This Time Is Different

NYTimes
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: June 11, 2010

My friend, Mark Mykleby, who works in the Pentagon, shared with me this personal letter to the editor he got published last week in his hometown paper, The Beaufort Gazette in South Carolina. It is the best reaction I’ve seen to the BP oil spill — and also the best advice to President Obama on exactly whom to kick you know where.

“I’d like to join in on the blame game that has come to define our national approach to the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This isn’t BP’s or Transocean’s fault. It’s not the government’s fault. It’s my fault. I’m the one to blame and I’m sorry. It’s my fault because I haven’t digested the world’s in-your-face hints that maybe I ought to think about the future and change the unsustainable way I live my life. If the geopolitical, economic, and technological shifts of the 1990s didn’t do it; if the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 didn’t do it; if the current economic crisis didn’t do it; perhaps this oil spill will be the catalyst for me, as a citizen, to wean myself off of my petroleum-based lifestyle. ‘Citizen’ is the key word. It’s what we do as individuals that count. For those on the left, government regulation will not solve this problem. Government’s role should be to create an environment of opportunity that taps into the innovation and entrepreneurialism that define us as Americans. For those on the right, if you want less government and taxes, then decide what you’ll give up and what you’ll contribute. Here’s the bottom line: If we want to end our oil addiction, we, as citizens, need to pony up: bike to work, plant a garden, do something. So again, the oil spill is my fault. I’m sorry. I haven’t done my part. Now I have to convince my wife to give up her S.U.V. Mark Mykleby.”

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BP

Imagining Life Without Oil, And Being Ready

NYTimes - June 6, 2010

As oil continued to pour into the Gulf of Mexico on a recent Saturday, Jennifer Wilkerson spent three hours on the phone talking about life after petroleum.

For Mrs. Wilkerson, 33, a moderate Democrat from Oakton, Va., who designs computer interfaces, the spill reinforced what she had been obsessing over for more than a year — that oil use was outstripping the world’s supply. She worried about what would come after: maybe food shortages, a collapse of the economy, a breakdown of civil order. Her call was part of a telephone course about how to live through it all.

In bleak times, there is a boom in doom.

Americans have long been fascinated by disaster scenarios, from the population explosion to the cold war to global warming. These days the doomers, as Mrs. Wilkerson jokingly calls herself and likeminded others, have a new focus: peak oil. They argue that oil supplies peaked as early as 2008 and will decline rapidly, taking the economy with them.

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Why urban beekeeping is all the buzz

Globe & Mail, May 20, 2010

The Paris Opera House has one on its roof. So does London’s famed food emporium, Fortnum and Mason. And the Obama White House recently added one to the historic South Lawn.

This week, the Canadian Opera Company joined the rapidly growing urban bee phenomenon – installing two new honey bee hives on the roof of its home at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

“The planet is losing honey bees at an alarming rate,” explains the COC’s general director Alexander Neef, “and we are happy to provide a place for them.”

At their summer peak, the new COC hives are expected to attract some 120,000 bees and to generate about 50 pounds of honey annually. It can’t be sold, because it won’t be pasteurized. But, quipped Mr. Neef, “we might consider giving it away as a bonus to those who subscribe to the opera early.”

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Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm

Brooklyn Grange will be a 1 acre rooftop farm situated in New York City. Such a commercially-viable rooftop farm has yet to be realized in this country. We will use simple greenroof infrastructure to install over 1 million pounds of soil on the roof of an industrial building on which we will grow vegetables nine months of the year. Being in the country's largest city, the farm will create a new system of providing local communities with access to fresh, seasonal produce. We plan to expand quickly in the first few years, covering multiple acres of New York City's unused rooftops with vegetables. The business has many environmental and community benefits, and allows our city dwelling customers to know their farmer, learn where their food comes from, and become involved.

The farm will be run by Ben Flanner, who started and ran a proof of concept rooftop farm in the summer of '09. The beyond-organic produce will be sold directly to the community at an onsite stand, affording shoppers a direct relationship with the farm and farmers. Additional produce will be sold to a small group of market-driven local restaurants.

Our model capitalizes on an unused resource - rooftop space - and has the potential to change the way densely populated cities produce, distribute and consume food.

Your contribution will go towards ordering our lightweight rooftop soil, renting a crane to install that soil, and seeds and irrigation for our summer crops.

*All of our produce prizes are for local pick-up. It's a great chance to see firsthand how your food is grown. For those who can't pick up their produce prize in person, shoot an email with your address to brooklyngrangefarm@gmail.com and we'll send you a starter set of our favorite heirloom seeds so you can grow your own!

See video here

Three years without oil

Citadins, à vos bêches!

Source: Le Soleil (Québec)

L'agriculture urbaine, c'est plus que des jardins communautaires et des poules dans une cour de banlieue. Voici quelques idées, certaines réalisables, d'autres plus flyées, pour faire pousser du vert et du croquant au milieu du béton.

Les plates-bandes

Vous n'avez pas suffisamment d'espace pour aménager un potager dans votre cour ou craignez de manquer de temps pour entretenir tous vos espaces verts? Plantez des fruits et des légumes dans vos plates-bandes! Un plant de zucchinis peut facilement rivaliser avec un hosta géant, un plant de bleuet remplacer un weigela. Les queues des carottes, tout comme celles des oignons, restent d'un beau vert tout l'été. Les pois mange-tout et les haricots grimpants sont heureux le long d'une clôture ou d'un mur de brique. Ma soeur a même tenté l'expérience, éminemment concluante, des fraises le long du patio. N'oubliez pas les arbres : un pommier, un prunier ou un cerisier mettra de la couleur dans la cour et dans votre assiette. Attention toutefois aux arrosages non sollicités des toutous et des fêtards. Et rangez vos produits chimiques. Pour voir ce qui se fait ailleurs, taper front yard garden dans Google.

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