7gen Bloc

They’ve been working on it for months, and today our internet team tells me that they’ve finally hit the button and turned on the lights in our first ever online store.

Talk about giving thanks…Thankfully, I can’t see it from here, but today is Black Friday, that deeply spooky day-after-Thanksgiving, when Americans who scare me flock to stores and malls well before the sun has even risen for what’s become a thoroughly bizarre national tradition: An institutionalized day of mass overconsumption on a grand scale.

It’s Thanksgiving, the day set aside for celebratory feasting with friends and family, and that national moment when we all pause to consider just how sweet life is and just how lucky we are. That’s a good thing. It’s certainly something my family will be doing today, and here’s something else we’re going to do: visit Free Rice for a while and help feed some global neighbors who aren’t as blessed with plenty as we have surely been. The Free Rice concept is simple, fun, and good for your brain and the world it lives in.

Continuing the round-up of round-ups here. Clearing the table for the holidays, so to speak. Here’s what spilled onto my virtual desk when I upended my digital box of electronic news and related clippings. I Am An Activist has a nice slide show from the October 23rd tribute to Anita Roddick. Not quite sure where this site is from or what it’s all about, but it’s got some worthwhile features in addition to the photos. It’s a nice tribute to Anita and, more importantly, it keeps her flame burning by helping us all continue her work on those causes she believed in so strongly.

About a week ago, I was in Boston participating in a conference that I had helped to organize with Peter Senge. For two days, the Summit on the Future of the Corporation explored how to redesign the corporation to maximize its positive effect on society. The conference was one of the most stimulating and exciting that I have been to in a long time – and I go to way too many of them.

A brief correction… In my October 11 post about the Wal-Mart Sustainability Summit, I mistakenly said that the SC Johnson company had withdrawn one of its products from the marketplace due to environmental concerns. The product in question is actually made by another manufacturer with no relationship to SC Johnson. I’m sorry for the error and promise not to write so hurriedly in the future!

We’re heading down into Thanksgiving here. Folks are departing for distant shores and points well known. There’s a quiet descending upon the scene and a calm that doesn’t come often enough if you ask me. It’s a good time to tie up loose ends, one of which is this round-up of Jeffrey’s recent media appearances…

Recently Capital Hill was taken over by students from around the country who don’t want to inherit a world crippled by climate change. Change-It ’06 alumni Jackie Sargent was there and she’s sent us this dispatch from the front lines…

I’ve been sitting here fuming all afternoon about the information that Congress is actually considering taking renewable energy tax credits and utility mandates out of the 2007 energy bill. (And boy is my dog sick of listening to me....) But I’ve realized I should have capped my previous post with some information about what we can do to convince our elected representatives that this is a remarkably, shall we politely say, foolhardy course of sad inaction. So go here and help. Deliver a letter. Make a call. Send an e-mail. Put the pressure on.