The UK green community is getting very excited about the imminent arrival of the always inspiring Bill McKibben on our shores. McKibben is without doubt one of TreeHugger's favourite writers and one of the most influential and passionate voices on sustainability that we have today. McKibben will attend the Schumacher Conference 2008 in Bristol on October 11th as the keynote speaker.

The conference is titled: Less is More: Can we Really Live Better by Consuming Less? McKibben will be talking about his 350 campaign and 'The Quest for Human Satisfacation'. Alongside him will be the formidable Jonathon Porritt chairing the event and others speakers include Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns and Solitaire Townsend of Futerra. Click over the page to find out how you can attend.

Image Source: UNC Charlotte

How do you green a village all at once? Well, if you live on a college campus these days with tens of thousands of other students, staff and faculty, the challenge can feel just that daunting. Never fear, the Sustainable Solutions Expo, held jointly with the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) 2008 conference and co-hosted by Sustainable North Carolina, can hep you find out how to go green on a large scale.

If profound statements are said to issue from the mouths of babes, then it may be that important and significant innovation springs forth from the pens and computer mice of design students. At least that is the view of the Society for Responsible Design.

The almost 20 year old SRD, which merged with the equally venerable EcoDesign Foundation some years ago, has for five years been gathering up all the sustainably minded students from the myriad universities of Sydney, Australia, and holding a joint exhibition of their work. Over 16 works will be on display this year, including the solar powered, Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) louvre window from 23 year old Damian Savio, (pictured above)

Damian’s 'Lightway' window has a nanotechnology solar film printed on the glass louvres. If these can suck up at least four hours of direct sunlight and another two of daylight it will powered the OLED-enable inner surface of the window for about six hours. Apparently the it will output as much illumination as a 60 watt bulb, but only by drawing five watts. All the while still working as a normal transparent window. And there are more bright ideas from David’s fellow students.

Image source: Clean Water Now

Come one, come all. Next Saturday is the annual California Coastal Beach Cleanup and you're invited! People all across California will be participating in restoring beaches all at the same time, next Saturday September 20, from 9am-12pm. Communities will hold beach cleanups but also pass out information on feel-good stuff like recycling, as well as host contests and beach-goers will be serenaded by musicians.

Last year, over 60,000 people participated in the event and removed 900,000 pounds of trash from beaches all over the state of California. The event is so large it has even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the "largest garbage collection." Since the program began in 1985, collectively over 12 MILLION pounds of garbage have been removed from beaches. Come out and see whether you can find the "weirdest" thing on the beach in your community - who knows what you'll find.

Israel is a place, which is never not on the news. A Washington-based organization Project Interchange, is hoping that some of Europe’s “green” leaders will get in touch with a little more than the ongoing conflict that they see on the TV.

On September 20th to 27th, a delegation of European leaders will be in Israel. They include influential environmental journalists, policy makers from the World Bank and the EU parliament; energy and climate change specialists, as well as activism leaders. These rising leaders will meet with their Israeli counterparts (such as Gidon Bromberg) to learn firsthand some of Israel’s strides and setbacks, when it comes to the environment.

The 7-day whirlwind tour will include a tour of Hiria (Tel Aviv’s rehabilitating garbage dump); they will visit the very hot geothermal company Ormat (also working in biodiesel); they’ll see solar fields in action, will learn about the dying Dead Sea at the Dead Sea –– and much more. They will essentially experience different shades of “green” in Israel –– meeting the who’s who –– and get a chance to discuss and debate with their Israeli counterparts along the way.

Collective Responses to Peak Oil and Climate Change Gain Traction
We already know that there’s a peak oil doom-and-gloom survivalist in many of us, but fortunately it seems like community-focused responses to the end of oil are gaining traction around the world. From the recent arrival of Transition Towns in Japan, through Portland’s Peak Oil Task Force to the continued popularity of Peak Moment TV’s dispatches on peak oil solutions, many of us are not yet ready to lay down and declare the end of civilization as we know it. Organizers of The Fifth US Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions will be hoping that this trend translates into high attendance numbers for their event being held in Rochester, Michigan on Halloween weekend – where delgates can attend workshops on everything from community food security to home energy retrofits. Crucially, the conference is seeking to connect the dots between individual efforts and community-wide responses:

Recent Comment by JSDreyer : "Unfortunately, peak oil is far from embedded in the public consciousness. Ignored by t..." [read]

Tonight we are hosting our monthly Green Drinks Tokyo (every second Thursday of the month) in trendy Harajuku. Starting in August, greenz.jp has teamed up with Cafe Omamori and created Lounge Greenz in a three story building where people can come and chill out, just north of OmoteSando.

Last time, we had people lining up outside, waiting to get in, and from the balcony on the third floor we enjoyed a huge fireworks display sponsored by the city. The food is organic and vegetarian dishes are available. Special treat tonight: a talk by treehouse pioneer Takashi Kobayashi (photo).

If your computer is ok with Flash graphics, I recommend the beautifully designed Japan Treehouse Network website.

Treehouse.jp thinks this is a "road to freedom".

Lots of photos at Treehouse Creator

About Green Drinks (now active in 402 cities worldwide!)

Written by Martin Frid at greenz.jp

Image source: Beautiful Silverlake

Silver Lake Chamber of Commerce - Green Committee (SLCC-GC) was working overtime at this year's Sunset Junction Street Festival to help both vendors and attendees "Think Before You Toss." As part of their Zero Waste Initiative, the SLCC-GC encouraged the over 25,000 attendees to not only sort their recycling but also to compost.

Attendees could pick up biodegradable containers and silverware as they sampled from over 20 vendors. Kids got a visit from the Bag Monster, who handed out hugs and advice on recycling. Each recycling bin had a Bin Angel to monitor it, and who was allowed to carry away the loot, as California pays for bottles. Several of the vendors made agreements to convert to biodegradable containers, cups, cutlery and bags after attending the event.