Passing of a Green Hero

A Passing: Wangari Maathai

Maathai is best known for creating the Green Belt Movement, which has planted tens of millions of trees around Kenya, but she also personified a positive strain of environmentalism that stands out in a world where “woe is me” messages dominate.
Maathai’s genius is in recognizing the interrelation of local and global problems, and the fact that they can only be addressed when citizens find the voice and courage to act. Maathai saw in the Green Belt Movement both a good in itself, and a way in which women could discover they were not powerless in the face of autocratic husbands, village chiefs and a ruthless president. Through creating their own tree nurseries – at least 6,000 throughout Kenya – and planting trees, women began to control the supply of their own firewood, an enormous power shift that also freed up time for other pursuits.

Let's find our voices and courage to act to honor her.

The Pirate Party

Are the Pirates Walking Green Planks?

As the rest of the world was celebrating talk like a pirate day, the Pirate Party won its first seats in the Berlin state elections. In Germany, any party winning more than 5% of the votes is entitled to a share in government. With 8.9%, the Pirate party lands 15 seats in the state government, among them 19 year old Susanne Graf (pictured above), who will be the youngest representative when session opens in October. Is this the beginning of a new kind of politics? And will it be green?
First and foremost, the Pirate Party campaign program (pdf, German) promises transparency and to give citizens more voice in government. As a young, technologically oriented party, this could auger a change (which some believe is inevitable) in the way we govern ourselves, a move away from representative government to net-based referendums. While not itself green, many believe this strategy could help take big money out of government, bringing balance back to the human aspect of decision making.
Although the word "pirate" has come to be associated with, well let us just say, the uncompensated use of certain digital properties, the official program of the Pirate Party focuses on equal access to information that is in the public domain, and equal opportunity use of internet technology as well as improved educational opportunity for the youth. The greenest angle on this approach to equal access in public domains is the call to keep natural areas available for everyone, such as maintaining open access to river banks.
The Pirate program offers much more than "open access." It turns the clock back on post-9/11 state controls, fighting against surveillance of citizens and demanding improvements in accountability for police forces. The platform contains planks designed to open borders, fighting on several fronts against anti-immigrant feelings. Perhaps most controversially, the Pirate platform also demands a change from drug abuse penalization to educational and social supports designed to reduce dependence on harmful drugs. Walking this plank includes the legalization of marijuana, on the grounds that illegal cannabis handlers pose a health risk by selling contaminated products.
Nations around the globe are finding politics as usual unsatisfying in the face of global economic crisis. Sustainability fans know that things cannot go on as they are. The question that now arises in Berlin is: will this youth movement earn respect for a new path forward, a post-capitalist, post-industrial, social-network based politics? Can politics survive transparency? And can it work for a party named "Pirates"?

This nation needs a viable alternative to the corporate financed Repub/Dems. But can a third party thrive? With so little MSM attention to Occupy Wall Street, their fascination with Hollywood and tabloid stories - I doubt that they can have a meaningful and truthful coverage of any party/group/individual rocking their boat filled with corporate cash.

It is all connected!

Why Environmentalists Should Care About the Occupy Wall Street Protest

The pages of TreeHugger are filled with examples of lobbyists for the corporate polluting class subverting the democratic process in the United States. From the activities of the Koch brothers lobbying octopus in opposing any environmental constraints on business, to the vast subsidies the oil industry maintains even as profits are at record levels, to dirty tricks lobbying against meaningful climate action.
The government of the United States in 2011 is fully in the hands of corporations, at times bordering on the unification of corporate and government interests embodied in fascism--at least in spirit if not every single platform point as outlined three quarters of a century ago.
Besides the destructive environmental consequences of war, the United States outspends the entire world in its militarism. And it is bankrupting this nation. If this nation's military spending was just cut back to doubling its nearest rival, China, it would free up funding for domestic environmental programs, job creation programs, and programs to directly help people at home.
From another angle, if the US wasn't so utterly dependent on fossil fuels it would not have to spend so much money supporting the national and corporate goals of ensuring that the oil keeps flowing, in the process supporting despotic regimes, even supporting friendly governments trying to peddle their environmentally destructive oil as a better alternative to those regimes, and de facto supporting rampant environment destruction in some of the world's poorest regions.
Clean energy may not bring an end to war, or an end to international economic conflict, but it will end the need to protect oil and natural gas fields around the world.

Everything is connected. Environmental justice, social justice - it is all the same fight.
If we do not fight now, we can face the same as is happening in China...

LA Times has a report about how organic produce is sold in China, providing a glimpse into what life might eventually be like, here in the USA, if House Republicans fully codify their Libertarian beliefs (which assumes they would put an end to funding USDA Organic registration).
As things stand, US citizens have a choice: if they want to eat factory farm produce and dairy they can do that; or, they can spend a little more for USDA-certified organic food. In China, on the other hand, the good stuff is saved "...for officials only. They produce organic vegetables, peppers, onions, beans, cauliflowers, but they don't sell to the public," said Li Xiuqin, 68, a lifelong Shunyi village resident who lives directly across the street from the farm but has never been inside. "Ordinary people can't go in there."

Come to think of it, with some prices, especially with restaurants, we are already there.   Cheaper to eat the crap in McD's rather than fresh veggies from a farmer's market.

Where's the media?

Where are the "major" news companies and their coverage of Occupy Wall Street?
Where is their reporting when it comes to Internet and Cell Phone shutdowns?

Several activists are reporting that internet signals and access are being blocked at the “Occupy Wall Street” protest in New York. This same tactic has recently been employed at Bay Area Rapid Transit protests on the opposite side of the continent in San Francisco to shut down cell phone service. See a trend?

Well what should i expect. We see how the media deals with climate change.

Arrghhh!

The Critical Relationship Between Pirates and Climate Change

Every year we be trottin' out Wellington Grey's seminal research on the in'erse statistical relationship between the number of pirates in the world and the climbin' temperatures.

We need more pirates. I am doing my part - what about you?

Raise your glasses

Whisky for the Environment

Whisky fuels lots of things—rebellions, country and western songs, and Shane MacGowan, to name just a few. Now it’s going to power 9,000 homes in Scotland.
More specifically, whisky byproducts are going to power the homes, in the distillery-rich region of Speyside, by helping to fuel a local biomass energy plant.
“Waste products from around 16 of the area’s 50 distilleries will be used at the site, including well-known brands such as Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Macallan, and Famous Grouse,” the Guardian reports.
Spent grains from the whisky distilling process, known as draff, will be burned along with wood to create electricity at the combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Another byproduct, a high-protein liquid residue called pot ale, will be made into a syrup for animal feed—which will be conveniently made at a plant next door.
The Scots aren’t the only whisky makers who are seriously thinking green. On this side of the pond (where we spell it with an “e,” thank you), fine bourbon whiskey distiller Maker’s Mark has made waves with its sustainability initiatives, which according to Inhabitat include biogas reuse, aggressive waste reduction, an on-site nature preserve, and a mostly local, no-GMO grain supply chain.

Need another reason to have a drink this weekend?
Well, it makes me smile knowing the White House has their own brew.

Former Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer had requested to share a beer with the president before the ceremony, CBS reports.
The Honey Ale is the first beer brewed in the White House, but Obama is not the first president to take on the hobby, according to historians.
Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were brewing aficionados, but Jefferson never made beer at the White House, and Washington, of course, never lived there, White House curator Bill Allman told NPR.

Those are both enough reasons for me to raise my glass and have a drink.  Okay, so the weekend helps too.

Sustainable Eating

7 Ways to Cook Up a Sustainable Diet

...seven tips for happier (and healthier) eating, wherever you are planted.
1. Savor your food without distractions. Chew it not for "good digestion" but to enjoy the flavors. Don't read or write emails or watch a movie. You may actually notice when you are full and stop. Savoring alone could lead us to eat, spend, and waste less.
2. Cook with what's at hand. If it is in your fridge or on your shelves, count it as local. How much food do we waste simply because we forget we have it?
3. Become competent in your kitchen. Using hand tools rather than a food processor saves energy and sharpens new skills.
4. Adopt one farmer and stock up. Local food means that specific human beings did a lot of hard work with much love to bring good food to their communities. Pick someone who sells at the farmers market or to your local co-op or grocer. Go to their farm and buy food for your No Impact Week experiment. It's fun.
5. Invite someone to dinner. When we eat alone, we tend to wolf down our food. And families are so busy and distracted they often don't think to invite someone over for a meal. I learned that eating is an act of belonging, and we are not meant to be as anti-social as many of us have become. Cook a nice meal from your local supplies and enjoy conviviality.
6. Read the labels at your grocery store. Where do the 25 foods you most often buy originate? Is your olive oil simply distributed in California, or are those California-grown olives? Is your Napa wine really made with Napa grapes, or is it a blend? Is there information about the people who grew the food, packaged, or shipped it?
7. Start some alfalfa seed sprouts on your windowsill on day one. By the last day of the week, eat them.
Local tools, local farmers, local company, local sprouts--it's all part of your local food system.

One change I would make to this list...Instead of "Adopt one farmer" - become a farmer/gardener and grow your own.

Happy Birthday

Stress Free Gardens

A More Natural and Greener Way to Garden – Slow Gardening

In the pursuit of the perfect lawn and manicured, sometimes uniform shrubs and annuals, not to mention vegetables, could something be getting lost? Could we be gardening in an overly intense or pressured way? Diane Brandon is joined this week by Felder Rushing, a decades-long gardener who writes and speaks about gardening, who is also the author of Slow Gardening – A No-Stress Philosophy for All Senses and Seasons. Mr. Rushing’s approach could allow you to get the health benefits from contact with the earth, as well as the rewards of gardening, without feeling pressured. It should feed your enjoyment of gardening as well!

Listen to the broadcast here.

Fall Garden

It's Not Too Late to Plant a Fall Garden! What to Plant in Your Region Now

Northeast

• Arugula

• Carrots

• Lettuce

• Mache

• Mustard Greens

• Radishes

• Spinach

• Turnips

Check, check....all except the mache.
And mustn't forget the beets, chard, kale and tomatillos that are going to be feeding me for a while.

I can slow down on weeding?

Why Encouraging Weeds May Be Good Farming

When I posted an awesome tour of my old permaculture teacher's urban allotment, I was reminded of his seemingly chaotic yet decidedly sensible approach to weeding. Rather than seeking to eradicate weeds from his site—an objective that was at best incredibly labor or chemical intensive, if not downright impossible—he instead chose to encourage weeds that had some beneficial properties. Those might be wild edibles, or they may be nitrogen fixers, or plants with particular benefits in terms of biodiversity. The idea, then, was to edit rather than control—and to encourage a community of plants that was both productive and more-or-less self sustaining.
This video is a classic example of that approach. By observing her fields and the life-cycles of both the main farm crops, and the weeds that inevitably accompany them, Helen Atthowe of Veganic Permaculture is able to identify penny cress as a plant that does not compete with her main crops, and also attracts beneficial insects. So while she weeds selectively and takes out plants that cause more disruption, she lets penny cress thrive and spread—in the hope that it will crowd out some of the competition and ultimately reduce the need for weeding or other interventions.

I knew there was a raeson that I am so remiss in weeding the garden. I knew I wanted the purslane growing because of my salads but now I have a great reason to let more of those weeds grow on and on and on...

Chuck being Green

Prince Charles Warns of Human Extinction

In his first speech as the head of the Worldwide Wildlife Fund UK, Prince Charles warned of a mass human extinction if dramatic steps aren't taken to reduce the world's consumption of natural resources. According to an article in The Telegraph, the Prince of Wales said, somewhat jokingly, that he too was an endangered species.
The Telegraph reports that Prince Charles didn't mince words when describing the state of the environment and how the planet as we know it is entering a mass extinction that could only be matched but that of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
He also commented that the triple threat of climate change, rainforest destruction, and dwindling fish stocks make this a "crucial moment" for the organization and the movement.

High fives to the Prince for his stand. He is the butt of so many jokes but the guy is okay by me. From this speech to his organic garden he is leading the way. Wonder what Queen Mum thinks about climate change?

This guy is leading the pack?

Rick Perry: Just because global warming is a ‘fact’ doesn’t mean it’s real

In last night's debate, Perry offered the following extremely convincing argument against global warming: Not all scientists believe in it, I am pretty sure. I can't name any scientist who doesn't, but then, I can't name any scientists at all. Even if they do say it's a fact, that doesn't mean it's true. Because Galileo. Hey, Galileo! He's a scientist who probably didn't believe in global warming! QED.

THIS IS BARELY EVEN AN EXAGGERATION. Here's an actual quote: "The idea that we would put American's economy at jeopardy [sic] based on scientific theory that's not settled yet [sic] to me is just, is nonsense. Just because you have a group of scientists that's stood up and said 'here is the fact,' Galileo got outvoted for a spell." See, my way was much easier to understand!

Scary isn't it?   In a sick way I hope he wins the Repub nomination.  Need some laughs during the next election.

The Koch Boys are at it again

Koch brothers compare Obama to Saddam Hussein, declare 2012 will be ‘war’

A complete audio transcript of the Koch brothers' annual super-secret gathering of hard-right bazillionaires just leaked, and it's full of all the usual invective you'd expect to hear out of America's favorite pro-business libertarian climate change deniers.
The Koch brothers are apparently really getting into their supervillain roles. Not only did they lay out their evil plan to their minions (sort of), but they had all kinds of elaborate security in their lair. Measures taken to prevent a leak like this were almost comically over-the-top, including outward-facing speakers blasting static in order to fool remote eavesdroppers.
Charles Koch opened the meeting by comparing president Obama to Saddam Hussein, and then asserted that the 2012 elections will be "the mother of all wars."
One of the biggest applause lines of the evening came from Fox News analyst and retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, who said that the second amendment was created to ensure "the right to shoot at the government if it is taken over by tyrants."
So, there you have it: Obama is a tyrant, and the constitution preserves our right to shoot at tyrannical governments. Nothing to see here.

You know, this makes O's cave-ins not so bad.  If the boys despise him so much, how mad can I really be at O?