Category — Leadership

The media during 2009 is mainly focusing on gloomy news about the economy, the failing financial systems and the initiatives the US government and other governments around the world are starting to get back to more prosperous times. While the election of Barrack Obama has brought a lot of hope for change to the world, many people are wondering how these changes are actually going to materialize for them.

Whenever there is a moment in time where we have the opportunity to reorder things, make a fresh start, apply lots of money to a cause, and fundamentally change our approaches, it is important to identify the most important areas. One of these areas is the requirement to change our behavior towards the environment we live in.

The US government plans to use a significant portion of its stimulus funds to create “green jobs” and begin a path away form the dependence from foreign oil. A carbon trading system has been proposed, in which corporation with the need to emit significant amounts of carbon emissions can buy credits from other organizations that actually reduce the carbon footprint compared to an established average. This is supposed to encourage companies and industry in general to look for clean energy sources to support their product and service creation.

These are measures on a large scale that will help the United States to hopefully move from being one of the single largest polluters of this planet to a responsible member of the green revolution we need to avoid a complete collapse of our environment. In a recent article Simon U. Ford asks if it is enough for individuals to donate to environmental causes. He is challenging his readers to contemplate if making a financial contribution to a seemingly good cause is enough to help the environment. The full article, titled “How can we help the Earth?” can be found at:

http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=613848537#/note.php?note_id=131352405290&id=613848537&index=1

Simon speaks about his good fortune in business, his success, leading to a point in his life where he has the freedom to decide what he wants to do with his wealth. That leads him to state:

“To me, just joining a cause, signing a petition, donating some money doesn’t quite cut it. You see, those are just blind contributions where you cannot see the outcome of your efforts, as such. Somehow, I wish we could collectively do more as a group – rather than doing our little bits individually.”

For many people it is very clear that we need change in this world. To achieve this change we need new leadership that is willing to see the bigger picture and solve the problems of the planet together, rather than gaining power by waging wars. The question becomes: How can we as individuals participate in this revolution?

One way is by providing money to those organizations that have identified one part of the big puzzle that is the Green Revolution. As Simon Ford says, we have to be careful that we don’t just satisfy our guilt by giving some money to worthwhile causes.

What guilt, you ask? The guilt of driving more than we needed to; the guilt of using materials we know to be hard to recycle,; the guilt to spend money on things we really don’t need when we could spend it on things that would help us all live a better life, the guilt of having sinned in one way or another.

Normally when we need to correct a mistake or error, it hurts. Giving money is a relatively painless way of compensation. Regarding the Green Revolution, Thomas Friedman in his most recent book titled “Hot, Flat, and Crowded”, proclaims that a revolution is only a real revolution when it hurts and causes pain. Anybody who likes to learn more about Friedman’s arguments can check out a great lecture he recently gave using this link: http://tinyurl.com/green-revolution

If joining a cause, signing a petition, and donating some money doesn’t quite cut it, what are we really to do? I believe we need to first learn and than educate others to achieve a new level of awareness and behavior.

For a Green Revolution to occur, we need to be the ones who know what it takes in every part of our lives to make a difference. Our daily actions should be guided by the questions: “Does this action hurt or help the earth?” When we decide to donate money, join a cause or get involved, the questions should be: “Does this action hurt or help the earth?” When we vote for a new initiative, the question needs to be “Does this vote hurt or help the earth?”

As always when changing a behavior, the goal is achieved when it becomes second nature; when we don’t need to label things to be “green”, or “organic”, or “natural”, or environmentally friendly” anymore. We will know that we made a difference when we have educated everyone we can touch to a point that any action or involvement not supportive of the earth feels wrong, ill-headed and stupid.

Individuals and groups alone will not be able to do all this work of change by themselves. Those in power who have the money, the ability to change the laws and rules, and support all initiatives that are actually good for the earth need to be willing to do their part.

History has taught us once in recent history that a revolution can occur successfully without one shot being fired. That happened in front of most of our eyes when the Berlin Wall came down and the people of Eastern Germany streamed across the borders to rejoin their brothers and sisters in the West. A people had successfully rejected a system and all its rules, organizations, parties, and systems and elected to change the world. Within a few months the Soviet Union fell and the old fight between the Democracies of the Western World and the Communism of the East ceased to exists.

A revolution by the people is possible when individuals form groups and decide that they demand a better life in a better environment supported by better environmental and economic conditions. Every person counts in such an effort, even if it feels like it’s a proposition of David-vs-Goliath.

In the long run, the right ideas to safe the world will prevail. Those of us who can do more than joining a cause, signing a petition, and donating some money, it will be fulfilling to do what they can to help us all reach the level of awareness we need to create a better world. For everybody else, it is of utmost importance to get involved and be open to change.

The willingness to change is the first step to a successful green Revolution that leads to a world where we all know what we need to do to contribute our part to guarantee clean water, clean air, clean fuels, and a prosperous future for all of us. As we get involved, each in our own way and to the level we can afford, we will become part of a larger movement that can revolutionize the planet.

Donella Meadows once wrote about the situation we find ourselves in when it comes to evading catastrophe: “We have exactly enough time, starting now.” To me that is a clear encouragement to join causes, sign petitions, donate money, and if you can, do all the other great things we need to do to have a peaceful but powerful Green Revolution – Now!

Axel Meierhoefer
AEM.EDBD

Todays post is actually my first video for the blog. Just click on the link below, enjoy the movie and let me know what you think about it.

Thanks

Axel Meierhoefer

Hello Eveybody

Buckle down,  this ones a long one, but you know what,… some things are worth slowing down for,…this message just might be the one to change the course of your life forever (for the better),..its well worth the 35 second investment in time it’s going to take you to give it a chance.

** If the first three paragraph’s don’t hook you in, fair enough,..just forget it and move on
Here is the deal. I have been involved in a movement for the last 5 months. It has made me part of a core group of 15 individuals who believe they can make a difference. Now the time has come to give you an opportunity to participate.

This is our Story! – so far…

In a world dominated by corporate giants and multi-million dollar marketing investments, a bunch of 15 or so people that I have never met in real life, have came together to form an online think tank. They are all gurus at different aspects of social media marketing.

They are all settled and busy with their own personal/work lives. But we all know that the way things are happening around us isn’t quite right. Most importantly, we all believed in the power of the collective whole. You see, despite the complexity of the new web 2.0 platforms; spamming is still a regular thing, one-way messaging is still at large, slick-self-interest-based promotions are still done shamelessly.

These 15 people and I are standing up to it, we have decided to take things into our own hands one step at a time. We have decided to prove it to the world around us, that the way to go into the future is by bridging the gap between marketing and trust based relations.

We have come together as a powerful team by forming a group of like minded people who all feel the same way. Collectively we have massive potential and the collective synergy is being brought to our weekly online webinars, it’s become contagious for everyone involved so far.

Today we launched a recruitment drive. Our objective is to recruit 1000 evangelists/volunteers/eco-conscious individuals to join our party. We have all dedicated our time, sweat and tears into building this, our second Social Media marketing campaign together on a global scale. The subject of this second campaign is Earth Day 2009 and the green movement.

On April 22nd this ear (2009) we intend to generate enough interest across Social Media Networks to promote over 100,000 physical events across the world throughout a 24 hour period.

This launch will lead the way to a new tomorrow. After the success of the world’s biggest birthday bash across the globe, we will have gotten people’s attention. Corporate clients are already starting to want to become involved.

The reason the key people driving this campaign (including Yours’ Dearly) are so passionate about it is because, it’s a collective demonstration of what we are all capable of.

You see, 5 years ago, people actually had resumes. Companies asked for them. It wasn’t like it is today, with the online personal-profile in one place with your life-streaming, blogs, updates, accomplishments in one dynamic feed for whoever to see them. This event will become a massive trademark on the resume of anyone associated with it’s planning and launch.

It’s already being said that the inaugural Earth Day Birthday bash (2010) for our planet will become the biggest influence of change in the way our human race see the “Rock” we all live on this generation has ever seen. Earth day Birthday 2009, this April 22nd will become our lead in event.

I want your involvement in this, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, sign up and help us alter the course of history here;

http://www.socialtraffic.biz/super-promoter-two-opt-in-page/

It will costs you nothing but time. In return we are offering cutting edge Social Media marketing training that comes with a proven social media expert as a personal mentor. The real value though is something that’s not for sale anywhere, it’s the actual participation in a massive global Social Media marketing campaign for you to apply your newly learned skill set.

If you would like to become part of a story that will be told by future generations, this is a real chance. Chances like this don’t come along too many times in a lifetime. Secure your role in this amazing story.

If you would like to read more about this opportunity visit the Social Traffic Inc. blog;

http://www.socialtraffic.biz/category/our-story/

We even have our own radio show. If you are on Facebook you can join the show here;

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=60538533974

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

Axel Meierhoefer
AEM.EDBD

P.S. As this story grows,… more and more people will want to become a part of it, good roles will become harder and harder to come by.
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Sign up now by going to this link and adding your name and email address. The email sequence you will receive is written to fill you in on everything you need to know, including putting you in direct communication with the right person to answer any questions you may have.
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P.S.S. Yes, you guessed it. All these events are going to be hosted on http://www.EventsListed.com and yes, the site is ready for those on my list to use.

There are many reasons to get involved in activities and causes. Some people like to loose wait, others like to achieve new goals in sports, again others want to spend time on something they are passionate about.

Earth Day is part of the Green Movement that is beginning to spread like a wild fire across the United States. Everybody wants to do something green, wants to demonstrate how environmentally conscious we all are, especially if it isn’t hard to do. If we can maintain our creature comforts and standard of living and still do all these “green things” we should be fine, right?

Maybe one can’t make money with it or be profitable, but it’s not that hard, or is it?

A group of very dedicated, educated, and motivated individuals has come together to organize a fabulous, global Earth Day Birthday celebration in 2009. One of the goals, besides the celebrations, is to build more awareness about all the issues surrounding all of us. Earth Day Birthday becomes the magnifying glass and the anchor point for this initiative. The global events will actually occur on April 22nd 2009. Volunteers are welcome to help with all kinds of work related to this celebration.

As part of the awareness building, this article is providing some food for thought about the green movement and its spread across the consciousness of the American public. Now that we have a new president in Barack Obama, the expectation is that there will be much more funding and a push towards green solutions. That does not mean things will all be very easy.

In his newest book, Thomas Friedman reminds us that the transition from consumer orientation with the believe of unlimited credit, ever increasing house values, and living above our means , towards an eco-conscious mind set will require thoughtfulness, sacrifice, and reflection.

How much we will need to move can be seen in some recent examples that showed me how much Earth Day needs to become one of the important awareness builders in our lives.

It all started with the notion of carbon footprints and pollution. I, AEM.EDBD, wonder if there is a formula or system to calculate comparisons. As a German, I come from a place where the natural resources were always scarce compared to the large population. That meant doing the most with the little space available.

Forestry has been a part of the economy for hundreds of years. Maintaining the forest, keeping it clean and healthy, and profitably harvest the wood has been going on for as long as I can remember (and my dad says the same for as long as he can remember). In that sense, everything the forest produces is put to good use. Berries are picked and baked into cakes, mushrooms are picked and become part of seasonal recipes (if you are very lucky and have truffles, you can actually make money with it) Underbrush is cleared, and in very bad winters some of the wildlife is fed to keep it around.

Shortly after this years Christmas holidays in our local California valley, the city officials of Solvang, together with the fire department, decided to hold a public fire safety demonstration. In light of the recent wild fires, this appeared to be a good idea. Some rain a few days earlier would also help to limit the risk of any problem with the demonstration.

What happened next was shocking to me. The public administrators alerted all families to put out their Christmas trees for collection. It was decided that the trees would become the fuel for the safety demonstration. Not just one or two or a handful, but a huge pile of trees was formed and then burned in front of hundreds of people, showing them how quickly dry Christmas trees can burn.

Nobody ever mentioned that they could have been chopped up, used as mulch or fertilizer or ground cover. Instead they were used to pollute the air creating a huge carbon emission plume.

Another example occurred at a business lunch the other day. The weather was so nice that we sat on an open patio, looking out towards the hills and the fields. In the distance a huge cloud of smoke was growing, rising to approximately 20.000 feet. Later that night the local TV station reported that the public shouldn’t be concerned, because this wasn’t a wild fire (which we had so many of in the last 3 years that about 350.000 acres of forest and grasslands burned). This was a controlled burn with the aim to reduce fuels. The area being burned is 6000 acres in size.

With these examples I wonder how much carbon these activities release, compared to what our Earth Day Birthday campaign using the internet  could ever generate.

We are trying to do to raise awareness via the internet. I am appalled that all this valuable biomass isn’t put to better use, but just burned. That is one of the biggest messages I would like to get across as part of the Earth Day Birthday event.

We all need to raise the awareness of people about these habits. As long as we are burning valuable fuels for reasons that are not credible, we don’t really have to worry about the minute amounts of carbon a search for information on Google or Yahoo might create.

A new friend with very similar ambitions and hope for Earth Day as an awareness builder, but also in a larger sense for the need to change people minds wrote to me:

I agree that behavior change is the most important issue. So few people ask, “How is this action going to affect the environment?” Our society’s wasteful habits are so deeply engrained in our habits, it’s a monumental task to shift the public’s awareness. One of the questions we have to get people to ask themselves is, “We’ve been doing it like this for decades, is it the best way for the environment or is this part of the problem?”

If the firemen want to demonstrate the danger of dry trees, perhaps they can burn a few, not, “Let’s see how many we can burn, they’re just old trees that are going into the trash anyway.”

The two questions I ask all the time are. “Is it sustainable?” and “How does it scale?” When you multiply someone’s actions by a thousand… or a million, the eyebrows go up. Most people say, “I never thought about it that way.”

The beautiful thing is, there are profitable business models around all of these examples. It’s all based on the price of carbon. As soon as the Cap & Trade system is in place there will be amazing opportunities where people only saw garbage before.

You probably have seen or read the commercials about the company that comes to help you get rid of pests using non-toxic methods. Playing on that theme, I believe, we should all shout: “Earth Day Birthday, we need you!”

Some people might have doubts that changing minds, creating a better world, resurrecting a damaged economy, and maintaining the comfortable standard of living most of us have gotten used to, will be possible. I think we all need to join in and project the right energy. The slogan: “Yes, we can” and the movement that has grown around it has shown all of us, what is possible. All we need to do is start taking action instead of waiting for others to do it for us.

For the Earth Day Birthday events we can still use lots of volunteers and evangelists. If that’s not your cup of tea, then go ahead and get involved in some other way to make people eco-consicous and increase their awareness.

For the last two years we have all been witnesses to one of the largest collapses of a system mankind has created.

I am not talking about the environment, as I normally do; we have been at it on that issue for much longer than tow years. I am talking about the economic, financial, and judiciary system in the United States. The actual number sand consequences have become obvious for the public in the US and many places around the world more recently, but the collapse has been going on for a while. The reason it could happen in such a dramatic fashion is the neglect of the symptoms the administration in Washington was experiencing.

That reminds us about the neglect of any significant action or law making about the destruction of the environment in the last eight year, in light of symptoms like Hurricane Katrina, ever hotter years around the glob, disappearing ice at the poles, and many more

Now new hope comes with a new leader and his team. One of the big goals is the creation of millions of green jobs in industries and initiatives involving sustainable and environmentally conscious fields

Some people among us might think the United States were always late to the Green revolution. That is not really true. More than 40 years ago there was awareness in a grand scale that had disappeared until very recently. I am talking about Earth Day.

I am involved in the largest global virtual initiative to organize the celebration of Earth Day through the utilization of social networks and modern internet media. Its called Social Traffic Inc. and this is a contribution by AEM.EDBD. We are planning to make Earth Day 2009 the biggest celebration and party the online-community has ever seen or been part of. To learn where it all started, let’s go back and discover

“How the First Earth Day Came About

By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day, himself:

What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.

Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political “limelight” once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour.

I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.

I continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation’s political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.

After President Kennedy’s tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called “teach-ins,” had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me - why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?

I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.

At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.

Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:

“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’…coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned….”

It was obvious that we were headed for a spectacular success on Earth Day. It was also obvious that grassroots activities had ballooned beyond the capacity of my U.S. Senate office staff to keep up with the telephone calls, paper work, inquiries, etc. In mid-January, three months before Earth Day, John Gardner, Founder of Common Cause, provided temporary space for a Washington, D.C. headquarters. I staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities.

Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”

That was then. Now people have many things to do and don’t follow the traditional patters of energetic participation. The one place we can still find it is on the internet, especially in social networks. That’s where we will be and create a buzz and a movement to energize the celebration and motivate at least 20 million people, hopefully more.

If you are interested to join me, take a look at the designated event site at http://www.socialtraffic.biz or search for events and promotion opportunities at http://www.eventslisted.com

Axel Meierheofer, AEM.EDBD