goneutral blog

Can environmental activism unite Israel, Diaspora?
Jpost.com

Environmental activism could be the "special interest" that unites the Jewish world and reignites Jewish philanthropy, according to an unpublished report commissioned by UJA-NY and the CRB Foundation and obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

Not only could Israel and the Diaspora rally around the environment, but the issue would also help bring in younger Jews who are rapidly becoming more and more disenchanted with affiliated Judaism, according to the report.

While a senior development official at the Jewish Agency agreed on the environment's fund-raising potential, that potential has yet to be realized, the American Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel's co-chairman, Leon Sokol, told the Post on Wednesday.

The report, authored by Jewish Council for Public Affairs Senior Associate Executive Director Martin J. Raffel late last year, argued that the environment was becoming an increasingly attractive issue for a variety of reasons.

"First, the interest in environmentalism and the challenge of global warming, especially in the wake of [former US vice president] Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, have become public affairs concerns of the first order. Reliance on oil and other fossil fuels causes not only concern about the health of our environment, but also pours huge amounts of money into the coffers of Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, that pose threats to Israeli, US and global security interests," Raffel wrote.

Israel's environmental NGOs had also gotten stronger over the last decade and were now ready to face the country's environmental challenges, according to Raffel. Moreover, the local climate had helped give rise to a host of green technologies potentially marketable all over the world, he wrote.

To recapture the attention of younger Jews, Raffel argued, you needed to engage them.

"Taglit and other programs directed toward the younger generation have resulted in a large new audience potentially hungry for a more substantive engagement with Israel and with Jews in other parts of the world. The environment, not surprisingly because it will be their world to inherit, is one of the areas of high interest to members of this generation," he wrote.

Raffel pointed to a convergence of interest among US and Israeli philanthropists, President Shimon Peres, and Israeli and American activists surrounding the environment. According to Raffel, it is both an area where people are beginning to be willing to donate money and where activists "hunger" for contacts with their counterparts across the sea.

However, Sokol, who heads SPNI's American development arm, hasn't found it easier to raise money.

"There are many worthwhile charitable organizations competing in the US for donations. We have to make the case to the people interested in Israel and interested in the environment," he said during a visit here with the American Society for the Protection of Nature executive board. "We're hoping that as awareness of environmental issues and their global interconnection grows, that will help us," he told the Post.

Sokol and the board are here this week to improve coordination with SPNI. "We are learning what the priorities are for SPNI so we can coordinate our fund-raising efforts," he said.

"The most serious observation so far is the lack of rain in the Kinneret area and what that is going to mean in terms of a water shortage going into the summer," he said, "I think SPNI can play a major role in water conservation campaigns."

"We can help out by taking an inventory of water conservation programs that were successful in the States and fit Israel best, and making that information available in Israel," he added.

Jeff Kaye, director-general of the Jewish Agency's Department of Resource Development and Public Affairs, told the Post that the Agency's sole foray into fund-raising for an environment project "was a very good experience."

"We developed the solar energy park in Nitzana. There was a very enthusiastic response," he said.

Kaye also felt the potential for environmental giving was high. "Donors respond to the urgency of matters first. Emergency situations of basic safety, security, health issues are usually on top. The need to save a life comes before everything else," he said.

"Next comes those looking to see long-term impact. For the Jewish Agency, that is often about educational opportunities, closing gaps, for instance on the periphery," he continued.

Culture and the arts, and religious-giving rounded out the list, according to Kaye.

"So long as globally, the environment was a fringe issue, it was parallel to arts and science. As the planet becomes more affected by lack of attention to the environment and the environment is beginning to affect people's health and impact on people's lives," its attraction as an issue rises, Kaye noted in line with Raffel's conclusions.

Michael Jankelowitz, spokesman for the Jewish Agency, said that North American Jewish Federations provided most of the donations to Israel.

Total charitable donations to the Israeli public and private sectors from local federations and others abroad totaled almost $2 billion a year, according to Bank of Israel figures, Jankelowitz said.

Regarding the environment, he said that small organizations such as SPNI faced an uphill battle obtaining donations overseas. People give to big names and large institutions, he said. The Jewish National Fund had been very successful rebranding itself as not just about planting trees, he added.

Sokol explained how his organization raised money for SPNI's projects.

"We have about 2,500 active members, and about 6,500 donors, so we have a base of people with whom we communicate on a regular basis. We send out a newsletter four times a year, and we have a Web site. We also run ads in various magazines.

"People who visit Israel and learn about SPNI when they visit here then become members when they return," Sokol said. Membership is $54 a year for a family.

Some of the donations are earmarked for specific projects. For example, one major donation improved the Jerusalem Bird Observatory situated near the Knesset, to make it more hospitable for migrating birds. ASPNI had also raised money for the Hula Valley birding center, Sokol said.

Click here for information and link to our carbon calculator.

An Ecological Mission
Israel learns that going green isn't just for the birds

As the sun dips behind the Ramat Naftali Mountain range, beginning to draw with it what's left of the light in the Upper Galilee, we set off to see the cranes. Our group, mostly journalists from around the world, are being led out into the middle of the broad Hula Valley by the steady pull of a battered old tractor. We sit behind it, in what has been called a "camouflaged" vehicle. Rounded like a trailer, it's longer than it's wide, lined with wooden benches and open on one side.

The young man driving the tractor explains that the cranes won't panic when they see this vehicle, as they've grown accustomed to farm equipment. But he does ask us to turn off our cell phones and refrain from using flashes on our cameras.

When we first entered the valley, rocking gently over the rutted, close-cropped terrain, we heard the sound of the cranes, like some distant, plaintive cry. As we begin inching closer, and are, at last, swung effortlessly into place by our guide, we're not only faced with a mass of large, grayish-white birds but with their trumpeting -- persistent, near-deafening, magical.

The Golan Heights stand before us, darkening in the sunset. Every few minutes, off in the distance to our right, large swaths of birds bound up and, like black streamers, blanket the sky. These newcomers then set themselves down before us, one after another, with a grace that seems unimaginable for their size and the speed at which they've flown.

We had been informed of some of what to expect, once we'd reached this vast sea of cranes. Before we took our places in this customized conveyance, Dr. Omri Boneh, director of the northern region for Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund -- the sponsor of our ecologically focused press mission -- had briefed the group on the region and its inhabitants.
In the Arava region, exquisite flowers are grown for export.
Photo by Conrad Myrland

The Hula Valley, which includes Lake Agmon, was covered by marshland when Israel was founded 60 years ago. The idea back then, said Boneh, was to tame nature.

"Wetlands were considered a negative," he said, "nothing you would want to preserve." Reclaiming the Jewish homeland, he added, meant getting rid of these troublesome marshy spots, filled as they were with disease-carrying pests. So they were drained and cleared for farming.

"We think differently about wetland preservation today," he continued. "Ten or 15 years ago, we reflooded the area, and it's become one of the most important bird-watching regions in the world, along with Eilat in the south. The Hula Valley is part of the route of migration, part of the great rift valley from Turkey to Southern Africa, and 500 million birds pass over this area in the fall and spring. Hula is the last site before the birds begin the Sahara desert portion of their flight, a grazing area for what are called common white cranes, which come here from their home in southern Ukraine."

The Ramat Menashe Biosphere Park, located in the center of the country, is a lush preserve open to the public free of charge. It's often called one of Israel's best-kept secrets.
Photo courtesy of KKL-JNF

The Hula Valley Restoration Project does ongoing research, he went on to explain. "Many of the cranes continue on their journey. But some, over the years, have realized that they can graze here fairly easily. So they stay for the winter, and they can damage the Galilee farmers' peat fields considerably. We want to keep them moving, so we are looking into all sorts of methods to do that without harming them and keeping the farmers happy, too."

Conservation is especially important in the valley, said Boneh, since all of the sources of the Jordan River are here, and they feed into Lake Kinneret, Israel's main source of drinking water.

Some 200,000 people visited the area last year, and Boneh is working with UNESCO to have the spot designated a World Heritage Site. And that seems completely plausible to all of us surrounded by a spectacular show of white motion and sound. The cranes preen, displaying their plumbish bodies; long, tapered, flexible necks; sharp beaks; and stick-thin legs.

Our tractor driver informed us early in our ride that these birds are monogamous. Right now, they are accompanied by their offspring, about whom they are exceedingly vigilant.
Water droplets form on the tips of pine needles in the Yattir Forest.
Photo by Conrad Myrland

We watch as the elders move about with their young close at hand and how they assume threatening positions -- rearing up and flaring their impressive wing spread -- if unknown cranes venture too close. And there are curious behaviors: Some birds seem to be doing a kind of joyous dance, ending by scooping up a feather in their beaks and offering it up as a gift.

Boneh explains that these trinket-bearers are the males, who never take anything for granted and court their wives continually with little tokens of love and displays of affection.

We begin to move again, the tractor pulling us in an almost lazy figure-eight until the Ramat Naftali range, seen only in outline, appears before us again. Our guide tells us simply to sit and wait. As the last bits of color fade from the sky, leaving only thin steaks of gray behind, there comes another powerful rush of sound as the cranes take off in thick packs, moving to the wet places a short distance behind us, where, we are told, they'll bed down for the night. The crack of their wings makes the air reverberate.

Ronit Ratner, a longtime pepper farmer in the Arava region, praises the beauty of the flowers and vegetables grown in that part of the Negev. Most of these goods are exported to Europe.
Photo by Dave Sommerhalder

For a time, we can see the cranes make pinpoint landings off in the distance, barely rippling the surface of the chill-looking water. We're told they'll stand in the shallows all night, huddled around their children. They feel safer there, more able to ward off threats.

The tractor starts up again, leading us back to where we began, rocking from side to side to the continued accompaniment of the high, sharp snap of wings and the ever-fading call of the cranes.

'Creating Sustainable Development'

The next day finds our group flying up the Ramat Naftali Mountain Range in a fleet of cable cars. On this cold, crystal-clear morning in late January, the Hula Valley and the Golan Heights are off in the distance, growing smaller as we hurtle upwards, with snow-capped Mount Hermon standing watch in the far north.

The forest we see whizzing by beneath us on the mountainside was planted by new immigrants in the 1950s, we are told. It was their first work when they came to Eretz Yisrael.
The Yattir Forest is 40 years old and thrives in a semi-arid terrain.
Photo by Conrad Myrland

But at one point in our upward climb, the deep green of the forest turns jaggedly black. These are the trees scarred by Hezbollah rockets that rained down on the area during the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.

When we reach the end of the cable-car line and disembark, we gather around Paul Ginsberg, KKL-JNF director of the forest region in the north, who speaks of the devastation wrought by the more than 30 days of war two summers ago.

"One kilometer from here -- a little more than half a mile away," Ginsberg says, turning to point off into the distance behind him, "is the border with Lebanon. Kiryat Shemonah, just below us, received thousands of rockets, and 77 percent of this forest burned.

"Even after the north was evacuated, KKL-JNF workers volunteered to come here; they did it of their own volition. They knew, if anyone did, that this forest was not a gift of God. These trees were part of our cultural heritage."

Ginsberg was the person who co-ordinated the firefighting effort. He tells us that they worked in two 12-hour shifts utilizing a dozen fire trucks; aerial firefighters also assisted in the effort.

"We would try to fight the fires, then more Katyusha rockets would fall, starting new fires. It was very stressful."

Pelicans also make stops at Lake Agmon in the Hula Valley during their migrations.
Photo courtesy of KKL-JNF

KKL-JNF has begun to rehabilitate the forest here and throughout the entire region, and we are driven to nearby Biryia Forest to see more clearly what's been done in terms of reclamation.

Standing high above a wide stretch of valley, we're told by area officials that the terrain was cleared of damaged trees soon after the war's end. Native broadleaf trees were planted rather than pines, as was first done here and at Ramat Naftali. Cedar trees were then added on the slope above the broadleaf trees. It was also decided to leave portions of the land as is, to wait for natural regeneration.

In this way, they hope to create what they call "a diverse forest," different from what was here before. The original forest, made up mostly of pine, was a simple ecological environment. But KKL-JNF has learned that simple is not necessarily good. Now they wish to create a forest with "a higher ecological integrity."

"This is the golden lining to the gray cloud of Hezbollah bombing," Paul Ginsberg tells us. "We lost forest area here, but instead of waiting for it to go fallow naturally and then take action, we've learned that we can improve and diversify the forest, and thereby strengthen the ecological infrastructure."

In these two examples -- the Hula Valley and the Biryia Forest -- we had the two major strands of KKL-JNF work displayed for us: conservation to assist nature and wildlife -- its new green approach -- and the continuing effort to plant trees as the organization has done in the past, though these days, this, too, is being executed with green awareness in mind.

This was not always the organizational mission. KKL-JNF was founded 107 years ago specifically to buy land to allow the Jewish people to settle in pre-state Palestine. And, according to Zeev Kedem, KKL-JNF director of development, "Until 1948, this is how it was done. Then there was the War of Independence. After that, the group bought land from the State of Israel. We wanted to reclaim and develop the land. That was the goal then.

"But we've moved even beyond that. We've moved from developing the land to creating sustainable development -- and all that this term means" -- that is, to nurture and maintain the environment with an eye to future generations.

This new emphasis may not have yet penetrated the American Jewish consciousness, which seems to still conceive of the Jewish National Fund (the American side of the KKL-JNF equation) as the group that plants trees to mark special occasions -- births, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, weddings. JNF undoubtedly remains Israel's national foresters, but the work is executed with an added twist.

According to Kedem, not everyone's happy about how this new emphasis is administered, especially some of Israel's other green organizations. "We're called too cautious. We aren't aggressive enough in our green projects. But we've learned from the past.

"Before, KKL-JNF would come into an area and bulldoze everything, then build a road or plant trees. These days, the organization does its research," always with an eye to sustainability.

There are numerous, very green endeavors that JNF-KKL supports throughout Israel, among them, Ramat Menashe Biosphere Park, a lush preserve in the center of Israel, open to the public at no charge; Kibbutz Lotan in the Negev, which is run on ecological and Reform Jewish principles; and the Eilat Ornithological Park, which is a major flyway for those 500 million birds each spring and fall, as well as a significant research center.

All of these are pieces in the KKL-JNF mosaic, but perhaps the most pressing national problems the organization tackles, especially in light of global warming, are lack of water and the threat of desertification -- that is, the desert's slow creep northward. True to form, KKL-JNF is resorting to an old standby to counter this effect: planting trees, since they absorb carbon emissions.

Our group hears from Dr. Uri Shani, director general of the Israel Water Commission, on the first of these crises. He says that water scarcity in Israel is an age-old dilemma, but today the situation stems from three sources: increased demand; a decrease in supply; and the contamination of surface and ground water.

But Shani says that Israel, on the state level, if not among the citizenry, has become very efficient in water use.

"We recycle all our waste water to higher levels," he says in a Jerusalem meeting. "We'd like to get it to an even higher point so that people could possibly drink it. For now, it goes to agriculture.

"But because we haven't enough natural water to keep up our standard of living, we are focusing on desalination. We desalinate 150 million cubic meters of water per year, and we're trying to get to 500 million cubic meters per year. Lake Kinneret, our main source of drinking water, is getting brackish, so we would like to have one-third of our drinking water from desalination by 2012.

"Water is the country's most basic resource. You can stop electricity for days, and I'd argue everyone would survive. Stop water and you have another story."

To witness what is being done to combat desertification, we head south, to the Yattir Forest in the Northern Negev, a 40-year-old, man-made forest planted in a semi-arid area. We're told by officials there that no one expected a single tree to survive. It's become Israel's largest forest. Drought-resistant species of trees -- Aleppo pine, Acacia, Eucalyptus, Carob -- are used here because the shallow soil common to the area is where they thrive.

As we drive through this hilly, parched-looking region -- covered with rolling outcroppings of yellowish, unappealing-looking sand -- it does seem miraculous that anything could take root, let alone sprout so greenly and head so determinedly for the light.

It's not for nothing, Kedem told us, that Israel is one of the few countries in the world that had more trees at the end of the 20th century than it had at its start.

This ideal will continue in the new millennium. This year, KKL-JNF wants to plant 7 million trees, in the cities especially, to help cool them naturally so the demand for air-conditioning might lessen.

And officials also told us that in the fight to combat global warming, a combination of money, land and knowledge will have to be applied. Israel is the country with the know-how, especially about what trees can accomplish, and it plans to export this expertise as often as it can.

'Best Produce in the World'

But perhaps even more astonishing is what we see on the way farther south, when we stumble upon the Yair Research and Development Center, which is that day sponsoring its annual R&D event. The center is owned by the region, though 50 percent of its funding comes from KKL-JNF. Once a year, the center has this open house to show local farmers what they've discovered.

Ronit Ratner, who's lived and worked for 30 years in this, the Arava region, running a pepper farm as part of Moshav Paran, addresses the group in an open-air space on this cloudy, soggy day.

"Most of the time -- 360 days of the year -- it's sunny here, even in winter," she says. "I can't believe it's cloudy. But things have changed. Recently, we had 9 millimeters of rain in one day. On average, we have 20 millimeters a year. And we had a terrible frost that did lots of damage to our crops. But we'll start again next year.

"Generally, in the last week in July, we plant the seedlings, we irrigate, and then by November we have the best produce in the world. In fact, 60 percent of the fresh vegetables and flowers exported from Israel came from this region.

"And here, there's a lack of arable land. We have a good sandy soil, but it's limited. So we're doing research with what's called soil-less culture -- perlite -- and we use drippers to irrigate. The soil only provides the base for the roots. All else has to be provided.

"We have to use our soil very smartly since this is the emptiest place in Israel. Soil-less is very efficient. It can be irrigated frequently without causing problems. And it has brought us to market with a cleaner product."

She escorts us around the fairgrounds, which is packed with people and has a festive, carnival air. As we walk, we marvel at the size and color of the vegetables and flowers grown in row after row of long, narrow soil-less containers, all shielded from the sun by yards of white tenting stretched high above them.

We soon head south toward Eilat.

In a matter of miles, we pass row upon row of the kind of white tenting we'd seen at the fair, filled with vegetation of all sorts. The tents stand in the middle of nowhere, the only thing to be seen for miles. In such dry, open spaces, you won't survive, Ratner had said, if you're not a dreamer. It's not an easy place, she'd added with a wry smile.

Farmers are at the mercy of the elements, especially the strange quirks that global warming appears to be having on the environment. But perhaps it's here, in these inhospitable stretches -- deep in the Negev, as Israeli founding father and first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had hoped -- that the new Zionism is being carefully tilled, and has even begun bearing some of its finest fruit.

Make Your Shabbat “Green” With JNF!

April 4-6 marks the first JNF GoNeutral Shabbat and Make a Difference Day. Join synagogues, schools and communities all across the country by celebrating Shabbat in an eco-friendly way and learning about the connection between Judaism, Israel and the environment. JNF has an online guide for you to use that includes ideas for having a “green” Shabbat dinner, sermons and text for study at services, as well as ideas for projects and discussions that can be held after Shabbat. This weekend is a great way to make your commitment to “GoNeutral” in 2008. Visit www.jnf.org/makeadifferenceday to register and learn more about this new program. All registered organizations will receive a JNF GoNeutral tote bag and a certificate of participation.

A down-to-earth connection with Israel

http://www.stljewishlight.com

BY FRAN CANTOR

I don't often go around advertising how passionate I am about preserving the environment, and thus the world, for future generations. Somehow, in the face of hunger, wars and violence, it seems trite to express passion about ecosystems.

But, I do care about ecosystems. I care about them on a selfish level because I love nature and being outdoors and I want to hand a beautiful world to my grandchildren and their grandchildren. Even more importantly, I care about ecosystems because everything in our world is linked. The examples are everywhere we look. We put fertilizer on our lawns and the excess nitrogen ends up in the dead zone of the Gulf of Mexico where algae is destroying thousands of miles of ocean. The carbon we emit by the use of fossil fuels is causing the earth to warm and the polar ice caps to melt. The list goes on and on and on. Every ecosystem is related, and in the real world you can't have paradise in a vacuum.

Probably twenty years ago, I was reading Sierra, the publication of the Sierra Club. I was reading the little ads at the back of the publication when I came across an ad for an organization that was working on environmental issues in Israel. It turned out it was Jewish National Fund (JNF). I knew how JNF had purchased land in Israel piece-by-piece in the name of the Jewish people. I had planted trees, but it wasn't until I read that ad that I began to realize what an important environmental organization JNF is. All the pieces fell together. Here was an organization that spoke both to my Jewish and environmental yearnings. The more I learn about JNF, the more impressed I am with what it is accomplishing.

We (JNF) planted forests, but now we know we need to plant forests with diversification. We are reclaiming wetlands. We are providing crucial resting sites for migrating birds. We are leaders in water conservation, cleaning up polluted rivers, and building reservoirs to recycle water for agricultural use. We are using the best methods to push back the desert and make it habitable while remaining acutely aware of the need to do so this in a sustainable manner.

Recently, JNF launched a Web site to help individuals offset their carbon footprint. You can go to the JNF GoNeutral web page and calculate your personal yearly carbon emissions. It's like getting on a scale! You don't want to tell anyone the number that shows up. The beauty is you get immediate guilt-relief by purchasing trees to offset your yearly carbon emissions. Then, of course, you can consider how you want to lower your carbon emissions number.

Martin Luther King, of blessed memory, isn't the only one who had a dream. I dream of Israel, at peace with her neighbors, exporting environmental practices that can literally save the environment of our Earth and I look at JNF with pride. As a non-governmental organization at the United Nations, JNF generously shares what it knows with the rest of the world and is also a founding member of the International Arid Land Consortium, an organization comprised of six U.S. universities, Jordan, and Egypt, dedicated to exploring the problems and solutions unique to arid and semiarid regions. It is enough to make an American environmentalist pay attention. It is enough to make a Jewish American environmentalist kvell with pride and feel hopeful for the future.

Please seriously consider supporting the work of JNF. You will truly feel you are accomplishing something good for the planet.

Fran Cantor is a member of the St. Louis JNF Board and past president of Solomon Schechter Day School of St. Louis. She and her husband, Harvey, reside in Creve Coeur where she served as chair of the Recycling, Environment and Beautification Committee.

Israeli energy initiative makes climate change a social cause

By Karin Kloosterman
January 31, 2008

For every car that drives, every plane that flies and every appliance that gets plugged into the wall, a price is paid by the environment. The burning of fossil fuels for use in transport, industry and our day-to-day lives, emits carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Al Gore has exposed the effects of global warming at great lengths. And some activists around the world - like those from Israel's Good Energy Initiative - think that there is still time to turn around, or at least stop, the acceleration of climate change.

The Good Energy Initiative, a non-profit organization, is the first and only voluntary carbon offset provider in Israel. Through donations, it lets people and organizations neutralize their "carbon footprint" by funnelling cash investments into local grassroots educational and social projects. Carbon offset money also goes toward developing new alternative energy projects.

This term carbon neutral is used when the amount of greenhouse gases one emits (a carbon footprint), is balanced either through the purchase of offsets, or by greenhouse gas reduction practices.

The Israeli project is unique because its offset projects are all based locally, and have a strong social element. Not only does the organization plan to reduce greenhouses gases emitted locally, it educates schoolchildren about global warming, alleviates pressures on marginalized communities, and creates new alternative energy projects.

By working locally, the initiative may also have profound implications for peace building, too. What normally happens in carbon offsetting initiatives is that projects are carried out elsewhere, often in developing nations.

But for $6 a pound, one can neutralize your carbon footprint through Good Energy and know that the projects are being monitored closely. The group currently appeals for donations from conference organizers, the media, and even those flying to the Holy Land on mission trips.

Since it was founded a year ago by environmental entrepreneur Eyal Biger, who specializes in biological fuel alternatives, the initiative has helped a number of local businesses go carbon neutral. The list includes The Marker, a Hebrew language business daily; and the organization is currently advising coffee chain Aroma Israel, how to become carbon neutral.

The offset money goes to a number of local projects, and includes an effort to reduce emissions by replacing boilers with solar heating systems in apartment buildings. The group has supplied solar energy systems for cancer-stricken children in Bedouin settlements. In lieu of diesel generators, their parents now use a non-polluting means to keep medicine cool.

Good Energy is also running an organic waste composting program for communities and public entities; and has developed a regional incandescent-to-CFL bulb campaign.

"Ours is a social venture. Our only profit is the social profit," Tom Brecher, environmental advisor at Good Energy tells ISRAEL21c.

The Good Energy Initiative owes its start in life to the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership, Israel's premiere environment education center. Heschel will support Good Energy until next year.

This particular project is "super innovative" says Heschel's resource developer David Pearlman Paran. "It is breaking new ground in Israel. Its focus on social initiatives is fairly uncommon," he says, and it adds value by "improving energy efficiency and society."

How does Good Energy compare to other offset organizations in the rest of the world? "It is up to speed, and in some ways it is far ahead," replies Paran.

Our GoNeutral campaign was also featured in The Daily Collegian at Penn State. Check it out here.

"This year, between the blessings of the festival, different facts about the environment were read to put an extra emphasis on environmental consciousness. Gernett said the Jewish National Fund and Hasbara, two pro-Israel groups, used the seder to inform people about a carbon offsetting competition. Hillel is trying to raise $400 for the fundraising competition."

Below are some of our favorite and most informative snippets from Newt Gingrich's book Contract With The Earth. These encompass some of the ideals of JNF GoNeutral.

“Clearly, from a boomer’s perspective, the earth needs our help. We recognize a call to action that affects the future of life on this planet. We easily embrace a cause that will make life better for our children and secure our future. To protect the next generation, baby boomers are prepared to commit time, energy, and expense. Like war, however, we must demand a complete and decisive victory.”

“Americans must reach a broad-based agreement on the environment. Adversarial politics has prevented a strategic consensus from driving our nation’s environmental vision. As a result, we have become a conflicted, confused, and timid polity when it comes to environmental concerns. Historically, America has been a decisive nation. We must now take the necessary steps to return our country to a position of leadership on the environment. It is not too late to make a difference.”

“No single enterprise, event, or idea will renew the earth. Instead, I believe it will take a movement composed of dedicated citizens who can see the world in a new way and who will work together to bring about revolutionary changes in the way we conduct our lives.”

“Our environment’s current state represents both a unique challenge and a golden opportunity. If we respond with the ingenuity and diligence consistent with our national heritage and our sense of duty, we will not begin to resolve our environmental problems, but we will also launch an unprecedented epoch of economic prosperity. No person or entity, especially the business community, can afford to sit on the sidelines as our natural resources are squandered and degraded.”

“America will benefit economically and culturally from fostering partnerships that generate new environmental business opportunities. Working together, responsible environmental groups, neighborhoods, governments, small businesses, and major corporations will shape a future bound by a common cause—the environment—and against the common foes of inertia, indifference, and apathy.”

JNF GoNeutral was recently featured in TheNonProfit Times. You can access the article here.

The article notes:

The accompanying Web site is fresher and edgier than JNF's main site, and the campain is featured on social networks.

Converting to Green: How many skeptics does it take to screw in a CFL light bulb?

By Howard Gordon

All right, I admit it. When it came to believing that I could make a difference in the fight to stop global warming, I was a skeptic. Sure, I drove a Prius, and I dutifully deposited my Fiji bottles in the nearest blue recycling bin. But the truth is, I mostly did these things to make my wife, Cami, feel better. She's been such a true believer for such a long time that I had no real choice in the matter if I wanted to keep the peace at home.

So I humored her passionate activism, I indulged her fears in the dire predictions being offered up daily by scientists and by the media. Not that I didn't believe that our consumer society is on the fast track to destroying the planet -- I just didn't think that anything I did was going to derail the inevitable.

On more than one occasion, I slipped and admitted to my wife my true feelings on the subject. That we were hypocrites. Limousine liberals. Driving a Prius might make us feel better about ourselves, but it didn't compensate for all the carbon we were emitting by employing the small army of people who help maintain our not-so-modest home -- from gardeners to house cleaners to handymen. These are people who commute from faraway places in cars far less efficient than ours. If we really wanted to reduce our carbon footprint, we should sell our house, move into a high-rise, and take public transportation.

We had this argument at least a dozen times. And each time, my wife held her ground, insisting that doing something was better than doing nothing. She said if everyone did something, it would make a difference.

So I'd grudgingly go back to carrying my own canvas bags to the supermarket, unplugging my cellphone charger, even trading in my Fiji water for a refillable aluminum bottle. Until one day, the light bulb went off over my own head. Literally.

I was replacing an incandescent bulb with a more efficient compact fluorescent bulb, and when I turned it on to test it, I suddenly realized that the skepticism I'd been carrying with me for all this time had given way to something else. Something that felt a lot like satisfaction. The solution was never going to come all at once; it was a process. By doing these small things, however reluctantly, I'd begun to believe that I really was making a difference. And that was the whole point of doing something, of doing anything that contributed to the solution.

Having taken these few halting, reluctant steps, I found myself looking forward to taking more steps. Carrying the canvas bags to the supermarket stopped feeling like a hassle. I went out of my way to carpool with people I knew were attending school events and business meetings. I had solar panels installed at our house. I even headed up an effort to make more energy efficient the physical production of the television show I produce, "24," as part of News Corp.'s Cool Climate Change initiative. I'd finally joined Cami on what had been, until now, her solo journey.

Perhaps most significantly, I realized that our actions, small and large, were starting to change the behavior of the people around us. Because we've been making choices to reduce our carbon footprint, the people around us are starting to take their own first steps to reduce theirs. Our children are getting pretty good at turning off the lights when they're not in a room, and turning down the heat. Some of our friends have started replacing their incandescent bulbs with CFLs.

Now and again, that familiar skepticism comes back. Bringing my own mug to Starbucks still doesn't seem like much of an answer to the massively rising energy consumption happening in India and China. And I'm waiting for a DWP audit to find out how much energy those solar panels of mine are really producing. But even if it doesn't turn out to be as much as I'd like, we're still doing better than we would have been doing without them -- and not nearly as good as I hope we'll all be doing in the future.