Going Green

by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger

Last week, environmentalists and food advocates warily welcomed the news that Walmart plans to expand its local, sustainable food program. The company announced it would double its sales of locally grown food by 2015 and, in new markets, would source from small and midsized producers. Given Walmart’s market share, this announcement is generally understood to be a positive development for the sustainable food movement.

Sustainable food, however, has grown beyond the dictum to eat simply locally and organically grown food. Farms have sprung up on rooftops, home canning of fruits and vegetables has taken off, and composting is de rigueur. A common thread runs through this movement, one with a long tradition in American life—a preference for self-reliance.

“Independence is for Neanderthals”

In her new book, The Resilient Gardener, Chelsea Green author Carol Deppe writes about her garden not just as a local, sustainable source of food, but as a tool for building a sustainable community.

“The resilient gardener knows we have our ups and downs, as individuals, families, societies, and as a species,” she says. “The resilient garden is designed and managed so that when things go wrong, they have less impact.”

Deppe argues that growing staple crops like potatoes, corn, beans, and squash, and learning how to store vegetables and save seeds will help communities thrive, even in times of erratic climates.

“I aim for appropriate self-reliance, not for independence,” she says. “Independence is for Neanderthals.”

Communal eating

Yes! Magazine’s Vicki Robin has been feeding herself only with produce from a friend’s farm and a handful of other necessities sourced within a 10-mile radius of her home—which is on an island in Washington State. She’s been documenting her “10-mile diet” since the beginning of September, and as it came to a close in early October, she wrote: “The overall news is that we are actually on our way to at least partial food self sufficiency on the island, and could get closer with some changes—if we eat what we can grow here and not insist on what cannot grow here….”

From the farm to the city

For Robin, eating locally often meant eating food grown by neighbors. For city-dwellers, “local” is much more flexible. In New York City, for instance, local food at the city’s Greenmarkets can come from more than two hundred miles away, as farmers make weekly drives from upstate New York, Vermont, or southern New Jersey.

Although urban farms have drawn attention as a innovative solution for localizing food production, no one is arguing that a city could feed itself entirely from its rooftops or empty lots. It may not even be wise to dedicate large chunks of city space to agriculture, as Daniel Nairn argues at Grist: Cities need to be dense to promote energy efficiency. Jason Mark, editor of the Earth Island Journal, also writes at Change.org that most urban farms, so far, are not supporting themselves financially.

Sustained by subsidies

For American agriculture across the board, subsidies are a key to financial sustainability. The USDA has funded the growth of corn and soy megafarms in the Midwest, and earnings from outside jobs supplement the incomes of many small or midsized farmers. So far, outside support for urban agriculture has come primarily from private foundations, although earlier this year Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) introduced a bill that would create an Office of Urban Agriculture within the federal agriculture department.

Still, increasing outside funding for urban agriculture may not be the key to sustaining it. “The question of whether farms can become self-sufficient has major implications for the larger drive to create a green economy,” Mark writes. For the green economy to work, it has to be self-reliant.

Mark highlights Dig Deep Farm in the suburbs of San Francisco, CA, as an example.

“To reach profitability, we have to reach a lot of people,” Hank Herrera, one of the farm’s owners, told Mark. “Our goal is to have enough productivity to reach scale, to have the poundage to really feed people.”

To that end, Herrera and his partner, Abeni Ramsey, are looking for more corners of land in the vicinity of their farm to convert into growing space.

Farm ecosystems

Communities sustained by good food practices extend beyond humans to the natural ecosystem of worms and insects that lives in the dirt, helping to enrich and clean it. As Sara Rubin writes at Campus Progress, “A farmer attentive to natural systems will often rejoice over a handful of soil packed with the tiny squirmers, but mostly because it’s packed with microscopic critters, too. An entire ecosystem of beneficial fungi and bacteria and tiny insects can be active below the soil surface.”

That community of underground wrigglers contributes to the resilience of human communities, too. Healthy bugs and bacteria crowd out dangerous pathogens that have led to food-related outbreaks of salmonella, for instance, in the past few years.

Environmentalists should welcome Walmart’s new-found dedication to local foods. It shows that the first battle for a sustainable food system has been won, freeing up time and energy to develop new, exciting projects that will ultimately strengthen communities, not corporations.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

Elections in Australia don’t have a predictable two year marathon time-line. Instead, the sitting prime minister calls an election and then everyone has 5 weeks to campaign, because on the 5th weekend the voting happens (which is mandatory, but more on that in a bit)

A few weeks ago, when Julia Gillard called an election, it couldn’t have come at a better or worse time for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. I worked as the Interim Online Director for the AYCC from March-May and during that time we were plagued by uncertainty. When should we hold regional powershifts? What was our election campaign? How could we plan something creative and hard-hitting without being way too early or late? Well, you act on what you know, fake the rest, and charge full steam ahead.

As it turns out, the election was called the weekend after the last Powershift conference. Perfect. It also meant that the organization was at 110% capacity to put on three conferences, and then had to implement a many-part election campaign on top of that. Not so perfect.

What did they do? What any good organization should: they set their sights even higher, raised more money, brought on more staff and volunteers, and set about making it happen. The AYCC has rolled out a full-blown election campaign with stunts, calls to politicians and a TV ad encouraging people to vote. I know a lot of them haven’t slept in weeks, but it’s amazing:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePn1K1WrrJk]

How did this all come about? It started with picking the dates for three regional Powershift conferences to energize youth in key areas of the country and train them up to run amazing election efforts. The three medium-sized cities had some AYCC volunteers, but having Powershifts there put them into high gear. Here’s a recap from Adeliade leader Joel Dignam:

July 30th was the last day of my life before Power Shift 2010 Adelaide.

In bed that night, I thought back to June 2nd – barely 8 weeks earlier, when Adelaide had hosted a ‘Power Shift Strategy Session’. Attended by almost 20 eager volunteers, the session began a recruitment journey during which every member of the group would challenge themselves, connect with others, and spread a simple message: that Power Shift will give us the tools to build a generation-wide movement to solve the climate crisis.

Powershift Adelaide (seen here) finished last weekend. Powershift Canberra is concluding as I write this, and Powershift Geelong will start next weekend. And the next weekend is the election.

In a flurry of activity after the election was called, media stunts were organized, a TV ad was produced (above) and the Power Vote campaign was assembled. It consists of a scorecard ranking the three major parties on how they stand on climate change solutions, and an automated call service. People who join the campaign tell the system their name and zip code, and it then automatically dials their politicians office to inform the politician that “Ellen Sandell” of Melbourne is voting for climate champions. After all, enough politicians authorize robo-calls to voters, it seems appropriate that they get inundated with an equal number of reminders of what voters are thinking about.

The score card, the ads, the massive number of phone calls, the energized Powershift volunteers and the savvyness of the organization have been turning heads. Climate change is a top issue for Australian voters, and the combination of a viable third-party option, a country already feeling the effects of changing climates and the best renewable energy potential of any continent mean things are ripe for a change. Unfortunately, the two major political parties response has been to circle the wagons and reach an even more absurd consensus of inaction. On August 21st, the day of the election, we’ll see if the AYCC and their allies can shift that dynamic. If their luck holds and they keep taking the opportunities they have, I think we’ll see a youth climate movement emerge as a significant political force.

Another recent development gives the Australian youth a big leg up. Voting is mandatory in Australia – it’s a crime not to vote in a federal election. Unfortunately, voters need to have their registration updated to their current address in order to vote. This means that over 1/3rd of young people are not enrolled to vote and suffer no consequences from ‘breaking the law’ and not voting.

The previous conservative government created a policy that the last chance to update voting enrollment was 5 weeks before the election – the end of the day that the election was ‘called’. Just last week, GetUp.org.au, another progressive campaigning organization in Australia, won a major court battle challenging the legality of the enrollment policy. This means that 100,000 young voters can now vote who were previously prevented from doing so. Score!

Will it be enough to break the deadlock? Perhaps, but there’s nothing like a good media narrative to really turn up the heat on a tight issue, and creative stunts, at their best, are the perfect tool to do that. That’s why I was thrilled to see the ‘elephant in the room’ quite literally, burst into the room last week to demand why the two major parties weren’t talking about climate change solutions. The media loved it. Keep up the great work AYCC, folks in the US are watching and hopefully taking notes.

Climate change protester Ahri Tallon waits for Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to arrive at a hotel in Sydney on August 5, 2010. (Tracey Nearmy)

Elections in Australia don’t have a predictable two year marathon time-line. Instead, the sitting prime minister calls an election and then everyone has 5 weeks to campaign, because on the 5th weekend the voting happens (which is mandatory, but more on that in a bit)

A few weeks ago, when Julia Gillard called an election, it couldn’t have come at a better or worse time for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. I worked as the Interim Online Director for the AYCC from March-May and during that time we were plagued by uncertainty. When should we hold regional powershifts? What was our election campaign? How could we plan something creative and hard-hitting without being way too early or late? Well, you act on what you know, fake the rest, and charge full steam ahead.

As it turns out, the election was called the weekend after the last Powershift conference. Perfect. It also meant that the organization was at 110% capacity to put on three conferences, and then had to implement a many-part election campaign on top of that. Not so perfect.

What did they do? What any good organization should: they set their sights even higher, raised more money, brought on more staff and volunteers, and set about making it happen. The AYCC has rolled out a full-blown election campaign with stunts, calls to politicians and a TV ad encouraging people to vote. I know a lot of them haven’t slept in weeks, but it’s amazing:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePn1K1WrrJk]

How did this all come about? It started with picking the dates for three regional Powershift conferences to energize youth in key areas of the country and train them up to run amazing election efforts. The three medium-sized cities had some AYCC volunteers, but having Powershifts there put them into high gear. Here’s a recap from Adeliade leader Joel Dignam:

July 30th was the last day of my life before Power Shift 2010 Adelaide.

In bed that night, I thought back to June 2nd – barely 8 weeks earlier, when Adelaide had hosted a ‘Power Shift Strategy Session’. Attended by almost 20 eager volunteers, the session began a recruitment journey during which every member of the group would challenge themselves, connect with others, and spread a simple message: that Power Shift will give us the tools to build a generation-wide movement to solve the climate crisis.

Powershift Adelaide (seen here) finished last weekend. Powershift Canberra is concluding as I write this, and Powershift Geelong will start next weekend. And the next weekend is the election.

In a flurry of activity after the election was called, media stunts were organized, a TV ad was produced (above) and the Power Vote campaign was assembled. It consists of a scorecard ranking the three major parties on how they stand on climate change solutions, and an automated call service. People who join the campaign tell the system their name and zip code, and it then automatically dials their politicians office to inform the politician that “Ellen Sandell” of Melbourne is voting for climate champions. After all, enough politicians authorize robo-calls to voters, it seems appropriate that they get inundated with an equal number of reminders of what voters are thinking about.

The score card, the ads, the massive number of phone calls, the energized Powershift volunteers and the savvyness of the organization have been turning heads. Climate change is a top issue for Australian voters, and the combination of a viable third-party option, a country already feeling the effects of changing climates and the best renewable energy potential of any continent mean things are ripe for a change. Unfortunately, the two major political parties response has been to circle the wagons and reach an even more absurd consensus of inaction. On August 21st, the day of the election, we’ll see if the AYCC and their allies can shift that dynamic. If their luck holds and they keep taking the opportunities they have, I think we’ll see a youth climate movement emerge as a significant political force.

Another recent development gives the Australian youth a big leg up. Voting is mandatory in Australia – it’s a crime not to vote in a federal election. Unfortunately, voters need to have their registration updated to their current address in order to vote. This means that over 1/3rd of young people are not enrolled to vote and suffer no consequences from ‘breaking the law’ and not voting.

The previous conservative government created a policy that the last chance to update voting enrollment was 5 weeks before the election – the end of the day that the election was ‘called’. Just last week, GetUp.org.au, another progressive campaigning organization in Australia, won a major court battle challenging the legality of the enrollment policy. This means that 100,000 young voters can now vote who were previously prevented from doing so. Score!

Will it be enough to break the deadlock? Perhaps, but there’s nothing like a good media narrative to really turn up the heat on a tight issue, and creative stunts, at their best, are the perfect tool to do that. That’s why I was thrilled to see the ‘elephant in the room’ quite literally, burst into the room last week to demand why the two major parties weren’t talking about climate change solutions. The media loved it. Keep up the great work AYCC, folks in the US are watching and hopefully taking notes.

Climate change protester Ahri Tallon waits for Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to arrive at a hotel in Sydney on August 5, 2010. (Tracey Nearmy)

Congratulations to Jessica Morey this week’s Climate Community Citizen of the Week. We met Jessica with the help of a mutual friend, and were greatly impressed by her environmental resume.  Both in her efforts with Climate Lab – a climate change wiki, and her on-going work and educational background Jessica is exactly the type of young person who we believe can lead us to a better environmental future.

The following is further background information on Jessica:

Jessica Morey is the Board Chairwoman and co-founder of Climate Lab, a non-profit dedicated to building web-based tools for knowledge sharing and collaboration that drive action to address climate change. Climate Lab launched a public climate change wiki in 2009.

For her day job, Jessica is the Washington, DC Project Director with the Clean Energy Group (CEG), a nonprofit organization that works with state, federal, and international organizations to promote clean energy technologies.  Ms. Morey works primarily on CEG’s International Climate Change Technology Innovation Initiative as well as assisting CEG’s Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA), a multi-state coalition of public clean energy funds working together to support clean energy technologies and markets. Jessica manages the State-Federal Partnership building project and directs CESA’s DOE Marine Energy Acceleration project. In addition, Ms. Morey acts as CEG’s liaison to the Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative (SEFI) of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).  She manages research on public clean energy finance mechanisms for the UNEP-SEFI Public Finance Alliance, an international consortium of publicly backed funding agencies dedicated to building sustainable energy markets.

Before joining CEG, Jessica worked as a clean energy analyst in the World Bank’s central energy unit. Her projects included mainstreaming low carbon analysis into Bank energy projects and improving coordination and knowledge sharing across the Bank’s energy practice and international development partners. She has also consulted with the Natural Resources Defense Council on the Carbon Neutral Costa Rica campaign and worked as the International Fellow at the Pew Center for Global Climate Change.  She received her Bachelors in Environmental Engineering from Dartmouth College, a Masters in International Affairs from American University and a Masters in Sustainable Development from the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica. Jessica’s other interests include practicing and teaching yoga and insight meditation- particularly with teenagers.

Congratulations again to Jessica and keep up the great work!

From June 26-28, climate leaders from around the world converged on Nashville, TN for The Climate Project’s International Presenter Training. 26 countries were represented. Over 670 people attended. Best of all, 32 of them were teens.

The Climate Project (TCP) is Al Gore’s climate change leadership program. As he has at previous events, Mr. Gore trained the attendees to educate the public on climate change using an updated version of his presentation from the award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. This training was particularly exciting because Mr. Gore showcased many new slides from his recent book, Our Choice, which focuses on solutions to the climate crisis. For the teens, it was also a joint event with the inaugural Inconvenient Youth training.

Some of the teens at the training lived right there in Nashville. Others came from Indonesia, Turkey, Canada, Puerto Rico and the UK. All of them were awesome. They are living proof that teens are leading the way on climate and environmental issues today.

Besides keynote speaker Al Gore, they heard from environmental leaders and top climate scientists from around the world. Inconvenient Youth even got the chance to present. It was an immense honor, and a little intimidating, to share the stage with such incredible people.

We are so excited that these teen leaders are not only official Climate Project Presenters, but will be serving on the Inconvenient Youth Advisory Board and helping guide the future of IY. You’ll be hearing from them soon. We can’t wait to see where we go!

- Grant

To learn more about Inconvenient Youth, visit http://www.inconvenientyouth.org/