.
I fear that our withdrawal from nature into cities of cement will create a kind of craziness from which our species may not survive. We feel somehow, that cities make us safe, that they protect us from the 'wilds' and the chaos that the wilderness seems to offer. We seem to be more willing to deal with our own 'wildness' than with the perceived 'wildness' of other life.
Of course that path is unsustainable. Our illusion of concrete is killing everything it touches, and we are no exception. There will come a tipping point where it will be clear that in order to survive we will need to integrate our own life with that of the other beings on the planet, as Thomas Berry says, the communion of souls. We will survive when we make our cities porous so that life can flow through. We will survive when we make our souls porous, so life can flow through. We will survive when we make our businesses porous - open to nature's wisdom - so life can flow through.
That is what sustainability really means. - an opening up so that life can fl
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Creating a Sustainable Future
Posted on April 25, 2011 by Kathryn Alexander
Posted by Kathryn Alexander on Mon, Apr 25, 2011 @ 11:28 PM
If you have been reading this blog you know I'm a sustainability geek. Today, however, I want to talk about an article I read, of all places, Sunset Magazine. in It is so progressive I actually thought I was reading FastCompany.
One of the things Obama has tried to do was to rethink our transportation infrastructure. This is not about politics (really) it's about reducing energy use and trying to get ahead of our travel needs. We are a big country and one of lures of the automobile is the ability to get anywhere we want to go easily and quickly. At least it used to be that way.
Having been in Europe and used their trains to get around, I have to say I came home wondering what was wrong with us. I haven't been to Japan, but I can speculate about an experience on their trains. We only use trains to move stuff - mostly. Amtrack is a shadow of its former self and hardly a robust image of what it could be.
So it is with some consternation that I watched several Republican governors, in misguided political angst, refuse money for train and light rail development. They effectively thwarted and rather grad concept, that was very poorly sold, to link major parts of the country together. This would have made it easy and quick to reach parts of the country that actually want to connect. Too bad!
The article in Sunset ti
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