Hope all is well with everyone. I am traveling for a while, on and off for work, and am glad to be home for a few days.
I have been thinking about the evolution of Small Is Beautiful study group, and hope to engage each of you via email about it over the next few weeks.
I am hoping to really get the discussions focused on learning from some examples from around the country, and really using our time together each month to learn details that we can apply to our region.
As much as I think we have all enjoyed our time together talking about the general ideas, I think we are ready to focus on models that we can hear details about.
We are hoping to add some students from planning and business schools, and also some visitors that can present models to us, and also to add locals who we all know and think might be interested in this group.
We also might engage with the Slow City group that meets monthly and discusses some of the same issues.
Do email me about your ideas and please feel free to incorporate ideas on the ning site:
I am hoping we can have a meeting on the second Tuesday in October (14) at our downtown site Fair Grinds. hoping 6 pm is the right time and date for all. I would like to use this time to talk about the land trust article from the missed August meeting, and to think about how we can make sure the meetings are useful to us, and that others can facilitate as well at times.
As for the readings:
check the site if you forgot:
http://smallisbeautifulnola.ning.com/
Essays, links and visuals highlighting an alternative, resilient place at the strategic crescent of one mighty river.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Jeff Davis clean-up day October 19th at 11 am
Everyone who bikes from Mid-City to Uptown knows Jeff Davis is really notorious for trash and broken glass. Lacy Underalls from the Big Easy Roller Girls is organizing a clean up for the bridge so we don't all have to suffer from the risk of flat tires anymore!
Hi
My name is lacy smith, also known as lacy underalls of the Big Easy Roller Girls (BERG). BERG is organizing a clean up of the S. Jeff Davis Parkway overpass by Xavier.
Although the bike path running in the middle of the overpass is a great way to connect uptown and midcity, it is often littered with trash and glass, making it dangerous for cyclists. As a group that understands the need to have a hazard-free surface to roll on, we rollergirls want to clean it up!
The clean up will take place on October 19 at 11 am. We will meet at the statue at the foot of the overpass on Tulane Ave. We'll bring some push brooms and trash bags, but encourage everyone to bring their own brooms, bags and dustpans! (In the event of rain, we will reschedule).
We're inviting Tulane Law School's Environmental Law Society, Critical Mass, Metro Bicycle Coalition, MidCity Neighborhood Association and you! Please pass this along to anyone that may be interested.
Thanks!
lacy underalls
Big Easy Rollergirls
Hi
My name is lacy smith, also known as lacy underalls of the Big Easy Roller Girls (BERG). BERG is organizing a clean up of the S. Jeff Davis Parkway overpass by Xavier.
Although the bike path running in the middle of the overpass is a great way to connect uptown and midcity, it is often littered with trash and glass, making it dangerous for cyclists. As a group that understands the need to have a hazard-free surface to roll on, we rollergirls want to clean it up!
The clean up will take place on October 19 at 11 am. We will meet at the statue at the foot of the overpass on Tulane Ave. We'll bring some push brooms and trash bags, but encourage everyone to bring their own brooms, bags and dustpans! (In the event of rain, we will reschedule).
We're inviting Tulane Law School's Environmental Law Society, Critical Mass, Metro Bicycle Coalition, MidCity Neighborhood Association and you! Please pass this along to anyone that may be interested.
Thanks!
lacy underalls
Big Easy Rollergirls
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Web of our world
Connecting the Dots on Food, Health, and the Environment
By Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra is the bestselling author of The Tao of Physics, The Web of Life, and other books. A physicist best known for his work in systems thinking, Capra is also cofounder and chair of the board of the Center for Ecoliteracy.
A discussion of the interrelations between food, health, and the environment is extremely topical today. Rising food prices together with the price of oil and a series of so-called "natural" catastrophes dominate the news every day. At the same time, there is a lot of confusion. Why are world food prices increasing so quickly and dramatically? Why is world hunger rising again after a long steady decline? What do food prices have to do with the price of oil? Why is it so important to grow food locally and organically? In this brief talk, I shall try to show that a full understanding of these issues requires a new ecological understanding of life (a new "ecological literacy") as well as a new kind of "systemic" thinking – thinking in terms of relationships, patterns, and context.
Indeed, over the last 25 years, such a new understanding of life has emerged at the forefront of science. I want to illustrate this new understanding by asking the age-old question, what is life? What's the difference between a rock and a plant, animal, or microorganism? To understand the nature of life, it is not enough to understand DNA, proteins, and the other molecular structures that are the building blocks of living organisms, because these structures also exist in dead organisms, for example, in a dead piece of wood or bone.
The difference between a living organism and a dead organism lies in the basic process of life – in what sages and poets throughout the ages have called the "breath of life." In modern scientific language, this process of life is called "metabolism." It is the ceaseless flow of energy and matter through a network of chemical reactions, which enables a living organism to continually generate, repair, and perpetuate itself. In other words, metabolism involves the intake, digestion, and transformation of food.
Metabolism is the central characteristic of biological life. But understanding metabolism is not enough to understand life. When we study the structures, metabolic processes, and evolution of the myriads of species on the planet, we notice that the outstanding characteristic of our biosphere is that it has sustained life for billions of years. How does the Earth do that? How does nature sustain life?
Ecological literacy
To understand how nature sustains life, we need to move from biology to ecology, because sustained life is a property of an ecosystem rather than a single organism or species. Over billions of years of evolution, the Earth's ecosystems have evolved certain principles of organization to sustain the web of life. Knowledge of these principles of organization, or principles of ecology, is what we mean by "ecological literacy."
In the coming decades, the survival of humanity will depend on our ecological literacy – our ability to understand the basic principles of ecology and to live accordingly. This means that ecoliteracy must become a critical skill for politicians, business leaders, and professionals in all spheres, and should be the most important part of education at all levels – from primary and secondary schools to colleges, universities, and the continuing education and training of professionals.
We need to teach our children, our students, and our corporate and political leaders, the fundamental facts of life – that one species' waste is another species' food; that matter cycles continually through the web of life; that the energy driving the ecological cycles flows from the sun; that diversity assures resilience; that life, from its beginning more than three billion years ago, did not take over the planet by combat but by networking.
All these principles of ecology are closely interrelated. They are just different aspects of a single fundamental pattern of organization that has enabled nature to sustain life for billions of years. In a nutshell: nature sustains life by creating and nurturing communities. No individual organism can exist in isolation. Animals depend on the photosynthesis of plants for their energy needs; plants depend on the carbon dioxide produced by animals, as well as on the nitrogen fixed by bacteria at their roots; and together plants, animals, and microorganisms regulate the entire biosphere and maintain the conditions conducive to life.
Sustainability, then, is not an individual property but a property of an entire web of relationships. It always involves a whole community. This is the profound lesson we need to learn from nature. The way to sustain life is to build and nurture community. A sustainable human community interacts with other communities – human and nonhuman – in ways that enable them to live and develop according to their nature. Sustainability does not mean that things do not change. It is a dynamic process of co-evolution rather than a static state.
Systems thinking
The fact that ecological sustainability is a property of a web of relationships means that in order to understand it properly, in order to become ecologically literate, we need to learn how to think in terms of relationships, in terms of interconnections, patterns, context. In science, this type of thinking is known as systemic thinking or "systems thinking." It is crucial for understanding ecology, because ecology – derived from the Greek word oikos ("household") – is the science of relationships among the various members of the Earth Household.
Systems thinking emerged from a series of interdisciplinary dialogues among biologists, psychologists, and ecologists, in the 1920s and '30s. In all these fields, scientists realized that a living system – organism, ecosystem, or social system – is an integrated whole whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller parts. The "systemic" properties are properties of the whole, which none of its parts have. So, systems thinking involves a shift of perspective from the parts to the whole. The early systems thinkers coined the phrase, "The whole is more than the sum of its parts."
What exactly does this mean? In what sense is the whole more than the sum of its parts? The answer is: relationships. All the essential properties of a living system depend on the relationships among the system's components. Systems thinking means thinking in terms of relationships. Understanding life requires a shift of focus from objects to relationships.
For example, each species in an ecosystem helps to sustain the entire food web. If one species is decimated by some natural catastrophe, the ecosystem will still be resilient if there are other species that can fulfill similar functions. In other words, the stability of an ecosystem depends on its biodiversity, on the complexity of its network of relationships. This is how we can understand stability and resilience by understanding the relationships within the ecosystem.
Understanding relationships is not easy for us, because it is something that goes counter to the traditional scientific enterprise in Western culture. In science, we have been told, things need to be measured and weighed. But relationships cannot be measured and weighed; relationships need to be mapped. So there is another shift: from measuring to mapping.
In biology, a recent dramatic example of this shift happened in the Human Genome Project. Scientists became acutely aware that, in order to understand the functioning of genes it is not enough to know their sequence on the DNA; we need to be able to also map their mutual relationships and interactions.
Now, when you map relationships, you will find certain configurations that occur repeatedly. This is what we call a pattern. Networks, cycles, feedback loops, are examples of patterns of organization that are characteristic of life. Systems thinking involves a shift of perspective from contents to patterns.
I also want to emphasize that mapping relationships and studying patterns is not a quantitative but a qualitative approach. Systems thinking implies a shift from quantity to quality. A pattern is not a list of numbers but a visual image.
The study of relationships concerns not only the relationships among the system's components, but also those between the system as a whole and surrounding larger systems. Those relationships between the system and its environment are what we mean by context.
For example, the shape of a plant, or the colors of a bird, depend on their environment – on the vegetation, climate, etc. – and also on the evolutionary history of the species, on the historical context. Systems thinking is always contextual thinking. It implies a shift from objective knowledge to contextual knowledge.
Finally, we need to understand that living form is more than a shape, more than a static configuration of components in a whole. There is a continual flow of matter through a living system, while its form is maintained; there is development, and there is evolution. The understanding of living structure is inextricably linked to the understanding of metabolic and developmental processes. So, systems thinking includes a shift of emphasis from structure to process.
All these shifts of emphasis are really just different ways of saying the same thing. Systems thinking means a shift of perception from material objects and structures to the nonmaterial processes and patterns of organization that represent the very essence of life.
Current world problems
Once we become ecologically literate, once we understand the processes and patterns of relationships that enable ecosystems to sustain life, we will also understand the many ways in which our human civilization, especially since the Industrial Revolution, has ignored these ecological patterns and processes and has interfered with them. And we will realize that these interferences are the fundamental causes of many of our current world problems.
It is now becoming more and more evident that the major problems of our time cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are all interconnected and interdependent. One of the most detailed and masterful documentations of the fundamental interconnectedness of world problems is the new book by Lester Brown, Plan B (Norton, 2008). Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, demonstrates in this book with impeccable clarity how the vicious circle of demographic pressure and poverty leads to the depletion of resources – falling water tables, wells going dry, shrinking forests, collapsing fisheries, eroding soils, grasslands turning into desert, and so on – and how this resource depletion, exacerbated by climate change, produces failing states whose governments can no longer provide security for their citizens, some of whom in sheer desperation turn to terrorism.
When you read this book, you will understand how virtually all our environmental problems are threats to our food security – falling water tables; increasing conversion of cropland to non-farm uses; more extreme climate events, such as heat waves, droughts, and floods; and, most recently, increasing diversion of grains to biofuel.
A critical factor in all this is the fact that world oil production is reaching its peak. This means that, from now on, oil production will begin to decrease worldwide, extraction of the remaining oil will be more and more costly, and hence the price of oil will continue to rise. Most affected will be the oil-intensive segments of the global economy, in particular the automobile, food, and airline industries.
The search for alternative energy sources has recently led to increased production of ethanol and other biofuels, especially in the United States, Brazil, and China. And since the fuel-value of grain is higher on the markets than its food-value, more and more grain is diverted from food to producing fuels. At the same time, the price of grain is moving up toward the oil-equivalent value. This is one of the main reasons for the recent sharp rise of food prices. Another reason, of course, is that a petrochemical, mechanized, and centralized system of agriculture is highly dependent on oil and will produce more expensive food as the price of oil increases. Indeed, industrial farming uses 10 times more energy than sustainable, organic farming.
The fact that the price of grain is now keyed to the price of oil is only possible because our global economic system has no ethical dimension. In such a system, the question, "Shall we use grain to fuel cars or to feed people?" has a clear answer. The market says, "Let's fuel the cars."
This is even more perverse in view of the fact that 20 percent of our grain harvest will supply less than 4 percent of automotive fuel. Indeed, the entire ethanol production in this country could easily be replaced by raising average fuel efficiency by 20 percent (i.e. from 21 mpg to 25 mpg), which is nothing, given the technologies available today.
The recent sharp increase in grain prices has wreaked havoc in the world's grain markets, and world hunger is now on the rise again after a long steady decline. In addition, increased fuel consumption accelerates global warming, which results in crop losses in heat waves that make crops wither, and from the loss of glaciers that feed rivers essential to irrigation. When we think systemically and understand how all these processes are interrelated, we realize that the vehicles we drive, and other consumer choices we make, have a major impact on the food supply to large populations in Asia and Africa.
All these problems, ultimately, must be seen as just different facets of one single crisis, which is largely a crisis of perception. It derives from the fact that most people in our society, and especially our political and corporate leaders, subscribe to the concepts of an outdated worldview, a perception of reality inadequate for dealing with our overpopulated, globally interconnected world.
The main message of Lester Brown's Plan B, is that there are solutions to the major problems of our time; some of them even simple. But they require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, our values. And, indeed, we are now at the beginning of such a fundamental change of worldview, a change of paradigms as radical as the Copernican Revolution. Systems thinking and ecological literacy are two key elements of the new paradigm, and very helpful for understanding the interconnections between food, health, and the environment, but also for understanding the profound transformation that is needed globally for humanity to survive.
This essay is adapted from a speech Fritjof Capra delivered at a professional development institute, "Linking Food, Health, and the Environment," hosted by the Center for Ecoliteracy and Teachers College Columbia University in the summer of 2008.
By Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra is the bestselling author of The Tao of Physics, The Web of Life, and other books. A physicist best known for his work in systems thinking, Capra is also cofounder and chair of the board of the Center for Ecoliteracy.
A discussion of the interrelations between food, health, and the environment is extremely topical today. Rising food prices together with the price of oil and a series of so-called "natural" catastrophes dominate the news every day. At the same time, there is a lot of confusion. Why are world food prices increasing so quickly and dramatically? Why is world hunger rising again after a long steady decline? What do food prices have to do with the price of oil? Why is it so important to grow food locally and organically? In this brief talk, I shall try to show that a full understanding of these issues requires a new ecological understanding of life (a new "ecological literacy") as well as a new kind of "systemic" thinking – thinking in terms of relationships, patterns, and context.
Indeed, over the last 25 years, such a new understanding of life has emerged at the forefront of science. I want to illustrate this new understanding by asking the age-old question, what is life? What's the difference between a rock and a plant, animal, or microorganism? To understand the nature of life, it is not enough to understand DNA, proteins, and the other molecular structures that are the building blocks of living organisms, because these structures also exist in dead organisms, for example, in a dead piece of wood or bone.
The difference between a living organism and a dead organism lies in the basic process of life – in what sages and poets throughout the ages have called the "breath of life." In modern scientific language, this process of life is called "metabolism." It is the ceaseless flow of energy and matter through a network of chemical reactions, which enables a living organism to continually generate, repair, and perpetuate itself. In other words, metabolism involves the intake, digestion, and transformation of food.
Metabolism is the central characteristic of biological life. But understanding metabolism is not enough to understand life. When we study the structures, metabolic processes, and evolution of the myriads of species on the planet, we notice that the outstanding characteristic of our biosphere is that it has sustained life for billions of years. How does the Earth do that? How does nature sustain life?
Ecological literacy
To understand how nature sustains life, we need to move from biology to ecology, because sustained life is a property of an ecosystem rather than a single organism or species. Over billions of years of evolution, the Earth's ecosystems have evolved certain principles of organization to sustain the web of life. Knowledge of these principles of organization, or principles of ecology, is what we mean by "ecological literacy."
In the coming decades, the survival of humanity will depend on our ecological literacy – our ability to understand the basic principles of ecology and to live accordingly. This means that ecoliteracy must become a critical skill for politicians, business leaders, and professionals in all spheres, and should be the most important part of education at all levels – from primary and secondary schools to colleges, universities, and the continuing education and training of professionals.
We need to teach our children, our students, and our corporate and political leaders, the fundamental facts of life – that one species' waste is another species' food; that matter cycles continually through the web of life; that the energy driving the ecological cycles flows from the sun; that diversity assures resilience; that life, from its beginning more than three billion years ago, did not take over the planet by combat but by networking.
All these principles of ecology are closely interrelated. They are just different aspects of a single fundamental pattern of organization that has enabled nature to sustain life for billions of years. In a nutshell: nature sustains life by creating and nurturing communities. No individual organism can exist in isolation. Animals depend on the photosynthesis of plants for their energy needs; plants depend on the carbon dioxide produced by animals, as well as on the nitrogen fixed by bacteria at their roots; and together plants, animals, and microorganisms regulate the entire biosphere and maintain the conditions conducive to life.
Sustainability, then, is not an individual property but a property of an entire web of relationships. It always involves a whole community. This is the profound lesson we need to learn from nature. The way to sustain life is to build and nurture community. A sustainable human community interacts with other communities – human and nonhuman – in ways that enable them to live and develop according to their nature. Sustainability does not mean that things do not change. It is a dynamic process of co-evolution rather than a static state.
Systems thinking
The fact that ecological sustainability is a property of a web of relationships means that in order to understand it properly, in order to become ecologically literate, we need to learn how to think in terms of relationships, in terms of interconnections, patterns, context. In science, this type of thinking is known as systemic thinking or "systems thinking." It is crucial for understanding ecology, because ecology – derived from the Greek word oikos ("household") – is the science of relationships among the various members of the Earth Household.
Systems thinking emerged from a series of interdisciplinary dialogues among biologists, psychologists, and ecologists, in the 1920s and '30s. In all these fields, scientists realized that a living system – organism, ecosystem, or social system – is an integrated whole whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller parts. The "systemic" properties are properties of the whole, which none of its parts have. So, systems thinking involves a shift of perspective from the parts to the whole. The early systems thinkers coined the phrase, "The whole is more than the sum of its parts."
What exactly does this mean? In what sense is the whole more than the sum of its parts? The answer is: relationships. All the essential properties of a living system depend on the relationships among the system's components. Systems thinking means thinking in terms of relationships. Understanding life requires a shift of focus from objects to relationships.
For example, each species in an ecosystem helps to sustain the entire food web. If one species is decimated by some natural catastrophe, the ecosystem will still be resilient if there are other species that can fulfill similar functions. In other words, the stability of an ecosystem depends on its biodiversity, on the complexity of its network of relationships. This is how we can understand stability and resilience by understanding the relationships within the ecosystem.
Understanding relationships is not easy for us, because it is something that goes counter to the traditional scientific enterprise in Western culture. In science, we have been told, things need to be measured and weighed. But relationships cannot be measured and weighed; relationships need to be mapped. So there is another shift: from measuring to mapping.
In biology, a recent dramatic example of this shift happened in the Human Genome Project. Scientists became acutely aware that, in order to understand the functioning of genes it is not enough to know their sequence on the DNA; we need to be able to also map their mutual relationships and interactions.
Now, when you map relationships, you will find certain configurations that occur repeatedly. This is what we call a pattern. Networks, cycles, feedback loops, are examples of patterns of organization that are characteristic of life. Systems thinking involves a shift of perspective from contents to patterns.
I also want to emphasize that mapping relationships and studying patterns is not a quantitative but a qualitative approach. Systems thinking implies a shift from quantity to quality. A pattern is not a list of numbers but a visual image.
The study of relationships concerns not only the relationships among the system's components, but also those between the system as a whole and surrounding larger systems. Those relationships between the system and its environment are what we mean by context.
For example, the shape of a plant, or the colors of a bird, depend on their environment – on the vegetation, climate, etc. – and also on the evolutionary history of the species, on the historical context. Systems thinking is always contextual thinking. It implies a shift from objective knowledge to contextual knowledge.
Finally, we need to understand that living form is more than a shape, more than a static configuration of components in a whole. There is a continual flow of matter through a living system, while its form is maintained; there is development, and there is evolution. The understanding of living structure is inextricably linked to the understanding of metabolic and developmental processes. So, systems thinking includes a shift of emphasis from structure to process.
All these shifts of emphasis are really just different ways of saying the same thing. Systems thinking means a shift of perception from material objects and structures to the nonmaterial processes and patterns of organization that represent the very essence of life.
Current world problems
Once we become ecologically literate, once we understand the processes and patterns of relationships that enable ecosystems to sustain life, we will also understand the many ways in which our human civilization, especially since the Industrial Revolution, has ignored these ecological patterns and processes and has interfered with them. And we will realize that these interferences are the fundamental causes of many of our current world problems.
It is now becoming more and more evident that the major problems of our time cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are all interconnected and interdependent. One of the most detailed and masterful documentations of the fundamental interconnectedness of world problems is the new book by Lester Brown, Plan B (Norton, 2008). Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, demonstrates in this book with impeccable clarity how the vicious circle of demographic pressure and poverty leads to the depletion of resources – falling water tables, wells going dry, shrinking forests, collapsing fisheries, eroding soils, grasslands turning into desert, and so on – and how this resource depletion, exacerbated by climate change, produces failing states whose governments can no longer provide security for their citizens, some of whom in sheer desperation turn to terrorism.
When you read this book, you will understand how virtually all our environmental problems are threats to our food security – falling water tables; increasing conversion of cropland to non-farm uses; more extreme climate events, such as heat waves, droughts, and floods; and, most recently, increasing diversion of grains to biofuel.
A critical factor in all this is the fact that world oil production is reaching its peak. This means that, from now on, oil production will begin to decrease worldwide, extraction of the remaining oil will be more and more costly, and hence the price of oil will continue to rise. Most affected will be the oil-intensive segments of the global economy, in particular the automobile, food, and airline industries.
The search for alternative energy sources has recently led to increased production of ethanol and other biofuels, especially in the United States, Brazil, and China. And since the fuel-value of grain is higher on the markets than its food-value, more and more grain is diverted from food to producing fuels. At the same time, the price of grain is moving up toward the oil-equivalent value. This is one of the main reasons for the recent sharp rise of food prices. Another reason, of course, is that a petrochemical, mechanized, and centralized system of agriculture is highly dependent on oil and will produce more expensive food as the price of oil increases. Indeed, industrial farming uses 10 times more energy than sustainable, organic farming.
The fact that the price of grain is now keyed to the price of oil is only possible because our global economic system has no ethical dimension. In such a system, the question, "Shall we use grain to fuel cars or to feed people?" has a clear answer. The market says, "Let's fuel the cars."
This is even more perverse in view of the fact that 20 percent of our grain harvest will supply less than 4 percent of automotive fuel. Indeed, the entire ethanol production in this country could easily be replaced by raising average fuel efficiency by 20 percent (i.e. from 21 mpg to 25 mpg), which is nothing, given the technologies available today.
The recent sharp increase in grain prices has wreaked havoc in the world's grain markets, and world hunger is now on the rise again after a long steady decline. In addition, increased fuel consumption accelerates global warming, which results in crop losses in heat waves that make crops wither, and from the loss of glaciers that feed rivers essential to irrigation. When we think systemically and understand how all these processes are interrelated, we realize that the vehicles we drive, and other consumer choices we make, have a major impact on the food supply to large populations in Asia and Africa.
All these problems, ultimately, must be seen as just different facets of one single crisis, which is largely a crisis of perception. It derives from the fact that most people in our society, and especially our political and corporate leaders, subscribe to the concepts of an outdated worldview, a perception of reality inadequate for dealing with our overpopulated, globally interconnected world.
The main message of Lester Brown's Plan B, is that there are solutions to the major problems of our time; some of them even simple. But they require a radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, our values. And, indeed, we are now at the beginning of such a fundamental change of worldview, a change of paradigms as radical as the Copernican Revolution. Systems thinking and ecological literacy are two key elements of the new paradigm, and very helpful for understanding the interconnections between food, health, and the environment, but also for understanding the profound transformation that is needed globally for humanity to survive.
This essay is adapted from a speech Fritjof Capra delivered at a professional development institute, "Linking Food, Health, and the Environment," hosted by the Center for Ecoliteracy and Teachers College Columbia University in the summer of 2008.
Monday, September 15, 2008
How to Get Your Garden Started Workshop Series
New Orleans Food & Farm Network
The first of the Grow Mo' Betta! training series
Saturday, September 20
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Cost: $3.00
Garden guru Anne Baker and NOFFN staff will teach you:
* How to choose the best site in your yard
* Ways to build healthy soil
* The importance of composting, planting basics
* Raised beds vs. in-ground beds
* The garden plan and how to make it work
Free vegetable and herb seeds available
The trainings will take place at New Orleans Food & Farm Network's new Growing Center:
4840 Banks St. (at the corner of S. Anthony, across from the cemeteries
Other training Dates
3rd Saturday of the month
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
*
September 20
*
October 18
*
November 15
*
January 16
*
February 21
*
March 20
*
April 18
The first of the Grow Mo' Betta! training series
Saturday, September 20
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Cost: $3.00
Garden guru Anne Baker and NOFFN staff will teach you:
* How to choose the best site in your yard
* Ways to build healthy soil
* The importance of composting, planting basics
* Raised beds vs. in-ground beds
* The garden plan and how to make it work
Free vegetable and herb seeds available
The trainings will take place at New Orleans Food & Farm Network's new Growing Center:
4840 Banks St. (at the corner of S. Anthony, across from the cemeteries
Other training Dates
3rd Saturday of the month
10:30 AM - 12:30 PM
*
September 20
*
October 18
*
November 15
*
January 16
*
February 21
*
March 20
*
April 18
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
What to do after Gustav
well, well.
Post-Gustav, here are my thoughts:
1. Let's not give too much credit to our officials as to their plans for evacuation. they did the minimum that any official should always do (and have never done in NOLA before): take care of the elderly, sick and less fortunate. Yes, they provided transportation, but from most reports, did not provide courteous, respectful attitudes. Stories of curt, yelling drivers and people waiting for hours in the sun, no tents or benches for elderly, small children, or water while waiting. Wrong, try again.
*when the official (in charge of evacuating folks) was being asked whether he thought the evacuees deserved to know where they were going (before getting on the bus) said something like If you don't have the resources,
you're on MY program.Nice.
*the fact that officials were not giving out any information on Thursday or Friday-waited til Saturday to give the official "get your butts out of town" BS speech- let's not even talk about the Mother of all Storms crap, which was dangerous hyperbole at best. Information could have started earlier; many businesses waited until Sat afternoon to know what to do; should not be impossible to allow business associations some info about possible plans from city ahead of time.
2. It seems to me that asking our city and state officials to plan and share information beforehand is not too much to ask. Designate neighborhood people to be involved in hurricane preparation (each person should have no more than 5000 people areas; use the excellent Beacon of Hope system for this) spread information sent via email or phone trees, create lists beforehand of who needs travel out of town and have neighbors drop them off, use RTA to bring people to points, give maps out (ahead of time) for contraflow and gas stations.
Have Red Cross or state officials set up way stations at points out of town with shelter lists, up to date traffic issues, water, protein snacks so evacuees are not driving blindly, without nourishment and without some idea of what is coming up.
3. City and state officials need to communicate with the states that are getting the evacuees, even with the hotel and motel associations, extracting some basic promises, and create a set of principles that fellow states will follow during these times, like allowing room sharing, pets in kennels, empathy and compassion applied. Set up hotline for any price gouging that is followed up on after.
City and state officials should publicly ask host areas to do their best to shelter all, and to remember that money is being spent by those visitors while there.
4. The same system that allows thousands of business to share information via email can be used to keep information flowing to residents. I received 15 emails from WDSU about weather conditions and GNO Fair Housing kept me up to date on official city notices, but nothing NOTHING from the city itself.
Easy enough to create hotlines, emails from city council to those aforementioned neighborhood town criers, and not to assume that the national media is ferreting information out to the residents.
5. rentry: as soon as winds and rain went below danger level (I hear 30 mph is what utility crews use), there should be a publicized plan to renter zip code by zipcode, every 4-6 hours more zips allowed. using video and cameras, city officials can be posting visuals and letting people know trouble spots to avoid, while allowing a orderly rentry within 24 hours after the storm. certainly, if levees need to be checked, those zips can be delayed til the last, but we all know that many zip codes were ready an hour or two after the storm. My mother-who stayed in the Quarter- had little rain, some tree damage, but had electricity and walkable area by Monday at 4 pm.
6. Electricity. there is no way that residents should be left out of their homes because electricity is off. We suffer with outages regularly and can be the best judge of how well each of us can exist without electricity. dangerous power lines, flooding; yes those can be issues, but easy enough for our city to close off those few areas needed to be repaired.
7. More:
let's include reasonable expectations for evacuations, not everyone will leave. Be clear what will happen if you stay, no assistance, no shelter, but reduce the threats from city officials to residents when saying that.
reiterate again and again curfews will be enforced from 24 hours before landfall til winds are below 30 mph,
evacuate elderly and sick and indigent early with more respect and with a plan for return.
remember, funds are low for many residents, ask nearby states to watch price-gouging closely (have non-essential state officials assigned to travel in evacuation areas talking to and checking with evacuees situations)
offer information throughout (every 4 hours I think-the city and state both- should be issuing information)
allow rentry as soon as possible by zip code; using state ids only as entry.
*Use the attention from the rest of the world at these times to point out needs for wetland restoration, coastal erosion, sediment loss and ask for pressure to Congress to get support to protect national economic and natural resources to reduce hurricane loss.
Let's take this seriously and offer dignity and respect to all while we suffer through this again and again.
Post-Gustav, here are my thoughts:
1. Let's not give too much credit to our officials as to their plans for evacuation. they did the minimum that any official should always do (and have never done in NOLA before): take care of the elderly, sick and less fortunate. Yes, they provided transportation, but from most reports, did not provide courteous, respectful attitudes. Stories of curt, yelling drivers and people waiting for hours in the sun, no tents or benches for elderly, small children, or water while waiting. Wrong, try again.
*when the official (in charge of evacuating folks) was being asked whether he thought the evacuees deserved to know where they were going (before getting on the bus) said something like If you don't have the resources,
you're on MY program.Nice.
*the fact that officials were not giving out any information on Thursday or Friday-waited til Saturday to give the official "get your butts out of town" BS speech- let's not even talk about the Mother of all Storms crap, which was dangerous hyperbole at best. Information could have started earlier; many businesses waited until Sat afternoon to know what to do; should not be impossible to allow business associations some info about possible plans from city ahead of time.
2. It seems to me that asking our city and state officials to plan and share information beforehand is not too much to ask. Designate neighborhood people to be involved in hurricane preparation (each person should have no more than 5000 people areas; use the excellent Beacon of Hope system for this) spread information sent via email or phone trees, create lists beforehand of who needs travel out of town and have neighbors drop them off, use RTA to bring people to points, give maps out (ahead of time) for contraflow and gas stations.
Have Red Cross or state officials set up way stations at points out of town with shelter lists, up to date traffic issues, water, protein snacks so evacuees are not driving blindly, without nourishment and without some idea of what is coming up.
3. City and state officials need to communicate with the states that are getting the evacuees, even with the hotel and motel associations, extracting some basic promises, and create a set of principles that fellow states will follow during these times, like allowing room sharing, pets in kennels, empathy and compassion applied. Set up hotline for any price gouging that is followed up on after.
City and state officials should publicly ask host areas to do their best to shelter all, and to remember that money is being spent by those visitors while there.
4. The same system that allows thousands of business to share information via email can be used to keep information flowing to residents. I received 15 emails from WDSU about weather conditions and GNO Fair Housing kept me up to date on official city notices, but nothing NOTHING from the city itself.
Easy enough to create hotlines, emails from city council to those aforementioned neighborhood town criers, and not to assume that the national media is ferreting information out to the residents.
5. rentry: as soon as winds and rain went below danger level (I hear 30 mph is what utility crews use), there should be a publicized plan to renter zip code by zipcode, every 4-6 hours more zips allowed. using video and cameras, city officials can be posting visuals and letting people know trouble spots to avoid, while allowing a orderly rentry within 24 hours after the storm. certainly, if levees need to be checked, those zips can be delayed til the last, but we all know that many zip codes were ready an hour or two after the storm. My mother-who stayed in the Quarter- had little rain, some tree damage, but had electricity and walkable area by Monday at 4 pm.
6. Electricity. there is no way that residents should be left out of their homes because electricity is off. We suffer with outages regularly and can be the best judge of how well each of us can exist without electricity. dangerous power lines, flooding; yes those can be issues, but easy enough for our city to close off those few areas needed to be repaired.
7. More:
let's include reasonable expectations for evacuations, not everyone will leave. Be clear what will happen if you stay, no assistance, no shelter, but reduce the threats from city officials to residents when saying that.
reiterate again and again curfews will be enforced from 24 hours before landfall til winds are below 30 mph,
evacuate elderly and sick and indigent early with more respect and with a plan for return.
remember, funds are low for many residents, ask nearby states to watch price-gouging closely (have non-essential state officials assigned to travel in evacuation areas talking to and checking with evacuees situations)
offer information throughout (every 4 hours I think-the city and state both- should be issuing information)
allow rentry as soon as possible by zip code; using state ids only as entry.
*Use the attention from the rest of the world at these times to point out needs for wetland restoration, coastal erosion, sediment loss and ask for pressure to Congress to get support to protect national economic and natural resources to reduce hurricane loss.
Let's take this seriously and offer dignity and respect to all while we suffer through this again and again.
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