Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Cancun, Report Back

Wednesday, January 12

12pm - 1pm

Pacific Room at Tides

Climate talks in Cancun reach agreements. What's next? Hear from four organizations who were on the ground in Cancun advocating for change.

Representatives from the International Forum on Globalization, the Ruckus Society, La Via Campesina, and the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative will present their report back with a Q & A to follow.

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

Craft Fair Winning Books

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the library table last week at the Thoreau Center craft fair and voted with your donations to select new books for the collection. We are happy to announce that enough was raised to acquire two of the books. Congratulations to everyone who wanted one of these books to win, and commiserations to those of you who were rooting for the others. We will look into adding them to the collection in the future.

Also, we're letting you know that the last day the library will be open this year is next Monday, December 20. When we come back next year, however, look forward to extended hours as we change the times we are open to Tuesday through Friday from 11:00 am to 2:00pm.

And without further ado, the winners are...

In first place, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by ecologist and anthropologist David Abram. From the publisher's description:

As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we’ve inured ourselves to the wild intelligence of our muscled flesh, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. This book subverts that distance, drawing readers ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Earth.

The shapeshifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in Abram’s investigation. He shows that from the awakened perspective of the human animal, awareness (or mind) is not an exclusive possession of our species but a lucid quality of the biosphere itself—a quality in which we, along with the oaks and the spiders, steadily participate.

With the audacity of its vision and the luminosity of its prose, Becoming Animal sets a new benchmark for the human appraisal of our place in the whole.

And in a very close second place, Local Money: How to Make it Happen in Your Community by Peter North, geographer and founding member of Transition South Liverpool. From the publisher's description:

An inspiring yet practical new Transition Book, Local Money helps you understand what money is and what makes good and bad money, and reviews how people around the world and in the past have experimented with new forms of money that they create themselves.

The book draws on the track record of experimentation with local money to show those in the Transition movement and beyond what has been tried, what works, and what to avoid. Different models of alternative currencies are reviewed, from the Local Exchange Trading System (LETS) and TimeBanks, which work within communities, to paper currencies such as Berkshares, German regional currencies and Ithaca ‘hours’, which circulate between local businesses as an alternative to their losing trade to the national chain retailers.

How can local banks and bonds help us move our cities, communities and homes on to a more sustainable footing? The book suggests how groups can create future forms of local money that can deepen local resilience and support the development of more local production of the things we need, such as food and power.

Book Donations from NCIBA

Thank you to the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) for its recent donations of books to the library's collection. The NCIBA is a trade organization dedicated to supporting, nurturing and promoting independent retail bookselling in California, and it is one of the tenant organizations here at the Thoreau Center. Check out their annual book catalog (pdf) for recommendations for the holidays and beyond.

Here is a list of what they donated:

Connett, P. H., James S. Beck, and H. S. Micklem. 2010. The case against fluoride: how hazardous waste ended up in our drinking water and the bad science and powerful politics that keep it there. White River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green Pub.

Court, Jamie. 2010. The progressive's guide to raising hell: how to win grassroots campaigns, pass ballot box laws, and get the change we voted for. White River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green Pub.

Dennett, Charlotte. 2010. The People v. Bush: one lawyer's campaign to bring the president to justice and the national grassroots movement she encounters along the way. White River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green Pub.

Durré, Linnda. 2010. Surviving the toxic workplace: protect yourself against coworkers, bosses, and work environments that poison your day. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Fox, Steve, Paul Armentano, and Mason Tvert. 2009. Marijuana is safer: so why are we driving people to drink? White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub. Co.

Korten, David C. 2010. Agenda for a new economy: from phantom wealth to real wealth. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Mateljan, George. 2007. The world's healthiest foods: essential guide for the healthiest way of eating. Seattle, Wash: George Mateljan Foundation.

Ott, Riki. 2008. Not one drop: betrayal and courage in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub.

Petrini, Carlo. 2009. Terra Madre: forging a new global network of sustainable food communities. White River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green Pub.

Reina, Dennis S., and Michelle L. Reina. 2010. Rebuilding trust in the workplace: seven steps to renew confidence, commitment, and energy. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Sisson, Mark, and Jennifer Meier. 2010. The primal blueprint cookbook. Malibu, Calif: Primal Nutrition.

Schein, Edgar H. 2009. Helping: how to offer, give, and receive help. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Pub.

Schroder, Lisa, and Vince Ogletree. 2010. Adobe homes for all climates: simple, affordable, and earthquake-resistant natural building techniques. White River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green Pub.

Turnbull, Wendy, and Elizabeth Collins Oman. 2010. Gems of gluten-free baking: breads and irresistible treats everyone can enjoy. North Vancouver, BC: Whitecap.

Voss, Jason Apollo. 2010. The intuitive investor: a radical guide for manifesting wealth. New York: SelectBooks.

New Website, New Books

We have recently upgraded the software system that manages the library and revamped the library website to go along with it. The software is Koha, a free and open source package originally developed by Katipo Communications for the Horowhenua Library Trust in New Zealand. Development is now sponsored by an active community of libraries of all types and sizes, volunteers, and support companies from around the world. We hope it will enhance your library experience in a number of ways, including: Improved search functionality: New options for searching the library collection's catalog and new ways to refine your results should help you find items of interest. Additonally, you can subscribe to search results as RSS feeds, which will allow you to see when a new item is added to the catalog in your area of interest. The catalog also now supports use of Zotero, the open source reference management sofware produced by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. If you aren't familiar with it, it is a very useful tool for managing your research materials and creating citations. Tagging: In the spirit of Web 2.0, members can now attach their own descriptive keywords to items which will become a public part of that item's record. Why would you want to do this? Try a hard as we might I and other catalogers cannot anticipate every way to describe an item. This is your opportunity to help others by filling in the gaps. Or you can just tag those books you want to read later. Tags are public, but anonymous, and you can visit and edit your tagging history. Online renewals: In addition to being able to put books on hold online, members can now renew books online rather than coming down to the library to do it. Now you don't have to worry about overdues. Simply log in to your account and take care of it there. Not a member? Simply fill out a membership form and bring it to the library. Forget your log in information? Just contact the library at libary@thoreau.org. Like everything on the web these days, it is in permanent beta and will be in flux, so if something doesn't work or if you have any suggestions or questions, please feel free to contact me in the library or at libary@thoreau.org. And now if all of that hasn't piqued your interest, here are some of the new books we have added to the collection in recent months... Michael K. Stone. (2009). Smart by nature: schooling for sustainability. Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media. A guide to ecologically aware education for the twenty-first century from the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, a leader for nearly two decades in school reform for sustainable living. Documenting a growing movement of educators, parents, and students changing K-12 education throughout the United States, it presents firsthand accounts of success stories in rethinking school food, greening campuses, and embedding learning in community from a variety of public, private, rural, and urban schools. Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine. (2010). The networked nonprofit: connecting with social media to drive change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kanter and Fine detail tools and strategies to help nonprofits take advantage of the opportunities presented by new information and social media technologies. Filled with interviews and case studies from nonprofit managers who have found ways to use these tools effectively, it shows how to leverage the different kinds of connections enabled by these technologies to increase impact and how to navigate the transition from a top-down organizational structure to an open and networked approach that makes the most use of this new environment. David C. Korten. (2010). Agenda for a new economy: from phantom wealth to real wealth. Second edition, updated and expanded. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. David Korten is president and founder of the People-Centered Development Forum, chair of the board of YES! magazine, founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, and through his work and writings has long been a leader in the resistance to corporate-led economic globalization. This edition updates his book originally written in response to the financial meltdown of 2008 to expand his agenda for an alternative to the values and institutions of the Wall Street economy at the heart of that crash: a New Economy based on ecological balance, equitable distribution of Earth’s resources, and democracy responsive to the needs and values of ordinary people. William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. (2009). The boy who harnessed the wind: creating currents of electricity and hope. New York: William Morrow. William Kamkwamba of Malawi was forced to drop out of school at age 14 when that country experienced its worst famine in fifty years and his family could no longer afford the $80 a year tuition. Determined to find a way to make life better for himself, his family, and his community, and inspired by an old science textbook he found in a nearby library, he built a windmill out of scrap metal, tractor parts, and blue-gum trees that produced the electricity that only two percent of Malawians could afford. William was able to return to school and has continued to help his village through the worldwide attention that his inspirational story has achieved. Nancy Knowlton. (2010). Citizens of the sea: wond rous creatures from the Census of Marine Life. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society. This book was released near the conclusion of the Census of Marine Life, an unprecedented and comprehensive ten year international effort to assess the diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine life globally. 2,700 scientists from over 80 nations around the globe participated in 540 expeditions and countless hours of land-based research to identify more than 1,200 new marine species, with another 5,000 or more still awaiting formal description. Authored by Nancy Knowlton, Sant Chair for Marine Science at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Citizens of the Sea reveals some of this diversity through skilled underwater photography from National Geographic and Census researchers. Yellow Bird [John Rollin Ridge]. (1955). The life and adventures of Joaquin Murieta the celebrated California bandit. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Originally published in 1854, this book established the legend of Joaquin Murieta, the Gold Rush era Mexican bandit and folk hero who inspired numerous stories, the fictional character of Zorro, a movie, and the first Soviet rock opera. Persecuted by Americans and determined to seek revenge for their killing of his half-brother, Murieta organized an outlaw company number over 2,000 men who for two years menaced Californians with kidnappings, bank robberies, cattle thefts, and murders before he was killed by the California State Rangers. If he existed at all. Mark Sisson and Jennifer Meier. (2010). The primal blueprint cookbook. Malibu, CA: Primal Nutrition. Learn to re-harmonize your diet with your evolutionary genetic mandate and adopt simple, sustainable lifestyle behaviors. Mark Sisson is the founder & publisher of MarksDailyApple.com, and is credited with spearheading the worldwide "Primal" health movement that challenges many well-accepted elements of conventional wisdom by adapting the nutritional cornerstones of hunter-gatherer fare for the culinary tastes and variety of the 21st century. Jennifer Meier is a graduate of the prestigious California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, and she researched and tested each of the recipes in the cookbook over a two-year development period. Oliver A. Houck. (2010). Taking back Eden: eight environmental cases that changed the world. Washington, DC: Island Press. Using a set of case studies of environmental lawsuits brought in the U.S and seven other countries around the world beginning in the 1960s, this book describes a revolution at the nexus of law and ecology: ordinary citizens with lawyers using their standing as citizens in challenging corporate practices and government policies to change not just the way the environment is defended but the way that the public interest is recognized in law. Oliver Houck, environmental attorney, professor of law, and former General Counsel and Vice-President of the National Wildlife Federation, depicts the places protected, as well as the litigants who pursued the cases, their strategies, and the judges and other government officials who ruled on them.

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Housing Rights in South Africa

Presenter: S’bu Zikode, founder of Abahlali baseMjondolo

Wednesday, November 24, 12:30PM to 1:30PM

Pacific Room at Tides

Join us for a discussion with S’bu Zikode, founder of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African shackdweller's movement.This movement began with a road blockade that grew quickly and now has tens of thousands of supporters from more than 30 settlements, making it the largest social movement led by the poor in post-apartheid South Africa. Abahlali baseMjondolo is at the forefront of emerging global struggles for the right to housing and to development rooted in justice and democracy.

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

Thoreau Center Brown Bag: Greening the Main Post

Join us for a lively discussion about the many improvements planned for the Main Post, in the Presidio. Learn more about plans to improve parking while creating a more pedestrian-friendly park. Over the next few years, the Presidio Trust hopes to reopen the Presidio Theatre, provide more public programs and build a lodge for overnight guests and daily visitors to the park.

Wednesday, November 17, 12:30PM to 1:30PM

Pacific Room at Tides, Thoreau Center for Sustainability

Presenters: Tia Lombardi, Director of Public Affairs; Michael Boland, Chief of Planning, Projects and Programs; John Fa, Main Post Coordinator

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.

Book Recommendations from RSF Social Finance

For the second in our series in which we ask you, the tenant organizations, to recommend some books to your neighbors, we have a list provided by RSF Social Finance. We hope you enjoy learning about their work, and if your organization is interested in sharing a list of your own, please contact the library.

RSF Social Finance (RSF) is a pioneering non-profit financial services organization dedicated to transforming the way the world works with money. In partnership with a community of investors and donors, RSF provides capital to non-profit and for-profit social enterprises addressing key issues in the areas of Food & Agriculture, Education & the Arts, and Ecological Stewardship.

This selection of books is about money, its role in the economy, and in our lives. RSF Social Finance’s work stands at the intersection of money and spirit, and how money can best be used to support initiatives for healing culture and the environment such that it serves human aspirations. Money is not a singular thing, but rather comes alive in its three primary functions of purchase, loan, and gift. These transactions hold great potential for transformation. These books touch on many of these aspects, have served as inspiration for our work as a social finance organization, and hopefully will inspire others to transform how they think about money and their role as economic citizens.

Rudolf Steiner. (1933). World-economy: the formation of a science of world-economics : a series of 14 lectures, given at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, from 24th July to 6th August. London: Rudolf Steiner Publ. Co.

John Bloom. (2009). The genius of money: essays and interviews reimagining the financial world. Great Barington, MA: SteinerBooks.

Siegfried E. Finser. (2006). Money can heal: evolving our consciousness and the story of RSF and innovations in social finance. Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks.

Woody Tasch. (2008). Inquiries into the nature of slow money: investing as if food, farms, and fertility mattered. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub.

Lynne Twist and Teresa Barker. (2003). The soul of money: transforming your relationship with money and life. New York: Norton.

Jacob Meedleman. (1991). Money and the meaning of life. New York: Doubleday/Currency.

James Buchan. (1997). Frozen desire: the meaning of money. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Lewis Hyde. (1983). The gift: imagination and the erotic life of property. New York: Random House.

Niall Ferguson. (2008). The ascent of money: a financial history of the world. New York: Penguin Press.