Founded by Donna Karan and Sonja Nuttall, the Urban Zen Foundation has the mission to create, connect, collaborate, and “to raise awareness and inspire change in the areas of well-being, preserving cultures and empowering children.” Being both well-known fashion designers in the US and UK respectively, they bring both credibility and immense skill and creativity to their efforts to “design forums, partner with exisinting organizations and bring together experts to define solutions and implement action.”

UZF has a retail/giving center. Here you can browse fashion and fine art, such as these famous photographs on auction, that have been donated by world renowned photographers to help the Urban Zen Foundation causes.

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The fragile ecosystems of the Eastern Himalayas have been proven to harbor incredible biological diversity in recent years — a diversity now threatened by global climate change, a new report finds.

A new report (pdf) by the WWF, The Eastern Himalayas: Where Worlds Collide, describes more than 350 new species discovered in the last decade including 244 plants, 16 amphibians, 16 reptiles, 14 fish, 2 birds, 2 mammals and at least 60 new invertebrates. But all of the species discoveries made in the Eastern Himalayas in the last decade may be overshadowed by a rapidly changing climate.

“These exciting finds reinforce just how little we now about the world around us,” said Mark Wright, WWF’s conservation science advisor, adding that the Eastern Himalayas are a region of extraordinary beauty, with some of the most biologically rich areas on the planet.

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The American Himalayan Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping the people and ecology of the Himalaya.

The Himalaya, roof of the world, is a magic place where the magnificence of the world’s highest mountains is mirrored in the rugged beauty and unique culture of the people who live in their shadow.

In these remote regions people often live without basic health care and education. Economic pressures have forced environmental degradation. And traditional ways of life are in danger of disappearing.

The American Himalayan Foundation was founded twenty-five years ago to respond to some of these pressing problems.  What we do is very basic: build schools, plant trees, train doctors, fund hospitals, take care of children and elderly, and restore sacred sites throughout the Himalayas.  We also assist and encourage Tibetans to rebuild and maintain their culture both in exile, and within Tibet.

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Apa Sherpa, 49, has climbed Mount Everest a record 18 times but now he’s preparing for a 19th, this time to clean up the mess left by the thousands of climbers who have scaled the mountain since 1953.

Apa, a high-altitude guide, plans to take the Eco Everest Expedition up the mountain to clean up garbage left by previous expeditions. Climbers have noted the build-up of waste on the mountain for several years.

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First, this meeting will provide the US and China a chance to meet behind the scenes, for the first time since Hillary Clinton visited China last month to initiate a discussion on robust bilateral coordination on energy and climate issues. Both Clinton and her Chinese counterparts suggested in February that the G20 meeting would give the two nations’ leaders a chance to move ahead with the compact. The next step may well be a US-China leader summit, which a recent policy think tank “roadmap” for collaboration, given to Clinton in advance of her trip, identified as a crucial building block in the process.

Secondly, this meeting will give other countries some signposts as to what they can expect from China in December. G20 participants have already expressed their expectation that China will ante up in this time of global economic need. Gauging the tone of China’s reaction to G20 participants’ financial demands will provide participating OECD countries – particularly those expecting China to make serious commitments on emissions reductions in the “Green New Deal” – some hint as to what a distressed China can be expected to deliver in environmental negotiation terms. The last two weeks’ NPC legislative session in Beijing definitively demonstrated that China’s first priority is repairing the economy, not the environment. Thus, China’s reaction to the key role G20 participants expect her to play in the summit may serve as an accurate litmus test for anticipated outcomes in Copenhagen.

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The Tibetan plateau has an average height of 14,000 feet above sea level. It is also home to over ten thousand glaciers. This gargantuan network of ice feeds some of the longest rivers in the world: Salween (2820 km) Mekong (4880 km) Yellow (3180 km) Yangtze (6380 km) Indus (3180 km) and Brahmaputra (2900 km).

Seasonal glacial melting provides vast quantities of water to these rivers and their watersheds. It is critical to all life there. An Ohio State University researcher named Lonnie Thompson, who has studied the region, is very concerned global warming could cause the glaciers to shrink below levels that currently support the local ecosystems, and human communities.

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However, in recent months, Senator Obama has also expressed some mixed feelings about boycotting the Olympics.

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Tonight was the Time 100 Gala, where Time Magazine celebrates 100 of the most influential people in the world today. This year, three religious leaders are included.

What Richard Cizik, Patriarch Bartholomew I, and the Dalai Lama have in common is that they’ve all made headlines from leading green movements within their respective faith traditions.

Richard Cizik

Cizik, an ordained Evangelical Presbyterian miniser and head of the Office of Governmental Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals fights global warming by quoting the Bible and calling on congregations to practice “creation care.” Cizik challenges conservative evangelicals to recognize climate change as a serious threat to the health of the planet.

Cizik also makes friends with scientists such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Eric Chivian, ignoring a once perceived barrier between the religious and scientific communities.

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There has been talk recently of boycotting the 2008 Beijing Olympics for any number of valid reasons. Whether it is for the freedom of Tibet, the atrocities in Darfur, or China’s environmental policies.

However, what would be achieved by boycotting the Olympics? Is China going to step back and say, “Whoa… the United States is right. We are all messed up and need to change.” Probably not.

And who are we to tell another country that they aren’t perfect? If the Olympics were here, who would be boycotting our games?

As a child I was led to believe that the Olympics were a coming together of different cultures and nations for the sake of sport and international cooperation. And in fact that WAS part of the basis for reinventing the Olympics in the first place. As the father of modern Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin once said,

“May joy and good fellowship reign, and in this manner, may the Olympic torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.”

Of course, I grew up and found that most of my dreams and fantasies taught to me by society were pure poppycock. But do all of our childhood misconceptions about the world have to be disproved? I mean, Santa Claus is a given, but what about the concept of peace on earth and goodwill towards man?

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