sustainable lifestyle through easy choices

Everyday there are millions of new ideas arising all around the world. TED is one of the tools which give new ideas to lifestyles, technologies and science. TED states: “We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.” What does TED do? They publish video speeches of leading personalities, politicians, scientists, nobel-prize winners, activists etc. You can watch videos and get new ideas! It is easy, it is fun, it is for free.

Check out one of the videos at TED – Al Gore talking about the new climate trends.

Are you ready for some reaaaal good TV? A reality soap that heats up more each minute you watch it? Well, then you might want to watch the LIVE Broadcast of the COP15 Conference these days!

Just click HERE and get to the LIVE Webcasts of the Copenhagen Conference. Cheers!

The Climate Conference in Copenhagen just started today and presented a short film during its opening ceremony. Seems to me that this conference will be characterized by dramatic speeches and comments with a lot of feelings. We’ll see…
Check the COP15 website and stay tuned! HERE

Copenhagen heat is allover!

Make your own opinion about Climate Change! More information HERE

Sehr geehrte Frau Bundeskanzlerin Merkel,
sehr geehrter Herr Umweltminister Röttgen,
sehr geehrter Herr Finanzminister Schäuble,
der Weltklimagipfel in Kopenhagen darf nicht scheitern. Ein weiteres Zögern beim Klimaschutz gefährdet die Lebensgrundlagen von Millionen Menschen und aller nachfolgenden Generationen. Doch die Verhandlungen stocken, gerade auch weil Industriestaaten wie Deutschland nicht bereit sind, arme Länder bei klimafreundlicher Entwicklung und der Abfederung von Klimaschäden ausreichend zu unterstützen.
Deshalb fordere ich Sie auf: Bieten Sie den Entwicklungsländern jetzt finanzielle Mittel an, die bis 2020 auf mindestens sieben Milliarden Euro jährlich ansteigen – zusätzlich zur Entwicklungshilfe, denn sonst fehlt das Geld für Schulen und Krankenhäuser in den ärmsten Ländern! Diese Summe entspräche Deutschlands fairem Anteil an den weltweit benötigten Mitteln, die bis 2020 ein jährliches Niveau von 110 Milliarden Euro erreichen müssen.
Gerade die reiche Bundesrepublik steht mit ihren massiven CO2-Emissionen der letzten Jahrzehnte in der Pflicht. Nur wenn wir bereit sind, unseren Beitrag zu leisten, werden auch andere Länder einem ambitionierten Klimaschutzabkommen zustimmen.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Unterzeichne JETZT und HIER!

Das waren die Utopia Awards 2008:

Utopia Award – Trailer from UTOPIA AG on Vimeo.

Gestern fand bereits zum zweiten Mal die Utopia-Konferenz in Berlin statt. Nach der Konferenz wurden die Utopia Awards von der eigens gegründeten Utopia-Stiftung ausgezeichnet. Wer sind denn nun unsere “Changemaker”?

Kategorie Unternehmen

von der Expertenjury und der Utopia Community:
Weleda
info

Kategorie Produkte

von der Utopia-Community:
PlusEnergieHaus
info

von der Expertenjury:

LeaseRad GmbH
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Kategorie Vorbilder

von der Expertenjury:
Claude Turmes
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von der Utopia-Community:

Rolf Disch
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Kategorie Organisationen:
von der Expertenjury:
FSC
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von der Utopia-Community:

Forestle
info

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Bereits zum zweiten Mal lädt die deutsche Online  Community Utopia am 26. November die wichtigsten „Changemaker“ aus den Bereichen Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft, Kultur und Medien zur Utopia Konferenz nach Berlin ein.

Unter dem Motto „Der große Hebel“ will Utopia sich in diesem Jahr mit der Frage beschäftigen, welche DIE 10 großen Ideen und Ansätze sind, die in den nächsten Jahren wirklich einen Unterschied machen werden.

Im Rahmen der Veranstaltung werden am Abend mit den Utopia Awards Vorbilder, Unternehmen, Organisationen und Produkte ausgezeichnet, denen ein solcher Unterschied zugeschrieben wird.

Schaut Euch die Konferenz im Live Stream an und seid dabei bei der wichtigsten deutschen Konferenz zum nachhaltigen Lebenstil! Enjoy!

Hier ein Trailer zur Konferenz und dem Award von 2008:

Making Of Utopia Award 2008 from UTOPIA AG on Vimeo.

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Our world is complex, our world is big, also the world is our “Heimat”! We all want to enjoy our lifes on this earth, but sometimes we take the beauty of our surroundings as granted. It is not easy to foresee possible impacts of our lifestyles but one thing is for sure: If we want to keep natures beauty, we need to deal with earth in a responsible way. The movie AGE OF STUPID shows what might happen if we fail to treat our planet in a sustainable way. It is seen from the perspective of 2055 where a man asks himself: “Why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?”

Consume good, feel good and make something good. Have fun finding out the real quality  of your favourite products! And tell me if it works!

Get the app HERE

Once in a while I find myself in a situation which I call the Supermarket-Neurose. I wonder around the shelfs of the shops and see thousands of products that all scream at me “Take me – I am the best!” and I look at them and think. “Why you? Just because you look good and I know your brand? – I am not sure about that.” So I started searching what we should look for when buying “good” products. And I found out that it is hard to say. But what I also found was “Good Guide“.

On the Good Guide website you can read: “What chemicals are in your baby shampoo? Was sweatshop labor used to make your t-shirt? What products are the best, and what products should you avoid? Increasingly, you want to know about the impacts of the products you buy. On your health. On the environment. On society. But unless you’ve got a Ph.D, it is almost impossible to find out the impacts of the products you buy. Our goal is to provide the most comprehensive, credible, and useful information in the world, on products and companies delivered whenever and wherever you need it. We’re making information available and easy to use so each of us can express our own values and concerns in the marketplace.” Until now 70.000 daily life products have been analysed and rated! Read the rest of this entry »

Wie oft bekommt man dieses Totschlagargument um die Ohren geschleudert: “BIO können sich nur Priviligierte leisten, die auch das Geld dafür haben” Und als Sahnehäubchen oben drauf kommt dann die Pauke: “Wenn alle BIO kaufen würden, dann wäre BIO nicht möglich, da es nicht genug Boden dafür gibt!”.
Ich habe selbst lang genug daran geglaubt und fragte mich regelmäßig, ob es wohl möglich wäre, wenn alle Lebensmittel unter den europäischen ökologischen Standards angeboten werden würden. BIOLAND räumt jetzt auf mit den Klischees und Halbwahrheiten. Die Kernbotschaft des veröffentlichten Hintergrundpapiers „Klimaschutz und Biolandbau in Deutschland“: BIO in Deutschland ist flächendeckend möglich!

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I guess it is no secret anymore but still. Here are two green alternatives to Google Search. They work the same as Google just with an ecological background:

FORESTLE: Search like hell and save 0.1qm of rain forest each search. So keep on pushing the search button!

ZNOUT: Same same, but different. Instead of saving rainforest you save bad stinky CO2! For the carbon neutrals! Special effect: Turn the background black and save your own energy.

Have fun, searchers!

Eco can be cool! At least it can be used to create cool and nice tools. As some Apps for the iphone show. So if you have one of these high-tech machines, check out these green Apps:

Bike Your Drive: This App combines a cyclometer and CO2 counter. While biking you can see how many calories you burnt and at the same time find out how much CO2 was saved during your bike trip. Holy bike! for free at iTunes

Carbon Calc: calculates all CO2 emissions and compares them with average rate in the USA and Europe. If you want you can compensate your emissions right away with PayPal (well, at least its not Apple itself…) for free at iTunes

A Real Tree: Buy this App and get a tree for yourself in one of 12 countries that are highly struck by deforestation. costs. 0,79€ at iTunes

iPlanet: Download this app and become a green dot on an earth’s map. The goal is to turn the world green. For free at  iTunes

GreenSpot: Get the latest eco-news on your phone from the New York Times, CNN, AP und Yahoo News etc. Can also be used as a podcast. Costs € 1,79 at  iTunes

iGreen: Want eco-news from famous blogs? Then check out this app. Costs  €0.79 at  iTunes

Get Green: This App provides you with regular eco hints on a daily basis. Wondering what will be the christmas hint? Me too…  Costs  € 0.79  iTunes

Ever wondered where all the stuff for your favourite goodies came from? How your beloved shirt got this wonderful color? Where you should dispose a computer or even a juice box, since it has been made out of so many materials?

Take a look at this movie Story of stuff and you might realize that we live in a god damn complicated world. Or that it might help to not just focus on a shiny golden arrow?!

P.S.: In case you worry who watches these super moral movies: It has been watched over 7 million times already. So tell your friends, too.

Each country has limits for using the earth's resources. Germany used up its resources by the end of May... German efficiency - whatever!

Our globe is quite big – and still it is not big enough. It is not new information that our western lifestyle is way too extravagant and cannot be expanded to all societies of this world. Okay, but how should we live and to what extent can we keep our habits? Nobody might give that anser. But there are methods that try to navigate us towards a more sustainable lifestyle. The Ecological Footprint is one approach for communicating limits of the earth’s capacities.

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