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Many are too young to remember the Arab oil embargo of October 1973 that resulted in lines for gasoline that snaked around the block. The embargo, which lasted through March 1974, was launched in response to the U.S. decision to re-supply the Israeli military during the Yom Kippur War. I was little affected because I was living in a state favored by a flawed gasoline allocation system that rewarded rural over urban areas. But the embargo severely affected most of the nation: the price of oil quadrupled, gas was rationed, speed limits were reduced and year-round daylight saving time was implemented. There was even a toilet paper panic as rumors spread about a shortage due to a lack of petroleum used in paper manufacturing. And that’s to say nothing of the general economic chaos: the American Automobile Association reported, for instance, that 20 percent of American gas stations had no fuel in the last week of February 1974.

The 1973 oil embargo was one factor influencing President Jimmy Carter to launch his MEOW initiative in 1977, in which he likened the need for energy security to the Moral Equivalent Of War, memorialized by the acronym MEOW. Carter proposed a 10-point plan to increase energy security in order to forestall the “national catastrophe” that he envisioned as a consequence of future interruptions to the oil supply.

Nearly 40 years later, very little has changed — in fact, we are now far more vulnerable than we were then. In 1973, we imported 35 percent of our oil, compared to more than 61 percent in 2010. In 1973 we spent $37 billion a year on foreign oil, compared to about that much per month today — money that is in large measure funding the arming of our enemies. And the Middle East is now more unstable than ever. The heightened tensions resulting from recent Iranian sabre-rattling in the Strait of Hormuz again raise the threat of a cut-off of oil supplies, the consequences of which would be far worse than in 1973. The strait is the only sea passage to the ocean for large areas of the Persian Gulf. About 14 tankers carrying 15.5 million barrels of oil pass through it on an average day. Unfortunately, memories are short, history is too quickly forgotten (the President was only a child at the time of the 1973 embargo, as is no doubt true of many members of Congress — if they were even born) and it is the seeming fate of initiative to be smothered by complacency.

The President has affirmed the administration’s commitment to increasing energy security in his “Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future,” which he unveiled in March 2011, as well as in various other addresses. While this commitment is to be commended, he needs to up the ante: we are more vulnerable than ever. The result, as Carter noted in his MEOW speech, could be catastrophic. Now that the troops are coming home from Iraq, it’s time to declare a war for energy security.

A serious, well-funded initiative to promote national energy security could have benefits far beyond those of releasing us from the grip of foreign oil: it could also stimulate the economy, create jobs and establish the United States as a world leader in alternative energy, just as an interruption of natural gas supplies from Russia prompted Germany to turn to solar.

The President is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address later this month, in which he should highlight the importance of energy security. But this time, a MEOW won’t be enough — we need a roar.

Fresh from the Cleantech forum held in San Francisco from Feb 24-26, Antennans Caroline Venza and Wei-En Tan trooped down early one Saturday morning to the Wetlands Preserve in Palo Alto to learn about estuaries, methods of preservation, flood control, and more importantly, to plant some seedlings with the non-profit organization, Save the Bay.

Hundreds of wildlife species and billions of small organisms depend on the Wetlands to survive, and the purpose of this particular project was to remove invasive plants, as well as to reintroduce native plants to the Bay. These plants serve a multi-function of trapping harmful chemicals (methane/mercury) in their roots, filtration (ensuring cleaner water) as well as flood control through strengthening of soil and prevention of erosion.

After a group introduction and short history of the bay, all the volunteers were split up into two groups to begin our planting endeavors.

Initially, we faced an uphill task hacking through hard earth and rocks, but eventually hit our stride and successfully planted at least 40 seedlings.

Caroline was excited about the opportunity to use a pick-axe, whereas Wei-En was similarly obsessed by creating perfect circular seedling beds and covering them with mulch.

Proud of our handiwork

After all that hard work, being so close to the local municipal airport, we decided to fly ourselves to Half Moon Bay.

“Can the American Jewish deli be sustainable? How does sustainability impact the future of deli cuisine and traditional culture?”  These were the topics addressed by the “Referendum on the Jewish Deli” held at the North Berkeley Jewish Community Center. Organized by Berkeley dining institution Saul’s Restaurant and Delicatessen, the lively conversation explored tradition, change, and sustainability as it pertains to the way we eat.

The co-owners of Saul’s, Karen Adelman and Peter Levitt, are committed to offering a more sustainable menu – which means sourcing foods locally, respecting the seasonality of produce and meats, and limiting the use of industrially processed ingredients. However, their incremental menu changes have been met with a wide range of customer responses including intrigue, frustration and horror.

While Saul’s has no intention of becoming anything other than a Jewish deli – they just want to create the Jewish deli of the 21st century – it was clearly going to take more than a simple menu makeover to realize their goal. These proposed changes clearly touched a chord that reached deep into people’s perceptions of cuisine, far beyond the basics of taste and nourishment.

It was clearly time to open the conversation to the community. Saul’s invited a few luminaries to join the discussion: Michael Pollan, journalist and author of best-selling books such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food, (one of my personal idols); Gil Friend, CEO of Natural Logic, sustainable business expert and author of The Truth About Green Business; and Willow Rosenthal, founder of City Slicker Farms in West Oakland. Evan Kleiman, host of KCRW’s Good Food and owner of Angeli Caffe, moderated.

The panel’s consensus was that the issue of sustainability in Jewish cuisine (perhaps most cuisines?) reaches way past the fork. Tradition, memory and perception are equally as important as the health and quality of the food we consume. To get through to people and really change the paradigm of food consumption, we must tell a salient story, one that is routed in the tradition of where we have been and enlivened by the vision of where we ultimately want to go.

As a professional communicator, I experienced the core issues as being about dialogue, expression and making connections. In order to encourage customers to embrace the vision of a deli that respects tradition–pastrami will NEVER leave the menu–and adopt a more sustainable, holistic approach to cuisine (like including a Winter Green Salad on the menu), it is essential express that vision as a story, a philosophy, and a passion-driven mission. It’s not about getting rid of the icons of Jewish deli cuisine, but about reshaping them in a way that ensures future generations will be able to enjoy the traditional food of our grandparents, all without sacrificing the environment or their health.

With this panel, Karen and Peter made important steps to ensure they won’t have customers pitching fits over the absence of cold borscht soup in December and, instead, have folks eager to try new additions like their stellar house-made sodas and sustainably produced corned beef. All present all agreed: that means good things, and good food, for everyone!

By now we’ve all heard about how Bhutan tracks not only its GNP, or gross national product but also its GNH, gross national happiness. Antenna recently decided to increase our GCH, gross corporate happiness, by inviting renowned improvisation-performance artist and Buddhist teacher, Nina Wise, to spend an afternoon with us.

Wearing loose comfortable clothing on a Friday afternoon, we gathered in a large, carpeted, unfurnished room. Naturally, one employee tried to hide in his office but we found him and dragged him to the dreaded Happiness Playshop.

Nina explained that modern society directs people into rather narrow ways of being, leaving out a lot of our human birthright that gives rise to joy: simple delights such as moving in unfamiliar and spontaneous ways, making silly sounds, singing, dancing, breathing, meditating and playing games with other humans. Her aim was to broaden our happiness toolset by familiarizing us with a wider set of behaviors.

Sitting in a circle, we introduced ourselves to her and outlined our relevant past experiences. While about half the group had never knowingly meditated for a minute, most had substantial experience with singing, dancing or other endorphin-producing exercise—we have a lot of runners, cyclists and swimmers. Already, we were talking about things we hadn’t shared with most others in the group and were revealing more facets of ourselves, becoming more complete with our peers.

For this first session, Nina started us very gently doing Architecture, an exercise where a small group creates a series of visual tableaux of interrelated poses, each person in turn creating a new pose while the others held their positions. Each pose is individual, yet related to the others. Without touching, the group’s personal space becomes interwoven. Our teams leapt right into this and became downright artistic. As we got warmed up, Nina had some of the teams demonstrate for the rest of us as an audience. It was actually quite beautiful to see.

As writers, we are “word people” so Nina directed us in word-association games—an ideal reminder to avoid boring monosyllables. The creativity displayed by one of our diligent unpaid interns was noticed by several of us. Is it a coincidence that we offered him a job about a week later?

Two hours later as we shared final comments the result was clearly positive. Everyone had thoroughly enjoyed being together in this way.  Faces were glowing, bodies relaxed. Some had enjoyed Architecture the most, some the word games. To my surprise, one of our sports jocks noted that he most enjoyed the five-minute meditation exercise.

Back upstairs at the office, at 5:30 on Friday afternoon, instead of rushing home most folks were spontaneously gathering to go out to drinks, to be together, just being.

Green jobs have been a particularly hot topic of late, especially in today’s conversations about job creation through the recently passed stimulus bill.  But what is a green job?  Truth is, no one really knows, and the jury is still out in the definition debate.  From a PR perspective, the lack of a definition creates challenges for those wishing to promote green jobs.  Having a clear understanding of what does and does not qualify as green is critical for making strategic outreach decisions.  Companies participating in green job conversations risk making fraudulent claims in an environment where definition changes rapidly.  Understanding the dynamics of the green jobs story may help companies avoid damaging relationships with key stakeholders and audiences.

Many are attempting to reign in this debate and come up with definitions that are general enough to be all-encompassing, but specific enough to be credible.  Critics point out that a lack of what constitutes a green job allows questionable businesses and industries to claim green job creds and potentially greenwash their activities.  This has some of us out there asking, will green jobs become the new greenwash?

Some argue that everyone is too caught up in defining green jobs and instead should just be focusing on creating good jobs, while others feel that only the narrowest definition will suffice to avoid greenwashing.  Kevin Doyle’s two part post at Grist on his findings and reactions from the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference recently held in Pittsburgh, reveals that current definitions of green jobs focus primarily on jobs in clean energy and efficient green buildings.  Within these areas, specifically jobs in manufacturing and building trades seems to be agreed upon to be the greenest of the green.  But surely there are more green jobs out there than this definition offers us.

Here is my favorite definition so far from the UN’s Green Jobs Report:
“We define green jobs as work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development (R&D), administrative, and service activities that contribute substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality. Specifically, but not exclusively, this includes jobs that help to protect ecosystems and biodiversity; reduce energy, materials, and water consumption through high-efficiency strategies; de-carbonize the economy; and minimize or altogether avoid generation of all forms of waste and pollution.”

Until a definition that is both broad enough to be inclusive, yet narrow enough to avoid greenwashing is agreed upon, companies will be reluctant to publicize their green job offerings for fear of public backlash.  Arguably, if the US is to truly shift to a green economy, then all jobs will be green jobs, but until we get there, it is important to understand the definition debate when reaching out to media around your company’s green job opportunities.

While I’m not the world’s biggest fan of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” I can appreciate the benefits the show provides for a variety of deserving families, as well as the boost a product can receive from being featured on it. So when I heard one of my clients, Akeena Solar, would be providing a featured solar system to a family in Southern California that was being highlighted on the show, I started getting excited. What could be better for a solar company than a little celebrity endorsement from none other than the well-tanned, well-groomed Ty Pennington with the well-spiked hair?

When I first heard the news a few months ago, the episode wasn’t set to air until the end of March. Immediately, Akeena crews hustled down to San Bernardino to install the system in what amounted to a matter of hours. It was then that I started paying a bit more attention to the show: nearly every weekend the builders featured a new green building element—bamboo floors, eco-friendly paint, energy efficient appliances, and lots and lots of solar systems. And each time the green element was explained, it seemed to become more and more…well, normal, to feature these types of products. They look great and are environmentally friendly, the designers said. They are quality products with real cost-savings benefits, the builders said. They just made sense, Ty said.

Installing Akeena's Andalay Solar Panels

Had going green become mainstream?

For a while, my public relations team was able to rely on the uniqueness of solar when pitching the media. We could leverage the story of that kooky family down the block who installed a solar system, watched their meter spin backwards and never paid the electric company more than $12. But that was because not everyone had a solar system; people weren’t accustomed to seeing silicon panels popping up on rooftops everywhere. Fast-forward a few months, and solar—while not reaching the point of widespread adoption by any means—is no longer unfamiliar. Journalists tell me that the latest installation isn’t big enough, it isn’t sexy enough, and it’s something they’ve already covered. During those lonely hours watching late-night television, green suddenly begins to work its way into the vocabulary of infomercials and QVC. And green guides everywhere are popping up telling consumers how to shop.

It’s still a long road for green products to be the default choice in consumer’s brains. But with millions of viewers tuning in each weekend to see how easily green elements can be incorporated into homes, it’s going to get a lot easier to be green.

This week Think Equity LLC and Antenna Group welcomed cleantech industry investors, executives and policymakers to the Think Green Clean Technology and Alternative Energy Forum, in San Francisco. Attendees spanned every sector of the industry from wind and solar, to biofuels and batteries. At the cocktail reception, as in the sessions, people gathered to exchange the biggest breakthroughs of 2008 and get the scoop on what lies ahead for in 2009.