Ted is always looking for ways to minimize his ecological footprint. Professionally, Ted is working to gain the skills necessary to turn his passion for sustainable development into action, as an entrepreneur or financing sustainable businesses.
Ted studied economics and international business at Saint Louis University’s campus in Madrid, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was honored as the Distinguished Student in International Business for his class. As the founder and president of the SLU Madrid Business Club, Ted focused the club’s activities on sustainability.
While working for commercial real estate multi-national Jones Lang LaSalle’s Madrid office, Ted strove to implement sustainable practices both within the firm and for its clients. He proposed and designed an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan for JLL Spain. Green Building and Environmentally Sustainable Development remain a passion for Ted: he believes that the intersection of sustainable infrastructure and sustainable attitude is where we’ll find a sustainable society.
Ted currently works for a private equity firm in Madrid, learning skills that he hopes to apply to finance Environmentally Sustainable Development in the United States and around the world.
Tracy is the CEO and Founding Partner of Technical Green - a green industry career site focused on clean tech and green research and development.
Tracy's professional experience are in the recruitment advertising and non-profit sectors and she has for many years maintained a sustainable lifestyle.
Marie Oser is a best-selling author, columnist, and host/producer of VEG TV. A vegan lifestyle expert, and environmental advocate with a focus on nutrition and its role in disease prevention, Oser specializes in creating original gourmet recipes with a solid nutritional bottom line.
Many prominent medical and nutrition professionals endorse her work, including Dr. Colin Campbell, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University and principal researcher of the groundbreaking CHINA STUDY, and Neal Barnard, M.D. founder and president of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC.
Marie is president of VEGTV, Inc., a video production company producing content for TV and new media. VEGTV streams hundreds of lifestyle videos to more than 1,000 sites globally. In her role as Director of Product Development at Smart Planet Kitchen, she has created, Marie Oser’s Lean & Green, a new line of vegan and Fair Trade Certified products. Marie has appeared on CNN, ABC, National Public Radio, QVC, WUSA, WNBC, KCAL, KOVR, Home & Garden Television (HGTV), FINE LIVING, TECH TV, and Discovery Channel.
Vegetarian since 1971; vegan since 1990, Marie left a career in TV advertising to pursue her interest in food, health, and nutrition. Born and raised in Philadelphia, PA, she studied psychology at St. Joseph’s University. Marie is a gourmet cook and organic gardener living in California, writing her 5th book and hiking every day with Travis, her Yellow Lab companion.
Cherl Petso is the Associate Editor at Disaboom.com, an online magazine for people with disabilities. Her writing expertise includes articles about the environment and sustainable living, and vegan/vegetarian issues. A vegetarian for 16 years and a recent vegan, Cherl is passionate about animal rights and issues. She enjoys writing about simple ways to lessen the impact on the Earth.
Cherl recently moved to Denver, Colorado from Bellingham, Washington. She enjoys hiking and hanging out with her puppy.
Nathanial Manning works for the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) as a Regional Analyst for Asia. He focuses on two programs for CCI, the Green Building Retrofit program and the Waste Management program. Nathaniel recently graduated from Brown University as an Environmental Studies Masters student, specializing in sustainable design and international carbon policy. Nat also completed a Bachelor of Arts in World Religions at Brown, focusing on the philosophy of ethics and the intersection between religion and politics. He is completing his Masters thesis on clean-technology-transfer within the UN's carbon credit mechanism (the CDM), which allows developed countries to invest in carbon mitigating technologies in developing countries with the purpose of promoting sustainable development.
Nathaniel has a long history of involvement in environmental development work ranging from waste-to-energy entrepreneurial ventures to designing sustainable homes for the Guatemalan chapter of Habitat for Humanity, to working for a tidal energy engineering firm in Singapore. Nat's passion is in how intelligent innovative solutions and technologies can be applied to create a sustainable and free world. When Nat thinks of the word "green" he does not just think of the word "environment" but how we as humans can design systems and solutions that create win-win situations.
Robert Cowin is a political consultant for environmental NGOs. His nomadic childhood reveals a world-class carpetbagger, but he masks as a Texan-New Yorker hybrid. Formerly with the National Environmental Trust (now the Pew Environment Group) in DC, he’s spent time on Capital Hill advocating for Kyoto ratification, clean air, renewable energy technology, and green energy policy.
Robert has also worked on marine conservation issues, directing the Conserve Our Ocean Legacy coalition in the Mid-Atlantic States which successfully worked to help strengthen and reauthorize the Magnuson Steven’s Act. He now happily lives in Southern California, flying back east often as he finishes his Masters in International Relations at Tufts University’s Fletcher School.
Dayanti Karunaratne is a freelance journalist based in Canada's capital city, Ottawa.
Since graduating from Carleton University's journalism program in 2006, Karunaratne has worked on the news desk at the Port Hope Evening Guide, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Molokai Times. Karunaratne's writing appears in the Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Magazine, the Globe and Mail, and other lifestyle publications.
Heather O'Neill is the founder of Eco to the People, a green living blog.
Before founding Eco to the People, Heather O’Neill wore so many hats in the field of journalism that even the Queen Mother would envy her collection. She has worked as the managing editor of a beauty trade magazine; as a copy editor for an online tech magazine; as the associate editor of a city magazine and as a newspaper reporter and columnist, and as the senior editor at the popular online newsletter ecofabulous.
Her work has appeared in many publications, including Parenting, Alternative Medicine, Natural Solutions, Marin Magazine, Greenwich Magazine and HOME.
Heather earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from California College of the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco.
Americans seem to have a fascination with parents of multiples these days.
We have TV shows about people with 18 kids going on 19 (or is it 20 now), parents with eight kids and those with 10 kids. We’re still seeing news coverage about the octomom.
It seems we can’t get enough.
All of these multiples, in large part, stem from the growing number of people using fertility drugs in order to conceive and have kids. These drugs can cause pregnancies of multiples.
This week I had the privilege of visiting the Navy’s Sustainability Interior Showroom (SIS) in San Diego. This showroom is part of Admiral Len Hering’s effort to green the Navy’s act in the Southwest, for which he is the commanding officer.
The showroom was constructed and decorated by GSA certified contractors and suppliers, all of whom meet strict environmental criteria. Suzanne Smith, Navy Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, spoke about staying away from toxic materials, bringing in natural light, reusing materials (the construction was zero waste), LED lighting, a functional and motivational workspace, and a host of other green features that went into the SIS.
The showroom is meant to provide an example for Navy construction, remodeling, and interior decorating projects, many of which will be seeking LEED status in the future.
I never particularly thought of the Armed Services as a beacon of green (at least outside of camouflage), but hearing Admiral Hering and Suzanne Smith speak really woke me up to the sustainability efforts of the Navy. …read more of Navy Leads Way on Sustainability here
We are at an interesting place in food cultivation and consumption. We have an ever-growing consumer awareness of our food systems, where our food comes from, and what we require of our food.
On the other hand, we have giants like Monsanto¹, who are not in the business of growing food at all really, controlling our food growth and ingredients down to the very basics of the food itself – the DNA.
Working behind the scenes of agriculture, Monsanto has been busy leveraging themselves as the sole controlling source for seed availability to farmers for many years.
And beyond seed, they have made our milk and dairy products incredibly unsafe to eat and drink. Monsanto is the corporation who introduced rBGH – or recombinant bovine growth hormone - to our nation’s dairy farmers. Worse, they have tried very hard to make the use of rBGH worldwide. …read more of The Dangers of Corporate Food here
The decision by Supreme Court Justice David Souter to step down from the bench may not be as game changing as it seems at first blush.
Although Justice Souter was nominated by George H.W. Bush in the hopes of getting a conservative on the bench, his voting record since has been that of a centrist and a real disappointment to the right. His decision to step down in Obama’s first year in office, rather than moving the decision up to the end of the Bush presidency, would seem to confirm his allegiances.
The fact that it may not completely swing the balance of power on the Supreme Court does not mean, however, that deciding on a replacement to Souter is not an extremely important decision for Obama’s administration. …read more of Supreme Court Nominee - Environmentally Friendly? here
This past Earth Day Vice President Biden announced $300 million of the Recovery Funds Act to be applied to the Clean Cities Program - a program that brings sustainable vehicles and their infrastructure to cities across the country. “…We’re going put Recovery Act dollars to work deploying cleaner, greener vehicles in cities and towns across the nation that will cut costs, reduce pollution and create the jobs that will drive our economic recovery,” said Vice President Biden.
These programs are expected to bolster the country’s infrastructure, reduce our dependence on oil - foreign and domestic - and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are a great cause of global warming.
Stay current on the latest policies and progress government is making on addressing green issues. Find out what is going on off-camera and in the discussion chambers of government. Advocate your thoughts and ideas.
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