The United States of planet Earth?

We've all heard the warnings on the news, seen the documentaries on BBC, Discovery and National Geographic and witnessed first hand the wrath of Mother Nature in the form of catastrophic hurricanes, tsunamis, and volcanoes in the last few years alone.

The question has been- how can we possibly deal effectively with these problems while not compromising the economic well being and global leadership role of our country? The Bush administration made a clear cut decision to put the environment on the back burner based on the false notion that we cannot care effectively for our planet and simultaneously enjoy a healthy, thriving economy.

The truth is actually quite the opposite. After 8 years of war abroad, worldwide economic devastation, and a crippled international reputation, the American people are ready for change. They are ready to work towards achieving the very realistic goal of developing alternatives sources of energy and improving the economic condition of the country.

Former Vice President, Al Gore, spoke to members of congress today about the drastic changes that must take place in the coming years. He addressed some of the most pressing issues-war, national security, and a devastated economy. “As we search for solutions to all three of theses challenges, it is becoming clearer that they are linked by a common thread- our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels.” And how can we deny the truth of such a powerful statement?

Not only is the cause of our greatest problems our insatiable desire for fossil fuels, but addressing this one issue has the capacity to resolve the other three! Investments in energy efficient products will “create millions of jobs and hasten our economic recovery-while strengthening our national security and beginning to solve the climate crisis.”

So what, you are probably thinking, have we been waiting for! We have been waiting for someone bold enough to educate the public. We’ve been waiting for an administration wise enough to join hands with the international community. We’ve been doing a hell of a lot of waiting and that’s the problem!

Human civilization stands at a “tipping point” and we must reach a new, realistic agreement in Copenhagen that represents REAL change. Let’s get Congress rolling, shall we? Click here to show your support for Obama's new recovery package ladies and gents:

Copy: https://pol.moveon.org/donate/gorechallenge.html



Katie Hoeppner

 

Create a playlist at MixPod.com

REPOWER AMERICA

Stay tuned for more information on the restructure and repower of America.

Thanks for your support.

Journey,

Holla at ma hippies

While I sincerely admire Loomstate Organic’s cause and “respect for our environment's ability to balance, shape and color itself, from windswept dunes to sun bleached stones, combined with an appreciation for nature's mathematically pure ‘Golden Ratios’, evident throughout our environment from nautilus shells to flower petals,” I still think they are probably the most flower child thing I’ve seen in a while.

Now don’t get me wrong, no one can ever get enough organic. Loomstate is, and I’m proud to say, a New York based company, and works under the model of excellence for responsible production methods. They seem to have everything down from controlling factory pollution to organic farming and cultivation.



But their photo shoot on the website makes their clothes appear just as plain and earthy as the ground they came from. Sufficiently stylish, the simplicity of the line makes me want to lie in a field of wheat while dusting the granola off my maybe-too-conservative shirt and putting band-aids on the blisters my new Birks just gave me.

Ok, so maybe it's not that simple.

In all honesty, I would probably wear every women’s clothing article on the website. Just maybe not all together? It’s cute stuff, really, and I’m happy they are doing this.

“Loomstate Men's and Women's collections are inspired by the roots of classic American casual style born of the positivity and activism of youth subcultures over the past 40 years.”

Positivity and activism of youth subcultures is what I’m about.
Hippie, but totally groovy.



Ashton

DJ JOURNEY At The Los Angeles Go Green Expo!

This weekend at the Los Angeles Convention Center DJ Journey showed his dedication to all things Green and Eco-Friendly by attending the Go Green Expo's three day event!
Never believing he can learn enough about being green, Journey took out time to meet with countless green entrepreneurs, brand builders and experts. He met some amazing people who are committed to the idea of an eco-friendly lifestyle, but show you don't have to sacrifice much to live by the code of green!

DJ Journey met people who were doing everything from designing eco-friendly clothing to companies that build bikes with electric motors!

Listed below are a couple of the company sites DJ Journey suggests you check out!

www.greendentalIrvine.com
www.ezgreenbikes.com
www.theochocolate.com
www.bamboohugs.com

Scroll down to veiw the awesome slide show we put together! And be sure to look out for the Go Green Expo coming to NYC this April! DJ Journey is sure to attend this event too!

Peace
Laura

MORE LOS ANGELES GO GREEN EXPO 2009 W/ DJ JOURNEY

THE EARTH DOME!
Bet you've never seen anything like this before, right? The eco-conscious creation by Perf for the Go Green Expo ( Los Angeles) is a unique artistic show, which includes live music, film and installation art. We learned that the purpose of the the Earth Dome experience is to "artistically celebrate the beauty of our world and confront the environmental challenges that lie ahead". The combination is crazy and amazing. As you watch this video you will see talented musicians playing experimental music while videos centering on nature can be viewed in the background. You will see everything from storms and volcanoes combined with positive messages and inspirational quotes displayed across a large screen. These videos along with the out of this world musical elements is a sight to see!
Put DJ Journey on the 1 & 2's with this group and the imagine the results! Hey it could happen!
For more info on the Earth dome check it out at www.TheEarthDome.com
Peace
Laura



L.A. GO GREEN EXPO 2009 W/ PERF GO GREEN & DJ JOURNEY from Dj Journey on Vimeo.

GAMA EPSILON OMEGA SPRING RUSH 2009 PARTY AT USC

Fresh back from DC, this Friday your favorite DJ will be doing a special performance for a select group of USC Students!

This USC fraternity loves our green DJ and has requested him for this special event. Along with his great mixing and mashing, Journey will be MC-ing while electro artist RKG performs songs from his EP titled "Robotic".

The event will be hosted by Will Wes and Voltier Davis of 4.0 Marketing and Promotions. Both Chicago natives, this duo ran successful promotions for DePaul University and various other colleges. Be on the look out for this team, which is planning some cool events for this spring.

Along with the musical acts and socializing, DJ Journey will take time out to speak to the students about his most passionate cause....going green. Young adults and teenagers need to be especially active in helping solve the climate crisis and this knowledgeable and dedicated DJ hopes to instill passion and raise awareness on this topic at the event!

Check back in to see how the performance and speech turned out!

Written By Laura Hoeppner

Rocking and Rolling on Clean Energy Wheels

All of the cool boys in high school either played sports or were in a band (not to be confused with being IN band). That’s how it went. And I have to say, I tended to hang with the music kids more. Something about that grunge and lankiness that non-athletic teen-boys have attracted me back in the day, it seemed more bad-ass I suppose. Anyway, all of my rocking friends should take note of what this bio-friendly band dude came up with.



Andy Reitz has developed a fleet of vans, all tour-ready, that run on vegetable oil. He knew the pinch in which all starving artists find themselves: a problem with gas prices while simultaneously dealing with their environmental preoccupations.


Reducing emissions while raging. Alternative fuels while amplifying.

Sounds pretty bad-ass to me.



www.rentgreenvans.com

Ashton

It’s a common misconception....

It was just another Wednesday night. Yoga at six, veggie pasta at seven, Pew Commission’s Executive Summary on Industrial Farm Animal Production in America at eight… you know… the norm.

I was seated at my ridiculously small kitchen table scrolling through my future fuel for the GoGreen blog fire, and I stumbled upon some little bits of slaughterhouse trivia, if you will, that I thought useful enough to share. Perhaps useful isn’t the right word, persuasive maybe? Compelling? How about revolting?

Now, we all know that vegetarianism is green. Well, greener than any IFAP based way of obtaining nutrients (pssst. that is what we are calling Industrial Farm Animal Production from here on out). But I’m sure most of us don’t have all the facts to rightfully hold our own when that steak-loving friend gets defensive, or when our parents are convinced we will die from lack of protein, which by the way, is actually surprisingly hard to do here in the US. It’s a common misconception that we need massive amounts of animal-protein to survive, for the record.

Aside from the obvious strains the IFAP puts on our environment (creating more waste, requiring more energy for transportation and packaging, the animals are eating all of our grains…) there are more specifics that can better explain the toll it is taking on our lives and planet.

Now, this little exec. summary I’m reading up on is CHOCK full of informative nuggets that I only hope to divulge in the near future, but for today, we are going to take a look at waste lagoons.

- cue intense music-

These small bodies of water are far from anything Brook Shields or Christopher Atkins would want to be stranded and naked near.

“A livestock lagoon is actually a small-scale waste treatment plant, containing manure which has been diluted with building washwater, rainfall, waterer wastage and surface runoff. In this earthen, pond-like structure, the waste becomes partially liquefied and stabilized by bacterial action before eventual disposal on the land. Lagoons may contain one of three types of waste-stabilizing bacteria-anaerobic (inhibited by oxygen), aerobic (requiring oxygen) or facultative (maintained with or without oxygen).” - Don D. Jones, Agricultural and Biological Engineering
 Alan L. Sutton, Animal Science Department
Purdue University



Mmmmmm…

Annual animal manure exceeds that of humans by three times. At first I thought… “Duh. Cows have three stomachs. Makes sense” But then I realized that these cows, along with whatever other animals we slaughter for snacks, are super mass produced and their numbers are not at what nature would normally have them. So you take all those extra animals we helped to make, which I’m guessing is quite a few, and factor in their fecal quantity, then imagine it as huge puddles across America. These poor, farm-turned-factory living creatures are pumped with hormones and antibiotics—which by the way, is creating more antibiotic-resistant bacteria in our world of enough diseases— and those hormones and antibiotics are contaminating our water supplies, not to mention the actual feces itself, when these lagoons overflow (and believe you and me, that is Not an uncommon occurrence.) So some of us are drinking doo-doo. De-lish!

When left uncovered, these lagoons emit tons of methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide—you guessed it, green house gases!—and ya know what, “greenhouse gas emissions from all livestock operations makes up 18% of all human-caused emmissions” which actually exceeds those caused by transportation. Yea.

And you thought you were doing your part to save the planet by recycling the Oscar Meyer container your bologna came in…



As the Pew Commission best put it:

“Rather than seeking a balance between the natural productivity of the land to produce crops to feed animals and absorb wastes produced by those animals, the industrial model concentrates on growing animals as units of protein production.”



Sad, but true.

More to come.



Ashton

Wyclef Jean to perform at the Green Inaugural Ball!

It has been announced by the producers of the Green Inaugural Ball, presented by Discovery's Planet Green that musical artist Wyclef Jean will perform at this ball on January 17th.

Wyclef was voted one of Treehugger.com's Top 5 Most Buzzworthy Green Musicians. With charities like "Yele Haiti Foundation" and "Together For Haiti" is is clear that this musician is committed to making a difference. Yele Haiti works to improve education, health and of course the environment.

DJ Journey has had the pleasure of opening up for Wyclef in Los Angeles last year and met him after the performance. Along with being a great artist, Journey said he was very friendly and nice!

Besides Wyclef's performance, there will be many special guests attending the event. ( Graham Hill, Founder of Treehugger.com and Margie Alt, Executive Director of Environment America) to name a few.

The event itself is designed with green in mind and a five percent portion of each ticket sold will be donated to one of the event's non-profit partners.

We think this sounds like a great event! DJ Journey will be at the inauguration next week and with other green events attached to the inauguration he hopes to see some of the exciting green things going on!

Peace
Laura H.

Green Gifts Given by Access Hollywood at 2009 Golden Globes

Here's a gift most people have never been given....Eco-Friendly water powered clocks. An interesting and cool idea, right? Well Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, who received these gifts compliments of Access Hollywood seemed to think so. However, we don't think Golden Globe winner Mickey Rourke appreciated the green gift as much, as you can see in this clip!!
Check this out!
Peace
Laura

DJ Journey talks Vegetarian Food!

It's a new year, and with the start of 2009 DJ Journey has pledged to do more vegetarian cooking on his own! He's bought several new cook books and has been trying out new recipes that center around tofu and other meatless choices. The green loving DJ whose been meat-free for 12 years knows what an important role vegetarianism plays in keeping the earth healthy and wants everyone, vegetarian or not, to try implementing some great vegetarian cooking into their lifestyle!
DJ Journey plans to list some of his favorite vegetarian recipes this week, so stay tuned.
And while on the subject of cooking, we wanted to let you all know about an interesting contest PETA is currently running! PETA is looking for chefs to create an amazing cruelty-free meal. The chef must create a 100% meat free "vegetarian Foie gras" and the winner will receive a $10,000 prize!
Check out PETA's site for the details!
http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/01/wanted_top_chef.php