Ecological Intelligence and Other News

When I was young and went camping with my father, he had a simple rule: leave the campsite cleaner than you found it. There were always bottle caps and wrappers and other things not to mention our own mess. Given the mess humans have been leaving for the past few centuries, leaving the earth cleaner than we found it would be a great principle to follow. The problem is that the world has become more complicated. I'm amazed at how much work and knowledge it takes to be green and I freely confess my ignorance on a wide range of ecological matters.

Luckily, Mary of The Left Coaster mentions Bill Moyers who talked with Daniel Goleman who has a book out called Ecological Intelligence (hey, isn't the Internet great!). Let's see: Ecological intelligence. Okay that's what I need more of. Here's a bit from Mary's post:

Life cycle assessment is being used by companies to change the way they do business. But even more important, the data is now available to us via websites like GoodGuide which help you correlate data from different studies to pick safe, healthy and green products by providing insight into the Ecological Impact of products.

Goleman says that by making this information accessible to everyone, a climate of Radical Transparency becomes possible and this means consumers will finally have the ability to make corporations and governments sensitive and responsive to people without people having to become experts or knowing who to trust or just because they feel it is morally the right thing to do. This technique makes it easy to do the right thing for ourselves and our planet. Plus it provides a powerful incentive to companies to improve their products and their processes. This technology makes it possible for anyone to make a difference just by understanding their choice and communicating that choice.

In other news, Think Progress has a story on Hardin, Montana and what they would like to do with their prison:

A frequent attack on the closure of Guantanamo is the claim that no one in the U.S. wants detainees housed in their backyard. ...Rob Reynolds reports that the town of Hardin, MT [is] requesting that 100 detainees be sent to its empty prison...

The story is dated May 18th. I checked Google News to see who else was carrying the story. Ah, it turns out the story has been around for at least three weeks. See this NPR story (It seems a good story still takes time to get around). Here's a thought. The federal government is unlikely to put terrorists in such a prison. On the other hand, the federal government has a fair number of low level prisoners who could be moved to Hardin while freeing up room in a secure federal facility. Maybe Hardin is on to something after all.


Here's the last story. The right wing chest beaters have been beating up on Pelosi in one of the more dishonest smear campaigns of the year. The point to keep in mind is that the CIA has a lot of professionals but one gets the impression that the Bush administration was notorious for not using professionals to do its dirty work. If Bush or Cheney needed a liar, they had little trouble finding one since they hired liars by the bushful for every department in the government. Here's another article pointing out that the CIA Records on Briefings Were Not Accurate.


Okay, I'm off to the library to see if I can find a book on ecological intelligence. What a phrase!