Village Earth is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable, community-based development around the world by providing innovative training, consultation, appropriate technology information, and project support services. Village Earth was born in 1993 at an International Conference on Sustainable Village-Based Development in Fort Collins, Colorado, where more than 300 participants from 30 nations created the Consortium for Sustainable Village-Based Development (CSVBD) and gave it the mandate to implement and train others in the strategies discussed during the conference. Since its inception Village Earth has trained and consulted with hundreds of individuals and organizations in countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Bosnia, Nigeria, Namibia, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico, Columbia, and elsewhere. Values We believe that communities must be empowered to access and manage the resources they need to be self-sufficient and sustainable. We trust and value the ability of local communities to shape and create their own vision for the future, as well as the path to move toward it. We believe that transparency and participatory decision-making is central to the goal of social justice and sustainability. We believe that working toward ecological sustainability must be a priority for all societies to ensure peace and prosperity for all peoples. We appreciate and respect the diversity and differences among our constituents and our collaborators.
Around the globe, Village Earth is allying with communities that wish to determine their own futures. Through our empowerment approach, Village Earth works with communities as they direct their own path of change and work toward a sustainable future. Village Earth has allied with Lakota families on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota; the Shipibo Nation in Peru’s Amazon Basin; tribal communities in West Bengal, India; Mayan communities in Guatemala; and disadvantaged neighborhoods in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Learn more about our community alliances around the world.
awakeningasone.com
this is the first of five videos coming summer of 2010
Awakening As One exists for the sole purpose of inspiring and encouraging humanity to make the intelligent choice to unite and live for the peace and harmony of all, rather than for the material gain of the self.
Awakening As One commits the total sum of its available resources and creativity into the furtherance of the immediate divine objective for humanity and planet earth; which include 1) uniting those who hold a vision for a more harmonious existence, and 2) combining our diverse, yet complimentary skills, so that we may free ourselves from our dependency on our current self-destructive system, and thereby 3) begin the co-creation of a new harmonious Way of BEing, with each other… and the Earth.
June 2006 — A private retreat on long term national energy security and climate change among leaders and experts as divergent as Vice President Al Gore and Fred Smith, President, Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Watch as Global X intervies and found themselves, mesmerized and actually speechless. Listen to Professor Yunus as he tells the story of the first US$27 loan in a village of Bangladesh, the loan that launched the microfinance movement. Watch him as he recalls how surprised he was that it took so little money to free village women.
Aryavart Gramin bank, financing solar PV in India - 2008 Ashden Award winner
In Bangladesh, one of the least developed countries in the world, Microcredit from Grameen Bank has brought mobile phone services to the most isolated villages. Poor rural women now operate small businesses providing public call services to their communities.
I recently had the pleasure to meet with Robert Plarr and catch up on his current efforts to bring sustainability to the planet through Fully Sustainable Homes. I have been watching his progress with great interest and delight over the last couple of years.
WorldsNest and Sunsnest, have made a strategic partnership with GreenZilla to provide basic green sustainable homes starting cost at $130 sq. ft. sizes from 650 to 3600 sq.ft. sustainable prefabricated mobile or, permanent homes featuring GreenZilla breakthrough “breathing” ceramic wall, roof and floor panels that are mold, fire, shrink and water-proof, (yet “vapor” permeable) –you can even take a water hose and wash the inside and out side of your house with no damage
The mobile or permanent home includes
•solar electric
•passive solar grow,green house attachment that features double or triple green barrier compartments reducing heating, and air conditioning costs substantially in your living space,
•roof rain catchment system providing clean water
•full plant based grey and black waste water treatment system & air to water exchanger that makes potable water for drinking & growing vegetables •off grid or on grid backup energy systems
•additions or add-ons available vertical food grow systems ,appliances ,furniture
Back in December we reported on RSi-Solar announces the world’s first, transparent, photovoltaic-glass window which generates 80 to 250 watts of electricity. Here
It was hard to top that exciting news but this new announcement shines new light into silicon wafer efficiency. At the GoGreen EXPO (Los Angeles)… RSi-Solar just unveiled the most powerful solar panel in the world. The DSO SUPER-PV™, a 60-cell, standard-size, mono-crystalline photovoltaic-module with a 350 watt-OUTPUT rating, an incredible 160 to 200% power-output over industry’s top 220 watt-peak modules.
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From (Business Wire) Rainbow Solar Inc. (RSI)
2009 Production capacity of 120 megawatts, at conventional Photovoltaic pricing. RSi believes this will become the standard for all future photovoltaic systems. RSi plans to license the SUPER-PV™ technology to PV and module companies globally.
DSO is working with LEED-AP and AIA professionals to realize ‘self-powered-buildings’ (SPB), by converting the entire building surface into an energy-collector, utilizing advanced technologies such as the PV-Glass-Window and SUPER-PV™.
DSO, the BIPV division of RSi, is dedicated to the realization of a gridless future, where power will be embedded into buildings and freely accessible, like air - wherever there is sunlight, there will be power.
New U of T research looks to create organic solar cells by using special quantum effect
DailyTech/Jason Mick/1.18.09
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Imagine having cheap, printable solar cells at your fingertips, woven into your clothing,streaming power into your mobile electronics. Organic electronics, a field which includes organic solar cells and organic transistor circuits, has many advantages, the biggest of which is the ability to be printed easily, and the ability to flex without breaking.
The team looked at conjugated polymers, one of the most efficient organic materials available for solar power production. These long molecules can be also used in transistors and LEDs. They behave roughly like semiconductors, while retaining important organic characteristics. When exposed to light, they produce energy, which is transferred down their chain, eventually reaching other molecules and finally leaving the cell.
The findings are reported in the Jan. 16 edition of the journal Science. The work was sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
StopGlobalWarming.org partner Reverb, worked with Maroon 5 and Counting Crows to “green up” last summers tour and engage fans to join in. Check out a video recap of their efforts.
The idea of combining photovoltaic and heat solar panels has been around for the last few years. I have seen a couple of new ideas and technologies brighten the horizon.
The fact is, if these two complementary technologies can be combined they would have a synergistic outcome. PV panels are more efficient when they are cooler and the waste heat can be used to heat various energy needs in the building.
Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems says he has found a way to double or even triple the energy yield of current solar panels. This is a huge potential and Mr. Khosla, knows it. After a recent reporter interviewed him for a story in the New York Times, he took down his website to keep more control over the spread of information regarding his technology. Click Here for the New York Times article.
Mr. Khosla is funding a company called PVT Solar, of Berkeley, CA, where they have been trying to harness the wasted heat from solar PV panels. The found the heat could be pumped into the house to heat the water in the furnace through a heat exchanger or some other type of heating system.
Apparently they have installed a few systems, but no details or cost analysis seems to be forthcoming.
This is one “not so cool” technology to keep an eye on! Hope to see something develop very soon.
These independent videos by the “globalonessprogect.org” are truly inspirational.
The Global Oneness Project is a web-based video initiative exploring how the simple notion of oneness can be lived in our increasingly complex world.
Their film subjects live and work with many of the following values, attitudes, and beliefs:
• We are responsible to each other, the earth, and future generations.
• There are enough resources for us all, if we share.
• Free exchanges of information allow for greater, collective creative potential.
• Love, care and compassion have the power to transform the fabric of society.
The Universe as a Living System
Duane Elgin, media activist and pioneer of the “Voluntary Simplicity” movement, describes the perception that the universe is dead as the root cause of the exploitative mindset. Duane asks, how can we shift cultural perception in order to see the universe as a living system?
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Dean Radin
Dean Radin, Ph.D., is a researcher and author in the field of parapsychology. His professional career has focused on experimentally exploring far reaches of human consciousness, primarily phenomena like intuition, gut feelings and psi phenomena. He is Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, in Petaluma, California, and on the Adjunct Faculty at Sonoma State University. Dean’s research has been featured in numerous magazines and he has appeared on several radio and television programs. He is the author of Entangled Minds and The Conscious Universe.
An Electronic Membrane
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Knowing How to Nurture Ourselves
Stephan Fayon, director of an international seed bank in Auroville, India, explains how preserving the diversity of seeds insures against the breakdown of large-scale industrial agriculture. Today the supermarkets in the developed world are full; but if unsustainable systems of agriculture collapse, will we know how to nourish ourselves?
SolarEnurgy.net is powered completely by solar, wind and renewable energy to the tune of 130% of the data center power consumption, so we're not only neutralizing our carbon footprint, but also pumping an extra 30% of green energy back into the power grid! A light footprint.
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