Daniel Lubetzky

The most humble eat grains and seeds.  They don’t have anything else.  They live off the earth.

The poor eat refined starches, rice, beans.  They can’t afford anything else.

The luxury many strive for is perceived to be meat.

Then the cycle gets completed.  As people learn more about nutrition and the environment, they start avoiding meat, they start avoiding refined sugars and starches, and they steer back to grains, seeds, vegetables and fruits straight from nature.

It sounds so crazy.  With growing climate change, planet earth as we know it is on the brink of a radical transformation that could endanger the very survival of the human race, if not at best require the most painful and radical adjustments for us all.

Why then would any rational human being want to stand in the way of finding solutions to prevent an epic catastrophe?

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Something serious is going on when rice is rationed by the largest retailer in the world in the wealthiest country in the history of the world.

My team member Phil caught this story about it!

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At the Skoll World Forum, Al Gore spoke poignantly about the imperative of joining forces to rescue our planet.  If enlightened self-interest is to mean anything, it has to be that our personal well-being is dependent on the well-being of our planet.  And each of us has to share in the responsibility to prevent climate change from endangering future generations, not to mention ours.

So how do you create an identity and a logo to convey this?  The job went to Brian Collins, who did a superb job at merging the concept of global and personal responsibility for planet earth.

The New York Times does a very good job at explaining the thinking behind Al Gore’s new logo.  You can also learn more about what you can do at www.wecansolveit.org.

Cosmologist Martin Rees does not think that modern civilization will make it past this century.  Scientific and technological progress carry
with them the seeds of human destruction, whether through the harm we
cause to the environment, or straight out nuclear or biological
destruction.

So ironically, one of the core limitations to connecting with intelligent life elsewhere in the planet is our own unbridled ‘intelligence.’

You can make your own predictions about this at www.msnbc.com/modules/drake/default.asp  
Sent from my iPhone – pardon typos

Clif Bars is one company in the healthy snacking arena that KIND inhabits that I find a very worthy and also admirable player in the space.  Here they came up with a very creative and positive contribution against environmental waste.  Not sure how far this can get us but it is definitely a step in the right direction, smart marketing, innovative, and beneficial…

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One of the best ideas to come to our world in a long time comes courtesy of Shai Agassi and his American-Israeli company, Better Place.  He realized that instead of worrying about the manufacturing of electric cars, he could accelerate their acceptance if he focused on the infrastructure network.  And he created a model for leasing the batteries that will enable people to exchange their batteries at a ton of spots.  Israel has embraced the project wholeheartedly, and I am told Palestine and Jordan will also be on board. 

This is a great example of how good business can have so many additional bottomlines, helping the environment and fighting climate change, increasing economic cooperation among neighbors in a conflict region, and decreasing the need for scarce oil.

Read the article here: Israel Is Set to Promote the Use of Electric Cars

From purchasing raw materials for KIND Fruit + Nut bars, we get a scary first-hand lesson in the honey crisis.

Bees are disappearing across America.  Americans are importing them from all over the world – buying Queen Bees from Australia and other places, trying to repopulate their honey-producing bee farms.

The crisis does not just mean that a core raw material – Honey – is endangered.

Bees perform essential pollination functions across many different flowers and fruits. 

Nobody really knows what is causing it.  Is it climate change? Is it a biological mishap? What is it?

Planet earth is frailer than we realize.  This is a scary, under-reported plague that could really wreak havoc on our world.

It is certainly causing a shortage of honey – and a rise in prices.  But this could be just the beginning.

Earlier this week I rode on my first hybrid taxi in NYC and was ecstatic for a few reasons.

• First because this environmental victory for all of us is the work of my friend Jack Hidary, who for years lobbied the NY State and City governments to reverse policies that actually prevented hybrids in the taxi fleets! (go figure!)
• Even once hybrids were approved by the law, there were so many misconceptions and conspiracy theories preventing the taxi drivers from purchasing one, so Jack pulled off a creative guerrilla marketing coup: he hired a bunch of young people to go educate the taxi drivers on the financial benefits of hybrids to them; since time is money and drivers didn’t have time to just sit and chat, Jack handed out wads of $5 bills to his staffers, who’d take short rides on the taxis and strike conversations about the Hybrids…low and behold, it started working

• Now the best part is that drivers are going wild now that they realize the benefits of driving a hybrid over a regular gas guzzler.  On my 10 minute ride one night in NYC, my driver got stopped TWICE by other taxi drivers, who asked him whether the shift to hybrid was worth it.  This was what the conversation was like:

Guzzler: "Hey, are you happy with the hybrid? What do you think? I am thinking about it but need to ask some questions.

Hybrid Driver: "There is nothing to ask"

Guzzler: "Is it worth it?"

H: "There is nothing to ask, I pay $8-10 in gas a shift.  You are paying $40 per shift."

G: "Can I lease your taxi for a shift to check it out?"

H: "There is nothing to check.  There is nothing to wait.  You can buy one of these with the gas you will save in the first year."