Why 254, imagine? It's good to have the people that are in the community who say they want to change the world. So start cleaning your doorstep so that is good enough. So today we are talking about youth in action and with me my guest today is Evelyn Karijo. I am Kamau Mwangi, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and keep this conversation going. If you have any suggestions, opinion or questions, please do go to these pages and talk to us. So youth in action, what are you doing to make a difference? What are you doing to get involved? What have you stopped complaining about how tough the life is or how bad the government is or how unfair life is and you have chosen to be proactive and get involved? That's the conversation we are having today. And so now I'm going to give it to Leziki Band to entertain us to their first item, believe you me, today we've got a, it's their first time on the show and they are so psyched to give you their very best. So Leziki Band, let's go.  Ye marekia kuhirit, it was so good. Actually, I'm really enjoying myself here. Leziki Band performing their first song right there. And who has the mic? Let me see, who has the mic? No, you go ahead, go ahead, speak from there. What's the name of that song, the title? This song is called Baby Baby. Baby Baby. Ah, okay, okay. And you wrote the cover yourselves? Yeah, we redid the cover. You redid the cover yourselves? That's pretty good, man. So, Mulyan Zalini? We have been on for about an year now. One year now? Yeah, one year. Why Leziki? Leziki means legendary music. Actually, there is a long story behind the name. Okay, okay. Yeah, legendary music, so we just shortened the name. Leziki. Well, probably one of these days you'll come and tell me about that long story behind it. We will, sure. Absolutely. All right, thank you so much. I'll be hearing from you again, isn't it? All right, great. Now, we're back with Evelyn Caridjo. And as I said, now she sent me a profile here and I want just to read it out here because what you know, the guest that I bring for you. So, Evelyn Caridjo is the project director at Y Act Youth in Action at AMREF Health Africa. She holds a master's degree in international public health from the University of USIU. No, United States, oh yeah, United States? University of Liverpool. Oh, University of Liverpool, my goodness. And international public health and global executive MBA in health and leadership and management. That is from? USAU. USAU, USAU Africa. Okay. And the leadership and, okay, sorry, passionate about young women leadership and is currently the youngest person holding a position of senior management at AMREF Africa. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Dominic. First of all, congratulations for being the youngest person at senior management at AMREF. Thank you. And it's such an honor to be here just to share my leadership journey, to share about what I do, of course, with young people and especially to inspire young women leaders. So I'm really happy and excited to be here. It's an honor. It's a pleasure to have you. I mean, it's a humbling moment to meet, you know, there is this show in one of the channels called Miss President and so it is good to see young people like you who are, you know, they're stepping up and saying, you know, we've got this. So now, first of all, you became a senior manager at AMREF to the age of 31. You still look 25, by the way. Thank you. I think that as a compliment.  So what's interesting about my journey is that I've worked for AMREF close to eight years now, actually started before completed my undergraduate studies at Kenyatta University. I was doing my degree in public health and so I started off as an intern and I think my story is all about changing the narrative of young people in leadership and just showing young people that you can actually grow and rise through the career path from a lower level and that we need to be patient about it. So yes, I started as an intern. I worked in four different departments over a span of close to six to seven years and then of course I became a manager at a very young age at 28 and then at 31, the opportunity for the youth advocacy project came in and I think for me that was my highlight. You in fact became, you entered into management at 28 and then you rose the management ladder again at 31. Yes. Wow, that's amazing. So what's all about why act? Wow, why act youth in action? The initiative that I lead is one of the fastest growing networks of youth led organizations and youth advocates in Kenya. So our purpose is to ensure that young people are meaningfully engaged in decision making and in policy making. So we are providing young people with skills, with a voice able to amplify of course their voice on issues that affect them across gender equality and across sexual and productive health and rights. So one of the unique aspects we have come up with right now at Y Act is all about meaningful youth engagement and I think that's what the discussion is about today that as young people we need to be given the opportunity to be on decision making tables, not just because we are young it should then be atoken. We need to be given these positions because we are knowledgeable because we have the capacity and the capability to contribute effectively to decision making and to policy making. So why act creates that platform for young people to be able to amplify their voice and to get themselves on platforms of decision making and I think I'll be talking a bit about that because what we are trying to change at this point is to get policy makers and decision makers to view young people as resources. As resources not just a liability or people just to tell what you do. And what inspired us of course is the fact that if you look at Africa, the population of young people is quite high. The Africa is the youngest population across the globe. If we look at Kenya right now over 70% of the population is below 35 years. It's a huge population. Exactly. So the potential to just reap the economic benefits if at all as a country we invest is young people is at its greatest right now. So it's really important for policy makers and decision makers to agree and to acknowledge that investing in young people is a smart investment. So basically if I'm getting you so why act gets basically encourages young people to get into the public arena. Exactly. And we provide them with skills so as to be able to carry out advocacy effectively so as to be able to get themselves on decision making tables. So let's say we have a band like Leziki right? And they want to advocate for the space of music and art. So they come to why act. Exactly. So the good thing with what we offer is that the skills can cut across a range of topics or arts. So even Leziki band, I know that they're doing quite a lot. It's not to advocate on an issue. It's all about identifying what problem are you trying to address. So if they're using art for example, they need to first identify the problem and the issue that they want to address in policy and decision making. Then they need to do their research well. They need to package their message well. They need to know that policy makers and decision makers are people who sometimes are busy. So you just need to be able to pitch in a very effective way. So we give young people the skills to be able to do this and to be able to get their messages across to policy makers in an effective way. That's great work that you do right there. So your work now is to make sure that these voices get heard. Exactly. So you prepare the young people so that their voices can get heard. And so if I just can add a bit about that, the other unique thing that we are doing is ensuring that young people see this as a two-way process. We don't want young people to just be given these positions and opportunities without getting ready. So what we encourage young people to do is also be prepared, be educated. I ever told you are invited to a meeting whether it's a public participation forum or just any board meeting. Show up on time. Dress the parts. Be prepared, be educated. Have your facts with you. Make sure you have your evidence well packaged. So we want this to be a two-way process where policy makers engage young people, but also we young people are taking an proactive step. Educated approach here. Exactly. In ensuring that we are heard and that our voices and views are taken into consideration. So it requires a deliberate and very decisive process and step by young people. So we should then just sit back and wait and complain and hope that these positions are going to come our way. We eventually come to us. We go to work our way there. Exactly. So as young people we need to be proactive. We need to take up that challenge. Someone thinking about Amref they might only think the only thing you deal about is health and all that. So it's interesting to realize that Amref has a branch that talks about advocacy, talks about good governance, talks about even personal grooming in terms of an interview now. In this context I don't know if you saw there was a comment on Facebook when I posted about you coming here about comprehensive sexual education. There are people who are for it and there are groups that are against it.  What's your take? So I think when discussing a topic like comprehensive sexuality education it's important to understand the context within which it is discussed. And of course the challenges and problems that are underlying this whole discussion and what exactly we want to address. So one thing you need to understand is that right now in Kenya when you look at the young people we are most affected by most SRI child issues. If you look at reports by NACC right now the new infections of HIV I think over 50% are among adolescents aged 15 to 24. These are things that people don't talk about. When you look at issues of teenage pregnancy I think which was a big thing and was declared a national disaster. Just a few months ago about one in every three girls gets pregnant before they get to the age of 18. So without understanding this context and without looking at what is the underlying problem and not the underlying issue here it's hard for people to understand why even advocates talk about CSC. So one thing we need to know when you look at the whole issue of teenage pregnancy we need to understand if you look at reports even by the National Gender and Equality Commission a lot of this happens within the context of gender based violence. Most girls who get pregnant before they are 18 are actually defiled they are abused. Let me interrupt. I understand I'm trying to see the logic of those people who are against CSC. I understand your logic I see where you're starting from and it's very valid. I'm seeing on the other side you have people who are saying ok sexual education is good but why do you have to teach a 7 year old that touching himself in a pleasurable way is sexual education? So the thing about sexual education it has to be age appropriate and I'm sure the respective ministries whether it's the Ministry of Education and Health made that to formalize this curriculum it has to be very age appropriate I like the discussion that's coming up on social media you know on Facebook when you see discourse around a certain issue it means it's important and it means that it affects people it's bad if you know topic like CSC is introduced and no one says anything about it so I don't understand the perspectives that people bring to the table it's important to have all stakeholders to just get to understand what is it that we are trying to address what are the gaps because maybe there are gaps what are the gaps that we want to address so just having everyone on the table to give their views I think for Minsky No it's ok it was a passing comment that I noticed and I thought of bringing it up but that's not part why we are here today but either way now many people, many people are stuck with the idea that you can only get promoted when you know people what is the one thing that made you unique you talk about when you want to be an organization and be valuable you have to be indispensable that's how you have to commit to excellence in delivery of service what is your thing that made you unique and stand out it's an interesting question because for me it's not just about one thing it was a series of actions deliberate actions and steps that I took from an early age and just when I started off my career as an intern and yes I've had all that narrative about you need to know people to get your way up for young women like me it's even worse people say for young women to get up you need to slip your way up which is really bad so the stigma just that negative perception about especially young women in leadership is something we need to strongly talk about because it is not true I know many young people who've honestly worked their way up so for me nambuwan and what I always tell young people yes you need to work you need to be able to take on the extra mile even without additional pay so whether you're a volunteer whether you're at a lower level as you're starting off career you need to be able to and agree to take on extra work that's how you learn that's how you gain experience that's how you build your track record that's how you build your profile nambatu you always need mentors and people support you to give you the opportunity to actually show that you're able to perform as a leader for me the defining moment was when I got the scholarship to undertake the executive MBA at USIU because that's when I learnt all about team leadership that's when I learnt about myself as a person this was all about self awareness what are my strengths what are my weaknesses how do I manage teams how do I understand what strengths and weaknesses everyone brings to the table how do I align that so that we're able to achieve the objective mission and which is one thing that you think you observing leadership today you think from your experience from what you've learnt and experience is the one thing or two things that are lacking leadership I'm not talking about politics I'm talking about across the board across the board when I look at what is lacking the key thing yeah I'll combine it it's integrity and dark of humility okay and especially for us young people when I look at the issue of humility most times we get caught up in status, in power in money we forget about serving others so it's all about being able and accepting to go into the twenties working with people even at a lower level so for example in my office if my assistant for example would I agree to take calls for her the whole day I agree to do something that not sure it's done by the exactly so it's all about being able to serve being humble in opposition of course the issue of integrity I know as young people we've gotten a lot of stones thrown away on issues of integrity which is not good I think even had the president the other day saying he doesn't trust young people yeah exactly which didn't go down well with some of us a good majority we've defied the odds in terms of leadership and we've really exemplified leadership so the issue of integrity I agree it's key and humility exactly awesome before you go take a break and take it back to Leziki I have this question for you there are people who would say that the reason women are not going up there is because of patriarchy you hear that term so often I get exhausted hearing it now but there are women on the side who say well it's a man's world so sometimes they are their own enemy what's your take on this what's your take on this do you think that women are taking the chance to fight back and to take their chances or do they want to be given on a silver plata what is it there was this talk of let's actually put a third of this law the gender rule and someone was asking look why can't women vote for that they are already more than a good number of voters so in this regard being in a still let's say a very man's world in senior management in most organizations what is your take on this it's a complicated question it is and the issue of patriarchy is quite an unfortunate issue we can't bury our heads in the sand and deny the fact that when you look at our society women are always not given the same opportunities as men so when you look even at education the fact that we are saying that young women over 30% get married by the time they are 30 years it starts at that age where the opportunities of that young girl to get their education to fulfill their life's potential is cut off so that's why we say unless we address those issues it's important to still keep giving young women and even women in general an opportunity to lead when we are able to address those issues and make sure that women have equal opportunities as men in terms of education in terms of I have to ask you some many questions you said about 30 years and I was like ok look how a woman's biological clock the fertility level starts going down at the age of 30 I have to talk about these things now how does that have to be blamed on men now I'm not blaming it on patriarchy it's patriarchy exactly so it's about how our society is how we are cultured so people have to start looking at this issue from a very early age if young girls and boys are being given the same opportunity we wouldn't be talking about two thirds I agree to that it would be a very fair answer we need to level equality of opportunities but if the outcomes are different we cannot blame anyone ok we'll talk about that we're going to take a break right now and we'll come back talking to Evelin Karidjo project director why act Amref Health Services Africa and I'm going to give it back to Leziki Band to give us another set of amazing performance enjoy nipi mo yo ma baby nipi mo yo ma baby angu nita lenga vipenzi babilia nili enzi oh for you nita pigeha so daily inga wa maisha makali oh for you nita pigeha so daily atu jikimu maisha ni oh for you nita lenga vipenzi nita lenga vipenzi baby for you ma pezinia wa wiliya for two it's true I never want another way to see you I never leave me long day oh baby ku jana mi tunde polen polen cheze hardy dani kanyage kwa migumisi na pati pati na pete kwa kidole ni to mimi daddy oh na na na na baby na nara kwa sana kwa ko janjasina na mo yo una tan tan tan tan oh na na na na baby sukuje kwa ticha niku funze kutoka ampakaza na kambala benzi situa kaza baby for you nita lenga vipenzi familiar ya nili enzi oh for you nita pigeha so daily inga wa maisha makali oh for you nita pigeha so daily atu jikimu maisha ni oh for you nita lenga vipenzi nita lenga vipenzi Leziki Band Welcome back What's up Beautiful music right there by Leziki Band Welcome to the Pataksha They are still here Don't go away They'll still be performing once again one or two songs as they go and they'll be coming through the month of February We have agreed on that I have not told them but we have agreed So we're back with Evelin Karidzo the project director at Y Act and we are speaking about leadership as we conclude and remember if you want to ask a question you can text us I mean you can go to social media handles at Y254 at Twitter, Instagram or Facebook and comment on the conversation ask your opinion or suggestion so welcome back We were speaking about leadership and the thing I want you to do is what is your challenge leadership what's your leadership challenge basically to young people who might look at you and say ok I would like to do what you did what are the similar what are some of the pointers that you could give me so that I can be able to someone viewing you out there You have to be prepared to work three times harder than anyone else just to prove yourself because there's all this negative perception just around our society that young people can't make decisions or that we do not have the experience or the knowledge so you need to be able to work three times harder in terms of studying in terms of just ensuring that you understand your area of leadership being assertive, being decisive so that's one of the challenges you have to overcome I keep talking about the issue of humility because one thing even as a young leader one has to know how to work with mentors and with other adult leaders you can just be proud and assume that ok now I'm on the seat I can do whatever I want one has to be ready to work with other people even older people in most of the projects that I've managed older people other than this project were actually in action we are working with a team of young people but before that it was just everyone across the age spectrum so just being able to work with people of all ages and also agreeing to listen and to be taught even if you're in leadership position that's one of the things we as young people need to consider there's a challenge of course as a young woman I mean the challenges are there we have to prove that we got our leadership positions by merits and it's a sad reality that we have to go around all this negative perception it's something that I really want to keep talking about just to inspire other young women that you need to be confident exactly about yourself you don't need to prove to anybody what you have I think the challenges of being a young woman leader are very different from being a young gentleman exactly so back to the patriarchy come on now you are here what do you mean how different is it it's all different and especially as a young person and I'll talk from my own experience because these are things that I'm writing about so I'll soon be launching my journal on that absolutely that was great congratulations on that I'm looking forward I'll quote you in my journal this issue of patriarchy we need to talk about especially as a young woman leader when you get to the top if you're not married that's another issue so you're not seen as mature no not that that you're intimidating that you should have prioritized family of working too hard and being a career person okay that's plain silly exactly but it's the reality and I think that's why for me I decided to write about these things not them because I realized even people who are educated like me actually have those negative perceptions but okay let me pause right there I know you're going to I'm actually going to say there is someone like another gentleman Larry actually Larry Mado he also was accused of so it's not just a woman thing okay now that you've given an example of Larry Mado oh you had seen that also right yes but a majority of these cases happen for us young women so it's something we need to overcome it's something we need to talk about you get flattered with more definitely exactly so we need to talk about these issues openly and just let people it's okay for your daughters for your sisters to be successful at a young age they don't need to wait till they're 40 to become a CEO it's okay to just succeed at whatever age it still finds us a thing we need to be inspiring young women I'm all for women by the way I'm very supportive of women I just don't want you to every challenge you have on the way has something to do with men that's what I have a problem with you understand unfortunately it's our society that's why I said if we start at the very initial stages of life and we give equal opportunities for young women and men I mean we will not be having these discussions in a few years to come we will hope so we are aiming for that anyway so I want to give you 30 seconds as we finish up on this conversation you can look at one of the cameras camera one camera one is right here and I want you to lay your leadership challenge what is it that you can tell young ladies the young people watching out there what is the thing that you can tell them about advice and encouragement and motivation go for it in terms of advice and encouragement be confident about who you are you need to step up your game you need to show up do not sit and wait for these opportunities to come you have to go the extra mile you still need to work with other people to mentor you and be patient about success success doesn't come all at once one has to be very patient humble and work extra hard perfect it has been a pleasure having you on the show thank you so much I hope when you release that you will come back to discuss with us congratulations once again we are kudos for getting into cinema management so young getting into places where many young people dream about encouraging young people to get there thank you so much ladies and gentlemen you have been speaking about the rules from the very first go we were speaking about the rules from the books 12 rules for life that have been speaking about so the first rule was don't be pathetic be a person who is able to step up and I think that is something that has been told to us by Evelyn you've got to be confident about yourself life is rough so have the courage to fight back and the second rule that I shared with you is about treating yourself kindly because you need to for you to be able to fight back you need to be fit you need to be healthy so you need to sleep enough take care of yourself if something goes wrong take time to process those emotions today on the third rule Jordan Peterson reminds us about quality friends someone said if you are the smartest person in a room it is time to move out you cannot have people you cannot have friends who never encourage you and challenge you in any way there is nothing you can look at some of your best friend and say this person encourages me to be better so you have to have friends who constantly push the best the potential out of you that is a good friend Jordan Peterson asks a very pointed question that person you call your friend can you recommend that person to your mother or as a son or a daughter can you recommend that person to your sister as a boyfriend or even just as a friend if you cannot then why keeping this person for yourself remember that old saying that goes show me who your friends are and I tell you who you are you cannot go telling your mother my friends smoke and do drugs but I don't I am so good it doesn't work that way so peer pressure eventually comes and gets to you so one of the things that this clinical psychologist reminds us is the people you surround yourself with are going to determine in a very big way how far you are going to go so surround yourself with people who want the best for you people you can share about something that is good that something good that has happened in your life and they can be genuinely happy have you ever told some of your best friend that something good has happened to you and you can see it in your eyes like the jealousy or the discomfort they are not capable of being there to be happy for you that is not a good friend at the same time when you mess up a good friend is willing to tell you hey that's not the best way to go and this has been the part talk show with me Dominic and I hope that you have learnt one thing or two from Eveline Carrigio the project director at Y Act Amref Health Africa and also you have picked something from my discussion with you on quality friends and quality life and I hope to see you next time on when as they catch the show again and may God bless you be exceptional, make a difference good night and I am going to give it back to Leziki Leziki band to close up the show with one or two songs let's go I see your me love with you you smell chai I am a girl like Bla I am a girl like Bla kajash baby see your me love with you you smell chai I am a girl like Bla I am a girl like Bla


The long-awaited Samsung Galaxy S8 has arrived at Appalachian Wireless. Get yours for the introductory price of just $149.99 with a two-year service agreement. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless, an East Kentucky network company. Elkhorn City is gearing up this week for its 41st annual Apple Blossom Festival. The festival will have an entirely new atmosphere this year with a new organizer and new venue. Of course, the festival will remain in Elkhorn City, but just down the street from its original location. Vendors, concessions, the Apple Blossom Music Stage and Carnival will be set up Thursday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Elkhorn City's Got Talent will take place from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., vendors, music and the carnival will be active and Saturday the festival will be open from 10 p.m. to 10 p.m. From 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., the Elkhorn City area women's club will host its annual pancake breakfast at City Hall and the parade will be held at 2 p.m. starting at the baseball field. It's good for our community, good for our economy right now. A lot of people will be coming in for this and I'm hoping that we have a good weather for this. That's my main thing right now, but we've got a lot set up. For more information, contact the Apple Blossom Festival organizers at the email address listed on your screen. Reporting in Elkhorn City, I'm Shelby Still for EKB News.


Let's see, forum. My name is Carol Werner, and I am serving on the steering committee once again for this Expo, Congressional Technology Expo and Policy Forum. And I'm also the executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, a longtime member and one of the founders of the Sustainable Energy Coalition. And we are very pleased to be presenting this whole Expo and Policy Forum in conjunction with the House and Senate Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucuses, as well as a number of other congressional caucuses that are listed on the program. And hopefully, you will be going through all of the exhibits at the Expo, as well as listening and learning from so many of our speakers during this forum. So I want to get this underway. And in our first panel this morning, we're going to be taking an overview of policy issues. Our leadoff will be Scott Sklar, who is the president of the Stella Group. He is also an adjunct professor at George Washington University and the chair of the Sustainable Energy Coalition, Scott. Hey, thank you very much, and thank you all for coming today, and thank you ESI for sponsoring this.  And I like to sort of give you the trend analysis for all these technologies. So as of the end of 2013, Bloomberg Energy came out with their study that shows that $254 billion of private sector investment in renewables occurred. And that is dwarfed by over a trillion dollars of government investments across the globe in renewable energy and energy efficiency. In addition, at the end of 2013, the Energy Information Administration said for all new power in the United States for 2013, domestic renewable energy accounted for 37.16%. So over a third of our new electricity coming online was the blend of renewable energy technologies. And actually, 2012 was higher. It was over 50%. So we're finally starting to see a turnaround similar to what happened when cellular technology started overtaking in new communications, the wired technology of which it competed with. Employment impacts are also pretty high around the country. And we have a whole table in front of the caucus room of different energy and employment studies, economic studies at the state or regional level of the United States. I brought one such study out here on the front table that was all of the United States. But basically, for $1 million spent on energy efficiency, you're creating 2 and 1 half to 8.9 jobs. For renewables, it's 1 and 1 half to 7.5 jobs. These are huge, very high ratio in job creation. And unlike the traditional industries, which are the jobs are concentrated at the resource, the coal mine, the natural gas site, these jobs are spread mostly at the user site where you're installing it. If it's in residential buildings or commercial buildings or along the grid. So they're much more geographically dispersed. Now, I also teach two interdisciplinary courses on sustainable energy at George Washington University. And I also have outside the 29 studies that I ask my students to read. I'm not asking you, or will I test you on those 29 studies? But I do want to provide some impacts. When I come here, I talk about the Google study that showed the United States could meet all its energy needs for about $4 trillion worth of private sector investment. And we would read 5.8 trillion back in savings. So there's the NREL, National Energy Laboratory Combined Lab study, which shows that the blend of renewables and high value energy efficiency we have today can meet most of our energy needs. But I want to talk to you about the four newest ones that came on from last year. One was developed by an energy analysis paper developed by the Energy Information Administration, which shows that the methane potential from landfill, animal manure, wastewater, industrial processes, and other organic waste could meet about 56% of our natural gas consumption. We have a lot of methane that's going in the atmosphere. And as you know, methane is a far more potent, though shorter term, greenhouse gas than carbon. The Nicholas Institute from Duke University also looked at decentralized biogas, and they put out a study in March. And they said that this gas could meet about 15% of our natural gas use, 5% in the short term. There is also a hydropower study that was done by Department of Energy Assessment that we could bring on 12 gigawatts from existing non-powered dams with new ultra-low impact designs. And 12 gigawatts is sort of 12 nuclear power plants worth of power. Of course, it's 24-hour power. And then Columbia University's study group, their research arm just finished a study in July of this year that said organic waste. So this is, and again, this is not incineration. This is using waste for gasification, separating it out. So you're only using the stuff that biodegrades to methane. Could meet 12% of US electricity needs. So a lot on the other technologies. And again, that's the marine and water and biomass. And of course, there's geothermal. That tend to be overlooked since everybody's talking about solar and wind. Finally, I spent a lot of time just at a White House meeting this week on resiliency. Meaning, how do you maintain or sustain the US electric grid from terrorism, from earthquakes, geologic events, storms, and many of us who were involved in this, starting in the 1970s, before climate change ever showed on the screen, have been looking at this whole resiliency issue. And the only way to achieve real resiliency is just what we've done in the telephone sector. We have a distributed communications arm. It's called Cellular. And that's what you're going to need as well. For cybersecurity, you're going to need distribution and redundancy, because your grid is going to be attacked and has been attacked more than 7,000 times according to a report right up here in Congress. So there is a real essential for those of you that are interested in the national security side and on just the resiliency of critical functions to look at these objectives in terms of how you look at your state, how you look at your political issues regarding security. Finally, I want to point out to you, and I point out to my students, that blended technology solutions are really the best way to do that, putting all your eggs in any one technology. And that is including renewables, a renewable, is not the way to go. The way to go is to optimize, to have elegant blending of technologies. And that gives you greater choice. It allows the market to have better options. It allows the consumer to have lower cost power over time. And definitely where we have seen states that allow the entire portfolio of energy, efficiency, and renewables, you have less swings in rates, less surprises. And that's really critical for our economy. Because the less you spend on energy, guess what? That means you have more to spend on other things. And so that's really our goal here from a policy perspective. So with that, thank you. That's sort of the opening trends. And next year, these industries, efficiency and renewables, should grow another 11%. And I think should top half a trillion dollars in private sector investment when you blend efficiency and renewables together. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Scott. And it is very exciting to see all of these things come together and how strong and diverse they can make our whole system when, as Scott says, we really blend and optimize. And to hear a little bit more along that theme, we think about what is underway with the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. We're going to hear from Zoe Berkley, who is the manager for federal policy for BCSE, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. Zoe? Thank you so much for all of you being here today. Like Carol said, I am Zoe Berkley, manager of federal policy for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. I know some of you in the audience have. It's a slide deck that the first half in my brief remarks, it doesn't really matter. But towards the end, I have a couple graphs that I'll reference, so it might be useful to check it out. There are some outside on the table if you missed it. So first of all, I'm going to talk about what the Business Council for Sustainable Energy does, and then switch gears to talk about the Sustainable Energy in America factbook that we do every year with Bloomberg Energy Finance. So about the BCSE. BCSE is a coalition of companies and trade associations from the renewable energy, energy efficiency, and natural gas sectors. The council advocates for policies at the state, national, and international levels. A little bit more about what we do at each of these levels. At the state level, we actively engage annually with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, or NAIRUK, just earlier this month. We were in Dallas, Texas at their summer meeting, where we hosted one of our clean energy industry breakfast, which is basically a forum for our clean energy industry executives, our membership, as well as public utility commissioners to engage and network and talk about the issues from a variety of perspectives. And then we usually bring in a guest speaker. We were lucky enough to have Janet McCabe with the EPA speak at this breakfast this year. Additionally, federal policy, we're always on the hill meeting with a variety of offices. Some hot topics lately have been tax extenders, appropriations, and then often it's a specific piece of legislation, like Sheen Portman, for example. At the international level, we engage with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and go to their Conference of the Parties meetings annually. This year, we'll be in Lima, Peru, which will hopefully be a meeting gearing up for the next year's meeting in Paris in 2015, where hopefully a new climate agreement to replace Kyoto will come out of it. So we are a portion of their private sector business observation members there. And finally, on the international level, the Climate Technology Center and Network just recently accepted BCSE as a member of their network. So we'll be working with them to consult on bringing clean energy technologies to other parts of the world. So broadly, BCSE advocates for policies that promote clean, efficient, and sustainable energy products, technologies, and services. We have a broad membership, about 51 members at the moment. In the slide deck, there's a page that shows all of our member logos. And actually, that membership is split up fairly evenly into thirds, renewables, efficiency, and natural gas. So now switching gears a bit and going to talk about the Sustainable Energy in America factbook that we've done the last two years in partnership with Bloomberg New Energy Finance and actually the first fact that Scott brought up with the over $254 billion being invested in clean energy technologies actually came from this report. And what the factbook aims to do is to provide up-to-date, accurate market intelligence about the broad range of industries, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and natural gas that are contributing to the country's move towards cleaner energy production and more efficient energy usage. So then there's a little bit of a snap shot. Slip of the tongue. Snap shot on what the factbook does and some high level facts that came from it and some that I just picked out to share with you today are that renewable energy generation including large hydro grew from eight to 13% of US mix over the 2007 to 2013 period. The cost of solar PV has come down 80% since 2008 and I also read that it's down 99% since 1973. So we've made huge strides as well as distributed generation is emerging more and more as a really transformative phenomenon in the energy sector. And total energy use has fallen 5% while GDP has grown 6% over that same period 2007 to 2013 and there's more on that coming. So the first graph on slide 10, if you're checking it out, that last fact I just said about energy use falling 5% while GDP has grown 6%. This is a really big kind of deviation from what we've seen in the past where it's usually as GDP goes up, so does energy consumption. But there's been a lot of advances in energy efficiency in the transportation power generation and building sectors and so due to that we're actually seeing energy consumption come down even as GDP is growing. The next graph on slide 11 shows US electricity generation by fuel type showing that mix and how it's changing year by year. Renewable generation like I said has grown from 8.3 to 12.9 over the 2007 to 2013 period. And a really significant point is that since 1997 94% of all new power capacity built in the US has come in the form of renewable energy facilities or natural gas. And then there's a slide on US investment in clean energy and like Scott has touched on and like I mentioned as well that figure over 250 billion over the last five years invested in clean energy from the private sector is really staggering. And actually Bloomberg found that in their global index of companies active in the renewables and low carbon energy technologies gained 53.9% which largely overshadowed the gains seen in S&P 500 companies and the Dow Jones industrial average. So this last graph on page on slide 13 shows US greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector and economy wide. So the first line shows just carbon dioxide coming from the energy sector alone which you can see is a huge portion of it. Then the top kind of squiggly line shows total greenhouse gas emissions as well as the trajectory of what Obama's goal was of reducing emissions by 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. And we were actually already halfway to meeting that at 9.8% decrease since that was set. And as I'm sure many of you know with the proposed clean power plan out now that is set to as it is proposed to bring emissions down 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. So we'll see again that's a proposed rule. So we'll see what the finalized one looks like. And so the next slide just shows the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook website. There's quick links there to download the full Factbook or jump to energy sector specific sections or get even more specific if you wanna know more about fuel cells or offshore wind. Then let's see. And then so wrapping up one last plug. Business Council for Sustainable Energy is on social media. Follow us on Twitter like us on Facebook. We're constantly posting updates and useful tidbits. So thank you. Great Zoe, thank you. And if you want just make sure we have the slide deck we'll post it with the video for today and everything because there was a lot of very good information there just as with all of the studies that Scott is talking about. So now we're going to turn to Lena Moffitt who is the manager for federal policy, climate and energy for the National Wildlife Federation. For another perspective and with regard to policy and looking at their priorities. Lena? We already have a wild and awful heritage for two generations. So given that we work extensively to combat climate change in the region and climate change is a critical threat that we welcome today. So I wanted to speak to about two key things. First, really just offer the National Wildlife Federation as a resource and potentially partner with your organization. We're extensively promoting the land and the efficiency and making sure that such projects are wildlife friendly and site-appropriate that you can have. So we imagine that that's what we made your companies work on and those work with you on that. We also have our offshore wind expert in the audience and we wanted to share a couple of our recent reports as we win one piece that we work on is hoping to help develop this untapped resource that we can be done on a level of friendly way as we'd love to share that with you. After we're going to hamper Q it, this is in the audience, so please ask her questions after what she thought they were doing for us. Second, I'd like to say again a little bit of the Clean Power Plant, which Zoe mentioned. We think this is a key opportunity really to unleash renewable energy and energy efficiency at an unprecedented level in our country, depending on how we plan life and life. So we kicked it off that way. It really isn't over with the finish line yet and you all have an incredibly important role to play to ensure that there is finance and stringent and robust manner and then implemented as well in that way to make sure that it really does incentivize renewable energy and energy efficiency. And then finally I'll just touch on the production tax credit and the investment tax credit, which you all probably know even more closely than I do. So just going back to the Clean Power Plant, I'm sure you're all familiar with this, but we believe that it's a very exciting time in energy technology in the United States because the Environmental Protection Agency just this year, earlier this summer on June 7th, announced first ever limits on carbon pollution from our power sector, which really has the potential to incentivize zero renewable carbon versus energy and energy efficiency. And that's because of the way the Environmental Protection Agency wrote this standard. So other this section of the Clean Air Act, the EPA was charged with establishing the best system of emission reduction for our power sector. And they decided that that best system of emission reduction has a pretty broad net. So they put this in the four buckets. The first is achieving what we refer to is inside a sense line of reduction and pollution at the power plant. So heat rate reduction at current cold and at the power plant. The second is a redispatch to natural gas, which I'm sure you all are very familiar with. The third is increasing the lines on the learns, which we think is very exciting, and that this was one of the key areas we're not a lot of collaboration has been advocating over the past decade. So question environmental protection agencies include this in the standard that they're going to set. And then the final is an increase in the lines on demand side and energy efficiency, which is very exciting. So in the Clean Power Plant, we're really at a key point in time, as if you all are probably aware, the comment period currently goes up and the standard has been released. And they just held public hearings across the country. It's still going on this week. I'm sure many of you were down there. We all were, I think, testifying, if you were testifying, we were both testifying earlier this week at the EPA in support of the Clean Power Plant. And I think there's a real opportunity for your businesses and their staff and members of Congress even to offer written technical comments before the comment period closes on October 16th. And I think there are a couple of key areas that if you are a renewable energy company or energy efficiency company, you want to really be sure to highlight when EPA set that standard and used those four building blocks to establish targets for each state. And they did that by looking at what's the potential for each of those four building blocks to reduce pollution in those four states, in those four blocks it was for each state. We believe that some of the assumptions that they included about potential for renewable energy and energy efficiency in many of the states were set for 2012. And that resulted in many of the state targets, they set 49 state targets, for multiple exclusives that they don't have anymore, not for gas-powered power plants, too low. And we believe that that will leave a lot of emissions production on the table. So one of the key opportunities is to make comments that, you know, you guys on the ice here, demonstrate to EPA there are more resources, there's more potential for renewable energy and energy efficiency than they assume in the set of those standards. We hope they'll listen to advocates at the National Wildlife Federation and the industry efforts like yourselves. And when we see the final standard, it will be even tighter, which will incentivize even more renewable energy and energy efficiency. So that's the first of the opportunities weighing into the EPA before October 16th. Then there's the question point. They are set to finalize the standard by June of 2015, next year. And after that happens, the ball's really in the state's core. So we believe there's a key opportunity for you all to work with your state air regulators to make sure that they're implementing the standard in a robust way. The great thing about the standard is that it's really done off a lot of flexibility to states. So there's a lot of opportunities to advocate with your state regulators to determine how they're going to implement the standard. The National Wildlife Federation wants to make sure that the state's ability to get the hannot took the last two building blocks by truly calling on renewable energy resources and energy efficient resources in their state. They don't have to. So we would love to see you work with your state air regulators to really say, we have this opportunity in our state to use these resources. Let's make sure their actions meet. One thing I forgot to mention in the comment period, EPA didn't include in consideration a couple of very key renewable energy resources that we believe should be included. One is offshore wind, because the EPA was being pretty cautious in how they set the standard. They've only looked at existing technology in the United States. Now, offshore wind is very much of the existing technology in Europe that's got a lot of offshore wind. We don't have it here, yes, at least this year in the United States. So they can include that with consideration. That's a key thing we think should be included because we know we are going to develop our offshore wind resources. The other is distributed solar power. We believe that's a clear opportunity that should be considered as well and we hope that they do in the final standard. So I think I'm getting a two-minute mark here. It's all we want to have production tax credit. Very key opportunity in the next two months to educate with commerce. So the different item is, maybe we have some friends with that who's in the audience. You guys know this. These credits are critical to the continued growth of our onshore and offshore renewable energy industry. We're allowed to expire last year, I'm sure you all know this. We're very much hoping that they will be reinstated in the lean-down session. So it seems like it's going to be the most likely time just to have that after the election. But it did no way, it's an undial. Commerce absolutely needs to hear from you and your companies if these credits are critical and must be extended. The fossil fuel industry has helped me enjoy a century of about four billion dollars a year of federal incentives. The production tax credit is less than that and it's critical for those non-union issues. We really hope that we do it in that package at the end of the year but they need to hear from you to ensure that. So how do you work with all of you on any of these opportunities and let's answer questions about it? Great, thanks so much, Shalina, for covering some really, really key issues and good to hear about everything that you're doing on offshore wind coupled with that. And so now for our last person on this particular panel is Tom Carlson who is with Advanced Energy Economy a very interesting group, relatively new but doing a lot of terrific things at the state level and Tom is the Government Affairs and Policy Associate. With Advanced Energy Economy and the AWS National Association of Businesses making energy views clean, secure, and affordable. We actually work with the disaster sustainable and have a number of issues. One of the things that AWS also does is we need a state coalition consisting of 15 partner organizations active in 23 states across the country and together the network represents more than 1,000 companies and organizations across the United States. We represent companies working across the advanced energy spectrum. Energy efficiency, demand response, natural gas, electricity generation, solar wind, hydropower, nuclear, smart grid, and energy storage. I know today is about a day that I hear from folks talking about all the other segments. And you heard Zoe and Scott talk about all the investments our corporate. Where we looked at, trying to get a look at the dreadnance of the advanced energy company. How much gravity were these companies generating? And what we found is last year in 2013 Advanced Energy reached over $1.1 trillion and estimated global revenue was 1.1 trillion. That was a 7% increase from the U.S. market we made up 15% of the global market came in at about $168 billion. And that was up from the U.S. market being 11% of the global market in 2011. So we're capturing more of a global advanced energy market which is a great thing. And to put that in context, advanced energy globally is bigger than the pharmaceutical manufacturing worldwide. It's about the United States people with a hairline industry. So it's a significant industry and it's growing. Just want to talk about three things briefly. One, the historic role of the federal government in energy. Number two, the role of states in driving energy innovation and how does it continue under EPA's department, clean power plant, reducing carbon emissions in the power sector. And then number three, lessons that we can take from the states to apply to federal wealth. Just starting out, historically, the federal government has played a pivotal role in promoting energy innovation. And this in turn has driven economic progress. Going back to 1926, Congress created percentage depletion allowance for oil and gas exploration in the Western U.S. And this is still part of our tax code today. In the 50s, the federal government was critical to commercializing nuclear. And now recently, the Department of Energy researched the shale gas dating back to the 70s to help the boom we're seeing in the industry today. So federal policies continue to be critical. But we've seen states recently really take the lead as energy pioneers. One of the first renewable portfolio standards was created in Texas in 1999 when George W. Bush was still governor. And today, 29 states have RPS law. Together, these states have a combined population of over 200 million people. And that would make them the fifth largest country in the world. 25 states have energy efficiency resource standard. And this makes up 60% of electricity sales in this country. According to ACEEE, each of these states maintains its current target out of 2020. And the total annual savings would be equivalent to 6% of our projected 2020 sales nationwide. That would be the combined electricity consumption of Ohio, Minnesota, and Rhode Island. So we're clearly states are driving the way here. And again, the D.K. is a clean power plant. We've seen it talk quite a bit about it. This is an opportunity for states to use policies like these to reduce emissions. And also, to modernize our electric area, a lot of what Scott was talking about. We're not only going to reduce emissions, the same kind of technologies can make our grid more resilient and more secure. So, E.K. gave a lot of flexibility to states in developing their emissions reduction plan. We believe actually, as the draft rule is set, these targets are easy to achieve. And we were testifying yesterday for the E.K.s and we were very supportive of the carbon standards. And we actually think they can be strengthened based on our actual resource potential for both energy efficiency and renewable energy. And natural gas and nuclear is both, they're both going to play a big role here as well. So states have a lot of experience already, as we mentioned. In addition to RFES and BRS laws, you've also had trade programs in some parts of the country, in California and the regional gas initiative in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states. That's another option states can look to. So despite all this great activity at the states, we still need Congress to act if we want to maximize our benefits from advanced energy. The close of 2013, Lena also mentioned a number of advanced energy tax credits inspired in addition to production tax credit. There's credits for advanced transportation and energy efficiency, a smarter grid. And with these, with support of these technologies, we've seen a lot of deployments in advanced energy. And as Zoe mentioned, we've seen with this deployment, prices come down. Wind has fallen by 40% of price last four years, solar by 60% in the last eight. We've had highly cost-effective energy savings. We've also seen advanced biofuels begin to commercialize. On the flip side, with the production tax credit being there, not being there, being uncertain, we've seen the wind market go a little bit up and down for a quarter of a pound that the wind industry in the U.S. went from $13 billion in 2011, $25 billion in 2012, and then down to $2 billion in 2013. And that's all about the uncertainty around the production tax credit. Well, it's expired again, so we'll see what we do moving forward. But one thing that the government could learn from the states is the importance of stability and continuity in energy policy. If we want to really continue capturing more of the global market, we need stability. We need to extend the tax credits at a federal level. So where is that right now? The finance committee with biosupport and support passed the expire act, but it looks like we're gonna have to wait until the act of the November elections and see if the extenders take enough. Now, that's the key, and that's the cloud driver. We need to extend the current tax policy and tax credits we have on the books now that expired in 2013. Looking forward, finance chairman Ron White and others in Congress have talked about the first long-term tax reform. Eight of the way we work with our business members focusing Congress, congressional staff, using people in this room, to develop some principles around this. This is the last thing I'm gonna mention here. So the key thing now is for Congress to really extend the tax credits. Longer term next year, beyond, we're gonna be talking about this reform. We'd like to look at four things. Number one, the target. Let's talk about the goals that we want for our energy system, whether it's greater cleanliness, resiliency, or security, and let's create a tax policy for the energy flow that works towards that. And if we're gonna have to tie face-offs, let's tie face-offs to market-based objectives for our energy system, as opposed to arbitrary counter-deadlines, which is what we have now. The key thing is providing stability and certainty for businesses and investors, and a fourth thing we'd like to see is to be technology neutral. So finally, states are, you know, honestly gonna continue to drive energy innovation, but the federal government also continues to have a key role as it has historically experienced an advanced energy economy. So with that, definitely look forward to talking more with all of you big. Please stop by AWU throughout there and if you'd love to discuss more. Great, thanks so much, Tom. We've got a couple minutes for questions. If anyone has a question or comment, or if there's anything else one of our speakers would like to say? Okay, and, okay, question right here. Go ahead. So if any of you are doing any work, oh, can people hear me now? Okay. I'm curious if any of your companies or institutions are doing any work with energy potential and recovery from wastewater. I know that a lot of times when we talk about renewable energy, we're talking about renewable energy that actually is damaging to the environment in other ways and there's a lot of advancements in technology and potential from wastewater and wastewater is something that is harmful to both humans and the environment. So I'm just curious if there's been work on that. I work with a lot of local governments on wastewater, both in the technology to clean it and then of course the technology, the energy technology to run that, those kinds of advanced water technologies. What's very interesting and I teach this in my courses too is about 18% of the grid east of the Mississippi is used to move water and sewage around and clean it. About 33% west of the Mississippi. The energy sector by the way is the largest user of water in the country. It dwarfs agriculture. Both together use 89% of the water, leaving 11% for everything else. There is not, our water use is not sustainable so we can't waste it. So this fracking stuff which uses water and then keeps it dirty is not acceptable. So there's a big issue here on both cleaning water, using water, moving water and sewage around. Lastly, our municipal water systems and also our water cleaning systems result in a lot of biosolids meaning you're scraping stuff out of it that's actually biodegradable and it turns into methane. What we do around the country is we flare the gas. So we're burning it rather than use, rather than scrubbing it and cleaning it for biogas, for energy use. So there's lots of elegances in here of not just wondering how we use water and what energy we use on it but again optimizing the whole process. Great, thank you and I think now I would encourage you to follow up with individual speakers, go meet them at their booths, take a look at that and obviously we also hope that you will take advantage of our next sessions in this policy forum and we will start our next session in just a couple minutes. Thank you all and thank you. Wonderful, wonderful panel. Thank you for starting us off so well.


Our final speaker today is Lee Chan. He founded China Labor Watch, a New York-based independent nonprofit organization in 2000. He has a network of people in China who are in the plants in the electronics industry. And they send reports to him. And he gathers the information together. And he has a report that he'll be releasing soon on an inspection of 10 factories that was recently done. He's frequently cited in the international media. And he has a whole network of scholars, lawyers, and activists around the world who are working with him. He was born in China himself. He'll be speaking through an interpreter. He was a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University, and has come down from New York today for us. We're very grateful, Lee Chan. I speak Chinese, so. So just now, I think about very detailed analysis of situations at Pakistan. Thank you very much, Mr. Ross Esenperry, for the opportunity to share my experience of protecting workers' rights in China. So over the past 11 years, I have been in the U.S. advocating for the rights of Chinese workers. Both Apple and Apple have already denied that Fox Factory is a non-sponsored shop. So the traditional definition of a sweatshop is a factory where workers work in tough and dangerous environments. They may be exposed to hazardous materials, temperatures, or radiation, and must work long hours for low wages. However, this definition must be modified for modern society. At Fox, workers are treated like machines, and we can only earn enough to live on by working excessive overtime. The labor intensity at Fox is extremely high, and the working environment is indifferent and harsh. The value of human life is regarded, and workers are regularly pushed beyond their physical and emotional limits. I believe such a factory is a special. So let's imagine a factory in the U.S. where a worker must work on his feet for 10 hours a day. He lives thousands of miles away from home. I cannot return to see his family for years, because the factory doesn't offer him enough leave time. His base salary is not enough to cover his most basic expenses, so he is forced to work overtime. However, his overtime salary is often withheld or even unpaid. He is constantly abused verbally by his managers. After several years of work, he will be forced to leave his position because he can no longer keep up with the intense pace of the job. What do you think of this factory? Is it a sweat shop or not? In 2006, I received a report from a reporter. After the report came out, Apple did a follow-up investigation on the deputy mayor. In 2006, the deputy mayor of Apple found a problem. The workers worked for 60 hours. They had more than 6 days to get the salary. They worked 7 days a week. In this report, the deputy mayor of Apple just mentioned that the workers' dormitory situation is not good. They have to be changed. So in 2006, China Labor Watch helped a journalist organize a visit to Foxconn. After journalists reported the working conditions at Foxconn, Apple did a follow-up investigation. This is what they said in their own audio report in 2006. We did find that employees worked longer hours than permitted by our code of conduct, which limits normal work weeks of 60 hours and requires at least one day off each week. We reviewed 7 months of records for multiple shifts too of different production lines and found that working limits were exactly 35% of the time. But in this report, the only problem that Apple mentioned was the living conditions at the dormitories. So all this was quoted from Apple's own audio report in 2006 which is available on their own website. So during our investigation in 2006, we took a picture which showed that over 300 workers lived in one dormitory room. It's a huge room. So Apple did acknowledge this fact and it made some improvements in the living conditions. So Apple's recent report did disclose some problems which were found out as early as in 2006. In the past six years, Foxxon did not make any meaningful improvements. For example, like wage increases, I don't think there was any real improvement. So from 2004 to 2010, base salary at Foxxon increased from 380 yuan to 400, 600, 700, 900, 1200. And after the spate of suicide in 2010, Foxxon workers wage increased to about 1550 per month. But this increase is mostly due to inflation in China. So for industry like Foxxon, if they did not increase wages, it would enable to hire enough young workers which they need to work and to search high work intensity. It is true that over time hours have been decreasing at Foxxon. So in 2004 we found out that workers' average hours in a month was 320 to 350 hours. But last year in 2011, the number has decreased to 280 hours per month. However, less over time only needs higher intensity at work. Workers now need to finish 11 hours of work within 10 hours. In our investigation workers told us that they feel exhausted all the time. The problem of overtime is also indirectly proved by the high turnover rate at Foxxon factories. I think there are two indicators to evaluate whether the increase of salary and decrease of overtime is a real improvement. First is whether the wages at Foxxon is a labor wage. Second is the labor intensity. If they reduce the hours but increase the intensity for workers, their intensity is actually higher than before. Between January and April this year, we conducted investigations at 10 factories, 10 Apple suppliers in China. We are putting together a report and hopefully it will be released very soon. Apple has a great influence over its suppliers. So if we want any change at supplier factories, Apple needs to change first. Now Apple is only blaming its suppliers for all the issues and problems. The fact is if Apple increases the other price and they pay higher price, the suppliers will have the ability to make improvements. I would also like to share a few thoughts on the audio report conducted by Apple. As far as I know, this is the first time that Apple ever working together with the NGO. So this also shows the pressure from outside is the success. Secondly, I would like to point out that FLA has been in existence for 12 years and they have conducted thousands of investigations in China. But not a single one factory that supplies factories conditions is better than Foxxon. In order to prove this, I did a recent follow-up investigation on other supplier factories. The conditions at other suppliers are even worse and over time it is actually at 80 hours per month. Apple and Foxxon promise to reduce overtime to 49 hours. But based on my experience over the last decade, I can say that not one single factory, especially Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korean owned factories, can meet that standard. All the overtime hours are over 49. Or none of the FLA member corporations have met that. So thirdly, the FLA audit is mostly just a public relations ad for Apple. So this is a very smart move, so Apple actually just blame all its suppliers for all the problems and underestimate all the problems other problems like student interns, health and safety issues. I think it's okay for angels to cooperate with multinational corporations. But the issue is you cannot do PR for the corporation. So especially when they just say a non-public that Foxxon is not a sweatshop and all these are just PR for the corporate. So many other organizations have been working on this issue for many years. But then if you have another NGO saying that this is not a sweatshop, conditions are good. So our efforts are just wasted. So another thing is Apple has the money to do so and they have the capacity to make any changes. If Apple make the changes, it will lead other companies in the industry to improve as well. So if Apple make the changes, companies in the industry will follow the lead. For example, if Apple promise no more than 49 hours of overtime, so the problem is if it's realized, will it be realized? So in the long run, so in order to improve conditions and factories, it needs efforts from multiple players like angels, the brands and the Chinese and US governments. But there has to be a start and Apple should take the lead. If they start to do something good, I think this is a good start. So we need to keep the pressure on Apple and force it to change.


When we change how we think, we change how we feel. When we change how we feel, we change what we perceive and experience. It all starts from within. Emotions are energy in motion. And in the same way, you can't tune into a specific radio station without turning the dial on the radio. You can't manifest your desires without shifting your emotional frequency to one that tunes you into the experience of that manifestation.


Hello, Asin of Mason here. In this presentation I would like to talk about Lilith, but from a different angle. If you're watching this, you probably know who she is. If you don't, please watch the other videos, where I introduce her as an pathological character. Here I would like to take a look at the less known aspects of Lilith, which are also the subject of my book, Rights of Lilith, Grimoire of the Queen of the Night. What most people know about Lilith is that she was the first wife of Adam, that she is demonic and evil, and that dealing with her is dangerous. There's also the image of a lastful succubus promoted by horror movies and popular culture. But after I spend most of my life working with her and exploring her powers, and we're talking here about over 25 years, I know that this image couldn't be further from the truth. That's why what I always wanted to do in my writings was to present a picture of Lilith that will hopefully clear out the misconceptions and show her as she really is, the dark initiatrix and the Queen of the Night. In popular culture, Lilith is depicted as a monster, because the view of a woman over the last two millennia has been vilified, and the natural power of the female was seen as a threat to the masculine patriarchal status quo. Religion, science, occult philosophies, and the general outlook of the Middle Ages through the modern age left little place for a woman's desire of independence, sexual urges, and the free and unrestrained ability to create, not just procreate. All this has pushed the woman's creative fire into the area of darkness, evil, the cliff of. The medieval image of a woman openly expressing her passions and needs is the image of the witch, malevolent hag whose place is in a dungeon, locked up and separated from the world, or at the stake where she has to atone for her sins. This image was continued throughout the whole renaissance and baroque times, and even in the age of enlightenment, it didn't change much. A woman was still seen as mentally inferior to men and incapable of deciding for herself. In the last few centuries, we have seen the rise of psychology and attempts to understand the human nature from a scientific point of view. But the vision of a woman in it is still the same. She has no desires or ambitions.  Her only role is to please her male partner and birth children, and her mental capacities are hardly better than an animal's.  Let's face the truth. Most of what we know about Lilith today is wrong. Her myth is the result of mistranslated sources, misinterpreted writings and depictions, religious dogmas, and the prevailing fear and prejudice against the picture of a liberated woman. Her origins are still unknown, and most of the theories presented in the source literature are nothing but speculations that have no confirmation in any archaeological findings or historical facts. I've included most of them in my book to show how many different ideas arose over the ages, how many different versions of the same story may be found in various parts of the world, and how mixed up and contradictory they may seem when we look at the entire picture. I've also examined most of the names and epithets that have been used in reference to Lilith both in ancient times and in the centuries to follow. These are the masks of the goddess, by which she has been known to humanity ever since we started to recognize the power of the divine feminine. Where do we find Lilith in modern times? She is present in every woman, either in an active or dull. She speaks through dreams, passions, desires, ambitions and aspirations. She reveals herself each time we are reminded that life and death are inseparably connected to experience the primordial presence of the divine feminine. Throughout the ages, she has been depicted as the seductress, night hag, nightmare woman, vicious bitch, whore, devouring maver, terrible witch, and the end of all flesh. And all of these qualities are found in every woman. While working with other practitioners, I've been asked many times how to handle a Lilith woman in a relationship, because she's unpredictable, uncontainable and tamed, and doesn't conform to the picture of an ideal partner in any way. But the only advice I can give in this case is to let her be herself.  But such is the nature of the dark feminine. Lilith scorns the cultural and mental programming, which is Christ's predefined roles for men and women. She laughs at divisions and definitions, mercilessly exposing their weaknesses, and guides us into an experience of our primordial power, which is undefined, unrestrained and limitless. This is what you will find in my book. It is an attempt to get to the very core of womanhood by invoking Lilith as she really is. Goddess, demoness, woman, and look through her eyes to understand the nature of the divine feminine before she was vilified by patriarchal dogmas. This is done by examining her masks and manifestations, which are both benevolent and malicious, dark and bright, and by showing how to work with her, and how to understand her presence in the modern world. Who is Lilith then? You will read about her myths and origins in my book, but what is important to mention for the start is that she has never been one entity. The earliest legends and myths speak of multiple Liliths, not referring to any specifically. It is through the development of Christian and Hebrew dogmas, followed by her depictions in the Kabbalah, that she came to be recognized simply as Lilith. Nothing is simple about her, though. Her separate aspects don't always constitute a harmonious whole, but are often described as fighting each other and being in eternal conflict. Some of them are so different from one another that we can almost find them contradictory. Finally, some don't resemble any known myths and stories of Lilith at all, but are still part of her. Her masks and faces presented in my book are at the same time separate goddesses, with different powers, and a part of one greater archetype, which constitutes Lilith. Why work with the masks of Lilith separately? By invoking the goddess in her primary aspect, you may or may not achieve what you want, because it is she who will choose which face she will show you at a particular moment. While such approach is good for establishing contact with the goddess in general, in order to truly get to know her and embrace her noses, you should go deeper into this work. This is possible only by exploring the diversity of her nature, powers, and complexity of her mythology. This is an archetype that has been developing for over two millennia and is still expanding and assuming new forms and new manifestations, this time shaped by the modern world. There is no single quality that could be attributed to Lilith and considered to be primary, prevailing or dominant. Some of them are emphasized in her mythology more than others, but when you explore them in practice, you will see that this is not necessarily true, and that some of her less known faces are much more prominent, and by invoking her specific name, we summon her one desired aspect, narrowing down the experience to what we really want. Before I decided to write this book, I found it extremely hard to choose what should be included in it. On the one hand, I wanted it to be as extensive as possible, embracing the entirety of the Lilith myth, but it is such a task even possible. Probably not, as the divine feminine still remains shrouded in mystery, and it is through us, women, the living vessels for a timeless essence, that she successively reveals herself to the world. She is ever changing, mutable, evolving, and expanding all the time. So even though this book may seem complete at this moment, I am sure that Lilith has not said her final word yet, and it's still the question of time before she reveals her other face. In other words, Rites of Lilith is the most complete picture of the goddess I can think of right now, and I hope that it will help with understanding and clearing the common misconceptions about her that distorted her true image over the last 2,000 years. I also hope that when it happens, there will be others who will take the results of my work and develop them further. For more information about this book and my other books, check out my website, which is asnaphmason.com