Charles Tsai

A powerful message for humanity told through a simple dance.

Sixteen years ago, 12-year-old Severn Suzuki stood before (adult) delegates of the UN Earth Summit in Brazil and delivered a blunt message: Stop destroying our planet!

The message still resonates and video of the speech continues to circulate. And no wonder… it’s a timeless speech.

Full text of the speech can be found here.

No doubt you’ve been exposed to numerous reasons now for eating less meat or even going vegetarian. But could you do it?

Even if you wanted to - for health, ethical, or environmental reasons - you most likely don’t know how. Don’t bother asking your parents. They’re just as clueless as you are. Western diets have become more and more meat-based even before your parents were born.

The New York Times’ Mark Bittman offers the following tips for scaling back meat:

1. Forget the protein thing. Don’t worry about not getting enough protein. Despite what the meat industry would you like you to think, there’s protein in plants too!
2. Buy less meat.
3. Get it out of the center of the plate.
4. Buy more vegetables and learn new ways to cook them.
5. Make non-meat items as convenient as meat.
6. Make some rules. (For example, eat a vegetarian dinner three times a week.)
7. Look at restaurant menus differently.

My advice - learn to cook. Be in control of what you eat. Don’t rely on others to prepare food for you.

Once you’re confident in the kitchen, you’ll be able to make better choices for yourself… and for the planet

I’ll be darned…

A typical softball game in Washington State took an unusual turn when a player injured herself on the field.  What happened next is something no spectator at that game could ever forget.

McTavish Elementary School from Victoria, British Columbia, is the Grand Prize-winner of Quantum Shift TV’s first annual “Be the Change! Share the Story” online video contest.

“The McTavish Green Team are an outstanding example of what it means to follow Gandhi’s advice to ‘be the change you want to see in the world,’” said Leif Utne, VP of Marketing at the Calgary-based web broadcaster. “We hope that by sharing their story they will inspire kids across Canada and around the world to take action in their communities to make the world a better place.”

As Grand Prize-winner, McTavish Elementary will receive a prize package worth US$50,000, including cash, books, Elluminate e-learning software, and an organic garden and eco-friendly playground or skateboard park designed and built by celebrity athletes from the Action Sports Environmental Coalition (ASEC), the contest’s main sponsor. The First Runner-Up will receive an eco-friendly skateboard ramp. And the Second Runner-Up will receive books and Fair Trade sports equipment,

Vancouver-based Global Agents for Change has launched a video contest to source creative ideas on how to change the world.

All you need to enter the contest is create a short video explaining “an idea you’ve dreamed upor a real-life proejct you’ve taken on.”

The winner gets $500 donated to a cause or organization of his or her choice.

Enter away.  The deadline is September 30, 2008.

Watch contest video after the jump.

What insight can one person glean from hitchhiking around the world, as French youth Ludovic Hubler did from 2003 to 2008?  Quite a lot it seems.

Not only did he travel to 59 countries, covering 170,000 kilometers, he did all that without spending a single cent on transportation.  Along the way, he rode in 1,300 cars and trucks, and sailed on 10 boats, carrying with him only 1 backpack.

So, what did he learn?  He summed up his lessons in nine “Never Again” statements:

- Never again will I complain about what I don’t have.
- Never again will I buy products without thinking of the consequences of my act of buying.
- Never again will I fear starting out on a big project.

Read the other six and his explanation for each one at his website.

Since I just started my blog, I will be posting items that you might consider “old news.” But you’ll agree, I think, that these are worth repeating.

Did you happen to catch Hungry Planet: What the World Eats when it first came out?  Author and photographer Peter Menzel traveled to 24 countries and photographed 30 families, showing what each family eats in a typical week.  Some of the photos were featured on Time.com in a slideshow.

Just to show how illuminating this whole exercise is, compare the two photos below:

In this speech from the TED 2008 conference, writer Dave Eggers recounts his experience in creating one of the most successful mentoring programs in the U.S. and challenges everyone to engage their public schools in a similar way.

Public schools need your active engagement.  See what others are doing at Eggers’ site, Once Upon a School.