Greenneck said:
"Expanding on Sean's comments, what Craig does in his personal life doesn't come close to what Craigslist has done for my recycling, and the recycli..." [read]
veggirl said:
"Adam that is one of the most compassionate acts I have ever seen! It touched my heart deeply! I wish there were more people out there like you:)</p..." [read]
Dwall said:
"This is from the same guy who is buying up water rights from farmers in order to sell it back to big cities by way of long pipelines built on land ..." [read]
Alex M. Pruteanu said:
"I saw this on the heels of reading about Nissan introducing an all electric car to the States by 2010-2012. As noted in a comment above me, I vivi..." [read]
ben said:
""teach your cat some discipline!"
Bahahaha! Have you ever even met a cat?..." [read]
Paul Eckerson said:
" Having a degree in chemistry and working in the feild my entire career, I know that the laws of thermodynamics tell me using electricit..." [read]
One would think that the Corn Refiners Association would be busy enough right now that they could sit back and relax, but instead they are starting a big marketing campaign to beat back the Michael Pollans, Daniel Imhoffs and Richard Johnsons of the world who complain that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is making us fat. They are taking it to the public with a big new $30 million ad campaign, saying that the stuff has the "same natural sweeteners as table sugar and honey."
They have the courts behind them; Stacy Holk went after Snapples at the FDA for claiming that their product was "all natural," when it was full of HFCS, noting that there is nothing natural about the process of making the stuff:
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Victory gardens originated during World Wars 1 and 2, when citizens were urged to grow their own food, in fact 40% of America's food was produced in them. San Francisco’s victory programme was one of the best; there were over 250 garden plots in Golden Gate Park. In recognition of this history, and the need to become more ecologically self-sufficient, the front lawn of San Francisco City Hall has been dug up and over the summer will be turned into a mass of vegetables. Calling it "a living quilt of plants and people, a garden of communities", it will feature a wide range of heritage organic vegetables native to the Bay Area climate. A host of serious food celebrities will be in attendance such as Alice Waters of Chez Panisse restaurant, Treehugger's favourite author Michael Pollan, and Slow Food genius Carlo Petrini.
It will be a huge educational undertaking. Starter kits are being made available for people wanting to start gardening. They will be delivered by a gardener riding a tricycle, and will include a lesson on how to build a raised bed, planting and a follow up harvest and seed saving lesson. Volunteers will be welcomed on several projects around town. In addition, 15 pilot urban organic food gardens will be started for 15 families of varied ethnic background. The event culminates on Labour Day when there will be a huge feast and harvest day. The idea is spreading--there is a demonstration project in London's St. James Park, and now London's Royal Parks are considering growing formal cabbage gardens instead of flowers next year. :: flavorpill
After a weekend of fireworks, barbecues, and cuisine that may contain more than one hot dog or Jell-O fruit mold, we turn our attention to the gut. And a new breakthrough in probiotics.
"The gut?" you ask. Um, yes. The gut.
Sometime shortly before the holiday weekend I spoke with Steve Demos, a man I’ve known for quite some time and someone my dad, Tim Redmond, has known for quite a few more, since they were both pioneers in this industry of natural and organic foods.
Doctors at the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit of Johns Hopkins University are seeking volunteers for a study assessing the therapeutic value of the psychoactive substance, psilocybin, in sacred mushrooms (aka magic mushrooms). Volunteers with a current or past diagnosis of cancer are being sought. Our source notes: "Publicizing this trial has been very challenging so we are asking for your assistance to help us get the word out." We can imagine, given that "spaced out" and the "hemp effect" come immediately to mind upon suggestion of beneficial applications for psychedelic substances.
Norwegian carrots - they might not meet KRAV's climate criteria! By color line @ flickr
Sweden's organic food organization KRAV and local-food certifier Svenskt Sigill were supposed to release the first round of climate-certified basic foodstuffs this fall. The organization of Swedish consumers has slowed up the process complaining that a new climate label would confuse and bewilder Swedish consumers, while the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency said opposes a new label for each new environmental problem. The Swedish National Board of Trade said the labeling was anti-trade as only Swedish products - fruit, veggies, grains, fish and shellfish - were to be labeled.
Consumers strongly in favor of climate labeling
Some critics wanted a detailed label that totaled the amount (in grams) of greenhouse gas that production of each foodstuff entailed. So say, local carrots, would have a much lower greenhouse gas number than carrots trucked in from Italy. But KRAV said that type of labeling (a lá Tesco) would require 7 to 10 years of research. Instead KRAV planned to certify goods that met criteria including a maximum amount of CO2 for production and transport. That label may now be delayed as the organization runs its suggestions through another round of commenting. An early July survey by Svenskt Sigill's sister organization found 8 out of 10 consumers wanted climate labels, while half were ready to pay a premium for certified "climate friendly" foods. Via ::Miljöaktuellt (Swedish)
While there are books aplenty today about going green, greening your lifestyle and green for dummies, The Climate Diet is the first to offer you greening solutions in terms of a weight watchers diet. The book also shows how you can not only cut emissions but also save money by cutting out the excess in your life.
The Climate Diet: How You Can Cut Carbon, Cut Costs, And Save the Planet, by Jonathan Harrington, offers readers tips on how to reduce their carbon footprint in areas of their life, such as, heating, transportation, community and home. While it’s a good ‘how to go green’ book, it doesn’t necessarily offer anything that the other green books haven’t.
We know it sounds like putting a square watermelon in a round hole: but Wal-Mart claims it is the nation's largest buyer of locally grown produce. The scaling of centrally managed industrial agriculture in the USA will be transformed. More changes are coming.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to buy and sell $400 million worth of produce grown by local farmers within its state stores this year, an effort the company says will only grow.
One obvious upshot is diversification of the supply chain. Smaller contracts with more farmers & distributors.
The Bush administration says it ain't so, blaming high food prices on higher demand from India and China. Brazil's Lula blames record oil prices and rich countries' farm subsidies. John Laumer blames genetically modified crops, among other things. Now a leaked report from the World Bank claims that biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%. The Guardian writes: "Senior development sources" say the report was spiked to avoid embarrassing President Bush. "It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.
The report contradicts Bush and says "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases Without the increase in biofuels, global wheat and maize stocks would not have declined appreciably and price increases due to other factors would have been moderate."...
Summer is in full force and so is our desire to head to the beach and pool. We've heard about the dangers of chemicals in sunscreens, and for many reasons want to avoid them or limit their use. TreeHugger has also reported that sunscreens are causing bleaching in corals -- another reason to limit their use. And that sunscreens can transexualize fish. Ew.
A company which focuses on plant extracts LycoRed thinks there are alternate solutions for protecting you from the sun's harmful rays. The company has used the help of Mother Nature to develop an extract from the tomato that has been found to protect the skin against harmful UV radiation.
The cosmeceutical called Lyc-O-Mato doesn't turn your skin red, but can prevent you from turning into a tomato. Available in Europe through Inneov, a joint venture of L'Oreal and Nestle, and by the French company Oenobiol, it is expected to be available in the US shortly, said the company when we interviewed them on ISRAEL21c. The company also develops a natural red food coloring additive.
...
The article starts off really badly, with a picture of farmer Dan Gibson's modest little farmhouse with a porte cochère big enough to park a combine harvester, and a description of how the former VP of Starwood Hotels raises Angus cattle but spends his spare time in house that "has a theater that wouldn’t be out of place in a Steven Spielberg residence, a wine cellar and a log cabin annex with a magnificent dry stack stone fireplace, a billiards table and a stuffed bear and bobcat glowering down between beams made of North Carolina pine — each beam an entire mature tree."
It gets slightly better though, as Ralph Gardner describes how "In recent years, as the local food movement has grown and farmers’ markets have proliferated, a new breed of back-to-the-landers has emerged."...
We have noted before that farmed Atlantic salmon growing in pens in western waters in not necessarily the best idea, but it is a huge business in Norway, Chile and British Columbia. It is slightly smaller in BC today, after strong ocean currents moved a net near Campbell River, BC. The company says "One of the anchor lines ... apparently slipped to a low spot on the ocean floor and in so doing pulled down the corner of the cage so much the fish were able to swim out, which is really unusual." But it could be disastrous for the already threatened wild Pacific salmon stocks.
"You get juvenile Atlantics, they're not indigenous to the coast and they start competing with the wild salmon and they start putting the wild salmon at risk. Everything has to be done to stop having those Atlantic salmon in the ocean," says Jennifer Lash of the Living Ocean Society in the Globe and Mail. "Any time you bring in an invasive species or a non-indigenous species ... it poses a threat to the existing biological diversity."
...
In a complete turnabout the Food and Drug Administration has issued a health warning over amalgam dental fillings after insisting for years that they were safe. A change in stance which is a major victory for activists who claim fillings can cause a range of problems, including heart conditions and Alzheimer's disease.
According to their website, the FDA now states that fillings contain mercury that "may have neuro-toxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses".
...
In Victorian times, houses were very narrow, multi-storied, and had a small "footprint" on the land. This left more land for private gardening, and commons, among other things. Then came the 1960s, and "ranch style" homes, with half-acre grass covered lots. By the 1970's anyone with a vegetable garden in a suburban or city back yard were "hippies," "weird," or "old fashioned."
The 1990's saw the boom of Mega-Mansions on postage stamp sized lots, weekly lawn-care crew visits, and still little vegetable gardening on a respectable scale, regardless of whether one lives in the city or the suburbs. Now we have an oil crisis overlain with a salmonella crisis: both of which the US Federal government seems incapable of dealing with. Vertical gardening might help change that.
...the system is designed to grow vegetables and other foods much more efficiently and with greater food value than in agricultural field conditions. The HDVG system demonstrates the following characteristics:
Here is an apt demonstration of why strictly controlled organic food production methods pose lower risks to human health. It is a frightful sounding tale of deformed vegetables in domestic gardens where "allotment" owners used commercially produced (non-organic) manure to supplement their soil.
Gardeners have been warned not to eat home-grown vegetables contaminated by a powerful new herbicide that is destroying gardens and allotments across the UK.
The chain of events in the UK was roughly as follows...
Futurama Farming
We do love writing about vertical farms, the high-tech architectural/ technological vision for feeding our cities. (See our roundup of them here)
Graham Harvey writes in the Guardian that "Vertical farms may be the hot story, but a network of good old-fashioned kitchen-gardens would produce better food."
He notes that while vertical farms have a certain futuristic appeal, "There's no reason why conurbations like London and New York shouldn't be filled with city farms in the same way as Havana. There are thousands of small areas from rooftops to urban parks that could be converted to food production. In fact it's already started to happen. Last year Harrods announced that it would be growing a range of crops – including lettuces, broad beans and tomatoes – right there on its roof.
...
In a taste of what would come if the U.S. were to take the lead in developing global alternative energy solutions, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has signed a multi-million dollar agreement to bring their expertise to an assessment of health risks in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) due to environmental factors.
And since the U.A.E. has gone from a small nomadic and seafaring economy to one that is highly industrialized in just the last 40 years as one of the fastest developing nations in the world the truth is that there is plenty of cause for concern. A fact leadership in that country fully recognizes, and is attempting to tackle before a serious burden of disease emerges among the general population.
...
Couple Document Aquaponics for Complete Beginners
From my video roundup of DIY aquaponics systems to posts on the Growing Power urban farm and Backyard Aquaponics Magazine, the idea that we can produce both high-quality protein and fruits and vegetables in an integrated, mutually beneficial system has certainly caught my interest, and I’ve been itching to check out a system in real life. So much so in fact that that I was recently enthusing about the potential of aquaponics to a friend, to which he replied “you should talk to my friend Liz”. It turns out that Liz and her husband Brian are writing a blog to “to document the trials and tribulations of starting a home aquaponics operation without any prior knowledge or experience of aquaculture or hydroponics.” I’ve yet to make it out to check out their set up (though I’m hoping this post will wangle an invite!), but in the meantime the blog is a great resource on everything from the costs of setting up a pond to the couple’s extensive, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to get tilapia for the system this year:
...
In 2008, global food demand is testing the capacity of petroleum-dependent, export-focused commodity agriculture. This system has not served developed nations as food prices soar—inflamed by biofuel demand and fuel prices—and has especially hurt developing nations already struggling with food security issues. The modern-farming paradigm has also resulted in nutrient overload in our waterways from the use of synthetic nitrogen, degradation of our soils and animal health and welfare concerns. Most disturbing is modern agriculture's contribution to global warming.
New data from U.S. government research shows that with agriculture using chemical fertilizers and herbicides, the U.S. food system contributes nearly 20 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions. On a global scale, figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) say that agricultural land use contributes 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions....
Image: Kudzu weeds engulf a light pole by a47nn on Flickr
Weeds: are they troublesome invaders, ecological opportunists or key to tackling a potential global food crisis? According to research done by weed ecologists, our ambiguous relationship to these resilient plants could soon change in a world where carbon dioxide levels are rising – and where weeds could grow to oversized proportions (think 12-foot tall lambs-quarters, a common weed).
Of course, “weed” can be a rather subjective label, depending on your context – farmers worldwide spend $10 billion annually to keep weeds in check; yet, for others, the same plants could be a beautiful part of a natural garden. But be it friend or foe, a study by scientists at the Agriculture Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that warming temperatures and elevated levels of CO2 resulted not only in increased weed growth rates, size and pollen production, but also a change in the plants’ chemical composition.
...
From the Ethicurian, by Bart Nagel
I sighed when I saw the headline in Salon "Is local food really miles better?" Here comes another analysis looking at the carbon emissions of one big transport truck vs ten farmers' pickups. No matter that environmentalism isn't just about carbon, that quality and taste matter, and that the local food distribution system is nascent and obviously needs work. It was like that study last year that "proved" that shipping lamb from New Zealand to the UK had a lower carbon footprint than buying local British lamb- debunking this story was going to be a lot of work.
Fortunately, Mark R. at the Ethicurian has done an excellent job of it, noting the the local food system is "far from ideal: too many small trucks, too much time spent on the road and minding the stand during the markets instead of farming. But with wholesalers and large grocery chains prizing low prices and efficiency above all else, there aren’t many alternatives right now. The big companies want to deal with as few suppliers as possible to reduce transaction costs, the transportation companies can’t go 40 miles out of their way to pick up a few boxes of peaches or salad greens." ::Ethicurian...
While your average gallon-sized milk jug hasn’t changed much in decades, it’s about to undergo a significant change destined to cut fuel, labor, and carbon costs all at the same time.
Turns out these new, alien-type jugs are cheaper to ship, better for the environment, cost less, and even provide fresher milk to the store; with some milk going from the cow’s udder to supermarket shelf within hours.
But that doesn’t mean everyone loves them.
...
Green Grows the Grass?
Now that the summer growth season is in full swing, many folks will be struggling to keep up with their lawn maintenance. And while converting our yards to edibles is probably the greenest option out there, reel mowers come in a close second. However, if your grass cutting is of the more heavy-duty variety, it's worth knowing that scythes are making a comeback too. We’ve already written about a Canadian scything enthusiast, but is seems that the UK is undergoing a scything revival too, at least if Simon Fairlie of the Scythe Shop has anything to do with it. His website eloquently describes how scything “changed his life”:
...
Underlying causes of the recent food price volatility are sometimes hard to discern. Below are a few examples of foods which increased greatly in price during the last year, per category. As you'll see, omnivores and vegetarians share the price pain. A steep increase in the price of eggs, because chicken feed contains corn and because shedding them is energy intensive, makes intuitive sense. Environmental and energy policy was part and parcel. Some other steep increases are, at first, surprising.
Harvest too many Maryland Blue Crabs, year after year, and they'll go away. Let soil erode badly from farm lands that feed essential estuaries, they'll go away. Spray pesticides thoughtlessly, they'll go away. Only in living systems can "away" be made so permanent, so quickly, so painfully. A predetermined outcome of the present course: no more TeeVee ads for delicious crab cakes shipped to your door.
Maryland and Virginia's U.S. senators say there's no time to waste in declaring the decline of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs a federal disaster...In a letter to federal authorities, the senators argue for a declaration that would provide about $20 million in federal aid to watermen and seafood processors hurt by the crab's decline...The letter was sent yesterday to Department of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland and John W. Warner and Jim Webb of Virginia point out that blue crab stocks in the estuary are down about 70 percent from 1990.
Machines have a reputation for being cold and impersonal, except of course if you rely on your laptop’s hard drive to be your second (sometimes better) brain. But it’s not everyday that designers create things that tune into your emotions like the funky moon rings our sister used to wear in the Seventies.
...
Compost isn’t Just for Kitchen Scraps
You know you’re a hippy when you move house and take your compost pile with you. Having spent three years in a house too shady to garden, yet composting all of our organic waste, we just couldn’t leave all that beautiful, dark, crumbly compost behind. So on the back of the truck it went, along with all the creatures who call it home. In the process we got to take a good look at the fruits of our labours, and that look validated our approach to composting. We had been experimenting with something called high-fibre composting, in which we not only added kitchen scraps to our heap, but also a good chunk of our household paper and cardboard waste. The idea has been long touted by the Centre for Alternative Technology, and is a great way to stop domestic heaps getting slimy or smelly (heaps with too much nitrogen-rich kitchen scraps, and too little carbon-rich woody materials, can suffer from lack of oxygen). It was amazing how quickly much of the cardboard, paper and other packaging materials had broken down, and I’m only sorry my camera is still in a packing crate somewhere, because (like any proud father), I would have loved to share a picture of my baby (I’ll have to content myself with a picture I took of someone else’s high-fibre system).
Correction to first sentence: you know you’re a hippy when you start calling your compost your baby…
...
photo by Slinger via flickr
By way of intellectual disclaimer let me say that I’m a big fan of Michael Pollan's work. He shows an uncommon insight and clarity of thought, as well as an ability to synthesize the many strands of what I consider to be the essence of environmentalism that is often lacking in the prevaling compartmentalized issue and solution mindset. He’s big picture and little picture equally. So with that gushing behind us...
Yale Environment 360 is running an interview with Michael Pollan that I wholly encourage everyone concerned about biofuels, rising food prices and agriculture to read. He might be preaching to the choir in this audience (something he says in the interview he doesn’t like to do), but there’s some really choice bits in this one.
...
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the weekly archive if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
TreeHugger breaks it down for you in a series of in depth how-to articles that will help you green your life. No time like the present!
Image from HealthyLivingNYC.
The Bush administration says it ain't so, blaming high food prices on higher demand from India and China. 
Summer is in full force and so is our desire to head to the beach and pool. We've heard about the 
The article starts off really badly, with a picture of farmer Dan Gibson's modest little farmhouse with a porte cochère big enough to park a combine harvester, and a description of how the former VP of Starwood Hotels raises Angus cattle but spends his spare time in house that "has a theater that wouldn’t be out of place in a Steven Spielberg residence, a wine cellar and a log cabin annex with a magnificent dry stack stone fireplace, a billiards table and a stuffed bear and bobcat glowering down between beams made of North Carolina pine — each beam an entire mature tree."
It gets slightly better though, as Ralph Gardner describes how "In recent years, as the local food movement has grown and farmers’ markets have proliferated, a new breed of back-to-the-landers has emerged."...
We have 
In a complete turnabout the Food and Drug Administration has issued a health warning over amalgam dental fillings after insisting for years that they were safe. A change in stance which is a major victory for activists who claim fillings can cause a range of problems, including heart conditions and Alzheimer's disease.
According to their website, the FDA now states that fillings contain mercury that "may have neuro-toxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses".
...
In Victorian times, houses were very narrow, multi-storied, and had a small "footprint" on the land. This left more land for private gardening, and commons, among other things. Then came the 1960s, and "ranch style" homes, with half-acre grass covered lots. By the 1970's anyone with a vegetable garden in a suburban or city back yard were "hippies," "weird," or "old fashioned."
The 1990's saw the boom of Mega-Mansions on postage stamp sized lots, weekly lawn-care crew visits, and still little vegetable gardening on a respectable scale, regardless of whether one lives in the city or the suburbs. Now we have an oil crisis overlain with a salmonella crisis: both of which the US Federal government seems incapable of dealing with. Vertical gardening might help change that. 
Here is an apt demonstration of why strictly controlled organic food production methods pose lower risks to human health. It is a frightful sounding tale of deformed vegetables in domestic gardens where "allotment" owners used commercially produced (non-organic) manure to supplement their soil. 
In a taste of what would come if the U.S. were to take the lead in developing global alternative energy solutions, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has signed a multi-million dollar agreement to bring their expertise to an assessment of health risks in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) due to environmental factors.
And since the U.A.E. has gone from a small nomadic and seafaring economy to one that is highly industrialized in just the last 40 years as one of the fastest developing nations in the world the truth is that there is plenty of cause for concern. A fact leadership in that country fully recognizes, and is attempting to tackle before a serious burden of disease emerges among the general population.
...
Couple Document Aquaponics for Complete Beginners
From my 
In 2008, global food demand is testing the capacity of petroleum-dependent, export-focused commodity agriculture. This system has not served developed nations as 
Image: Kudzu weeds engulf a light pole by 
From the 
While your average gallon-sized milk jug hasn’t changed much in decades, it’s about to undergo a significant change destined to cut fuel, labor, and carbon costs all at the same time.
Turns out these new, alien-type jugs are cheaper to ship, better for the environment, cost less, and even provide fresher milk to the store; with some milk going from the cow’s udder to supermarket shelf within hours.
But that doesn’t mean everyone loves them.
...
Green Grows the Grass?
Now that the summer growth season is in full swing, many folks will be struggling to keep up with their lawn maintenance. And while 
Underlying causes of the recent food price volatility are sometimes hard to discern. Below are a few examples of foods which increased greatly in price during the last year, per category. As you'll see, omnivores and vegetarians share the price pain. A steep increase in the price of eggs, because chicken feed contains corn and because shedding them is energy intensive, makes intuitive sense. Environmental and energy policy was part and parcel. Some other steep increases are, at first, surprising.
Harvest too many Maryland Blue Crabs, year after year, and they'll go away. Let soil erode badly from farm lands that feed essential estuaries, they'll go away. Spray pesticides thoughtlessly, they'll go away. Only in living systems can "away" be made so permanent, so quickly, so painfully. A predetermined outcome of the present course: no more TeeVee ads for 
Machines have a reputation for being cold and impersonal, except of course if you rely on your laptop’s hard drive to be your second (sometimes better) brain. But it’s not everyday that designers create things that tune into your emotions like the funky moon rings our sister used to wear in the Seventies.
...
Compost isn’t Just for Kitchen Scraps
You know you’re a hippy when you move house and take your compost pile with you. Having spent three years in a house too shady to garden, yet composting all of our organic waste, we just couldn’t leave all that beautiful, dark, crumbly compost behind. So on the back of the truck it went, along with all the creatures who call it home. In the process we got to take a good look at the fruits of our labours, and that look validated our approach to composting. We had been experimenting with something called 
photo by Slinger via 
