So you think you know about sustainability?

Rude awakening for thine truly. I just found a survey from the International Society of Sustainability Professionals --the ISSP Sustainability Knowledge Competency Study. Thinking I was fairly knowledgable, I clicked to take the survey. Hoo boy.

Here are a bunch of events. I have some familiarity with some of them...
Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal
Bruntland Commission/Our Common Future
Commission on Sustainable Development
Convention on Biological Diversity
Intergovernmental Forum on Forests
Kyoto Protocol
Limits to Growth/Club of Rome
Millennium Development Goals 2000
Montreal Protocol
Silent Spring/Rachel Carson

How are you doing so far?
Keep going....
UN Environment Programme
UN Forum on Forests
Vienna Convention for Protection of the Ozone Layer

Now, some organizations
AccountAbility
Business for Social Responsibility (BSR)
Carbon Disclosure Project
Earth Policy Institute
Environmental Protection Agency
GEO-4
Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI)
Hadley Centre for Climate Change
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
International Society of Sustainability Professionals
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
World Business Council on Sustainable Development
World Resources Institute

Not through yet with humbling myself
Now for sustainability frameworks
Herman Daly's Triangle
Triple Bottom Line

Now for some principles
Adaptive management
Agenda 21
Caux Roundtable for Business
Ceres
Cradle to cradle
Earth Charter
Equator Principles
Hannover Pronciples
Melbourne Principles
Precautionary Principle
Talloires Declaration
UN Global Compact

Had enough? But wait! There's more!!
Practices and Protocols
AA1000
Closed loop recycling
Dematerialization
Design for environment
Ecological footprint
Environmental/Sustainability Management System/ISO14001
General Reporting Protocol
Global Reporting Initiative
Green Chemistry
Greenhouse gas protocol
Industrial ecology
Life Cycle Assessment
Life Cycle costing
New urbanism
Permaculture
Product stewardship/EPR (extended producer/product responsibility)
SA8000
Smart growth
Socially responsible investing

My humbling is not over but I am tired of tapping. So I'll continue layer with more stuff I think I should already know about.

Peace, y'all

Molly (the humbled)

On Haiti

Poor Haiti. Literally and figuratively.

Haiti is the poorest nation in our hemisphere, in the shadow (literally and figuratively) of the hemisphere's and the planet's richest nation.

It thrills me and relieves me and puzzles me to learn of the millions of dollars and euros pledged to help Haiti. The world is mobilizing, and in a peaceful and (mostly) nonpartisan way. It's amazing how quickly the richer nations opened their checkbooks, so to speak. That's the thrill and relief.

Now the puzzle. How far will the rich nations go to make Haiti whole?

When there is order in the streets? When there is running water? When the port is restored? When the prison is fixed and the prisoners rounded up? When the UN and government ministries are rebuilt? When there is enough infrastructure to allow the citizens of Haiti the rights in the UN's universal declaration? http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

or just when the rubble is cleared?

And how will each nation decide when to stop? I think public opinion is part of the answer.

I want my nation to help make Haiti whole.

America's infant mortality rates illustrate we have a problem

One ugly truth is that infant mortality in the U.S. is higher than in many other countries. Many Americans believe ours is the best country on Earth and don’t like facts that contradict this.

A recent letter to the editor of my local newspaper proposed that anyone stating this truth name the sources and have a computer to back it up. This is silly. Since when must we drag a computer into a meeting when we state a truth?

This morning, I googled “infant mortality.” Here are is what I found in the first five hits.

According to the 2006 United Nations World Population Prospects report, our country ranks 33rd in infant mortality, with a rate of 6.3 deaths per 1000 live births. Outranking us are most European countries, Cuba, Israel, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand, Brunei, Cyprus, Israel, and New Caledonia.

According to the CIA’s World Fact Book, last updated in April, the U.S. has 6.26 infant deaths per 1000 live births. Our own government ranks us 46th.

Information Please ranks the U.S .45th. Nationmaster doesn’t list the U.S. at all. Indexmundi ranks us 41st.

The CIA World Fact Book also lists the U.S. as 50th in life expectancy at birth.

Before we can fix a problem, we must recognize we have one. Our health care policies and practices are not working for all of us. Some of us are healthy. Most of us, sadly, are overweight, and a huge percentage of us are clinically obese. And that is only true if we survive infancy, which is harder to do in the U.S. than in dozens of other nations.

Yes, we have a problem. Now let's figure out what we can do to fix it.

Peace, y'all

Molly

Thank you Carrie Chapman Catt and United Nations

It's really cold here (Spokane), and the snow is high in a lot of places. It's snowing. The sparrows are taking shelter in a shrub and under a car. Yuck. I now their caloric requirements must be sky-high and doubtless many die when they can't get enough to eat. That's enough to kick in my gratitude reflexes.

150 years ago yesterday was the birth of Carrie Chapman Catt. This woman worked tirelessly to bring the vote to American women. If you are a woman, you should thank her and give her honor and credit. You should do so even if you're male, because having women participate in the voting process makes things better for all of us.

63 years ago today was the first assembly of the United Nations General Assembly. Now the UN's ability to foster peace has a few blemishes but on the whole it does a LOT of good. When I was a kid all the kids carried cardboard UNICEF containers when we trick-or-treated. I wonder why they don't any more?

Thanks, Nebraskans for Peace for your wonderful calendar.

Feeling lots of gratitude today.....

Peace, y'all!

Molly