7gen Bloc

Camel's Hump VT State Park is one of the more pronounced mountain tops in the Northern Vermont Green Mountains, and we 7th Geners (people from the marketing, consumer relations and corporate consciousness departments) flowed to the mountain today - to climb, to talk, to resonate, to find relevance, to practice our biomimicing for future products, to thought-explore the way-out future, and to find one another in the acting of nature... The discussions were shallow and deep and local and global and scared and happy and beating

As I reflect on our week in Brazil, I have struggled to find a context to hold the experience we had. I am still struggling so this is a work in process. First, the world is a big, big place, and the challenges it faces take on a new dimension when you see them with your own eyes. How many times have I said that I am committed to making the world a better place without having seen most of the world I'm referring to? Without understanding what a better place means for most of the people living in that world?

Personally, I don’t need any more convincing, but if there’s anyone still on the fence about the importance of the Precautionary Principle, a sudden spate of recent news about the surprising effects of our bodies’ unseen contact with pollutants should be enough to send you running for the nearest haz-mat suit. Here’s the sudden science in a non-toxic nutshell…

Jeffrey and I are back from our journey through Brazil, our heads still buzzing. Re-entry is a strange process. The world we've come from and the world we inhabit are so different that they don't even seem to occupy the same plane of existence. Transitioning between them is interesting. Here are some initial reflections and a photo from the river. powered by ODEO Download this podcast

Sorry we couldn't post until now. We were hoping to get an audio log entry out last night, but as you can imagine, 20th century communications are a spotty proposition in a place as far removed from the beaten path as the Amazon basin.

We are in Manahus, the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. Today we flew over hundreds of miles of virgin forest, punctuated by huge tracts of land that have been deforested for logging, cattle or soy production. (Much of the land ends up growing soy beans to be sold to Cargill.) 20% of the forest has been lost. What's left is breathtaking. What's gone a disaster. In the town of Santarem, in Para, we met Father Edilberto Sena, who works in partnership with Greenpeace Brazil.

After two days in Rio, Jeffrey and I have made our way at last and with no small effort to the Amazon rainforest where we spent today flying over some of the devastated areas at its edge. We've managed to find a phone line and I'm able to get this audio log entry out. Tomorrow we head up river into the incredible curtain of green and the heart of the jungle. More then...

I’d start with the National Children’s Study. You can check out the details here. But essentially this is a project that would follow 100,000 kids from birth to age 21 in order to find out how environmental factors (pollution, chemicals, etc.) affect childhood health and development. It’s a great idea. Long overdue. Desperately needed.

I'm traveling in Brazil this week with friend and co-conspirator Gregor. We'll be visiting Greenpeace projects in the Amazon Rainforest, but we've begun our adventure in Rio de Janeiro, where today we ventured outside the tourist zone to explore the city's infamous "slums." What we found defied our expectations on every level. powered by ODEO Download this podcast

Here are Jeffrey's notes for his keynote address at the Ethical Corporation conference in Philadelphia on June 14, 2006: I find myself in a challenging situation! Many people have asked me not to be here today because a representative from cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris, a cigarette manufacturer will also be speaking at this conference. To speak at the same conference as Philip Morris, they say, would legitimize the company when it does not deserve to be legitimized.