“Wind energy is part of our future but it is also part of our heritage.”

— Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas

Photo: a windmill in Lawrence, Kansas, circa 1880, that powered one of the state’s first factories.

The Los Angeles Ecovillage, a two-block neighborhood where a small community of people are demonstrating “the processes of creating living patterns that are much lower impact, while at the same time raising the quality of life.”  The village is part of a global network. (Via World Changing.)

New Yorker environmental writer Elizabeth Kolbert’s profile of Van Jones is well worth reading: “Greening the Ghetto: Can a remedy serve for both global warming and poverty?”

I found the account of his beginnings and growth as an activist — in just ten short years — to be particularly interesting.  He was greatly influenced by Julia Butterfly Hill, the young woman who spent two years in a California redwood to protect it from being cut down.

“We fit together like pieces of a puzzle,” said Hill, who, after saving the tree, founded a nonprofit group called Circle of Life. “I brought the piece that we are not separate from this planet. His piece was we need to uplift everyone. We were committed to seeing how those pieces fit together.” First, the two spoke together in private; then they began to appear together publicly. Sometimes, when Hill was invited to lecture at a college campus, she would ask Jones to come along.

“We could see underneath all of it was the idea of disposability,” Jones told me. “The idea that you’ve got disposable people, a disposable planet. We would just kind of go around and talk about this. People would listen and they would come to one conclusion: they must be sleeping together. We weren’t, but it was the only thing anybody got out of it. It was very frustrating.”

I also enjoyed an anecdote about how the rallying cry of “green jobs” came to Congress.  In early 2007, Jones was one of 40 environmental activists who Nancy Pelosi invited to a roundtable discussion in San Francisco to discuss approaches to climate change.  When she asked if there were any more questions before adjourning,

Jones raised his hand. “I said, ‘My question is: Will you say four words at the press conference?’ And she just kind of looked at me. So of course at this point everybody in the room started to lean away from me.

“I said, ‘If you say these four words, I guarantee you that you’ll keep the Democratic majority in the House for the next twenty years. If you say these four words, you’ll expand the coalition around global warming in a way that nobody even thinks is possible. If you say these four words, you’ll give help and hope to people who haven’t had any for a long time.’ Finally, she said, ‘Well, what are the four words?’ I said, ‘Clean Energy Jobs Bill.’ ”

A little while later, at the press conference, Pelosi called Jones up to the microphone. “We’ll say it together,” she said. “Clean Energy Jobs Bill!”

Mike Tidwell, “The Low-Carbon Diet”

Let me preface this by saying I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.  Until now….

I know the meat and poultry I do eat (about 1-2 times a week) is bad, bad environmentalist behavior, but I’m not (yet) willing to become a vegetarian.  (I justify my meat-eating with the fact that it’s often from the Co-op, which means it’s local, ethically-raised, and relatively low-impact.)

But I want to step up my game, and what better way to codify behavioral goals than with a resolution?  In 2009, I’ll eat meat (including poultry) no more than twice a month, and always from the Co-op or otherwise low-impact.  Which means that, for all intents and purposes, outside my home, I’m a vegetarian.

Here goes nothin’.

Girl power!

In November, a Girl Scout troupe learned about the importance of energy-efficient buildings by performing an energy audit of the Math and Science Center and the Program Center at Camp Dellwood in Indianapolis, IN (Treehugger).

Kind of makes me want to be a Girl Scout — I’d wear my Eco-Action badge with pride!

The winning photo of the UN Clean Development Mechanism’s photo contest:

“Catching the Sun” by Nic Bothma of Cape Town, South Africa.

The photo captures “one of a number of Kuyasa residents (without qualification or employment) who were selected, trained and have been employed as solar installers” in a low-cost urban housing energy upgrade project.