According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the number of slaughterhouses nationwide declined from 1,211 in 1992 to 809 in 2008, while the number of small farmers has increased by 108,000 in the past five years. The issue appears to be infrastructure. Many people who are very knowledgeable on this issue have been saying for years, “it’s not the shortage of food that’s the issue for local eating; it’s the infrastructure”. The New York Times did a nice article about this situation and how it affects local meat production. It’s definitely worth the read. You can also go here for even more information. If we are going to ultimately become a society that relies on local communities for food production, then we must rebuild the local food infrastructure for processing and distribution. This is a huge paradigm shift for a country that reaches 1,500 miles or more for its regular dinner menu.

Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most importantly, what lasts here on Earth. Instead of harvesting organisms, or domesticating them to accomplish a function for us, Biomimicry differs from other “bio-approaches” by consulting organisms and ecosystems and applying the underlying design principles to our innovations.

Janine Benyus: Science writer, innovation consultant, conservationist, and self-described nature nerd is one of the most prominent voices on Biomimicry. In her video below she makes a compelling case for reaching out to the genius of the natural world, and how easy it is to explore her magnificent teachings. We simply need to notice. Enjoy… and happy Friday!

Arthur Schopenhauer, an 18th century German philosopher, is not someone who typically shows up when you Google famous thinkers – but he is well known for this wonderful quote – “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

We typically think of genius as someone with an amazingly high IQ; someone who scores 1600 on their SAT’s; but most psychologists will argue that true genius is not necessarily about measured intelligence, it’s more about how we think. A genius tends to know how to think instead of what to think.

Typically, we think reproductively, that is on the basis of similar problems encountered in the past. When confronted with problems, we fixate on something in our past that has worked before. We ask, “What have I been taught in life, education or work on how to solve the problem?” Then we analytically select the most promising approach based on past experiences, excluding all other approaches, and work within a clearly defined direction towards the solution of the problem. Because of the soundness of the steps based on past experiences, we become arrogantly certain of the correctness of our conclusion.

You consider the least obvious as well as the most likely approaches. It is the willingness to explore all approaches that is important, even after one has found a promising one.

Einstein was once asked what the difference was between him and the average person. He said that if you asked the average person to find a needle in the haystack, the person would stop when he or she found a needle. He, on the other hand, would tear through the entire haystack looking for all the possible needles.

If we want to study genius, then we really need to look no further than our children. Designer Tim Brown, CEO of the “innovation and design” firm IDEO travels around the country talking about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play — making the case that children embody the true spirit of genius; and the more we can re-learn to think like them, the more we will see innovative and creative solutions emerging from the workplace.

The advantage children have is they are not self-conscious. They are not afraid to share ideas because you may think they are silly or irrelevant. They really don’t care what you think about what they think. They simply share their thoughts. It’s beautiful, and it’s perfect… and quite often, it’s genius. For at a very rudimentary level, that’s what defines genius. As adults, it’s our self-consciousness – our need to have our ideas be accepted – that keeps us from tapping into our own genius. We don’t like to be rejected; we like to be taken seriously; and if we share something that may seem too out-of-bounds, too outside the norm, we risk feeling ostracized, and sadly we all lose the benefit of potential genius.

Most meeting environments are inadvertently setup to discourage genius. Quite often meetings need to happen within a very specific timeframe; they need to move briskly; it’s less about exchanging ideas, and more about disseminating information. If we want our workplace, our retail operation, or our department to truly flourish, then we need to encourage genius… and it’s there… it just may not yet be comfortable to shine. And how do we make it comfortable? Create a fun, playful, safe environment for self-expression. Make it incredibly clear that you aren’t just looking for confirmation on your own thinking. You want to be challenged. You want to see a “little crazy”, if you will.

When Steve Jobs believed that computers weren’t just for the workplace, and where they would really find success is in the home, everyone thought he was nuts. Democracy itself was considered ludicrous at first blush… thank you very much Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Franklin, and friends. We need innovation, and we need to encourage it. As our philosopher friend, Arthur Schopenhauer so eloquently wrote – “all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

More genius please.

RECEIVING: Always check each case of soft fruit upon arrival. There may be varying degrees of ripeness in the fruit and you should not assume that each case is at the same level of ripeness. Even when rotating your previous stock, check the newly arrived fruit to compare to what you already have in back-stock. You don’t want to rotate your product automatically based on the date it came in, but rather based on its level of ripeness. In other words, it is possible that a shipment that arrives on Thursday may not need to be placed on the bottom of the rotation under product that arrived on the previous Tuesday. Check how ripe the fruit is and arrange your back-stock accordingly. Inspecting ripeness levels upon receiving is imperative!

STORAGE: It’s best to store your soft fruit in 34-36 degree temperatures for optimal holding. If you want to accelerate the ripening process, storing it at 60-75 degree temperatures will be best. Check the fruit daily that you are trying to ripen as this process can happen rather quickly.

DISPLAY: These three items (peaches, plums and nectarines) display nicely next to one another. Avoid placing the peaches and nectarines side by side, and if you have a black plum and red plum avoid displaying them next to one another as well. The key to making this display work is to feature the best side of the fruit – particularly true with nectarines and peaches. Typically the part of the fruit that will have the highest color is the side or the bottom. Find the highest color spot on the fruit and display this side facing outward towards the shopper. Putting the best color of the fruit forward can make a huge difference in how your display looks. Taking it one step further and hand-stacking the fruit will give a nice clean and neat appearance that your customers will greatly appreciate. This fruit must be rotated every day! Unlike other cooler weather fruit that can be on a more lenient rotation schedule, these soft fruit varieties should be gone through every day.

SAMPLING: If you are not literally on a mission to make sure that everyone who walks through the door tastes at least one of these fruits, then it’s a missed opportunity. Make sure to have a strong presence on the floor in your department during the summer season and have all of your staff fully engaged and ready for sampling. There is no better way to move your best tasting fruit than to provide samples

To assist you with building excitement around your soft fruit display, Click Here or on the image above to download a promotional poster.

Good luck!

Honeybee pollination plays a role in about one-third of all food and beverages sold in the United States. The California almond crop alone requires 60 percent of all managed colonies devoted to pollination. Honeybees pollinate more than 90 of the flowering crops we have – among them: apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli, celery, squash and cucumbers, citrus fruit, peaches, kiwi, cherries, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, cantaloupe and other melons.

About one-third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80 percent of that pollination, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees.

This honeybee problem extends beyond the borders of the U.S. On Monday, the European Union responded to this report by banning three of the world’s most widely used pesticides (known as neonicotinoids) for two years as a precautionary measure.

In the United States, by contrast, regulators are moving more slowly. In this new Federal report from the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency – they argue that there are a wide variety of reasons for the disappearance of U.S. honeybees since 2007 and neonicotinoids are only one possible factor.

U.S regulators will not be taking the same action as Europe and are not yet ready to ban the pesticides in question. Instead, the U.S. is slowly conducting a review of neonicotinoids that is expected to be completed in 5 years.

The link between bee colonies disappearing and pesticides is still being debated (only the degree to which it is having an impact – not whether or not it is actually part of the problem), but Europe, when faced with an uncertain concern that could impact their food supply and the overall environment made the decision to ban neonicotinoids for 2 years, just in case they really are the over-riding culprits in the demise of our bee populations. The United States, on the other hand (with pesticides being a billion dollar industry in the country) have decided to move more slowly.

Quite a contrast, the EU, when faced with this crisis errs on the side of the environment. The United States… not so much – let’s give it 5 more years. Our approach in the U.S. to the environment is exhausting. I’d much prefer if it were exhaustive instead.

So, why do some of our political leaders and some out there who have a pretty hefty microphone continue to spread information that is not backed up by science? Do they know something that scientists don’t? And if so, where do they get their information from… because it’s not from scientists (who by the way, have no political agenda, but are simply trying to understand facts and data and report them as such). It would be helpful to know their sources and if they’re actually correct, then hooray, that would be superb news. But to date, as far as actual data and facts go, their voices are just creating confusion and getting in the way of what at this point, we can comfortably proclaim as truth.

I believe the reason that we encounter a certain level of hesitancy or rejection when it comes to climate science is twofold. And forgive me up front if my conclusions sound judgmental, but when reality is completely rejected (as it is when it comes to climate science) then any conclusions we can come to as far as understanding the motivations or the thinking involved in this rejection are pure conjecture, and so I do the best I can here playing armchair psychologist. But the two reasons I see for rejecting the idea that the earth is warming and the consequences from this will most likely become very severe and very inconvenient, are laziness and lack of imagination. That’s right – I’m calling us out (and that’s all of us – myself included).

I realize this is a harsh assessment, but let me explain. By laziness, I refer to the effort it takes to truly understand climate change and how it impacts our planet. There is no doubt that we have to become a little geeky and perhaps put our science caps on in order to have a clear understanding of what’s involved with this issue, but we have shown that we are smart people and very capable of learning about whatever it is that interests us. Sure, understanding what 2 degrees Celsius or 350 parts per million has to do with our lives today, doesn’t seem that interesting – I get that. Climate science is not necessarily fun or even engaging for many, and even for those of us who think about it regularly, and even write about, we would be thrilled if it were not even a necessary topic to discuss. But it’s here and it is an issue – arguably the most important issue we face – and so we need to take the extra steps to understand climate science, to understand what’s at stake, and how our future depends on our ability to be informed, knowledgeable, and engaged with this issue. Knowledge is power. And power when used appropriately can solve any problem.

So, lack of imagination? Simply put I believe that we lack the ability to project ourselves into the future and imagine that our lives could so disrupted by a few degrees of warming, when everything seems fine today. This one I understand – that’s just basic human nature. It’s a type of self-protection actually. I liken it to how we feel about our children. I know for myself, it’s not even possible for me to imagine something horrific happening to my kids – my imagination just won’t go there – and I’m glad for that. It’s a form of self-protection. I don’t want anything bad to happen to my kids and I don’t even want to know what that would feel like even through imagining it. We protect ourselves in this way and it’s very helpful. We lack the imagination to put ourselves in horrible situations we haven’t experienced. It’s a gift… but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work to avoid those horrific situations. Even though we can’t imagine catastrophe, it doesn’t mean we ignore the fact that it could happen. It’s not what we do in other areas of life and we shouldn’t respond this way to climate change. We know that bad things can happen and even if our imaginations can’t go there, we still go there. We educate, we take precautions – we do everything we can to avoid those catastrophes from ever happening. And the reason we do is because we know that the consequences are so dire that we never want to experience their outcomes.

Climate change is real. And climate change is going to have consequences that are pretty challenging and that we can’t even begin to imagine if we don’t begin to take it more seriously. But not facing it, not dealing with it just because it’s not too inconvenient today, is not the answer.

Ask yourself this question – why do people who raise the issue of climate change do it? What is it that they gain? What’s their agenda? People focused on climate change are not just screaming at the rain. It really comes down to one word – caring. It’s the only reason to be concerned about climate change. Someone like me, at the age of 59, will probably not be too terribly affected (and maybe not even too inconvenienced) by climate change in my lifetime. I’ll probably squeak by. But, it can’t be about what’s in it for me – that can’t be the attitude or we’ll never move forward with solving this issue. This planet is a pretty cool place to live (no pun intended) and our greatest responsibility is to keep it that way for future generations. In the end, our response to climate change will show us what kind of people we are; it’s about the soul of our generation. Do we care? Can we expand our definition of community to include generations to come? These are serious questions and how we choose to answer them with our actions will determine what future generations will experience on this place we call home.

I’m actually betting on us. I think we do care. I’d recommend taking a page from the Native Americans. They believed that every act should be weighed against how it will impact the next 7 generations. Now that’s caring… and that would go a long way towards responding to the issue of climate change.

On Monday, the daily average level recorded by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography was 399.5 ppm and is expected to reach 400 ppm in May, which is the month where CO2 concentrations typically reach their highest levels.

Since the beginning of human civilization up until about 200 years ago, our atmosphere was at 275 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Parts per million is a way of measuring the concentration of different gases, and is the ratio of the number of carbon dioxide molecules to all of the molecules in the atmosphere. Keep in mind that we do need some CO2 in the atmosphere – without CO2 and other greenhouse gases heat would not be trapped in our atmosphere and our planet would be too cold for humans to inhabit. So we do need a certain level of CO2 for us to have a livable climate for human survival. But, we’re reaching a point where with carbon dioxide levels of 400 ppm in the atmosphere, this pushes climate change to a new a new level and the world into a new danger zone.

Climate scientists have argued that CO2 levels need to be kept below 350 ppm if the world is going to meet the international targets to keep average temperature increases below 2 degrees C. Most climate scientists believe that levels above 400 ppm put the planet on track for what would be considered “dangerous” by the international community focused on climate change and global warming.

Scientists estimate that the last time CO2 was as high as 400 ppm was the Pliocene epoch, around 3.2 million to 5 million years ago, when the Earth’s climate was much warmer than today. CO2 was around 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution, when humans first began releasing large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels. There is no known period in geologic history when such high rates have been found and the rise is a direct consequence of our heavy reliance on fossil fuels for energy, according to climate scientists.

While moving from 399 ppm to 400 ppm is not practically very significant or dramatic – it’s a milestone that clearly sends a message and draws attention to the fact that climate change is happening at a much more accelerated rate than scientists previously thought, and this rise is bad news for anyone who cares about a livable climate.

On a hopeful note, all is not lost. By decreasing the use of fossil fuels, and improving agricultural and forestry practices around the world, scientists believe we could get back below 350 by mid-century. But the longer we remain in the danger zone—above 350—the more likely that we will see disastrous and irreversible climate impacts.

Most people have elements of both extroversion and introversion, but have a tendency to lean towards one or the other. It’s also possible to be somewhere in-between, a term known as an ambivert.

Most studies show that 75 percent of the general population is extroverted, and reward systems and job recognition are generally set up to value extroverts. Extroverts get rewarded because their work is apparent. They talk openly and often about what they’re working on and how busy they are. You see them and they just look like they’re getting things done. Lots of meetings, people to see, places to rush off to. Whatever they’re doing seems very apparent. Extroverts thrive on the world around them, so the world around them knows what’s going on with them.

Introverts, on the other hand, like working in quiet spaces, enjoy working independently, work well without supervision, think and reflect before taking action and have an excellent depth of knowledge. Unfortunately, these characteristics can come off in a negative light. Introverts can appear to not be “team players.” They may seem aloof, slow, serious, or lacking ideas. They may appear not to be as busy or productive as extroverts, nor outwardly stressed enough given the pressured circumstances.

The difference between extroverts and introverts will often be highlighted in the workplace, particularly in today’s work environment where the attributes of extroversion – group interaction and spontaneous decision-makiing – are rewarded and the attributess of introversion are often considered as liabilities rather than strengths.

Susan Cain – a former corporate lawyer and negotiations consultant and also a self-described introvert has written a book about the differences between introversion and extroversion – Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Cain argues that we design our schools, workplaces, and religious institutions for extroverts, and that this bias creates a waste of talent, energy, and happiness. She also explains why introverts are capable of great achievement, not in spite of their temperaments – but because of them.

The video below is a TED Talk given by Susan Cain – an excellent overview of introversion – the value it can bring to our extroverted culture, and how understanding introversion and incorporating introversion into our culture (and yes our workplace) can provide us with new insights and many untapped benefits.

Havens was not supposed to have been the opening act at Woodstock in 1969, but other performers couldn’t get through the massive crowds in time for their performances. He was sent out on stage around 5 p.m. for what was supposed to be a very short set, but the set kept getting extended – ultimately he played for nearly three hours. Finally, Havens improvised a song called “Freedom,” derived from the old gospel tune “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” The song seemed to capture the spirit of the festival, and it was featured prominently in the 1970 “Woodstock” movie. “Freedom” ended up being Richie Havens’ most memorable song – his signature work, if you will.

As a songwriter, Havens lyrics addressed crime, racial inequality and his love for the natural world, and over the years his environmental activism became as central to his work as his songwriting. Increasingly, Richie Havens devoted his energies to educating young people about ecological issues. In the mid-1970’s, he co-founded the Northwind Undersea Institute, an oceanographic children’s museum on City Island in the Bronx. That project led to the creation of the Natural Guard, an organization that Havens described as “a way of helping kids learn that they can have a hands-on role in affecting the environment. Children study the land, water, and air in their own communities and see how they can make positive changes from something as simple as planting a garden in an abandoned lot.”

Richie Havens passed away on April 22 – Earth Day. He lived his life as if everyday were a day to celebrate the magnificence of nature. I had the amazing good fortune of seeing Richie Havens live at a small club in Chapel Hill, NC. It was a beautiful show from a beautiful man. I have never seen anyone strum a guitar with such passion, intensity and commitment. He lived his life as he played his guitar. Richie Havens will indeed be missed.

In remembering Richie here is a wonderful live version of him singing “What About Me – the classic song from Quicksilver Messenger Service. The lyrics to this song capture his commitment to the environment and the human condition. Rest in Peace Richie Havens.

The conservationist principles were initially the bedrock of modern environmentalism. As we moved into the 20th century, environmental ideas continued to grow with organizations like The Sierra Club and Greenpeace, as well as the book “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson – all playing key roles in the growth of the environmental movement during this time period.

By clicking here, you can see a timeline of milestones in environmental protection, courtesy of infoplease.com. Enjoy this little journey through time and recalling key periods and moments in the evolution of where we are today with environmental science and protection. We still have quite a distance to go, but we have also made some strides over time, and it’s helpful to be reminded of that.

Even though most of us now know Earth Day as an annual celebration, it did not begin that way. The first Earth Day was in 1970 with more than 20 million in attendance. The second Earth Day celebration didn’t occur until twenty years later in 1990 with 100 million people around the globe participating. This began the tradition of celebrating Earth Day annually on April 22nd.

Enjoy the timeline and have a wonderful Earth Day celebration… and remember, however mindful you are of the issues that we face with our environment on Earth Day, don’t let go of that passion and diligence once the day is over. We really need for everyone to be engaged everyday with passion, intelligence and thoughtfulness when it comes to our environment.

Working in the organic and natural foods industry means that you are a key representative in your community when it comes to the environment. Embrace that role, become a leader, and let’s move forward together working towards creating a clean environment that will serve generations of citizens enabling our planet to serve as a comfortable and healthy home.