I got to hang out with Eric Antebi today. He’s such a nice guy, and he happens to work for a huge American non-profit organisation called the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club are all about protecting the environment, and have been lobbying government and raising public awareness about eco-issues in America since 1892. Check them out at www.sierraclub.org
Eric was particularly excited about an event he’d helped to organise last week all about the oil industry, climate change and how to make alternative fuels, well, less alternative and more just what we all use. He had practically everyone who matter to this suject in one room. Al Gore was there, the chairman of one of America’s biggest power companies was there, the guy who was President Clinton’s deputy energy chief was there, and so were a couple of major venture capitalists who invest in biofuels around the world, including India and China.
Heavyweight discussions that could save this blue/green planet.
One of the topics they discussed that piqued my interest as an organic girl was the concept that Eric coined this phrase for: “Drive Organic” The idea being, if you’re going to grow plants for fuel, let’s make them organic plants, whether that’s corn grown for plant ethanol to run in cars, or hemp grown for hemp oil to make into plastics and things.
For more information about corn ethanol for cars, have a look at www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200701/decoder.asp
And to see video footage of the event, check out:
www.sierraclub.org/pressroom/events/2006-12-14
Oh, and if you’re ever in San Francisco, check out the tea shop we went to at www.samovartea.com
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This was posted on Wednesday, December 20th, 2006 at 8:35 pm by Ysanne Spevack. To link here, use the permalink. You can follow any responses to this post through the 
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I love your blog! I love the style – v. accessible and fun and lively…And, yes, the biofuel issue is crucial. Or more specifically, the way biofuel crops are grown. Big business farms are suddenly all keen to go green – intensive farming of biofuels looks profitable. But monocultures are bad for the environment and use up much needed fuel. They also weaken our ability to grow food. Eric Antebi is right to emphasise that crops grown for fuel must be farmed organically. Biofuels need to be farmed in harmony with nature to be truly sustainable.
Posted by Elisabeth Winkler on 20th December 2006 at 9:42 pm | Permalink
Hey, if you happen to run into Al Gored again on one of his trips out in his private jet, can you please ask him to un-thaw my swimming pool! After all, this has been one of the coldest years globally on record and we weren’t prepared for such an arctic event here in California. We are finding this to be very INCONVENIENT, truthfully!
Posted by Brian on 17th January 2007 at 2:46 am | Permalink