LOHAS Forum 2009

The LOHAS Forum brings businesses together to learn about the $209B lifestyles of health and sustainability marketplace.

Garden Girl TV: Lifestyles of Health and Sustainablility

The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World

Cultural Creative is a term coined by Ray and Anderson to describe people whose values embrace a curiosity and concern for the world, its ecosystem, and its peoples; an awareness of and activism for peace and social justice; and an openness to self-actualization through spirituality, psychotherapy, and holistic practices.

Does the religious right have a hammerlock on values in America? Is the new American dream really about getting and spending, and being the first zillionaire on the block? At the turn of the millennium, fifty million ordinary Americans emphatically disagree. They are the Cultural Creatives - the leading edge creators of a new culture in America.

In this landmark book, sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson draw upon 13 years of survey research studies on over 100,000 Americans, plus over 100 focus groups and dozens of depth interviews. They tell who the Cultural Creatives are, and the fascinating story of their emergence over the last generation, using vivid examples and engaging personal stories to describe the values and lifestyles that make this subculture distinctive.

The Cultural Creatives care deeply about ecology and saving the planet, about relationships, peace, social justice, and about self actualization, spirituality and self-expression. Surprisingly, they are both inner-directed and socially concerned, they're activists, volunteers and contributors to good causes more than other Americans. However, because they've been so invisible in American life, Cultural Creatives themselves are astonished to find out how many share both their values and their way of life. Once they realize their numbers, their impact on American life promises to be enormous, shaping a new agenda for the twenty-first century.

On the basis of Ray and Anderson's research, about 50 million Americans are Cultural Creatives, a group that includes people of all races, ages, and classes. This subculture could have enormous social and political clout, the authors argue, if only it had any consciousness of itself as a cohesive unit, a society of fellow travelers. The husband and wife team wrote the book "to hold up a mirror" to the members of this vast but diffuse group, to show them they are not alone and that they can reshape society to make it more authentic, compassionate, and engaged. It is an idealistic call for a new agenda for a new millennium. --I. Crane

Earth Day 2010: A Turning Point to the Earth

Forty years after the first Earth Day, the world is in greater peril than ever. While climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, it also presents the greatest opportunity – an unprecedented opportunity to build a healthy, prosperous, clean energy economy now and for the future.

Earth Day 2010 can be a turning point to advance climate policy, energy efficiency, renewable energy and green jobs. Earth Day Network is galvanizing millions who make personal commitments to sustainability.

Earth Day 2010 is a pivotal opportunity for individuals, corporations and governments to join together and create a global green economy. Join the more than one billion people in 190 countries that are taking action for Earth Day.

Earth Day has come a long way since its relatively humble origins forty years ago. US senator Gaylord Nelson was very environmentally-conscious, which was fairly rare for that time.

He decided that an environmental teach-in was in order, and wanted to make a statement to the American government about how concerned people were about the environment. He was astonished by how quickly people and officials, including New York City mayor John V. Lindsay, got on board with the idea.

Nelson consulted his friend, legendary advertising copywriter Julian Koenig, about what to call the event. Drawing from deep within his creativity, Koenig recommended calling it “Earth Day”, and thus began a holiday that many say gave birth to the modern environmentalism movement.

It was set as April 22nd every year (one of the few holidays to hold a fixed date in the United States, in fact; most are moved to the closest Monday for scheduling convenience) in part because that’s Koenig’s birthday (rhymes with “Earth Day” – genius!). Since 1970 Earth Day has grown into a global event with over half a billion participants each year recently, and has come to encompass many different aspects of environmentalism and sustainability.

Earth Day is not without its detractors, however. Even twenty years ago, during Earth Day 1990, some critics claimed that Earth Day was serving as more of an excuse for people to vent their environmental stress, and that it was as a poor substitute for real environmental action. “Worn out by weeks of build-up and an accompanying media blitz,” Time Magazine reasoned, “many people will return to business as usual on Monday, hoping not to hear the E word again for weeks.” While it’s a bit trivializing to hear the environment referred to as “the E-word”, there is some logic to this idea.