Susan Labandibar - Activist CEO » environment

100% Clean Electricity: We’re moving forward!

Susan — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:18:21 +0000

Students in Front of State House Lifting Wind Turbine (Iwo Jima)

Last Fall I joined the Leadership Campaign, sleeping out on Boston Common along with important leaders of the movement to stop climate change, such as Bill McKibben and Dr. James Hansen. We have a bold goal: State legislation to mandate 100% clean electricity by 2020. On February 8th, the proposed legislation was released from the Senate Ethics and Rules committee, so that it can be taken up by the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities & Energy.

The Sustainable Business Network has endorsed this proposed legislation.

Global Day of Climate Action Sends a Powerful Message

Susan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:02:33 +0000

October 24th was the global day of climate action organized by 350.org. Hundreds of thousands of people attended thousands of events. All around the world, people stood up to deliver a message to government leaders: “Our climate is no longer safe!” The photos came from everywhere. Starting on the evening of the 23rd, with a photo of New Zealanders at sunrise, the 350.org staff was literally flooded with 16,000 images — each of which contained the magic number: 350.

The number 350 refers to the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere that scientists say is safe. It’s measured in parts per million, or PPM. Today, at 390 PPM, that number is already past safe limits. This is why we urgently need strong action from our leaders when they meet in Copenhagen on December 6th to negotiate the successor to the Kyoto treaty.

In Boston, hundreds gathered at Columbus Park, on the waterfront, to participate in the Boston Under Water Festival. Why “Under Water?” Because Boston will experience Katrina-like flooding during severe storms as a result of climate change. We displayed maps from the Union of Concerned Scientists that show the Back Bay, East Boston, and a large swath of Downtown Boston under water after severe storms in the higher emissions scenarios.

But the Climate Festival was not all doom and gloom. Activities included relay races, kids games, climate theater, music, flood photos, people dressed as billionaires launching a fake “counter protest,” and a lifesaving station where we filled Senator Kerry’s answering machine with calls asking him to take strong action against climate change.

The centerpiece of the event was building a “flood barrier” before Boston Harbor using sandbags and empty tomato sauce cans. After the flood barrier was built, the crowd assembled for a photo to be sent to 350.org. Many people were wearing life vests and holding paddles as they stood in front of a huge banner that read: “Boston’s SOS 350 Climate Treaty Now.”

With a few clicks of the Greenpeace photographer’s shutter, we took our place in history with the thousands of others who are trying to protect our planet. As they say on one of my favorite podcasts, Beyond Zero Radio: “We aren’t trying to cause trouble. We’re trying to prevent trouble.. for us and for generations to come.”

Boston Under Water Climate Festival

Susan — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:42:12 +0000

I am one of the organizers of this event, which will be the biggest of all the Boston-area events planned for the October 24th Global Day of Climate Action. Your support and help in getting the word out, and coming to the event, would be much appreciated. Together, we can make our leaders understand that immediate action is needed to greenhouse gas emissions to safe levels.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Boston Under Water Climate Festival
October 24, 2009, 3:00pm – 5:00pm
Christopher Columbus Park, Long Wharf, Boston
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Join us at the Boston Under Water Climate Festival and help make the the International Day of Climate Action a historic day. On October 24th people all over the globe will come together to demand that world leaders meeting in December in Copenhagen create a plan to to decrease concentrations of atmospheric CO2 to below 350PPM.
We will gather on the waterfront at Christopher Columbus Park (Aquarium T stop) to draw attention to the Katrina-like floods that Boston may face as a result of climate change.

Fun Activities
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“    Building a sandbag flood barrier
“    A massive group photo in front of the sandbag wall with a banner calling on world leaders to get us back to 350 and to pass a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty this year
“    Flooding Station: learn about what sea level rise and higher storm surges will mean for Boston
“    Fred Small sings “Three Five 0″
“    Canoe relay racing!!
“    Participatory Climate Theater!!
“    Plus blue face-painting, bike-flag making, and much, much more!

Dress in blue. Wear underwater gear, leave as a group from your community, and bring as many people as you can!

Do not miss this opportunity; joining fellow human beings to be there, be counted, and to stand up for the future of the planet.
Part of a global day of events sponsored by 350.org

web: http://www.bostonunderwater.org
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“Little Things”

Susan — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:57:34 +0000

Hey, life’s not all about the big stuff. When your head hits the pillow at night, sometimes you just want to remember one little thing you did that day to make a difference. Here are a few of my easy favorites for the environment. If you have a chance, please write in to tell me some of yours.

Choose low-impact transportation. Here’s me and my e-bike. No, that is not my Mercedes in the background.

Choose low impact food. My Boston Organics Dogma Box contains fresh, locally-grown produce delivered to my door every other Tuesday. Great convenience for a car-less vegan!
Recycle. My favorite item to recycle is food waste. My worms love it!
Educate. I have created Post-Its with the text of the Massachusetts law prohibiting unnecessary operation of a stopped vehicle (the five-minute idling law.)

I carry it with me when I’m jogging and use it to start conversations with people idling in parked cars. Yes, it works. People really do shut off their motors! (And sometimes they roll up their window and tell me to buzz off, but, hey.)
Activate. My mailbox contains letters from environmental organizations like the NRDC, EDF, Greenpeace, the Wilderness Society, and CARE2.org. It’s easy enough to address them to my elected officials and fire them away.
Protect. Plastic six-pack holders can be lethal for animals. Whenever I see them on the ground, I pick them up and tear them apart.

What are some of your favorite “little things?” Post them here or send me a link to your blog.

A New Kind of Social Entrepreneurship

Susan — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:42:00 +0000

In July, I went to Indonesia to meet one of the world’s leading experts on wild orangutans. Since 1971, Dr. Birute Galdikas has been struggling to maintain her population of 6,000 wild orangutans in a national park in Borneo. Her staff of 220 mans guard posts and feeding stations throughout the park, educates the local population on the value of the rain forest and maintains an orangutan rehabilitation facility containing 330 baby and juvenile orangutans.

Tech Networks has created a new program to help Dr. Galdikas protect orangutans and their rain forest habitat. The program is called Hutan, which means “forest” in Indonesian. The word Orangutan in Indonesian literally means, “people of the forest.” Our goal is to raise $50,000 for Dr. Galdikas’ non-profit, Orangutan Foundation International, by the end of 2009. 20 percent of the gross receipts of the Hutan program will go directly to Orangutan Foundation International.

Although this form of social entrepreneurship is a new concept for IT services, it has worked in other industries, such as Dancing Deer Baking Company’s Sweet Home program. We are looking for companies and non-profit organizations who would like to cut costs, increase the quality of their IT service, and green their IT infrastructure to participate in this program.

True Bravery

Susan — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:01:13 +0000

I’m back from Borneo. Two shining weeks of visceral living. The fragile beauty of the rainforest, calling to me amidst the destruction of the smoldering forest stubble, the cruel rows of oil palms marching like an invading army into the national park, the brown sludge rolling into the clear black waterways.

The river is our road through the rainforest. Long, slow klotok^* rides at dawn and dusk. Solemn proboscis monkeys waiting in the trees. On the second day, we encounter an orangutan. Waving branches at first, then gradually coming closer. Baby clinging to her side. Silence. The orangutan regards us. I put down my camera and binoculars and drink her in deeply through misty eyes. My heart is crying: “God, what can I do to keep her world pure and free?”

Step back for a moment. Look at the boat driver, the tour group, the orangutan and her offspring. Now pan out over the river, the camp, and the forest. See the orangutans, the monkeys, the wild Bornean pigs, and the clouded leopard. Every living plant and every living being is here today because of the actions of one woman: Dr. Birute Galdikas.

She came here 38 years ago to follow and study orangutans in the wild. By anyone’s standards, she was amazingly brave. Living in a bark-walled hut in the midst of the jungle accompanied by orphan orangutans who clung to her side and bit anyone who tried to remove them. Tracking wild orangutans for days at a time, scrambling through crocodile-infested swamps as her subjects swung through the trees. Suffering from every conceivable tropical ailment, from malaria-induced fevers to a paralyzed, claw-like hand, to weeping jungle ulcers that took months to heal.

My companions on the tour had read her account of those early years, called Reflections of Eden. Everyone wanted to know how she had the guts to fend off flying snakes, blood-sucking leeches, and charging 300-pound male orangutans. Her response was modest: She said that she was too young to know any better.

Dr. Galdikas was brave to face those dangers, and undergo those hardships. But there is a different kind of bravery born of right-thinking and personal responsibility that must endure the test of years. This is the courage required to stand in the path of destruction, facing down the poaching, logging, mining, and palm oil industries and to say: “Here you will not tread.” Therefore, I asked Dr. Galdikas: “How have you kept fighting when all around you the rainforest is being destroyed?” And she replied: “Because I have to.”

^* Klotok: Traditional Indonesian long boat.

Off to Borneo

Susan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:17:37 +0000

For the first time in 15 years, I’m leaving. I’ll be gone for over two weeks. I don’t think I’ll be thinking about work. I’m going to be immersed in a different world–a beautiful and endangered land where orangutans and others are suffering and dying as their habitat is destroyed.

The focal point of the trip will be the orangutan sanctuary at Camp Leakey, located inside Tanjung Puting National Park (which itself is under threat.) I’m bringing antibiotics and syringes for the orangutans at the sanctuary. And I’m bringing a laptop for Dr. Birute Galdikas, who has been studying the orangutans since 1971 and is now fighting to save them.

May I bear witness for these denizens of the rainforest upon my return.

Till now, this has been my only encounter with primates. On a road to a shrine in India in ‘87.

My Dad and the Orangutans

Susan — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:26:18 +0000

On a day in June 2000, a doctor performed a biopsy on my father that showed he had mucosal melanoma, a rare and fatal cancer. The next morning, as I was standing in the shower, a shock wave of emotion and loss hit me. In that moment, I realized that my family would never be the same again. My father’s illness and impending death became a grim shadow in my life.

My life with the shadow was divided into two parts. In my normal life, I continued running my business and taking care of my rescue pug, Tristin. In my shadow life, I poured over medical research, corresponded with doctors, and reviewed all available clinical trials, trying to find a cure for my dad.

Finding a balance between my normal life and the shadow life was challenging. Of course, nothing was more important that helping my father. But what was the likelihood that–even if I devoted my every waking moment to keeping him alive–I could anything to save him? Thus I alternated between guilt and despair, until his death in February 2004.

After my father died, I healed quickly. My grief had been spread over a period of years as I faced the facts of Dad’s illness. Reading bad news is hard. Reading it night after night, as I went through case studies, and forums, and articles was even harder. There is something in the human psyche that wants to turn away from bad news. But bad news is all around us and, now that I had developed a habit of looking at it straight on, I found that I couldn’t stop seeing it.

I realized that the natural world has been invaded by a cancer like my father’s. Our planetary ecosystems are being destroyed, including the rainforests, which are the planet’s lungs.

Indonesia is now the world’ third-largest greenhouse gas emitter. This is because of ongoing destruction of the rainforests. In less than 15 years 98% of Indonesia’s rainforests will be gone. The orangutans who live there, along with thousands of other species, will be extinct. The original orangutan populations have already been reduced by 97%. There are perhaps 55,000 orangutans left. Of these, 5-10,000 are killed every year.

Apart from logging, fires, and other factors, oil palm plantations are the single largest cause of rainforest destruction in Indonesia. Palm oil has become the world’s most popular oil. Demand for palm oil is forecast to double by 2020. To meet that demand, over 1,160 square miles of land per year will need to be converted to oil palm plantations annually. The Indonesian government has set aside 26,300 square miles of forest land for new oil palm plantations.

Oil palm is big business. Almost all oil palm is grown as an industrial plantation crop. The oil palm industry is financed by the state, international private banks, and international donors such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, the European Union, the United States, and Japan. Important global corporate consumers of palm oil are Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Cognis, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland.

“In reality it’s over for the tiger, the elephant and the orangutan,” said Mr. Smits, who founded the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. “Their entire lowland forest habitat is essentially gone already. We find orangutan burned, or their heads cut off. Hunters are paid 150,000 rupiah [$15.00] for the right hand of an orangutan to prove they’ve killed them.”

This sounds like as one-sided a contest as the battle my dad waged against is cancer. On one side you have everyone from international agribusiness, to the Indonesian government, to shadowy Malaysian companies who control most of the oil palm projects in Indonesia. On the other side, you have the Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, and maybe the Dutch government, if they can get their act together. A David and Goliath match–AND–we’re almost out of time.

So this is the shadow that’s hanging over me right now. Once again, it’s challenging to find a balance. In my normal life, I continue running my business and taking care of my rescue pug, Otis. In my shadow life, I try to figure out what I can do to stop the destruction of the natural world. Of course, nothing is more important that saving the planet. But what is the likelihood that–even if I devoted my every waking moment to it–I could save even the orangutans? There are no clinical trials, no FDA-approved drugs that combat corporate greed, governmental corruption and willful human ignorance.

Nonetheless, I want to try. On July 1st, I’m going to Indonesia to visit Dr. Birute Galdikas, founder of Orangutan Foundation International. I’m bringing a laptop and some medications for the orangutans. I’m hoping that, while I’m there at the orangutan sanctuary, something will click. Somehow, I will figure out how to use the skills and resources I have to really make a difference.

Dead Trees in Boston

Susan — Sun, 31 May 2009 02:33:05 +0000

I’m trying to figure out why I keep seeing so many dead trees on the street. Can someone help me out here? I took some photos of trees along my dog-walking route a few weeks ago. Here’s the route:

View South Boston Street Trees in a larger map
There are three dead or dying trees on G Street. Here are the photos:

I’m not sure what’s going on, but it seems much worse this year. Young trees, even trees over twenty years old, are dying at an incredible rate. What does the Parks Department think? It looks like most of the street trees they are planting are not surviving. How will we ever reach the City’s 100,000 tree goal?

The Car-Free CEO Club

Susan — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:35:14 +0000

Has anyone heard of a CEO that doesn’t own a car? If you know of any, drop me a line, because I’m selling my Prius. Maybe we can start a car-free CEO group on Facebook!

Yup. I’m selling my 2002 Prius with 45K miles on it. I’m selling it with some regret, because the car has never let me down in the seven years I’ve owned it. But my trusty steed has to go, because:

It uses a gallon of gasoline for each 35 miles I drive. The odometer reads 45,886, which means I’ve burned over 1,300 gallons of gas since purchasing it.
In burning that gasoline, I have generated 19,422 lbs of CO₂ emissions
The car has been towed for street cleaning at least five times. I’m still trying to figure out the CO₂ emissions from that!
I have spent too many Saturday afternoons vacuuming dog hair off the carpet and washing the seat covers
Even though my Prius is classified as a SULEV (a Super Low Emissions Vehicle) it nonetheless generates .2g of nitrous oxide per mile driven. Nitrous oxides react with volatile organic compounds in the air to form ozone pollution that reduces the rate at which trees grow.
Street trees in Boston are dying because of pollution and other adverse conditions. Look out your car window. See the newly planted trees? They aren’t making it. And even well-established trees are dying.
I drive because “I don’t have time to take the subway.” Well, something funny has happened. The more time I save, the less I have. My life is flying by because I “don’t have time.” Now I’m going to make the time to walk, to wait for the bus, and to ride the trains.

So, who else is car-free? I looked around and didn’t find any CEOs on the Internet. I thought that Craig Newmark, founder of Craig’s List, didn’t own a car, but it turned out that he owned a Saturn for ten years and now he owns a Prius. But here’s what he says about cars: “The whole institution of the car is a bad idea.” Although he owns the Prius, he walks to work or takes the train.

Would you like a super-clean low-emissions hybrid vehicle? I posted my car on Craig’s list for $9,500. Craig Newmark would be proud.