Archive for July, 2011

New agricultural entrepreneurs deserve your support

Jul 29

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“Ah, summer! Time for trips to the pool, the park, and don’t forget your local farmers’ market. If you care about small businesses as I do there’s an easy, fun, and healthy way to support one of the most important American small businesses the small, local, sustainable farmer. Many of these farmers are not just growing great fruits and vegetables, they’re growing innovative, entrepreneurial businesses.
“There’s new entrepreneurship in the agriculture movement,” said Paul Muller, one of the four co-owners of Full Belly Farm, a 300 acre farm in Guinda, California. Full Belly has been selling at farmer’s markets for almost 30 years, helping it survive and innovate sustainable, profitable farming methods.”

New agricultural entrepreneurs deserve your support via Rhonda Abrams – USA Today

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The Permaculture Movement Grows From Underground

Jul 29

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“As a way to save the world, digging a ditch next to a hillock of sheep dung would seem to be a modest start. Granted, the ditch was not just a ditch. It was meant to be a “swale,” an earthwork for slowing the flow of water down a slope on a hobby farm in western Wisconsin.

And the trenchers, far from being day laborers, had paid $1,300 to $1,500 for the privilege of working their spades on a cement-skied Tuesday morning in late June.

Fourteen of us had assembled to learn permaculture, a simple system for designing sustainable human settlements, restoring soil, planting year-round food landscapes, conserving water, redirecting the waste stream, forming more companionable communities and, if everything went according to plan, turning the earth’s looming resource crisis into a new age of happiness.”

The Permaculture Movement Grows From Underground via Michael Tortorello – NY Times

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Ford Asks What an EV Should Sound Like

Jul 29

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“Hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) are known for driving silently, without the roar of a gas engine.

But due to safety concerns for pedestrians unable to hear the quiet cars, the federal government will soon require all hybrid and electric cars be equipped with an artificial noise generator.

READ: Hybrid Scorecard: Which Cars Came Out on Top?

Ford, which plans to release its Focus Electric later this year, is letting the public vote on four sounds for the new electric vehicle on its Facebook page.”

Ford Asks What an EV Should Sound Like via Alexis Petru – Earth 911

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Rooftop Beehives Create Buzz At San Francisco Restaurants

Jul 28

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“A good restaurant is always a buzz of activity, but some chefs are taking the concept literally, installing rooftop beehives.

The idea appears to be mainly to give the ailing bee population a boost, something that became a concern with reports of colony collapse disorder a few years back. Though having a ready supply of the sweet stuff for use in the restaurant below is a good thing, too.

“The honey part of it is a bonus,” says Bill Clarke, owner of Mission Beach Cafe, which has four hives on its roof.”

Rooftop Beehives Create Buzz At San Francisco Restaurants via Michelle Lock – Assoc. Press/Huffington Post

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New Study Links Mountaintop Removal to 60,000 Cases of Cancer in Appalachia

Jul 28

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“In a new study released this week, it was revealed that among the 1.2 million residents living in parts of Appalachia, an additional 60,000 cases of cancer are directly linked to mountaintop removal mining, a practice that occurs most commonly in West Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains. Using groundbreaking community-based participatory research, West Virginia University researcher Dr. Michael Hendryx conducted the study, which is titled “Self-Reported Cancer Rates in Two Rural Areas of West Virginia with and Without Mountaintop Coal Mining.” This spring, Hendryx and his team used health data collected from residents of Boone County, WV who are directly affected by mountaintop removal mining, and compared the data to communities without mining. The results show that not only is mountaintop removal killing our environment, it’s killing our fellow Americans.”

New Study Links Mountaintop Removal to 60,000 Cases of Cancer in Appalachia via Jessica Dailey – Inhabitat

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VIDEO: Chicago author urges black community to go green

Jul 27

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“The green movement is more popular than ever, but experts say socioeconomic barriers like high crime and lower household income keep the trend from catching on in all communities.  When a tankless water heater costs $1,500 more than a standard one, environmentalism often takes a backseat to saving money. Kaitlin Meehan shares one local author’s quest to get the black community to go green.”

SEE VIDEO: Chicago author urges black community to go green via Medill Reports Chicago

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Tim DeChristopher Is Going to Jail, Now It's Our Turn

Jul 27

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‘”The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders.” –Ed Abbey

“The Eyes of the Future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time.” –Terry Tempest Williams

There’s something about the redrock canyons that seems to inspire great writing — I was lucky enough to know Ed Abbey and to count Terry Tempest Williams as a great friend. Both wrote — and both fought. They fulfilled the duty they owed that great landscape. They fought to protect great chunks of land

And they’re joined by Tim DeChristopher, sentenced today to 24 months in prison for a creative act of resistance straight out of the Monkey Wrench Gang. He didn’t damage anything except the pride of the Bureau of Land Management, when he posed as a bidder and won 14 parcels of land at an oil-and-gas lease auction. They were gorgeous pieces of land that he protected — but far more, he was acting on behalf of every landscape left on the planet.”

Tim DeChristopher Is Going to Jail, Now It’s Our Turn via Bill Mckibben – Huffington Post

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Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables

Jul 26

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“WHAT will it take to get Americans to change our eating habits? The need is indisputable, since heart disease, diabetes and cancer are all in large part caused by the Standard American Diet. (Yes, it’s SAD.)

Though experts increasingly recommend a diet high in plants and low in animal products and processed foods, ours is quite the opposite, and there’s little disagreement that changing it could improve our health and save tens of millions of lives.

And — not inconsequential during the current struggle over deficits and spending — a sane diet could save tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs.”

Bad Food? Tax It, and Subsidize Vegetables via Mark Bittman – New York Times

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Consumers Prefer Organic Food, Survey Says

Jul 26

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“A new Thomson Reuters poll [pdf] found that the majority (58%) of consumers prefer organic food to conventional food. This preference is particularly strong with those with a higher education, and those of a younger demographic. Sixty-three percent of respondents under age 35 choose organics when possible.”

Consumers Prefer Organic Food, Survey Says via Huffington Post Food

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Biofuels Slowly Take Flight with the Airline Industry

Jul 25

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“I’ve heard a lot about biofuel for aviation tests, but they always sounded suspiciously like airline ‘greenwashing’ PR to me. Richard Branson’s $3 billion bet on an aviation biofuel company went bankrupt. Successful tests turned out to be only fractionally biofuel. Journalists joked about the smell of french fries filling the air. Is biofuel for aviation anything more than good promotion? I posed this question to Steve Verhes, Executive Director of Cascadia Carbon Institute, a Washington state biofuel expert and advocate. Steve’s answer: It’s complicated.

First, there is the food-to-fuel issue – a very real concern, especially with food price increases accelerating this year. But the aviation standards group in charge of the approval took care of that, mandating that aerospace biofuels be derived only from inedible plants.”

Biofuels Slowly Take Flight with the Airline Industry via Carol Pierson Holding – Triple Pundit

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