7gen Bloc

Graham Hill, Nick Aster and Megan O'Neill from TreeHugger.com came to Burlington to meet with Seventh Geners to talk about making the world a better place and how we could collaborate...here is our first night discussions and our first V-log.

We, (me included) chase with great and even desperate passion more and more and more stuff. A bigger pay check, a nicer house, a cooler car, new clothes. Now we sort of know better. We know that we can’t have both a sane and sustainable world with all that stuff. What we don’t seem to know, despite all the research that clearly lays it out, is that once we’ve met our basic human needs more stuff has nothing to do with more happiness. Community, conversation, participation, involvement, trust, passion? Yes. More stuff? No.

This just in… Congress is set to vote on an amendment to the Interior Appropriations Bill that would prohibit the EPA from gutting the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), the annual program that forces companies to tell you and I what pollutants they’re exposing us to in our communities. The Pallone-Solis Toxic Right-to-Know Amendment would preserve the TRI by preventing the EPA from spending any money to change it.

Kind of a slow news day here at the ranch (and by “ranch” I mean the unholy paper-, book-, and compact disc-strewn hovel that passes, at least after a few pints of fresh Vermont ale, for my “office”), but here are a couple of interesting items that fell out of the ether this morning. Got some good news (crucial rainforest saved for endangered orangutans. Huzzah!) and some bad news (orangutans in White House leave every child behind in an ICU. Boo hiss!)

Some things make you happy. And some piss you off. This pisses me off! REACH, the European Union’s new chemical regulation policy is one of the best pieces of toxin-related law I’ve ever seen. It’s going to go a long way toward taming the rampant use of untested (and unsafe!) chemicals in the products you and I use every day. So what happens?

If you were able to join us on Saturday, please leave us a comment and let us know what you thought! powered by ODEO Download this podcast

Okay, so there’s no film at 11. But we do have the run-down on some key bits of news that rumbled across our radar over the weekend. In this case, that would include some new research saying our tiny exposures to pollution are starting to add up, the first review of President Gore’s (sorry.. did we say that out loud?) summer blockbuster, glowing praise for (really) Wal-Mart, and more.

Lucas, our guru of consumer insight at Seventh Generation, just came back from the LOHAS conference in California. He reflected that wherever you go people have begun to misuse the word sustainable. That’s both good and bad news. It’s great that it’s in everyone’s mind, but unfortunately most people have so little idea of what the word actually means that they can be of little help in creating a more sustainable world.

We have just moved into our new digs. We are going for a LEED Gold Certified Buidling. And we are going to celbrate the move by inviting the whole Burlington community down to 60 Lake Street (on the Lake) this Saturday from 1-5pm. We have our local non-profit partners telling their story. We are going to tell our story. We have mimes and clowns and high wire arcobats and lots of local food. There is much fun for the whole family... if you are in the area please come and join us. powered by ODEO Download this podcast

Time once again to get down and get funky with the latest word from the front lines of the battle for a better world. Today we’re fueling the debate on gas prices, talking up taxes that are taxing only if you’re taxing earth’s resources; wondering about an EPA that’s MIA; and (batting clean-up) washing our hands of a story on certain soaps that are dirtying up the world. Prepare, dear friends, to be stunned and amazed…