Which presidents have done the most for the environment?

Our list doesn’t begin to do this question justice – but here’s our top three most environmentally effective presidents.

1. Jimmy Carter. With Carter’s biggest contribution, Alaskan National Interest Lands Conservation Act, more than 100 million acres and 26 Alaskan rivers are preserved. Carter also founded the Department of Energy, signed the Soil and Water Conservation Act, Surface Mining and Control Act, tightened the Clean Air Act, and was a persistent environmental lobbyist through his term.
   

   Jimmy Carter addressing the establishment of The Department of Energy on August 4, 1977

2. Abraham Lincoln. There is much to be said for effective presidential multi-tasking. Though Honest Abe is mostly exulted for his social progressivism, his creation of the United States Department of Agriculture gave more than ninety percent of Americans jobs, and created an infrastructure for land-use regulation. He also signed a bill to protect Yosemite Valley in 1864, and established the Academy of Sciences in 1863. Lincoln’s mindfulness and courage made him an extraordinary icon of human rights, which we shouldn’t forget is yoked to environmental justice.
3. Richard Nixon. The Clean Air Act and creation of the Environmental Protection Agency  is probably Nixon’s most notable feat. It’s actually shocking that the EPA didn’t exist before 1970. Nixon signed a slew of laws throughout his thwarted term, including The Endangered Species Act and Safe Drinking Water Act.

Let’s hope 2012 sees some Lincoln-inspired presidential leadership.

Happy Valentine’s Day. What book would be the perfect – we mean perfect – Valentine’s Day bedtime story?

It’s a classic, and it’s time to pull it back out. Here are five reasons to love Shel Silverstein’s inimitable The Giving Tree.

1. Of course – says KI Green – it hits the sweetspot of children, nature, and love. That much is obvious.
2. So second, develops the relationship between the boy and the tree in an unorthodox tone pervading children’s literature: one which is understated and does not tell your child (or you, for that matter) what to think, but how to feel.
3. You’re left with the question: Is this the story of the tree’s self-sacrifice for the greedy child? Or a story of the natural, if inherently tragic, transition from youth to adulthood?
4. The theme of “fault” and “love” associated with giving can extend into any realm. Are humans at fault for slurping up the earth’s natural resources? Or was the earth created to be a self-sacrificing giver of life?
5. And lastly. Silverstein’s illustrations are the perfect. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Happy reading.

BBC Nature Online.

Share with older kids – 5th grade and up. A fabulous educational source. Like Nicholas Kristof’s blog, for kids! Enjoy.

Answer me this. What numbers 400 billion worldwide, is tall, dark, handsome, has social and economic benefits, and saves the lives of millions of children each year?

Be mine, eastern pine. This Valentine’s Day KI green is hugging trees – literally. In the spirit of this month’s We Love Kindermusik campaign, we’re taking the million reasons to love trees to heart – namely – the way in which trees reduce our children’s asthma rates every year by filtering nitrous oxides, carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases through tiny openings in their leaves (stomates) and releasing purified oxygen.

Whether it’s the tentacle-trunked banyan tree, cloud-poking redwoods, shivering aspens, or the plain-Jane maple in your front yard, this Valentine’s Day, don’t be shy – embrace.

It turns out Halliburton isn’t the only corporate green offender on the loose. We’re well aware that, even as an innovative educational publisher, KI is a major stakeholder in the global natural resource budget.

Kindermusik CEO, Michael Dougherty, isn’t satisfied with unquantifiable effort to reduce our carbon impact. He knows that SMEs aren’t off the hook for investing in a greener supply chain. That’s why he’s urging us to apply for certification by the Green Press Initiative, which stipulates that “virtually all controversial fiber has been eliminated from [the applicant's] supply chain and that they are meeting certain benchmarks related to recycled fiber and fiber that is sourced from well managed forests.”

The qualifications for becoming a “Certified Environmentally Responsible Publisher” are no slouch. Publishers can become either “Certified,” “Silver Certified,” or “Gold Certified” depending on reduction of yearly paper usage and minimizing paper consumption from High Conservation Value Forests (HCVFs). To become Gold Certified, we would have to make forty percent of our paper products from recycled paper. Additionally, of that 40 percent, 20 percent must by Forest Stewardship Council certified (FSC), which represents a much higher fiscal investment.

More details to come…

Don’t believe the ads: natural gas is not green. It will not save us from “terrorism.” It will not put a wad of cash back into your wallet.

When Halliburton asked Gasland Director Josh Fox to lease his Pennsylvania property for natural gas drilling, Fox waged a curiosity war against the corporate savage. “Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown,” Gasland had the greatest impact of any environmental documentary we’d seen in a long time.

If you live in the Northeast – above Marcellus shale, the corporately hailed “Saudi Arabia of the United States” – put down your glass of tap water. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is the process of extracting natural gas from the earth’s four billion year-old subterranean reserves. It is also the reason why thousands of American families, animals, and crops suffering from gas-infused drinking water.

A picture’s worth a thousand words, and Fox’s trailer is worth… a googolplex.

A recent post by the Scientific American blog got us thinking: why has this winter been so warm? Correction: the fact that we’re wearing t-shirts and our toes haven’t yet succumbed to permafrost got us thinking. Got us worried.

But as eco-savvy Kindermusik folk, we know that weather does not equal climate. Therefore, we don’t quite believe ourselves when we say that it has been an “eerily” warm winter.
As NASA affirms: Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere “behaves” over relatively long periods of time.

Defining the “long” and “short” terms is risky business, but NASA gives 30 years as a proximate “long term.” The global temperature average has increased in the past 30 years, and is therefore indicative of climate change.

That being said – the S.A. article does say that the 2011-2012 winter has been extremely warm across the continental U.S., and the first week of January was the driest in history. More than 95 percent of the U.S. had below average snow cover. Eerie.

December 2010, by contrast, was one of the snowiest on record. It’s proof that no season can be assessed as an isolated incident; that last year’s downpour is likely the cause of this year’s dry spell. Further, need we remind ourselves, winter is far from its end. The worst may be yet to come.

So, however you choose to digest these patterns – feel disgusted and alarmed or happy to be warm and dry – keep in mind that there’s no such thing as “proof” in science, and that the big picture reigns king. The fact of exploding population and increasing industrialism takes an inevitable toll on the earth’s energy balance.

Mystery is the most powerful teacher. As long as people feel curious and unsettled, they will think more critically about their behavior.

At least among the conscientious KI crowd!

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

wrote Martin Luther King, Jr., from his jail cell in Birmingham, 1963. Today, Attorney General Eric Holder recognized MLK as “planting the seeds” of the American environmental justice movement.

That is true to an extent, but to compare today’s mainstream environmental movement to Civil Rights is perhaps too idealistic. There is a critical distinction between “mainstream environmentalism” and the “environmental justice movement” Attorney General Holder touts.  Mainstream environmentalism emerged in the 80s as a white reconstruction of Civil Rights grassroots activism to fight Regan-era materialism and corporate corruption. Although the connotation is shifting, much to the credit of black environmentalists like Van Jones, Majora Carter, and James Rucker, “green,” or mainstream environmentalism, still means “white elite.”

By contrast, “environmental justice” is the superior movement it targets poverty and consumerism as aggregating factors.  Martin Luther King’s ability to see and act upon the big picture – the blatant but ignored connection between race, poverty, and pollution, and public health – made him a genius.

Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol retraces her steps in the Amazon to find the children she photographed fifteen years earlier. See how rubber tapping and deforestation has changed these children’s lives. We strongly recommend the full film – visually stunning, provocative, and told through the truest lens of all – the children’s. Click here for more.

When was the last time you heard a scarlet macaw? A poison dart frog ribbit?

Listen! And get the kids!

This week, we’re instating Kindermusik Rainforest Awareness Week, in honor of the Smart Wood Fund we started this New Year. We will donate monthly to contribute a $2,400 annual gift to the World Wildlife Fund. Where does that money come from? The answer is key.

In our 2011 Sustainability Report, we told you we were dedicated to innovating products that would meet the highest sustainability standards as well as the highest educational standards.

Our dulcimer, assembled, tuned and played in Kindermusik for the Young Child, is made of Honduran mahogany. This high-demand hardwood is vulnerable to harmful slash and burn harvesting practices. We have tested alternative products, including synthetics, but none stood up to the demands of tight stringing to stay in tune.

To mitigate the impact of mahogany deforestation, we’re making a sacrifice on our end. Five percent of dulcimer revenue will be donated monthly to WWF– approximately $2,400 yearly. Money isn’t enough to fix the problem (or eliminate the root of the problem), but giving a monthly donation to the World Wildlife Fund, the leading Amazon conservation agency, helps in two ways. First, the money funds human and environmental causes. We like this holistic methodology. The WWF funds reforestation and best practices agricultural research, as well as humanitarian aid: rebuilding and empowering local communities afflicted by deforestation.

The second reason for Smart Wood monthly giving is to remind ourselves what’s at stake. We believe that the benefits of this product outweigh the costs. But the spur is enough to keep sustainability on the mind, and not get complacent. Innovation is key to success but it takes energy and sacrifice. We’re hungry to improve.