QuestPoint nThe MIX delivers & produces news, commentary, insights & engaging original podcasts and webisodes involving solar, renewable energy and green economy.
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HUMAN SPIRIT AT WORK…the next step in diversity
Lewis Griggs – Author, Executive Producer of Going International, Valuing Diversity
He is the co-author of two books : Going International: How To Make Friends and Deal Effectively in the Global Marketplace (Random House) and Valuing Diversity: New Tools For A New Reality (McGraw-Hill) as well as the Executive Producer of the Going International, Valuing Diversity, Valuing Relationship, and Human Energy at Work video series, the 3-part No Potential Lost interactive multimedia cd-rom series and the subsequent internet/intranet e-learning program The Potential is Yours.
He has been interviewed on the CBS MORNING NEWS, NBC’s TODAY SHOW and numerous other national and local television and radio shows across the country. He has presented at conferences and seminars nationwide and is a frequent speaker on the personal & interpersonal & organizational impact of effective relationship across individual and cultural differences, and is in production of a new training tool called Human Spirit at Work.
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QuestPoint Celebrates Earth Day with
Appreciation & Rejuvenation
San Francisco, CA (1888PressRelease) April 09, 2010 – QuestPoint Solar Solutions is your online multi media source for news, information, commentary, and knowledge in the solar, renewable energy and green economy.With all the tech talk about solar, climate change, smart grids and going green. It’s good to have a resource like QuestPoint that makes it fun, upbeat and easier to understand what the green movement is about. In the new green economy knowledge is key.
QuestPoint is celebrating Earth Day 8 days early. We look forward to building upon our partners and making new business friends as we serve the needs of consumers in the solar, renewable energy and green age. Please join us on Wednesday evening April 14th from 5pm to 8pm at 50 Post Street, San Francisco’s Crocker Galleria, home of Green Zebra’s Environmental Action Center (the first space on the righthand side when you take the steps from Sutter Street to the ground floor).
To attend click here while space remains
GREEN ZEBRA IN ACTION
From A to Z Green Zebra’s got all your “green” information needs covered. Recently they opened their Environmental Action Center in Crocker Galleria (50 Post Street between Montgomery and Kearny) in downtown San Francisco, where you can learn how to live more sustainably and get the “411″ on going solar without any upfront money. You got questions? The friendly staff is knowledgeable about a wide variety of environmental topics, and can assist in connecting you with the resources you’re looking for if they don’t have the answers themselves.
The Green Zebra Environmental Action Center can also serve as a great location for your green events and meetings.
Green Zebra also publishes The Green Zebra Guide which can help you Explore the best of sustainable living in San Francisco, the Peninsula and Marin County. The 2010 Green Zebra guide features articles on: 1. ✓ The Composting Ordinance 2. ✓ Raising a Healthy Green Baby 3. ✓ Turning Sunshine into Savings 4. ✓ Farmers’ Markets 5. ✓ Carsharing 6. ✓ Keeping Pesticides out of the Bay 7. ✓ Biking for a Better San Francisco 8. ✓ San Francisco Seafood Watch Alliance
9. ✓ Green Zebra’s Environmental Action Center
10. ✓ and much more!
Recently QuestPoint N The Mix interviewed co founder, Anne Vollen who shared her insights on what Green Zebra does to help people go green.
You can listen here.
Anne was also able to provide some keen insight on how the green movement has changed and where it may be headed. The Green Zebra Guide is also available online and throughout San Francisco, the Peninsula and Marin County.
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Sustainable green eco solar organic living now
Leslie & Alden Adkins show how
That’sprobably the best way to describe the Inverness Valley Inn located in the beautiful West Marin town of Inverness California. Only minutes away from Point Reyes National Seashore and Limontour Beach, theInverness Valley Inn is a gem that sits on 15 acres. The owners
Leslie and Alden Adkins are an excellent example of what going green is all about. After meeting with them for about 15 minutes I felt as if I was on the set of a remake of the hit TV sitcom Green Acres. But as Alden states so eloquently, “Leslie is to the world ecology what Zsa Zsa Gabor was to the world of cosmetics.” Leslie has an extensive background as an ecology professional and Alden was a New York, DC and San Francisco lawyer before they changed their lives to become stewards of this wonderful inn. Oh yeah there’s no Arnold the pig there but there is Coco the Icelandic sheep who’s matriarch to a mixed species crew of animals whose job is to graze daily and keep the grounds groomed. Children of all the types are dazzled by the animals’ unified efforts and unique personalities.
One of the first things Leslie and Alden did when they purchased the Inverness Vally Inn over three years ago was to install a 10 kilowatt solar system which now supplies power to more than half of the property. They are also considering the creation of a community garden so locals can grown their own vegetables, and allowing guests to volunteer their time if they’d like to get their hands in the earth. Leslie and Alden have been successful at creating an eco friendly inn that’s cut energy consumption and provides wonderful tranquility to urban and suburban guests who may have forgotten just how reinvigorating nature can be.
Listen to Leslie & Alden Adkins interview here with QuestPoint in the Mix
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Video of Megan Epler Wood from the Institute at the Golden Gate series “Conversations with Eco Innovators”
MEGAN EPLER WOOD
EplerWood International was launched in January 2003, by Megan Epler Wood, founder and past president of The International Ecotourism Society, to advise private business, government, international development projects, non-governmental organizations, and academic institutions on the development of sustainable tourism and ecotourism in developing countries.
EplerWood International provides market-based approaches to sustainable tourism development in response to a rising global demand for sustainable tourism projects that would meet economic development needs.
LISTEN to Megan Epler Woods’s insightful interview with Richard Andrews Click here
SUBSCRIBE TO UPDATES HERE
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An interview with Kevin Hopkins Author of Green Consultant
ECO INSTITUTION
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Sustainable “Green Travel” in Effect
Listen here>Interview with Danielle Weiss Planeterra -
Read more information here on the Planeterra Voluntours program here.
PERU STREETKIDS PROJECT
House of the People of the Sun: Planeterra travels to Peru to visit with the street children of Cusco.
Planeterra established the Peru Streetkids Project to give back to the people in the communities where so many travellers visit every year to explore the Inca Trail and Machu Pichu during their travels through South America. Planeterra, with the help of Gap Adventures and hundreds of travellers, have raised over $100,000 USD to purchase a permanent home for the street children of Cusco, Peru & their families.
Travelers can incorporate a visit to this project during their travels to Peru on our Project Machu Pichu voluntour.
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For other recent recordings click here!
An interview with Carol McCelland, PhdFounder of Green Career Central
An interview with Deep Patel, Founder & CEO of GoGreenSolar.com.
Transforming ourselves, transforming our Energy!
by Richard Andrews
Such irony, hope and obstacles there are in our digital savvy, online 24/7, eco friendly, clean tech, wannabe post racial Obama, go green society! Wow got that all out!
If only “Optimus Prime the Autobot” leader from the recent blockbuster action movie Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen and savior of us confused human beings could guide us through the maze of change and challenge that surely lies before us as the renewable energy world faces off against, big oil, coal, the status quo.
Never mind the fact that the movie Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen was given thumbs down by just about every critic out there (it’s kind of silly). The film still had a remarkable box office performance with the highest Wednesday opening gross in history, bringing in $62 million in North America alone! In the battle of technology “Optimus Primus” fights for us humans against the “Decepticons” who seek our destruction by mining all the remaining energy on earth! So who I ask are the good guys? Who are the bad guys?
Americans have a love hate relationship with our technology… today solar and renewable energy sources are the light. Does it represent Jesus, Budda, Moses, Shakti or Allah leading us out of a weary land of pollution and dark times? So too is Optimus Primus. But what about big oil…coal, the dark side….or are they? In many Science Fiction flicks, The Terminator, iRobot, 2001 A Space Odyssey, the Matrix: The computers, the technology is the villain and we are its adversary.
For recent pioneers of the solar and renewable world of energy it must seem a bit amusing…like the gold rush days in California’s history. It’s not so far back. It may feel like the heady hey days of consumer technology or the boom days of the internet. It’s the wild, wild west all over again – but different! For the John Schaeffers’ of the world (Solar Living Founder) there must be some inner reward for realizing just how ahead of the curve he was by harnessing the power of the sun for electricity long before it gained more popularity. Now as more people are “Going Green” there may be some elitist thinking going on, “you’re just in this for the money not the cause.”
The career information is out there - The American Solar Energy Society a leading association of industry professionals predicts within the coming decades 17% or 37 million people of America’s workforce will be employed in renewable energy related positions. Other reputable researchers point out the solar business produced over 28 billion in sales last year and it is predicted to grow to 80 billion by 2018. For this same period employment within this niche is expected to increase by six times! The job opportunities in this industry are truly awesome! There are some big training issues, supply and demand hurdles and financial issues have eased growth this year, however much of the government stimulus funds have yet to hit the market.
One thing is clear the energy business will never be the same. Think of it, bills are being proposed that will pay you if you produce energy. The solar industry in California is backing legislation, AB 560, sponsored by Assembly woman Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) that would alter current net metering regulation and raise the amount of excess power consumers can sell back to utilities. To those who want a career in the green economy there’s the issue of acquiring new skills, learning the technology and the language of the business. Oddly, when I first got involved with the field I barely knew the difference between a kilowatt and a megawatt. But we are at that point where each of us can help demystify all the tech talk, we are at the tipping point! Green Jobs for All, Solar Richmond, Solartech and others are doing their part to address the realities of demand, inclusion, diversity and those at risk. Yet we must know…in today’s economy we are all at risk. Are those already in the green economy aware that a rising tide raises all the ships?
Speaking of ships. it wasn’t too along ago in the course of history, just within the last 200 years. Brave sailors boarded ships and harvested the oceans for whales – at that time the primary source for oil used in lighting cities and towns around the developed world. It was that demand for oil that drove whales to the brink of extinction. Imagine:
“Demand for whale oil had been declining for some time as other lighting oils, particularly kerosene, became more plentiful and were improved. At the same time, the price of whale oil was rising, largely due to the growing scarcity of the leviathans, which made cruises riskier and more expensive. Then, in 1859, Edwin L. Drake drilled a well in Titusville, Pa., that struck a deposit of petroleum. Within a year, petroleum wells were producing more oil than whaling at its peak. For a few decades, the whale trade was buoyed by the fashion for tight corsets. But by the early 20th century, corsets were disappearing, and with them the American whaling industry.”
-The great pursuit – Leviathan The History of Whaling in America Eric Jay Dolin W.W. Norton: 480 pp.
Seems primitive by today’s standards killing, excuse me, harvesting whales for oil, but not so ironic that in the first 1999 Wachowski Brothers movie the Matrix, humans were harvested for energy to feed machines.
So here we are in our social and technical evolution, marveling in what we can do… fully aware that we need not brutalize the world’s mammals, lands, oceans or each other for energy. Are we the good guys or the bad guys? We can look to the sky as our predecessors have through all recorded history seeking answers and energy from the source.
Optimus Primus the caring, bold and deep voiced Techno hero from Transformers and WaLL E the busy, love struck and adorable little droid from Pixar Films are metaphors for our ability to transform ourselves, and use technology in the most positive of ways!
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